Gib Clarke, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars on March 4, 2008 - 8:02am

http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2008/03/04/demography-is-not-destiny

The connections between security and demographic trends-including migration patterns, age distribution, and population growth rates-have become increasingly prominent in academic and policy circles, as well as in the mainstream media. While researchers have been studying these links for decades, they are worth a deeper look-not only because of their newfound attention, but also because we now have more evidence to evaluate them.

No reasonable scholar or practitioner would argue that there is a simple causal relationship between demography and security-i.e., that a total fertility rate of 5.0 children per woman indicates that civil war will break out 20 years from now, or that a country cannot remain stable unless its age distribution resembles a bell curve. However, many argue that demographic trends can interact with other factors such as poverty, poor governance, competition for natural resources, and environmental degradationto exacerbate tensions and contribute to conflict. All of these factors influence each other-for example, high population density can accelerate environmental degradation, or poor governance can lead to inequitable access to natural resources.