Happy World Population Day 2

World population as of this post: 6,527,742,659. And rising quickly.

This year, the World Population Day focus is on yoots. Factoids from the U.N. Population Fund:

  • Half of the world's people are under the age of 25. Some 3 billion children and young people are, or will soon be, of reproductive age.
  • In 57 developing countries, over 40 percent of the population is under 15.
  • The number of youth in the world surviving on less than a dollar a day in 2000 was an estimated 238 million, almost a quarter (22.5 per cent) of the world's total youth population.
  • Despite a shift toward later marriage in many parts of the world, 82 million girls in developing countries who are now aged 10 to 17 will be married before their 18th birthday.
  • Universal access to reproductive health, including family planning, is the starting point for a better future for the 1.5 billion young people (ages 10 to 24) who live in developing countries.

Meanwhile, the Bushies push abstinence-only-until-marriage programs. Egad.

Lisa Hymas is Grist’s senior editor. You can follow her on Twitter.

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  1. Biodiversivist's avatar

    Biodiversivist Posted 12:38 am
    12 Jul 2006

    YootsYoots have a hard enough time avoiding unplanned pregnancies without government interference. Evolution has created a whole bag of tricks to get healthy young highly intelligent upright walking primates to have babies, ready or not.

    In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Help acquire and protect ecological hotspots, give to a conservation organization: http://www.saveourbiodiversity.com

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  2. zaximka Posted 11:58 pm
    02 Nov 2006

    To abstain or not to abstain?No doubt , sexual abstinence before marriage is the best way of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases prevention. As well we cannot cast doubts upon the fact that being popular with young people abstinence before marriage will decrease early pregnancy that is a topical problem in developing countries. Nevertheless, let me suppose that abstinence-only-until-marriage program has its disadvantages. Don't you think that it might lead to early marriages? People can be persuaded that sex before marriage is inadmissable, but they cannot be persuaded that they should not have sexual desire. What is their best way out? The answer is evident - to get married. Well, early marriage can be happy, but in most cases early marriages break up. As the result children have to live in incomplete families. So the question remains: what is better, to teach teens how to use condoms or to persuade them into refusing sex until marriage?

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