Census sets off fears of politicking in Bosnia-Herzegovina

In much of the world, the census is a mundane and familiar routine. In fractured Bosnia-Herzegovina, the exercise is so touchy that its people have gone uncounted for more than two decades.

Twenty-one years ago, the last census showed a growing share of Muslims in the diverse territory, then a republic of the Yugoslav federation. Serb nationalists pointed to the numbers and argued that their status was in jeopardy.

The next year, after Bosnia declared its independence, a brutal war erupted. It lasted more than 3 1/2 years and claimed an estimated 100,000 lives.

In a country where political power is divided along ethnic lines, local activists and outside observers worry that a new census could be manipulated for political gain. The government is testing out the census on a smaller scale, counting about 9,000 people before launching a complete tally next year.

“There is already pressure on people” over how they choose to identify, said Tija Memisevic, director of the European Research Center, part of a coalition of nonprofit groups and individuals pushing for people to be able to define themselves as they wish to census-takers. “There will be a lot of fear-mongering.”

Bosniak Muslims fear the census will cement the elimination of their people from Serb enclaves, legitimizing Serb control of areas terrorized by "ethnic cleansing." Croats worry their numbers may have diminished as well. Others fear they won’t be fairly tallied and instead shunted into one category or another for political purposes.

In the dizzyingly complex political system that evolved after the war, some government seats are reserved for each of the three “constituent” ethnic groups and some are off limits to minorities -- a barrier that the European Court of Human Rights ruled was discriminatory. Local municipalities afford seats based on the census.

As new numbers are tallied, “politicians will push for more political representation for their group or demand less for the others,” said Doga Ulas Eralp, a George Washington University expert on fragile states. “It’s going to set the tone of the debate.”

Discuss solutions to poverty, global warming [Google+ Hangout]

Join Ken Weiss in an online discussion -- via Google+ Hangout -- about population growth, climate change and other intractable problems at 3:30 p.m. today from UC Berkeley.

The newspaper explored such issues around the world in its recent five-part series on population growth in the developing world. Among other topics, the "Beyond 7 Billion" series examined chronic hunger and mass migration in East Africa -- trends that one of the guests in today's conversation, Dr. Malcolm Potts, believes will soon extend across the Sahel, an arid region of Africa just below the Sahara desert.

LIVE VIDEO DISCUSSION: Join us at 3:30 p.m. today

"What you've been seeing from Somalia is going to happen in all those countries, all the way across from the Red Sea to the Atlantic Ocean," said Potts, a UC Berkeley professor of public health. "You've just seen a fraction of what's going to happen in the next 10 or 20 years."

Potts, who co-organized a conference focused on the Sahel region, will discuss solutions to the problems facing this part of Africa and other impoverished nations with soaring populations. He will be joined by Dr. Ndola Prata of UC Berkeley, William Ryerson of the Population Media Center,  and Fatima Adamu from Usmanu Danfodiyo University in Sokoto, Nigeria.

We invite you to join the conversation by posting comments or questions below, on The Times’ Facebook and Google Plus pages, or on Twitter using the #asklatimes hashtag.

-- Kenneth R. Weiss

Solutions to poverty, population growth, global warming [Google+ Hangout]

As experts from three continents convene this week at UC Berkeley to discuss rapid population growth, climate change and other intractable problems, The Times will hold a live online video discussion -- via Google+ Hangout -- Thursday on potential solutions.

The newspaper explored such issues around the world in its recent five-part series on population growth in the developing world. Among other topics, the "Beyond 7 Billion" series examined chronic hunger and mass migration in East Africa -- trends that Dr. Malcolm Potts believes will soon extend across the Sahel, an arid region of Africa just below the Sahara desert.

LIVE VIDEO DISCUSSION: Join us at 3:30 p.m. Thursday

"What you've been seeing from Somalia is going to happen in all those countries, all the way across from the Red Sea to the Atlantic Ocean," said Potts, a UC Berkeley professor of public health. "You've just seen a fraction of what's going to happen in the next 10 or 20 years."

Potts, who co-organized the conference focused on the Sahel region, will join The Times at 3:30 p.m. Pacific time Thursday to discuss solutions to the problems facing this part of Africa and other impoverished nations with soaring populations. He will be joined by Dr. Ndola Prata of UC Berkeley, William Ryerson of the Population Media Center and Fatima Adamu from Usmanu Danfodiyo University in Sokoto, Nigeria.

We invite you to join the conversation by posting comments or questions below, on The Times’ Facebook and Google Plus pages, or on Twitter using the #asklatimes hashtag.

-- Kenneth R. Weiss

Photo: Somalia refugees, driven from their land by sectarian violence and drought, gather outside the United Nations' camps in eastern Kenya. Credit: Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times

Record low number of babies born in Japan

Fewer babies were born in Japan in the last year than any other on record, pulling down its population for the third year in a row, according to government statistics released this week.

As of the end of March, Japan had more than 260,000 fewer people than a year earlier, the biggest drop of   the Japanese population yet, according to Japanese media. 

The baby bust has continued year after year despite Japanese efforts to nudge up the numbers: The government has doled out payments for couples with children and subsidized daycare. Japanese towns publicly herald the number of local births in city signs. Engineering students even crafted a cooing robotic baby years ago in hope of setting biological clocks ticking.

Taking a more pointed tack, one professor recently created an online clock that ominously counts down until Japan has no children left -- a doomsday estimated to roll around in 3012.

“It is not received seriously, with urgency,” economics professor Hiroshi Yoshida of Tohoku University wrote as the clock was unveiled on Children’s Day in May.

SERIES: Beyond 7 billion

The Japanese are well aware of the problem, but birthrates continue to hover under 1.4 children per woman, far below the 2.1 needed to replace one generation with the next, said Noriko Tsuya, a Keio University statistician who leads a government committee on population. The number of marriage has  dropped, and bearing children out of wedlock is rare, Tsuya said.

Experts say women forced to choose between child and career in Japanese companies have increasingly opted against babies. Despite government efforts to foster gender equality, Japanese women are still expected to shoulder chores at home, researchers have repeatedly noted. Some companies pressure Japanese women to leave if they marry or have a baby, said John W. Traphagan, a University of Texas at Austin professor who has studied family dynamics in Japan.

Men seem to be losing interest in babymaking in the first place, with one government survey finding that more than a third of Japanese males ages 16 to 19 were uninterested in sex or even despised it; even more women said the same. The erosion of old guarantees of lifetime employment and the rise of temporary jobs are also damping the desire to start families.

“I don’t think young Japanese people want to stay single their whole lives,” Tsuya said. “But once you marry you’re supposed to have kids,”  a less appealing prospect without a steady job.