Population (What is It Good For?)

In 2011, the global population reached 7 billion. Environmentalists, demographers and experts in development and public health renewed calls to regulate population growth in order to reduce poverty and conserve the world's resources for future generations. At the same time, China's one child policy, arguably one of the world's most well--known population control policies, has faced mounting criticism in light of recent evidence of highly coercive practices. The study of population is not limited to the jurisdiction of demography, a discipline concerned with the calculation and prediction of population growth and decline. Rather, the measurement of population is a deeply political process that determines the allocation of resources within society. Policymakers and their expert advisors in health, environment and the economy draw on demographic data to develop policies designed to regulate population such as access to contraception and abortion, work/family benefits, the regulation of assisted reproductive technology (ART) and adoption, and fertility incentives or disincentives. This class uses a feminist approach to trace the emergence of population science as a form of social regulation. We will examine how ideologies of race and gender have shaped historical and contemporary population discourse and policy around the world. We will identify and critique various phases in global population discourse and goals articulated by the United Nations, from the end of the colonial era to the Millennium Development Goals of 2000. Throughout the course, we will pay attention to the intersection between global and national population discourse and the everyday meanings and practices related to fertility and reproduction in women's lives. We will also investigate how population policies and technologies create new reproductive opportunities and constraints that are inextricably linked to broader gender and economic inequities between the global North and South. This course embraces a multi--disciplinary approach to studying population, drawing on literature from sociology, anthropology, political science, history, human rights, demography and epidemiology. Course objectives:

Evidence from Ancient texts and contemporary common sense defy our attitude towards overpopulation. Time to get our minds right over our numbers.

Conservation Biology, 1999

Third World Quarterly, 1994

Real-World Economics Review, 2020

There is no doubt that the climate change and the unequal distribution of income (and wealth) are the two major problems of our time with tragic consequences if we fail to deal with them in time and in the right way. However, the general public is either not interested or not informed or feels powerless and therefore indifferent and inactive. In recent worldwide demonstrations it is estimated that four million people participated which is only one in two thousand and, among the young generation, two in a thousand. Scientists, and among them economists and ecologists, predict that in the next decades, if we remain inactive, dramatic changes with tragic consequences, such as natural catastrophes, famines, wars, local conflicts, social unrest and even extinction of the human race within the next one hundred years (Fenner, reported by Firth, 2010) will take place. The ideas suggested by economists and ecologists to cope with the two problems mentioned above have usually been grouped in four action plans, namely New Economics, Green Growth, Degrowth and Steady State Economy. Sometimes they are referred to as theories or hypotheses but these are misnomers because they refer to the future and they cannot be tested empirically. The purpose of this paper is to comment on the above policy plans, to defend the steady state economy (SSE) proposal and suggest a variation of it that will make the implied policy plan more viable. It is intended as a constructive contribution to Herman Daly’s perspective by introducing in the steady state economy the condition of population stability at the optimal size.

2008

Demographers are an insular group. Although often located in departments of sociology or economics, at least in North America, their focus is often tightly trained on very specific issues within their discipline. Despite that, demography has been more involved in the formation and implementation of social policy than most of the social sciences; yet, the demographic literature contains rather few analyses of the relationship between demographic research and the institutions which promoted and executed population policies. It has taken an historian, Matthew Connelly, to write a history of the campaign to reduce fertility and control the growth of the human population. It is harsh reading for demographers. Some of the most famous individuals and leading institutions of our discipline come in for stinging criticism. But it is a story that all demographers and, indeed, any social scientist concerned about the relationship between research and social policy would do well to read. Connelly has written a sweeping history of efforts aimed at controlling the world's population in the twentieth century based not only on extensive archival research-the staple of historical scholarship-but also on interviews with some of the leading figures. It is a tendentious history that he is written. Connelly is not interested in simply cataloguing the various efforts at fertility reduction but in exposing what he believes was the arrogance and misguided ideas that drove the family planning programs supported by such institutions as USAID, UNFPA, and the International Planned Parenthood Federation. At the core of all these efforts, he argues, was the sense that those directing the programs knew the interests of the poor and illiterate better than they did themselves. The result was programs in which the end-control over world population

Egyptian STEM schools, 2020

Over-population is a great Problem for many countries. This research looks into all possible solutions for this problem. World population has jumped from about 2.5 billion in 1951 to 7.8 billion in April 2020 , 212% increase. Over-population has been an issue for many countries especially in Africa, as Africa has the highest fertility rate ,children per woman, and Africans are low on resources especially for those who live in the middle of Africa ,in other words, near the equator, Because of its hot weather and being low on water, it is optimum environment for spreading diseases and droughts which its direct relation to overpopulation was later discovered resulting in lack of resources and slowness of economy development. Human Resources management has important terminology which need to be understood before getting into our main topic: fertility rate is the average children per woman, birth rate is the average number of children born per year and death rate is the number of deaths per year, natural change is the birth rate minus the death rate . Social Scientists have many theories on what causes over-population, Some suggest that poverty is the main cause of over-population as it is seen in most poor countries like in Africa unlike rich countries in Europe. They suggest that families try to overcome their poor condition by having more children. But other scientists argue that it can be correlation and something else is causing both of them. They suggest that it is a high death rates. Also, through comparing between poor Countries and rich Countries, it can be notice that in poor countries, death rates are high as of that most families give birth to many children. There are other suggested causes like lack of education and child labor. Over-population can cause many serious problems especially for poor countries. For example, It can cause lack of water in developing countries because as the population grow, water consumption increases. For countries that do not have a fresh stable water source, This can lead to droughts and lower life expectancy. Also, population growth could cause Extinction of wild life and pollution because forests and natural environments for various animals are cut down to free more space for buildings and cities. green house effect was learned in (CH.2.11) about and learned In (ES.2.10) about the role of plants in stabilizing the carbon dioxide percentage and the role of forest in keeping biodiversity in (BI.2.12). For These reasons, Countries tried to solve this issue, because of its significant impact on the economy and the productivity. Some of these solutions were the “one-child-policy” and “two-child-policy” tried by China to control population growth using the law. The Results of them were very fast. Other places tried to control over-population by focusing on education especially for girls like in Europe in the 19 th century. To conclude, This research will focus on these prior solutions and others and discuss why they work.

Depopulation Notes for an essay written between 150618 and 150630 In order to make the Ginestet entire effort for peace and complexity governance understood to those who do still not understand its meaning or are reticent, Ginestet is using two sources to make it easy to understand why an effort towards peace makes sense for the reader: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeufX6S-Q_s and http://www.paulchefurka.ca/Sustainability.html Ginestet wishes to make clear that -even though Ginestet agrees with the logical reasoning of both- he does not share the views of any of both Michael Ruppert or Bodhi Paul Chefurka regarding how the future needs to be envisaged. To start with Ginestet explains some differences between his or other different assessments of complexity.