Bill Gates: cutting deaths, cutting births.

Bill Gates is known to be a big contributor to aid in less economically developed countries, and uses his wealth to help poor children live better lives. In a recent publicity statement, he has been promoting the amazing effects of child vaccination against deadly diseases from which thousands die unnecessarily from each year, but more relevantly the affect this has on population growth, and consequentially the country's economic development as a whole. Demographers argue that decreasing the amount of child deaths, instead of increasing population growth, actually slows it down. Because more children will survive, it puts less pressure on couples to have large families to ensure that enough of them survive to look after them in the future, and therefore allows them to have fewer children. It also means the family has more money to spend on those children, which increases their chances of being educated and getting a decent job when they grow up. So Mr Gates is absolutely right to try to improve the health care of children in developing countries, not just because of the obvious saving lives, but also because the knock-on effect on the country's population as a whole is a huge step forward in advancing through the demographic stages and become more developed.