More than 2 million immigrants from Africa live in the United States. A new study from the Pew Research Center finds that they are, on average, college-educated and employed. In fact, they are more likely than native-born Americans to have gained advanced degree. And they are employed at about the same rates as the general population.

The study is important for several reasons. It shows that most Africans living in the U.S. are not struggling, out-of-work persons with little schooling. It also shows that the African immigrant population is different in the U.S. than in Europe. In addition, African immigrants in the U.S. are more likely than those in Europe to be working.

Monica Anderson is a researcher at Pew and one of the writers of the report. She told VOA that the research team wanted to compare the backgrounds of African immigrants in the U.S. to those in Europe. "What we found is that the African immigrant population really stands out and that they are a very highly educated group," Anderson said.

The Pew study is based on 2015 data from the U. S. Census Bureau and Eurostat's Labor Force Survey. One reason for different backgrounds among African immigrants is how close things are to each other. Europe is much easier to reach than the U. S. for low-income Africans. They can come by boat or other ways. In contrast, African immigrants coming to the U.S. often have the money to travel by plane as well as permission to enter the country.

But previous research found that higher education and employment levels do not always mean a higher quality of life. In 2015, researchers at Pew looked at black immigrants from Africa, the Caribbean, Central America and South America. They found that their average household income was more than $ 8,000 lower than the U.S. average.

People are making more and more demands on the world’s natural resources. If babies born in 1991 live for eighty years, the human population of the world may be anything from twice to three times the present total by 2070. In other words, they will have to share what is left of the earth’s resources with 15 billion other people. But hopefully there will be a significant decrease in the growth of population. What if this does not happen? The answer is that by the time before the babies born in 1991 reach the age of 40 they could be sharing resources with as many as 10 billion other people.

Limiting the pollution of water and the atmosphere, controlling the output of the chemicals that may be causing the global warming and climate change, and eating less meat may go some way to help, but can anyone seriously imagine that these are going to solve the problems of the“baby class”of 1991?

There is no getting away from the fact that people are responsible for the present state of the world, and only people can solve the problems. The decisions have to be taken by people as members of national and local governments, as leaders and decision-makers in industry; as scientists and technologists; as professional engineers and designers; as religious leaders and individual citizens.

More than a third of small towns in Georgia lost population in the last year alone, highlighting the challenges of reviving rural areas. New census (人口普查) estimates show that Camilla fell below 5,000 residents. Sparks fell below 2,000, and Milan fell to 661 residents for a loss of 7% of its population. All three towns are in South Georgia.

Many of the young people in these communities graduate from high school and don’t come back. “They go to college, whatever, they don’t come back,” said David Bridges, head of its Center for Rural Prosperity and Innovation in Tifton.

Meanwhile, Georgia’s cities are growing, having no problem drawing people from small towns and other cities. Atlanta grew more than 1% in the past year and is now nearing the half-million-resident mark.

The trend of people moving from rural to urban areas is hardly a new one — it’s been going on worldwide for more than a century. But continued population losses have raised questions about whether rural areas can do anything to reverse the tide.

Rural residents can face a number of challenges including access to good jobs, transportation and health care. Manufacturing jobs have dried up in many places, while modernization and new technology means fewer people are needed for farming. And many people are deciding to have smaller families than was typical a century ago.

“The older generation is dying, the younger generation is moving away, and because there are perceived to be fewer business opportunities, financial opportunities, etc. It’s very challenging to get inbound population.” Bridges said.

Demographers (人口学家) expect the shift from rural to urban to continue. But there are some bright spots in rural America still. Jackson County near Athens was recently named one of the fastest-growing counties in the nation by the Census Bureau. Amazon opened a large fulfillment center there a couple of years ago. And Young Harris, near the Georgia-North Carolina border, has grown by more than 80% since 2010.