Reducing Fertility Essay, Research Paper

Today humanity finds itself in an ironic situation. The most fundamental principle of life is the one which now poses the greatest looming threat to its survival. The consequences of gross overpopulation are only becoming evident now as problems slowly arise, and solutions must be discovered to deal with them. However, the greater issue of overpopulation encompasses many smaller, but just as significant problems.

In the late 18th century Malthus anticipated terrible disasters resulting from population growth and a consequent imbalance in the proportion between the natural increase of population and food. At a time when there were fewer than a billion people, he was quite convinced that the period when the number of men surpass their means of subsistence has long since arrived. However, since Malthus first published his famous Essay on Population in 1798, the world population has grown nearly six times larger, while food output and consumption per person are considerably higher now, and there has been an unprecedented increase both in life expectancies and in general living standards.

The increase in the world population has grown incredibly over the last century. It took the world population millions of years to reach the first billion, then 123 years to get to the second, 33 years to the third, 14 years to the fourth, 13 years to the fifth billion, and a sixth billion soon to come in another 11 years. During the last decade, between 1980 and 1990, the number of people on earth grew by about 923 million, an increase nearly the size of the total world population in Malthus’s time.

One current worry concerns the distribution of the increase in world population, about 90 percent of which is taking place in the developing countries. The percentage rate of population growth is fastest in Africa, about 3.1 percent per year over the last decade. But most of the large increases in population occur in regions other than Africa. The largest absolute increases in numbers are taking place in Asia, which is where most of the world’s poorer people live, even though the rate of increase in population has been slowing significantly there. Of the worldwide increase of 923 million people in the 1980s, over half occurred in Asia (517 million) (including 146 million in China and 166 million in India)

Several solutions have been implemented to battle the ever-increasing population problem. Primarily these solutions have taken the form of education, for knowledge is the power to end the spread of disease. Family planning, a method which consists of counselling couples and individuals on the many aspects surrounding pregnancy and its prevention is the current strategy being employed to reduce population development. In practice family planning involves the counselling of couples and singles regarding; The benefits and disadvantages of certain birth control methods, achieving best postnatal health of the mother along with nutrition, sanitation and hygiene information, the spacing of children, breast feeding and nursing.

Besides the continual role of family planning, there are other solutions which must be implemented as well in the battle against growing global population. In the Chinese example of majority, the country felt that the growth of its population moved at such an enduring rate that the country would soon not be able to live within its own limits. This situation induced the government to provide a series of deterrents and incentives to the public with the common objective of reaching a one-child family. The success of this program proved itself not only in the reduction of the overall fertility rate, approx. 4.5 in the mid 70s to 2.6 in the 80s, and currently 2.4, but also in the improvement of economic opportunities.

It is what people do when they have some basic education, know about family planning methods and have access to them, do not readily accept a life of persistent drudgery, and are not deeply anxious about their economic security. It is also what they do when they are not forced by high infant and child mortality rates to be so worried that no child will survive to support them in their old age that they try to have many children. In country after country the birth rate has come down with more female education, the reduction of mortality rates, the expansion of economic means and security, and greater public education will have and important impact.

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