Teaching Comparative

A comparative study: causation, corelation, or neither?

A cause or a contributing factor in conflict and unstable government?

A recent report suggests a good comparative study. Gather the age demographics for the countries your students are studying from the CIA World Factbook (or some other source). Decide on what indicators would identify conflict or instability, and find the data needed to rank the countries you're interested in. Does the average age of the population correlate with high levels of conflict and/or instability?

Very Young Populations Contribute to Strife, Study Concludes

"Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan and Congo have all suffered horrors brought on by disastrous governance and violent conflict. But they, and many of Africa’s poorest countries, have something else in common: very young populations.

"While it is not clear exactly how the age of a population contributes to strife, research by Population Action International suggests that it is no simple coincidence that 80 percent of the civil conflicts that broke out in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s occurred in countries where at least 60 percent of the population was under 30, and that almost 9 of 10 such youthful countries had autocratic rulers or weak democracies.

"In poor countries with rapidly growing populations, intense competition for education, jobs and land among the young contributes to discontent and makes it easier for rebel groups to recruit, said Elizabeth Leahy, the primary author of a new report for Population Action, a nonprofit group in Washington...

"Population Action’s report, The Shape of Things to Come, features Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country with 132 million people and a major supplier of oil to the United States, as an example of the strategic risks posed by youthful, volatile nations plagued by corruption, instability and poverty. Rebels there, enraged by the distribution of oil revenues, have attacked the industry, which is important to rich nations.

"In Nigeria, almost three quarters of the population is under 30. Birthrates are very high, at more than five children per woman. Less than half the women have attended school and fewer than one in 10 use modern contraception. A fifth of children die before they turn 5 — a factor specialists say encourages couples to have more children to ensure that some survive...

"The group’s researchers found that some countries that have aggressively pursued family planning programs have significantly changed their age structures in a relatively brief span of 25 years. The report cites Iran as an example. Since the 1990s, Iran has made modern contraceptives available free at public clinics. Births are down to two children per woman, from six and a half at the time of the 1979 revolution..."

posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:18 PM