Population Growth and Control - Essay Example

s Population Growth and Control Introduction This discussion on population growth will focus on the causes and solutions as well as the economic and environmental consequences of various policies. The analysis will also suggest policy recommendations for the assortment of different developing governments seeking to address their population problem. The first section of the discussion will concentrate on over population and describe the effects and consequences of this together with a theory to back up these points. The next section will look at how poverty relates to population growth focussing on some key points, including the ideas surrounding population control methods. The final section will highlight a conclusion drawn upon from the various points made in the body of the essay. Over population occurs when the population of a living species exceeds the carrying capacity of its ecological niche. In common parlance, the term usually refers to the relationship between the human population and its environment, Earth. Over population is not a function of the number or density of the individuals, but rather the number of individuals compared to the resources they need to survive. In other words, it is a ratio: population over resources. If a given environment has a population of 10, but there is food and drinking water enough for only 9 people, then that environment is overpopulated, while if the population is 100 individuals but there are food and water enough for 200, then it is not overpopulated. Over population can result from increases in births, a decline in mortality rates, which is linked to increases in life expectancy, or from an unsustainable use and depletion of resources. Advances in technology can reduce the threat of overpopulation by making new resources available, or by increasing the productivity of existing resources. Resources to be taken into account when estimating if an ecological niche is overpopulated include clean water and air, food, shelter, warmth, or other issues related to survival. In the case of human beings, there are others such as arable land and, for all but tribes with primitive lifestyles, lesser resources such as unemployment, money or other economic resources, education, fuel, electricity, healthcare, proper sewage treatment and waste management, and transportation. In the context of human societies, overpopulation occurs when the population density is so great as to actually cause an impaired quality of life, environmental degradation, or a long-term shortage of essential goods and services. Overpopulation is not merely an imbalance between the numbers of individuals compared to the resources they need to survive, or a ratio of population over resources. This is because such an imbalance may be caused by any other number of factors such as bad governance, war, injustice and exploitation, etc. When other such factors come into play in a certain locale, and population density cannot be shown to be the major cause, overpopulation cannot be conclusively said to occur. The world's human population is currently growing by more than 75 million people per year. This is down from a peak numerical growth of about 88 million per year in the late 1980s. About half the world lives in nations with sub-replacement fertility, and population growth in those countries is due to immigration. Thomas Malthus (1798) argued that if left unrestricted, human populations would continue to grow until they would become too large to be supported by the food grown on available agricultural land. He proposed that, while resources tend to grow linearly, population grows exponentially. At that point, the population would be restrained through mass famine and starvation. Malthus (1798) also argued for population control, through "moral restraint", to avoid this happening. As the population exceeds the amount of available resources, it decreases, since the lack of resources causes mortality to increase. This process keeps the population in check and ensures it doesn't exceed the amount of resources. Over the two hundred years which followed, famine has overtaken numerous individual regions, proponents of this theory state that these famines were examples of Malthusian catastrophes. On a global scale, however, food production has grown faster than population. It has often been argued that future pressures on food production, combined with threats to other aspects of the earth's habitat such as global warming make overpopulation a still more serious threat in the future. Abortion is probably the most controversial method of population control due to the ongoing debate over the legal status of fetuses. Abortions performed to save a woman's life are the least controversial. Of 193 countries surveyed by the United Nations, all but four nations allowed women to obtain abortions where carrying a pregnancy to term would potentially threaten the woman's life. Once we move past saving a woman's life, however, things change drastically. Seventy-one nations, for example, make abortions to preserve the physical health of the woman illegal. One hundred and ten nations do not allow women who get pregnant due to rape or incest to obtain abortions. Finally, only 52 nations allow abortion on demand for any reason (World Abortion Policies 1999, United Nations, 2000). This however, does not mean that women in those nations don't get abortions. In the United States, for example, although abortion did not become legal until the early-1970s, in many areas such laws were routinely ignored by health officials. Data on abortion rates worldwide is very rare, but data from developed nations demonstrates that abortion is used most frequently by single women. In the United States in 1985, for example, almost 61 percent of pregnancies in unmarried women were aborted compared to only 8.4 percent of pregnancies in married women. In Canada, 31.4 percent of pregnant single women chose abortion in 1994 compared to 6.4 percent of pregnant married women (Bankole, Singh and Taylor, 1999). One of the more extreme measures taken in an attempt to control population has been China's one-child policy. Some environmentalists and population advocates have suggested the rest of the world adopt similar policies. Unfortunately for them though, when you get beyond the mythology and seriously examine the one-child policy, it is clear the policy is not viable even if you can stomach the horrendous human rights violations it entails. Following the consolidation of politically power by the Communists in China, the nation's population exploded. Annual population growth exceeded 2 percent for most years between 1949 and 1974 (Jinyi, 1996, p.6). Beginning in the mid-1970s, however, China abruptly shifted gears and fertility declined dramatically. The annual population growth rate has remained around 1.5 percent since the mid-1970s. This sequence of events is significant mainly for this reason -- the one-child policy wasn't adopted by China until 1979, yet China's huge fertility drop occurred between 1970 and 1979 when live births fell from 34 per 1,000 people to 18 per 1,000 people. Since the introduction of the one-child policy in 1979, there has been no large drop in fertility and in fact China experienced a slight increase fluctuating around 21 births per 1,000 people in the 1980s (Jinyi, pp.6-8). Why did the one-child policy fail The likely explanation is that there are limits to how far government policies can push demographic changes. Policies emphasizing later marriage and fewer children in the 1970s clearly played a part in lowering total fertility rates. Contraceptive usage in China by the early 1980s, for example, was extraordinarily high for Asia at 71 percent of women of reproductive age. The one-child policy, however, was strongly resisted by people, especially couples living in rural regions. Enforcing the one-child policy in the face of such heavy resistance would have required more forceful measures than the Chinese government was willing to use. This is the source of criticism of China from population advocates who argued China needs to more strictly enforce the one-child policy. Finally, the one-child policy and the successful resistance to it should give pause to claims made in Western nations that there are up to 500,000 "missing" girls in China. The usual claim is that the "missing" girl phenomenon is caused by infanticide. In fact a far more likely explanation is that Chinese couples systematically fail to report the birth of girls. In addition, girls in China, like girls in much of the developing world, receive far less attention and resources than boys. As a result the sex ratio of infant deaths in China averaged 114 over the 1980s (Jinyi, 1996, p.16-7). This low ratio suggests that girls receive less care and attention than boys in many Chinese homes, reducing the chance of survival of girls beyond their first birthday. Most importantly, this gender discrimination affects girls most adversely in the poorest areas (Jinyi, 1996, pp.16-17). CONCLUSION In conclusion, I believe that we in industrialized countries are the major cause of global ecological degradation and pollution. Overpopulation in the Third World cannot be at fault. The great difference in wealth and consumption between rich and poor countries has to be addressed. Excess population does lead to ecological destruction and it's made worse in the Third World by their access to little of the planet's resources. Each Canadian for example, consumes 16 to 20 times as much as a person in India or China and 60 to 70 times more than someone in Bangladesh. Thus we 1.1 billion people in industrialized nations have the same ecological impact as 17 billion to 77 billion Third World people. The planet certainly could not take 5.5 billion people living as we do. But if we don't cut back consumption and pollution, poorer nations can rightfully aim to emulate us. It seems as though industrialized nations don't know when enough is enough. The chairman of the U.S. Council of Economic Advisers in 1953 pronounced the ultimate goal of the American economy was "to produce more consumer goods." And they were immensely successful. The contents of the average North American home today would be the envy of kings and emperors the past. We now classify cars, televisions, telephones, refrigerators, microwave ovens and stereos as necessities. We even think of ourselves as "consumers" and "shopping" is a recreation. Consumption has become so crucial for the economy that in periods of recession, the consumer is often blamed for not spending enough while business and government seek ways to increase consumer confidence to stimulate spending. Media propaganda pounds home the message that consumption brings happiness. But possessions can't fill the emotional and spiritual needs for human relationships, community and some purpose beyond accumulation of wealth and goods. It is a fact that everything on Earth is limited. So endless increase in consumption cannot continue and will fall. But that does not mean the future must be a bleak life of denial and sacrifice. Much of our consumption is based on inefficiency and waste. We can reduce our ecological impact several fold simply by improving our efficiency. Over consumption is not a goal that society must maintain at all costs; it has become a symptom that something is wrong because no matter how much we possess, we are not fulfilled or satisfied. Our lifestyle extracts a heavy price: violence, alcoholism, burglary, vandalism, drug abuse, alienation, loneliness, pollution and disruption of family and neighborhood. Making do with less and designing a future that is based in communities with greater self-reliance and self-sufficiency makes ecological and social sense. But we won't get started until we stop trying to shift the responsibility elsewhere. REFERENCES Buchanan R (1976) The World of Man, Longman, London. Characteristics of women who obtain induced abortion: a worldwide review. Akinrinola Bankole, Susheela Singh and Taylor Hass, Family Planning Perspectives, v.25, No.2, June 1999. Graeme E and Boyle P (2002) "Population crises: from the Global to the Local" pp. 198-25 in Johnston R, Taylor P and Watts M (Eds) Geographies of Global Change: Remapping the World 2nd ed. Blackwell, Oxford. Jinyi X (1996) China as a Nation: The Facts, Oxford University Press, London. Johnston R (1984) City and Society: an Outline for Urban Geography, Hutchinson, London. Malthus, Thomas. An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798 1st edition) with A Summary View (1830). Penguin Classics. World Abortion Policies 1999. United Nations, 2000. World Bank. World development report 1998/99. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Read More