Joseph Chamie

Joseph Chamie recently retired as research director of the Center for Migration Studies in New York and as editor of the International Migration Review. He was formerly the director of the United Nations Population Division, having worked at the UN on population and development for more than a quarter century.

Chamie has written numerous population studies for the UN and, under his own name, written studies about population growth, fertility, estimates and projections, international migration and population and development policy. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a trustee of the Migration Policy Institute. He lives in the New York metro area.

COVID-19

Gender Imbalances: Missing Girls and Vanishing Men

March 31, 2020

by Joseph Chamie

Normally, the numbers of males and females in a human population are about the same across all such populations. However, pregnancy interventions by couples and unhealthy lifestyles among young men have produced gender imbalances, giving rise to “missing girls” in some populations and “disappearing men” in others. The coronavirus pandemic will have lasting impacts …

Covid-19, Gender-Based Violence, Health and Population

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GEOPOLITICS

When Deaths Exceed Births, Countries Can Turn to Immigration

October 2, 2017

by Joseph Chamie

The demography is clear: when deaths outnumber births — excluding for zero immigration — populations decline. That simple yet powerful demographic relationship is irrefutable, regardless of geography, era, economics, political ideology or religious belief. Yet many politicians around the world, who typically have short-term perspectives, particularly those living in countries facing population decline and …

Africa, Asia, Geopolitics, Health and Population, Migration, Refugees

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TOPIC: WOMEN

One Advantage Women Have Over Men: They Live Longer

June 18, 2017

by Joseph Chamie

With few exceptions, women across the world live longer than men. Globally, life expectancies of women at birth exceed men by more than four years. At age 60, women live longer than men by nearly three years. Globally, average life expectancy at birth stands at 72 years, with some 50 countries attaining levels above …

Health and Population, Sustainable Development Goals, Women

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TOPIC: WOMEN

Glassed In: Why Women Are Unhappy in the Workplace

December 6, 2016

by Joseph Chamie

It is not only “glass ceilings” limiting women’s career progress but also “glass floors” and “glass walls” blocking gender equality in the workplace. These hurdles actually limit the entry and mobility of both women and men in predominately gender-defined jobs. If women are to achieve gender equality with men at high levels in the …

Development, Gender-Based Violence, Human Rights, Women

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TOPIC: WOMEN

Six Asian Nations Lead in Seriously Skewed Sex Ratios at Birth

September 28, 2016

by Joseph Chamie

An unprecedented imbalance in sex ratios of more boys than girls being born is seriously underway in six Asian countries. As the imbalances spread across reproductive and marriageable age groups, the well-being of those Asian nations, which together represent nearly two-fifths of the world’s population, is threatened. The unusually high sex ratios at birth …

Asia, Health and Population, Women

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You Have the Right to Leave Your Country: Backdrop to UN Summit on Migration

August 10, 2016

by Joseph Chamie

You have a right to leave your country, but you don’t have a right to enter another country. That asymmetry of human rights is a basic axiom of the global international migration system. Nearly 70 years ago, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in Article 13, recognized everyone’s right to leave and to return …

Human Rights, Migration, Refugees

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All in Africa: The World’s 13 Highest-Mortality Countries

January 6, 2016

by Joseph Chamie

Despite remarkable reductions in mortality, 13 sub-Saharan African countries — 1 out of every 20 people in the world — have yet to achieve life expectancies at birth of 55 years, the global average attained a half century ago. These highest-mortality countries, with Somalia leading the list, are more than 15 years behind the …

Africa, Development, Health and Population, Poverty, Women

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WORLDVIEWS

Gender Equality Gaps Across Borders Tell a Disturbing Story

November 18, 2015

by Joseph Chamie

Achieving gender equality is a commendable goal and has been incorporated in the 17 recently adopted United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Gender equality, however, should not be used to detract from efforts to improve the equality of women and men across countries rather than just inside countries. Indeed, differences between men and women in …

WORLDVIEWS

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WORLDVIEWS

Can’t the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Be Resolved?

March 11, 2015

by Joseph Chamie

After the failure of United States mediated peace talks, the Gaza-Israel war and the recent tensions in Jerusalem, the prospects for a near-term settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have reached an all-time low. Given those conditions, it is useful and perhaps productive to revisit and reconsider the fundamental solutions for resolving the conflict. Numbers, …

WORLDVIEWS

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Projecting Future Populations Requires Tracking the Past

October 27, 2014

by Joseph Chamie

In politics it is often said: “While the future is known, it’s the past that keeps changing.” In demography, it’s exactly the opposite: while the past is known, it’s the future that keeps changing. That is simply because population’s fundamental building blocks — births, deaths and migrations — are not fixed but vary over …

Africa, Asia, Health and Population, Women

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WORLDVIEWS

Israeli-Palestinian Population Growth and Its Impact on Peace

February 2, 2014

by Joseph Chamie

A large amount of news, analysis and political rhetoric is disseminated daily about the current American-initiated Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. However, comparatively little attention — and, hence, insufficient understanding — is given to a critical aspect of the decades-old conflict: population growth. Differential rates of population growth are redefining the relative demographic standing of …

WORLDVIEWS

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BOOKS

More Foodless Days Ahead, Unless ‘We’ Act Now

January 7, 2013

by Joseph Chamie

Is the planet full? And how many plates are empty? These are the first two questions that came to my mind from the title of Lester R. Brown‘s new book, “Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity.” With world population now standing at 7.1 billion and projected to exceed 9.3 billion …

Africa, BOOKS, Climate and Environment

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WORLDVIEWS

A Rockefeller Got It Right on US Population Growth

April 12, 2012

by Joseph Chamie

With three major international United Nations conferences being planned or proposed to update the 1992 Rio earth summit, the 1994 Cairo population conference and the 1995 Beijing global meeting on women’s rights, the topic of population growth and its effect on the environment, human development and nations’ progress needs serious discussion. That should start …