eli5: Why do Asian countries have such high populations?

Question

What the title says. India and china alone have almost 3 billion. Asia has over half the worlds population. Why has this historically been the case even though many Asian countries developed far slower than European countries.

In: Other

Answer 1

Because we expect our children to take care of us when we get old. It’s like an investment in Asia. In Chinese, there is a saying called child is insurance.