Overpopulation Dilemma

China’s One Child Policy

China development planners during the 1970s realize they faced one huge crucial problem when they were mapping out China’s future development. In 1970 China already had an enormous population of 829.9 million and had a population growth rate of 33.43(per 1000 people). Officials and government planners in the Chinese government knew that they would not have enough food or natural resources if the growth rate continued at this pace. For their government was already massively stressed trying to manage and support its massive population. One reason for China’s enormous population and growth rate was its dependence on agriculture. This was further stress under Mao’s Communist government during the Great Leap Forward and the transfer of people into communal farms. The majority of people in China during this time period were peasants located in rural China were they worked on farms in small villages. The hardship of this lifestyle made it incredibly important to have a large family due to several reasons. One reason for this is because having a large family meant having a large workforce to work with the land with. Another reason for this is that it ensured the survival of the family and that there bloodline would continue. Strong emphasis was placed in Chinese culture in having sons rather than daughter because they were more physically fit to work the land. Along with the fact that it would be the sons who would eventually take care of the parents due to the fact that daughters would move away to get married.

Thus the one child policy program was introduced into China during 1978 to help combat this crisis. It stated that the majority ethnic Hans couples were only allowed to have one child, while allowing exemptions for several cases, including rural couples, ethnic minorities, and if the first child was born with disability. This development program was carried out by the Chinese national government but it was enforced at the local level. People were coerce into obeying the policy due to several reasons; such as being fine thousands of dollars or being shunned from jobs if they did not comply. Repeat offenders were subject to forced abortions, sterilization and taking the child away from the family. It is estimated that the one child policy from 1978 to 2009 has prevented over 250 million births in China that would have been 250 million more people to take care of.

I would argue that similar population control methods while negative is needed in many countries around the world; such as in countries like India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Congo, Bangladesh, Uganda. While I understand the topic is highly controversial and that it is seen by a large amount of people in a negative light. I suggest that it is a necessary evil if the human species is going to continue to survive into future. This is because governments around the world are already taxed enough with trying to provide with their population, and with their high growth rate this would further tax their system. The world population is already at 7 billion people, the U.N estimates that it will hit 8 billion by the middle 2020s. With the world’s population continuing to increase, demand for natural resources will increasing become harder to satiate. For example resources like petroleum and fish stocks are rapidly depleting and if not carefully managed will out run out within a couple generations.

Due to this a large amount of conflict in the world has risen from the overpopulation dilemma and will only intensify as the human population continues to massively grow. Land and resource conflicts are becoming more common as countries and people try to find increasing limited space around the world. For example the conflict in the Amazon rainforest between the native Indians living in the forest and the farmers/ logging companies highlights this problem. Farmers are finding it harder to acquire open fertile land in Brazil so they are resorting to cutting and burning down the rain forest in which these native Indians live. The loggers as well are running out of unprotected forest from which to gather timber and with massive demand for timber are turning to cutting down the rainforest for their timber.

A number of theorists have already argued for more countries around the world to adopt population control methods. Thomas Malthus was one of the first major scholars to argue this concept in his book “An Essay on the Principle of Population”. In this book Malthus argued that the human population would outgrow the pace at which the human population could grow food. His solution to population problems were two kinds of checks, preventive and positive checks. Positive checks are things like war, famines and disease that help bring the human population down. Cleary positive checks are thrown out as they are too extreme and would hurt more people than it would help. Preventive checks are things like contraceptives, abstinence and abortions that prevent more people from being born into the population. Preventive checks could be more easily applied in the world to slow down the global population rate to manageable levels.

These are already widespread in first world countries and I proposed that a major effort be made to make it more widespread in the rest of the world. More funding could be sent to the WHO to make it easier and cheaper to get birth control in 2^nd and 3^rd world countries. Aid money could also be used to better educate the masses on why it is necessary and beneficial to use it. Or an IGO could be setup to handle this task. While I realize that culture is a huge barrier to this, with more education I believe that cultures will come to the realization that it more beneficial to use birth control methods rather than preserving their culture. A major example of this would be the Roman Catholic Church with their change on their stance on the issue of using condoms. Pope Benedict XVI has come out in favor of condoms and now endorses their use of them.

Another solution to this dilemma is that the U.N could set up a reward system for countries that have population issues to lower their growth rate in exchange for more aid. For example India could get a certain amount of money for development projects if they bring down their growth rate from 1.41 % to .5%. This way it encourages countries with enormous populations to lower their growth to more sustainable levels and would be reward with money they could use to support this sustainable growth. This would obviously be a transnational global effort to solve this dilemma and would obviously undergo a lot of scrutiny, but there are also things individual states can do on their own countries. For example they could put a limit on the number of children a family can have or perhaps they place a tax for families going over a certain number of children. It would still be greatly beneficial to individual states to reduce their population growth because it would ease the strain place on their natural resources and welfare system.

This is an issue that cannot be ignored by the world for much longer, as it is a driving force behind numerous global issues. In a couple decades humanity success will be largely dictated by the decisions or indecisions we make today concerning population growth. I am curious to see if there is any grassroots citizen’s movement that could perhaps attempt to deal with this dilemma? If so would it be better suited to deal with this developmental issue than individual states or transnational system? However, the major question is to see if the global population will become more willing to implement these policies or if they are still stuck in the old mind set. Then I would propose that more research be done on how governments can convince there populations that these measure are not only beneficial but necessary for the future of the human population.