• Spain population shrinks amid economic crisis, soaring unemployment

    By Fiona Ortiz, Reuters

    MADRID - Spain's official population fell last year for the first time since records began as immigrants fled a five-year on-and-off recession that has sent unemployment soaring.

    The number of residents fell by 206,000 to 47.1 million, the National Statistics Institute said on Monday, a figure entirely accounted for by the fall in the number of registered foreign residents.

    It was the first time a population drop had been recorded in official statistics since records began in 1857 - although until 1998 figures were published roughly every decade, rather than annually.

    Spain and the rest of Southern Europe are suffering twin economic and fiscal crises.

    During a long economic boom that ended abruptly in 2008, Spanish-speaking immigrants from Ecuador, Colombia and Bolivia flocked to Spain to work in construction. Between 2000 and 2010, the immigrant population swelled from 924,000 to 5.7 million.

    But building has come to a standstill since a housing bubble burst, and a government spending squeeze to try to meet strict deficit cutting targets imposed by Brussels has further strained the economy. As the unemployment rate has soared to 26 percent, many immigrants have returned home.

    The biggest fall in registered foreign residents was among South Americans, especially Ecuadoreans and Colombians, the statistics agency said.

    "There was extraordinary growth (in immigrants) from 2000 to 2009, which is reversing quickly due to the economic crisis," demographer Albert Esteve of the Barcelona Centre for Demographic Studies told Spain National Radio.

    "Spain is less attractive because there are no jobs."

    Spain's two largest groups of immigrants, Romanians and Moroccans, both shrank last year.

    Not only are immigrants returning home; many Spaniards are also leaving to look for work abroad. The youth unemployment rate is higher than 50 percent.

    The population of native Spaniards grew last year by 10,000, a smaller increase than in recent years, only minimally offsetting a fall of 216,000 in the number of registered foreigners. 

    Reuters contributed to this report.

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    Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

  • Obama visits a Bethlehem in midst of change, Islamization

    Ammar Awad / Reuters

    Christian worshipers visit the Church of the Nativity, revered as the site of Jesus' birth, in the Bethlehem on March 14. Despite the city's importance to Christianity, practitioners are a small minority there.

    By Martin Fletcher, Correspondent, NBC News

    News analysis

    JERUSALEM — Bethlehem was a late addition to President Barack Obama’s schedule in Israel and the West Bank, and it focuses attention on another of the region’s appellations: the Holy Land.

    The Church of the Nativity on Manger Square may be close to the Christian president’s heart, even while he has taken great care to talk of the common bonds that unite the monotheistic religions of Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

    Nasser Shiyoukhi / AP, file

    Palestinian Muslims take part in Friday noon prayers in Manger Square, outside the Church of Nativity, traditionally believed by Christians to be the birthplace of Jesus.

    But as throughout his trip, what Obama does not see in the town may tell more than what he does. Bethlehem is a mirror of the region, where rapid and relentless change threatens Christians themselves. 

    The American leader will be warmly welcomed officially, but on the streets the story is different. Bethlehem has been seething ever since it was announced that Obama would visit. Palestinian political activists were furious when the municipality removed a statue in Manger Square that showed Palestine without Israel and fought contractors to keep it in place. 

    Obama posters have been defaced, American flags burned and activists set up a protest tent on the edge of town to show how Israel can build homes there but Palestinians can’t.

    What Obama will not be able to avoid on the 10-minute drive from Jerusalem is the wall, more than 20 feet high, that cuts Bethlehem off from Jerusalem.  As he is driven through the gate into Bethlehem — a gigantic roadblock cut into the concrete security barrier —and past the walls he will read the graffiti cursing Israel and calling for a Palestinian state. 

    Religion and politics here are sometimes indistinguishable.

    Although Bethlehem is probably the most famous Christian place-name, celebrated in hymn and prayer, today it is no longer a Christian town. In 1950, 80 percent of the population was Christian. Today, 80 percent is Muslim. There are far more mosques than churches.

    The image that best describes this is just on the other side of Manger Square from the Church of the Nativity, venerated by Christians as the site where Jesus was born. The main mosque, the Mosque of Omar, stands there, the muezzin’s call to prayer echoes across the rooftops, competing with the peel of the bells from the church across the square.   

    President Barack Obama on Thursday urged the Israeli people to put themselves in the shoes of Palestinians and recognize their "right to self-determination, their right to justice." NBC's Chuck Todd reports.

    So many of the faithful answer its call that at the week’s main prayers, Friday midday, they don’t all fit in the mosque and flow out into Manger Square, covering part of it.

    The cause is partly a higher birth rate among Muslims than Christians, according to figures from the Palestinian and Israeli statistics bureaus. Figures from the agencies show that Muslim women in the West Bank were likely to have 3.8 children during their lifetimes, compared with 2.1 for Israeli Christians. Also it is partly because Christians seek a better life far away from the turbulent struggle between Jews and Arabs for control of their land. Although many Christians say this is their struggle too, the proportion of people emigrating is much higher among Christians than Muslims or Jews. Only about 2 percent of the region's population today is Christian.

    Obama’s visit though will not focus attention solely on the birthplace of Jesus but on the plight of Christians across the whole Middle East. 

    A report last year by the British think tank Civitas said that Christianity was at risk of being wiped out in the biblical heartland because of "Islamic oppression" and estimated that up to two-thirds of Christians had emigrated or been killed in the past century. They continue to be particularly persecuted in predominantly Muslim countries, not only in the Middle East but worldwide, according to the study.

    Obama is on a mission to help bring peace to the Holy Land and may indeed find a moment of personal peace and prayer in the Grotto of the Nativity beneath the stone floor of the church. If he has any time to reflect at all, it must be that peace here is still a distant dream worth pursuing.

    Martin Fletcher is the author of "The List,""Breaking News" and "Walking Israel."

    Related:

    'Not welcome': Disappointment greets Obama on West Bank visit

    'People turned on Christians': Persecuted Iraqi minority reflects on life after Saddam

    On the Brink: Palestinians, Israelis lukewarm on visit

  • China: One-child policy is here to stay

    Alexander F. Yuan/AP

    Parents play with their children at a kid's play area in a shopping mall in Beijing on Jan. 10.

    By Le Li and Alastair Jamieson, NBC News

    BEIJING — China has quelled speculation its controversial "one-child" policy is to be scrapped, instead announcing Wednesday that family planning laws to curb the birth rate will remain.

    "The policy should be a long-term one and its primary goal is to keep a low birthrate," Wang Xia, minister in charge of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, said.

    The pronouncement comes after months of speculation that the decades-old restriction would be abandoned.

    In October, a Chinese government think tank urged the policy be relaxed to allow two children for every family in the country by 2015.

    "I’m surprised," said Professor Shaun Breslin, associate fellow at U.K. think tank, Chatham House. "Almost everything we had heard in recent months pointed towards a relaxation of one-child."

    The 1979 law prohibits about one-third of China’s 1.3 billion citizens from having a second child. The policy is officially backed up by fines, but campaigners say more than one million forced abortions are carried out every year.

    It has slowed the spectacular growth of the country’s population, preventing an estimated 400 million births over three decades.

    In a related statement on Wednesday, the family planning commission said China’s current low birthrate "is not stable because, with the exception of some developed cities, the fertility level in most of China's regions will rise if the basic state policy of family planning is abolished."

    "Therefore it is necessary to stick to the basic state policy of family planning to stabilize the current low fertility level," it added.

    Breslin said China’s looming demographic crisis — a huge elderly population supported by a relatively tiny younger generation — highlighted social problems such as the need for greater universal healthcare.

    "For most Chinese people the current system works fine if you have a sore throat, but a knee operation could use up all your savings," he said. "That means many are keen to ensure they have a male child in order to ensure there is enough income in the family."

    He added that Wednesday’s announcement did not mean China’s new leadership was eschewing economic or social reforms. "It can take a year or two for any new leadership in China to introduce change," he said.

    Professor Hu Xingdou, of the Beijing Institute of Technology, told the South China Morning Post it would be difficult for the government to abolish the one-child policy overnight.

    "China still needs a family-planning policy due to our vast population and lack of cropland, as well as the relative deficiency of per capita resources,” he said.

    The one-child rule is mainly enforced in urban areas.

    Wang also announced an expansion of rural healthcare provision for pregnant women, and said efforts "should also be made to rectify the imbalance in gender ratio."

    She also said a "complete working system" would be established to "in light of the great numbers of young migrant workers flocking to the cities for jobs."

    Related stories:

    Chinese say one child is enough as Beijing weighs end of policy

    Growing calls in China to change the one-child policy

    Not Chinese enough in China? Americans' dilemma

     

  • Chinese say one child is enough as Beijing weighs end of policy

    By Ed Flanagan, NBC News

    BEIJING – Liu Jie remembers clearly when her mother violated China's one-child policy and gave birth to her little brother. The family was living in Hunan province, where her mother worked as a teacher, and the illegal addition to the family cost her mother the job.

    Now 23 and working as a secretary in Beijing, Liu fully supports doing away with the country's controversial one-child policy – an argument that has been gaining ground thanks to China's increasingly grim population trends.

    In a report released this week, the China Development Research Foundation, a high-level government think tank, recommended that a two-child policy be instituted in some provinces this year and a nationwide two-child policy be made law in 2015, with all birth limits eliminated by 2020.

    Chinese government think tank urges end to unpopular one-child policy

    "It's a great idea," Liu said. "It will help to solve some social problems, cultivate children's character and improve the treatment of the elderly."

    But when asked if she would want to have more than one child, Liu quickly responded, "Oh no, I will only have one baby!"

    "Raising children isn't easy and I don't think I'll have enough money for two children… if I have two, my quality of life would be worse," Liu said.


    Hers is a dilemma confronting many Chinese: even if the government repeals the unpopular policy in order to address an approaching demographic time bomb, there are serious questions about whether Chinese families would even be willing to have more than one child in today's economic and social climate.

    The one-child policy has been credited with reducing China's population from anywhere between 100 to 400 million people since its passing in 1979 under then-leader Deng Xiaoping.

    At the same time, a gradual increase in life expectancy on the mainland has created a significant age imbalance waiting to play out: China's population over the age of 60 is expected to more than double from 185 million today to 487 million in 2053, or 35 percent of the population.

    Meanwhile, the 52 percent of the population that will be of working age by then will be expected to support this swollen elderly group as well as the 16 percent of the population that will be children, raising serious questions on how the country will be able to sustain growth.

    Gruesome photos put spotlight on China's one-child policy

    These issues are unlike anything China has faced its thousands of years of history, said Gu Baochang, a professor at Beijing's Renmin University.

    "China has no experience, no understanding, and no preparation for dealing with the new challenges posed by extremely low fertility, serious aging, speeding urbanization and wide spread of population," Gu warned.

    Thinking twice
    Amongst China's young population – the group that will be expected to carry this tremendous financial burden – there is general support for the elimination of the draconian policy they grew up with. But it doesn't mean that they are any more willing to have more children.

    With soaring inflation on everyday goods and astronomical home prices in many of China's cities, everyday Chinese are taking a closer look at the daunting costs of child-rearing and other modern societal pressures and are thinking twice about having another child.

    For Gong Leilei, a 32-year-old from Zhejiang, it's simply a question of money. Gong and his wife want a little sister for their six-year old son but have been reluctant to try.

    "I wanted to have a daughter, but my wife does not want her now," Gong said. "She thinks we should wait until we have more money."

    Joyce Li, a 38-year old program director at Beijing University, agreed that it's time for the one-child policy to go. "Right now the one-child policy has a lot of problems like the issue of taking care of the elderly… so it's necessary to change the one-child policy," Li said.

    Read more China coverage on NBC's Behind The Wall

    Still, when asked whether she would have two children, she balked. "Right now raising a child in China is very expensive, so I don't think I have enough money for many children," she said.

    "There are also other problems, like the issue of education," Li continued, "Right now it is very hard to get children into school."

    The growing number of migrants moving into China's cities concerns some. Chen Chi, a 22-year old university student in Beijing, said he actually supported the one-child policy and worried about the burdens of a growing population.

    "No, it's not a good idea to remove the one-child policy," Chen told NBC News. "The population is too high and more and more people will move to urban areas to have children, making the urban-rural population balance even worse."

    As for children: "I will only have one baby," he said. "It is an economic decision."

    New leadership, new policy?
    Despite all the hubbub about the report calling for the end of the one-child policy, the odds are deeply stacked against any rapid movement in the direction of an easing of the law. China's ruling Communist Party today is heavily consensus-driven and the report released this week will likely be mediated on for some time before the Party's legislative gears begin moving.

    That the report was issued and publicized in local Chinese media at all, however, suggests that Beijing is receptive to the idea of discussing the policy's abolition. Ultimately, if party leaders believe that removing the one-child policy is in the best interest of maintaining social stability, then change will likely be seen under the new leadership of Xi Jinping, the man expected to take power in China next week.

    Read more World news on NBCNews.com

    But in an email interview with NBC News, Mayling Birney, a scholar at the London School of Economics, warned that while a two-child policy may align now with party priorities, that doesn't mean that there won't be complications that give leaders pause.

    "People may be relieved that the government is relaxing its invasive family planning policy; they may be less likely to encounter tragic stories of coerced abortions; and the worrisome gender imbalance should improve," Birney said.

    "At the same time, more births would create new demands and strain on the education and health systems, well before the new generation could make its contributions to future economic growth," she warned.

    NBC News Le Li, Johanna Armstrong, Yanzhou Liu and Eric Baculinao contributed to this report.

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  • Philippines takes on Catholic church to push birth control, sex education

    Erik De Castro / Reuters

    Mothers with their babies at a ward of Jose Fabella maternity hospital in Manila Sept. 12.

    By Karen Lema, Reuters

    MANILA, Philippines -- Philippine President Benigno Aquino is squaring off against his country's powerful Catholic church in a bid to give people free access to the means to limit the size of their families.

    The predominately Catholic country has one of Asia's fastest-growing populations together with significant levels of chronic poverty. While neighbors have accelerated towards prosperity, the Philippines has lagged.

    Economists say high population growth is a primary factor for that, but the church disagrees. It says population growth is not a cause of poverty and that people need jobs, not contraception.


    Aquino, a Catholic like 80 percent of the population, has thrown his support behind a reproductive health bill that will, if passed by the two houses of Congress, guarantee access to free birth control and promote sex education.

    That's something that Liza Cabiya-an might have benefited from, if she'd had the opportunity.

    Cabiya-an, 39, has 14 children. The oldest is 22, the youngest just 11 months. Their home is a hut in a Manila slum.

    "It's tough when you have so many children," said Cabiya-an, a shy smile revealing poor teeth. "I have to count them before I go to sleep to make sure no one's missing."

    Erik De Castro / Reuters

    Health workers show the proper use of a condom during a family planning session held in the Likhaan centre, an NGO clinic in Tondo, Manila Aug. 6.

    At one time Cabiya-an had access to contraception but Manila mayor Jose Atienza, a devout Catholic, swept contraceptives from the shelves of city-run clinics in 2000.

    More photos: Philippines defies church to push family planning

    After that, Cabiya-an's efforts to limit the size of her family were patchy, restricted by her meager resources. She went on and off the pill and resorted to an illegal abortion more than once.

    5 of 14 kids sent to school
    With income of about 7,600 pesos ($180) a month from doing laundry and her husband's pay as a laborer, Cabiya-an has only been able to send five of her children to school. The others would appear doomed to join the quarter of the country's 95 million people stuck below the poverty line.

    Contraceptives are generally available in the Philippines although they are not used as much as elsewhere.

    In the Philippines, 45-50 percent of women of reproductive age, or their partners, are using a contraceptive method at any given time. Indonesia's rate is 56 percent and Thailand's 80 percent.

    PhotoBlog: Mothers give birth in an already overpopulated Manila

    Population growth mirrors that. The Philippines population is increasing by 1.9 percent a year, while Indonesia's is 1.2 percent and Thailand's is 0.9 percent. China's population is growing at an annual rate of 0.6 percent.

    "If you increase access to contraceptives for women ... you will have births averted," said Josefina Natividad, director of the University of the Philippines' Population Institute.

    Though available in most places, the cost of contraceptives is prohibitive for many people. But that should change if the reproductive health bill is passed.

    Aquino's government has promised what it calls inclusive growth and it sees slowing population growth as key to that.

    "The president has already, at the risk of alienating the church, declared that the bill is a priority," Budget Secretary Florencio Abad said. "That message is very clear."

    Church: Contraception immoral
    But it's a message the church doesn't like. It says artificial contraception is immoral, and the bill will pave the way to legalizing abortion. The bill does not legalize abortion though it seeks to improve care for women suffering from complications after an illegal abortion.

    The church says people should use natural family planning.

    It says poverty is a cause, not effect, of a high birth rate. Children are being born into homes without enough food to eat because of the government's failure to end corruption and provide jobs, the bishops say.

    "It's our firm belief that contraceptives will never be the answer," said Father Melvin Castro, executive secretary of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines' Episcopal Commission on Family and Life.

    Read more stories about the Philippines here

    "They are poor not because they have no access to contraceptives but because they have no work. Give them work and it will be the most effective birth spacing means for them."

    Economists say the church's persistent opposition has been the most important factor influencing population policy.

    "The state ... has been immobilized from effectively addressing the issue by the Catholic hierarchy's hardline position," a group of 30 economists from the University of the Philippines said in a recent paper.

    70 percent support family planning bill
    But despite the arguments of the church and political opponents who decry using state funds to finance contraception, a poll last year showed about 70 percent of people support the bill. Its backers want it passed during the term of this congress, which ends in June.

    Economists say if the Philippines is ever to take advantage of a "demographic dividend," when a large, young workforce is generating the savings and investment to give the economy a sustained boost, it will have to bring down the fertility rate.

    The median age in the Philippines is only 22.2 compared with 25 in Malaysia, India's 25.1 and Indonesia's 27.8.

    Unlike aging countries such as Japan, where the elderly put a burden on the working population, in the Philippines it's the children who command the resources that could otherwise be diverted to savings and investment.

    There are 58 dependents for every 100 working-age people in the Philippines, according to World Bank data, compared with 40 in Indonesia and 29 in Thailand.

    "The demographic window will only open if fertility rates are going to go down in such a way that the young-age population will grow at a slower rate than the working-age population," said Arsenio Balisacan, socio-economic planning secretary.

    Aquino might seem an unlikely champion of free contraception. His late mother, Corazon Aquino, rose to power at the head of a people power revolution, fostered by the church, that swept away old dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986.

    Marcos had made reining in population growth a priority beginning in the 1960s and enshrined family planning in a 1973 constitution. But Corazon Aquino, mindful of the church's help in the democracy movement, scrapped that clause when the charter was rewritten in 1987.

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  • Manila's hidden spaces: Life on the margins in a crowded megacity

    Paula Bronstein / Getty Images

    John Harris stands next to his family: wife Remedios (who holds Joshua, 3), Jamie, 11, John, 16, and Joyce, 8, at the small space where they live under a bridge in Manila, Philippines on August 21, 2012 . John is a construction worker making 250 pesos ($6) a day. The family live in a small space under a bridge alongside many other impoverished families.

    Paula Bronstein / Getty Images

    Irish Romes, 19, holds her 2-week-old baby Jay at the place where she lives with her family next to a highway in the slums of Binondo, Manila on August 21, 2012.

    Manila's population of 20 million people is rising by approximately a quarter of a million every year. Due to overcrowding a third of the Filipino capital's residents are forced to live on any bit of spare land they can manage, often in makeshift settlements under bridges, beside railway lines and even in cemeteries.

    Large families are common in a conservative Catholic county that is pushing the government's already weak social care system to its limit.

    See more of Getty Images photographer Paula Bronstein's work on population issues in the Philippines in Tuesday's post: Mothers give birth in an already overpopulated Manila.

    Look back at PhotoBlog posts on Filipino housing issues and on the world's seven billion population milestone, reached in 2011.

    Paula Bronstein / Getty Images

    A boy looks out from his home in a congested slum area of Manila on August 21, 2012.

    Paula Bronstein / Getty Images

    A man stands next to the door of his room under a bridge in Manila on August 21, 2012. Families cram into small rooms under a bridge so they can live for free.

    Paula Bronstein / Getty Images

    A man washes clothes as children look out from the small room under a bridge within which they live on August 22, 2012 in Manila.

    Paula Bronstein / Getty Images

    A woman holds her daughter in their makeshift shack in the Binondo slums of Manila, which they rent for 1,000 pesos ($24) a month.

    Follow @NBCNewsPictures on Twitter

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  • Mothers give birth in an already overpopulated Manila

    Paula Bronstein / Getty Images

    Mothers and their newborns share space on a bed after giving birth in the maternity ward at the government-run Jose Fabella maternity hospital in Manila, Philippines.

    Paula Bronstein / Getty Images

    A woman holds a cross while dealing with labor pains at the government-run Jose Fabella maternity hospital.

    More than 65 babies are born at the government operated Dr. Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital in Manila, Philippines every day.

    Manila is one of the most densely populated cities in the world and many of the city dwellers are forced to live on every bit of spare land they can find. Poverty causes people to live under bridges, railway lines and even cemeteries.

    Getty Images photographer Paula Bronstein created these images on Aug. 18-20 and made them available to NBCNews.com today.

    •Sign up for the msnbc.com Photos Newsletter

    Paula Bronstein / Getty Images

    A mother is in pain while her newborn baby rests on her chest as she gets surgically sutured after giving birth in a delivery room at the Jose Fabella Hospital.

    Paula Bronstein / Getty Images

    A mother is seen on the operation table next to her new baby moments after a Caesarean operation.

    Paula Bronstein / Getty Images

    Mothers breast feed their babies in a special room at the Dr. Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital.

  • Report: World's population is 17 million tons overweight

    By Alastair Jamieson, msnbc.com

    Obesity is threatening the world’s future food security, according to a study published Monday that calculated the weight of the global population at 316 million tons.

    Researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said increasing levels of fatness around the world could have the same impact on global resources as an extra half a billion people.

    In a report published in the journal BMC Public Health [PDF file here], the researchers estimated that 17 million tons of the global body mass was due to people being overweight.

    Despite only making up five per cent of the world's population, the United States accounts for almost a third of the world's weight due to obesity, the researchers found.

    In contrast, Asia has 61 per cent of the world's population but only 13 per cent of the world's weight due to obesity.

    When working out is too much of a good thing 

    The study is published to coincide with the largest-ever United Nations conference, Rio+20, which will discuss sustainable development.

    Using World Health Organization data from 2005, the scientists calculated the average global body weight at 137 pounds, but in North America the average was 178 pounds.

    Get off your butt and exercise, orders your doc 

    One of the authors of the paper, Professor Ian Roberts, told the BBC: "When people think about environmental sustainability, they immediately focus on population. Actually, when it comes down to it, it’s not how many mouths there are to feed, it is how much flesh there is on the planet."

    "If every country in the world had the same level of fatness that we see in the USA, in weight terms that would be like an extra billion people of world average body mass," he added.

    Roberts said health campaigns and urban design that promotes walking or cycling were among the best ways to tackle the problem, which was primarily caused by sedentary modern lifestyles.

    “We do not move our bodies so much but we are biologically programmed to eat,” he told the Daily Telegraph. "We often point the finger at poor women in Africa having too many babies. But we've also got to think of this fatness thing; it's part of the same issue of exceeding our planetary limits."

  • Researchers: Japan will have no kids under age 15 by 3011

    By msnbc.com staff

    Japan will have no children under the age of 15 in 999 years if current trends continue, according to researchers at Tohoku University Graduate School of Economics in Sendai.

    Japan's Child Population Clock, as developed at the Tohoku University Graduate School of Economics


    A population clock developed by the researchers shows the child population count at any given moment based on declining percentages released recently by Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, according to a news release by Professor Hiroshi Yoshida, the research leader who is an expert on the economics of aging.

    Japan’s under-15 population fell to 16.6 million in 2012 from 16.9 million in 2011, Yoshida said.

    Assuming the number of children will continue to drop, researchers set Japan’s child population clock to drop one every 100 seconds, he said.

    "If the rate of decline continues, we will be able to celebrate the Children’s Day public holiday on May 5, 3011, as there will be one child," Yoshida said. "But Children's Day 3012 will never come."

    "By indicating it in figures, I want people to think about the problem of the falling birthrate with a sense of urgency," Yoshida said.

    The clock setting will be reviewed every year by adding the latest population data, he said.

    “The overall trend is toward extinction, which started in 1975 when Japan’s fertility rate fell below two" per woman, Yoshida told the Japan Times.

    Msnbc.com's Jim Gold contributed to this article. Follow him on Facbeook here.

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