Population of China Over Time
One interesting country to examine in studying policies influencing population growth is China, which has long been most populous in the world, but has managed to curb its growth over the past 50 years. China's population has been growing at a declining rate since 1967, the approximate inflection point on the graph shown above. China may be one of the countries in which public policy has had the greatest impact on population, having had in place a one-child policy for 36 years. However, attributing the state of China's population to this one policy would be an oversimplification. The government had engaged in less formal population controls since the 1960s, which explains the fact that in the graph above, population growth began to decline 12 years before the official one-child policy took effect in 1979. Still, China's population is no longer rising at as rapid a rate as it had been 50 years ago, supporting the idea that public policy has been successful in curbing population growth, accounting for demographic changes like the rise in median age shown to the right.
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Median Age of China Over Time |
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Although policies meant to aggressively control population in China may have been effective in fulfilling that purpose, they have also had dramatic social ramifications. In addition to the loss of personal freedom associated with controlling the number of children someone can have, penalties for failing to adhere to government guidelines were severe. Enforcement often resulted in forced abortions and in some cases infanticide, and women who had multiple children would in some cases be subjected to forced sterilization. Additionally, some families desiring male children would abort fetuses determined to be female so that their only child would be of their preferred sex. This may have contributed to China now having a sex ratio of 1.06 men per woman.
![Picture](/uploads/9/4/8/6/9486339/published/desmos-graph-5.png?1509924885)
Another country with a history of strongly enforcing policies to control population is Romania. However, Romania's aim was not to curb population growth, but to raise its population. Under the Communist regime of Nicolae Ceausescu, Romania enforced natalist policies to raise birth rates. Abortions, common in the country, were banned in almost all situations, and importation of any kind of contraception was restricted. Taxes were imposed on single and childless people, and the government also made it much more difficult to for a couple to get divorced. Rewards were given to women who gave birth to many children. These policies went away with the end of Ceausescu's regime in 1989, and all population trends were reversed. The graph shown to the left models two separate logistic regressions of Romania's population, one of 1955-1990, and one of 1990-present, showing the clear reversal in demographic trends with the removal of these policies. This reversal demonstrates one example of how populations can respond to the removal of policies to control them, elastically bouncing back to their previous state. It is unclear if policies to curb population growth will have a similar rebound to old patterns, given the lack of any other country in history to have had campaigns to slow down growth on the scale of China's.
![Picture](/uploads/9/4/8/6/9486339/published/desmos-graph-6.png?1509937308)
Although the social ramifications of strict policies to control population are high, it would be unfair to discuss those without touching on the opposite, countries where overpopulation is rampant. Nigeria, which has consistently been growing exponentially with an increase of approximately 2.6% per year over the past 60 years, is growing faster than any other country of a comparable size. Fertility rates have declined slightly in that time, but a decrease in infant mortality has counteracted that. In the absence of government policies meant to control population, use of birth control has not yet become widespread in Nigeria, with a contraceptive prevalence rate of 20.4%. This number, which refers to the percent of women using birth control of any kind, is relatively low compared to most of Europe and the Americas, where it often exceeds 60%. Nigeria's population is on track to in coming years exceed what current availability of food and health care will be able to provide for, and a lack of access to birth control may be contributing to that problem.
While Nigeria lacks a history of policies to explicitly control the population similar to China and Romania, one of the most useful tools would be to increase access to all forms of birth control, on an entirely voluntary basis. Doing so would present a way for people in countries like Nigeria to not have children, for which access is currently limited. Increasing access of tools for voluntary family planning would likely raise the contraceptive prevalence rate to a number closer to countries with more stable population sizes. While a dramatic shift would likely not immediately be as visible, increasing voluntary access to birth control does not break the same ethical barriers as more drastic measures like those taken be China.
Data and information from:
worldometers.com
http://countrystudies.us
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2258.html#ni
http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/martinwhyte/fils/challenging_myths_published_version.pdf?m=1435870726
worldometers.com
http://countrystudies.us
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2258.html#ni
http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/martinwhyte/fils/challenging_myths_published_version.pdf?m=1435870726