Editorial: Towards a world of 2-6 billion well- educated and therefore healthy and wealthy people

摘要

In times of economic crisis and increasing food insecurity coupled with continued rapid population growth in the poor countries, as well as the prospect of dramatic consequences of climate change around the globe, the future looks rather bleak to many people. Hence the title of this editorial may sound oddly optimistic. But there is very good news hidden in the statistics of recent education trends around the world which imply significant future improvements in human capital and, as a consequence, likely improvements in global health and material well-being. In what follows I shall try to summarize what new statistical and demographic models applied to the long-term trends of population imply for our common future.