Michael Cook
Must-watch video: If kids are so damn expensive why does our China need a one-child policy?Michael Cook | 15 Dec 2011Singer Chuanzi (real name 姜亚川 Jiang Yachuan) was a troubled teen who ended up in jail. But after being released, he forged a new career as an entertainer. After he appeared on China’s Got Talent with his singing dog “Dudu” he became an instant hit. “Zheng Qianhua” is one of his best known songs. It's about a new father who names his daughter “Zheng Qianhua,” which literally means, “to earn the money to spend.” It's an outstanding critique of the one-child policy.One place in the US insulated from the recession: West Virginia's hollowsMichael Cook | 8 Dec 2011As the locals joke sardonically, West Virginia is one of the few places in the US that has barely felt the effects of the current recession. It got there a long time ago. "I think the loss of population is the biggest problem ... we had at one time 13 car dealerships; now we have none," says a state senator.Moscow to host first demographic summit in Moscow in JuneMichael Cook | 6 Apr 2011If there is any country in the world which ought to know the stupidity of yabbering about over-population, it is Russia. With a birth rate of about 1.2 and a decline of 6 million people over the past 20 years (12 million without immigration), Russia is in trouble. As Prime Minister Vladimir Putin puts it, "Without exaggeration, the central problem of contemporary Russia is demography, strengthening the family, [and] increasing the birth rate."India’s appalling sex ratio worsensMichael Cook | 2 Apr 2011The latest figures show that India’s child sex ratio is getting even worse. The normal ratio for children between 0 and 6 is about 950 girls to 1000 boys. However, early returns for the 2011 census show that the number of girls to 1,000 boys has shrunk to 914 girls to every 1000 boys, down from 927 in 2001.China considers scrapping 1-child policyMichael Cook | 30 Mar 2011The Chinese government may consider lifting restrictions on its notorious one-child policy. Wang Yuqing, a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, told the government newspaper People’s Daily that he would like to see a gradual opening of the one-child policy which has been in force since 1979.The science of population projectionsMichael Cook | 29 Mar 2011The Population Reference Bureau takes a dim view of large families and favours contraception and so on, but it does produce excellent material about how to interpret demographic information. In this video well-known demographer Carl Haub goes through the assumptions behind population projections. It’s well worth viewing.A bleak future for boys in China, India and South KoreaMichael Cook | 18 Mar 2011Just backing up a post by Marcus Roberts the other day, the Canadian Medical Association Journal has just published an article which claims that it will be decades before the natural sex-ratio is restored in parts of India, China and South Korea because of sex-selective abortion and son preference.7 billion people and what lies aheadMichael Cook | 18 Mar 2011Here is a brief video with excellent graphics from The Economist about the arrival of the world’s 7 billionth person. I don’t share its rather woolly optimism about the future, but in 2 minutes and 21 seconds you can’t communicate everything.Putting gendercide on the front pageMichael Cook | 11 Mar 2010It has taken 20 years, but gendercide has finally made the front page of The Economist. Back in 1990, Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen wrote an astonishing article in the New York Review of Books claiming that 100 million girls had been aborted because of son-preference. This was happening mostly in China and India, but also in other Asian countries.subscribe donate
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