African nations (blue bubbles) are lagging behind the rest of the world, but the trend is clear: declining infant mortality results in declining birth rate, often with a delay of just a single generation.
I'm reminded of a similar notion that Bill & Melinda Gates wrote in their 2018 letter[0]:
"When more children live past the age of 5, and when mothers can decide if and when to have children, population sizes don’t go up. They go down. Parents have fewer children when they’re confident those children will survive into adulthood. Big families are in some ways an insurance policy against the tragic likelihood of losing a son or a daughter.
We see this pattern throughout history. All over the world, when death rates among children go down, so do birth rates. It happened in France in the late 1700s. It happened in Germany in the late 1800s. Argentina in the 1910s, Brazil in the 1960s, Bangladesh in the 1980s."
This is such a great visualization. You can click on the dot you are interested in to draw a line that tracks it's movement through the years.
The journey of Niger is especially interesting. Between 1947 and 1983, the birth rate actually increased despite infant mortality declining. Do you happen to know why that is?
I'm not sure why that's the case for Niger, but I don't think it's totally unique. Mali undergoes the same sort of shift (though less dramatic) in the 1950's and 60's. 1947 corresponds roughly to the beginning of the independence movement in Niger (though France wouldn't acknowledge this until 1958), and the turbulence shown around 1970 (where child mortality briefly increases again) was likely caused by the Sahelian drought.
I would (cautiously) speculate that when an oppressive force (either political or natural) is abruptly removed from a population, that population will tend to experience increased birthrate and decreased child mortality simultaneously. Extreme poverty is such a hardship that it can lower the birth rate (in addition to its obviously adverse effect on child mortality). When the force is removed (e.g. by a regime change, or a period of economic growth), child mortality decreases due to better health and better food security. Simultaneously, people have access to a luxury that they may not have before: the opportunity to start families. So the birth rate can rise as well. It takes another generation before the positive effects (better health, stable food supply, etc.) to translate into better education, higher economic mobility, and ultimately lower birth rate. So perhaps independence from a colonial power that often used military force against the civilian population is the cause of this simultaneous increase in child survival and birth rate, which we see in several of the poorest African nations shortly after their independence.
As for the charts, they're among my favorite data visualizations. They were invented by Professor Hans Rosling, who you may know from this very animated TED talk [0]. Rosling passed away last year, but his book Factfulness was just released (co-authored with his children). It's all about the preconceptions and biases that people in the "developed world" carry with them that prevent them from thinking rationally about poverty and global development. The book is well worth your time.
Ethiopia from 1935 to 1950 and 1965 to 1985 also slightly increased birth rates with slightly increased infant mortality. However 1985 to 2018 showed a very strong correlation.
Looking at other countries I think the effect is strongest under 120 infant morality and there are plenty of short term counter examples like the US from WWII to 1958. Or Albania from 1932 to 1968.
The animated chart is interesting. If you compare the migration of Europe vs Africa, Europe was much more linear, whereas Africa seems to go through a period of low mortality / high fertility. There are other factors such as war, migrations, diseases, etc, but everything else being equal that should mechanically result in the population exploding in the next 30 years, which is consistent with UN forecasts (population to roughly double over the next 30 years).
https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#_state_time_delay:172;&mark...
African nations (blue bubbles) are lagging behind the rest of the world, but the trend is clear: declining infant mortality results in declining birth rate, often with a delay of just a single generation.