The rise and fall of civilizations over the past 4,000 years is reflected by the rise and fall of the number of people living in their great cities.
Between 2050 BC and the projected populations of 2050, the global centres of civilization have swung between the Middle East, Asia, Europe and North America.
The ancient world
Modern-day Iraq, Egypt and China all played host to the world’s largest cities for the first two millennia of this 4,000-year period.
With a population of just 35,000, the ancient Egyptian city of Memphis was the world’s largest for 100 years from 2050 BC.
Other Egyptian cities to feature during this early 2,000-year period included Thebes and Alexandria, which had a peak of 350,000 in 150 BC and was the largest population of any city up to 100 BC.
While Alexandria had the largest population, and the Chinese cities of Yinxu and Chengzhou also featured, this early period was dominated by the large populations of the ancient cities located in modern-day Iraq.
Time and again from 1950 BC until 350 BC, the biblical cities of Babylon, Nimrud, Nineveh, Ur and Uruk charted as the largest cities on the planet.
This included an uninterrupted 450-year period of domination starting with Nimrud’s population of 75,000 in 800 BC and peaking in Babylon’s population of 150,000 for 150 years between 500 BC and 350 BC.
Rome reigns
The animated map was produced as part of KPMG Australia Demographics partner Bernard Salt’s column for The Australian.
In his column, Salt identifies Rome as the standout city for the whole of the 4,000-year period.
“By the time of Jesus Christ, Rome had a million residents,” writes Salt.
“It was three times the scale of the previous biggest city, Alexandria. To place this in perspective, today’s biggest city, Tokyo (38 million), would need to be 78 million, or three times Delhi, which is the next largest, to have the same world impact as Rome did at the time of Christ.”
Rome stands out for both its scale and longevity. It was the world’s largest city for 550 years from 100 BC to 450 AD. This included a 250-year period at the start of the first millennium where Italy’s capital had 1 million residents.
It would be another 450 years before another city – Chang’an in China in 700 AD – would again reach 1 million inhabitants.
Industrial explosion
No city surpassed 1 million inhabitants for 1,400 years, until Beijing’s population hit 1.1 million in 1850.
The Chinese capital was soon outdone by London, which thanks to the Industrial Revolution and expansion of the British Empire was the world’s largest city from 1850 to 1900, with a population growing from 2.3 million to 6.6 million.
Industrialization at the turn of the 20th century proved pivotal for rapid population growth across the globe.
London’s dominance was superseded first by New York with a population of 12.3 million in 1950 and Tokyo with 26.4 million residents in 2000.
Salt and his KPMG colleagues predict that, by 2050, Tokyo will be overtaken by Delhi as the world’s largest city, with an estimated 40 million inhabitants.
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[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]2021 WEF Global Gender Gap report, which confirmed its 2016 finding of a decline in worldwide progress towards gender parity.
Over 2.8 billion women are legally restricted from having the same choice of jobs as men. As many as 104 countries still have laws preventing women from working in specific jobs, 59 countries have no laws on sexual harassment in the workplace, and it is astonishing that a handful of countries still allow husbands to legally stop their wives from working.
Globally, women’s participation in the labour force is estimated at 63% (as against 94% of men who participate), but India’s is at a dismal 25% or so currently. Most women are in informal and vulnerable employment—domestic help, agriculture, etc—and are always paid less than men.
Recent reports from Assam suggest that women workers in plantations are paid much less than men and never promoted to supervisory roles. The gender wage gap is about 24% globally, and women have lost far more jobs than men during lockdowns.
The problem of gender disparity is compounded by hurdles put up by governments, society and businesses: unequal access to social security schemes, banking services, education, digital services and so on, even as a glass ceiling has kept leadership roles out of women’s reach.
Yes, many governments and businesses had been working on parity before the pandemic struck. But the global gender gap, defined by differences reflected in the social, political, intellectual, cultural and economic attainments or attitudes of men and women, will not narrow in the near future without all major stakeholders working together on a clear agenda—that of economic growth by inclusion.
The WEF report estimates 135 years to close the gap at our current rate of progress based on four pillars: educational attainment, health, economic participation and political empowerment.
India has slipped from rank 112 to 140 in a single year, confirming how hard women were hit by the pandemic. Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two Asian countries that fared worse.
Here are a few things we must do:
One, frame policies for equal-opportunity employment. Use technology and artificial intelligence to eliminate biases of gender, caste, etc, and select candidates at all levels on merit. Numerous surveys indicate that women in general have a better chance of landing jobs if their gender is not known to recruiters.
Two, foster a culture of gender sensitivity. Take a review of current policies and move from gender-neutral to gender-sensitive. Encourage and insist on diversity and inclusion at all levels, and promote more women internally to leadership roles. Demolish silos to let women grab potential opportunities in hitherto male-dominant roles. Work-from-home has taught us how efficiently women can manage flex-timings and productivity.
Three, deploy corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds for the education and skilling of women and girls at the bottom of the pyramid. CSR allocations to toilet building, the PM-Cares fund and firms’ own trusts could be re-channelled for this.
Four, get more women into research and development (R&D) roles. A study of over 4,000 companies found that more women in R&D jobs resulted in radical innovation. It appears women score far higher than men in championing change. If you seek growth from affordable products and services for low-income groups, women often have the best ideas.
Five, break barriers to allow progress. Cultural and structural issues must be fixed. Unconscious biases and discrimination are rampant even in highly-esteemed organizations. Establish fair and transparent human resource policies.
Six, get involved in local communities to engage them. As Michael Porter said, it is not possible for businesses to sustain long-term shareholder value without ensuring the welfare of the communities they exist in. It is in the best interest of enterprises to engage with local communities to understand and work towards lowering cultural and other barriers in society. It will also help connect with potential customers, employees and special interest groups driving the gender-equity agenda and achieve better diversity.