People in poor countries are now able to exert more control over their own fertility, and hence over the size of their families. A generation ago the biggest worry about poor countries was over-population. Books such as “The Population Bomb” (1968) and “The Limits to Growth” (1972) predicted Malthusian crises in countries where women were having 5 children or more. Since then the fertility rate (the average number of children a woman can expect during her lifetime) in low- and middle-income countries has crashed. In East Asia and the Pacific, the rate was 5.4 in 1970. Now it is 2.1. In South Asia, the fertility rate halved (from 6.0 to 3.1). In the world as a whole, fertility has fallen from 4.8 to 2.6 in a generation (25 years).

gini coefficient rises with technological progress

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