What can we do?
Before a plan is formulated to take action to curb the growth rate of our global population, we must first understand what factors are causing the population of the world to grow so fast and which factors can be dealt with realistically; two of the largest factors include fertility rates and average lifespans. According to the United Nations World Population Prospects, the total fertility rate worldwide from 1950 to 2010 has declined drastically and is projected to decline even more into the future.
![Picture](/uploads/9/4/8/6/9486339/published/screenshot-2017-11-06-at-20-31-16.png?250)
Note: For the world to maintain its population, the fertility rate should be 2.0, as women make up approximately half of the world’s population
This is what fertility rate looks like around the world by region:
![Picture](/uploads/9/4/8/6/9486339/published/tfr-2010-2015-world-map.png?1510020658)
After looking at these two graphs, it became pretty clear that some countries, such as the United States, China, and Japan all have ideal fertility rates that keep the population relatively stable (less than 2.1), while some countries such as Uganda, Ethiopia, and the Congo all have drastically higher fertility rates (greater than 2.5).
These drastically differing growth rates extrapolated from fertility rates are reflected in the following graph from Google, which pulled its information from World Bank:
The three countries on the top, Uganda, the Congo, and Ethiopia, all have far higher population growth rates than the United States, China, and Japan. The main differences between these countries is their wealth, and thus their contraceptive prevalence and education rate. It makes sense that poorer countries are less capable of providing sources for contraception and education that richer ones. This is reflected in the following graphs created on Desmos; we chose random countries from all over the world and graphed their rate of student's persistence to the end of their secondary school career (x-axis) vs their population growth rate (y-axis). All data is the most recent available.
Equation: y = -0.049x + 5.43
r² = 0.70
There is a clear correlation between rate of education, in this case measured by persistence to the last grade, and population growth rate. This makes sense, as people who have been in a school system are more educated and are more likely to make smarter decisions than those who have not. People who have been through sex education classes in a school are especially less likely to make bad decisions when it comes to sex. In places such as Africa, where contraceptives are viewed negatively, education on these subjects could increase usage of contraception. Furthermore, students in school are more preoccupied than those who aren’t and are less likely to cause unplanned pregnancy.
Education is also the backbone of future generations and the economy. A better education leads to more educated workers and a more productive working class. Providing a better education to people in developing countries could go a long way towards improving conditions in the long term, especially when it comes to reducing the poverty rate and increasing medical facilities. Both these factors affect population growth significantly.
The next graph shows the relationship between prevalence of contraception and population growth rate (prevalence of contraception is defined as the percentage of sexual partners who practice any form of contraception):
r² = 0.70
There is a clear correlation between rate of education, in this case measured by persistence to the last grade, and population growth rate. This makes sense, as people who have been in a school system are more educated and are more likely to make smarter decisions than those who have not. People who have been through sex education classes in a school are especially less likely to make bad decisions when it comes to sex. In places such as Africa, where contraceptives are viewed negatively, education on these subjects could increase usage of contraception. Furthermore, students in school are more preoccupied than those who aren’t and are less likely to cause unplanned pregnancy.
Education is also the backbone of future generations and the economy. A better education leads to more educated workers and a more productive working class. Providing a better education to people in developing countries could go a long way towards improving conditions in the long term, especially when it comes to reducing the poverty rate and increasing medical facilities. Both these factors affect population growth significantly.
The next graph shows the relationship between prevalence of contraception and population growth rate (prevalence of contraception is defined as the percentage of sexual partners who practice any form of contraception):
Equation: y = -0.037x + 3.37
r² = 0.75
In this graph, there is a clear correlation between prevalence of contraception and population growth rate. This also makes sense, since people with easy access to contraception will likely use it. This lowers fertility rate and population growth. A significant portion of pregnancies around the world are unintended; for example, in 2012, 85.3 million out of 213.4 million pregnancies were unintended. Making contraception more readily available would go a long way to lowering this total of unintended pregnancies.
r² = 0.75
In this graph, there is a clear correlation between prevalence of contraception and population growth rate. This also makes sense, since people with easy access to contraception will likely use it. This lowers fertility rate and population growth. A significant portion of pregnancies around the world are unintended; for example, in 2012, 85.3 million out of 213.4 million pregnancies were unintended. Making contraception more readily available would go a long way to lowering this total of unintended pregnancies.
Drawing from this data, it can be concluded that the most realistic and effective starting point to lower population growth is by increasing the education rate and making contraception more easily and readily available around the world. Alternate methods, such as a tax on births, has too many flaws to be realistic, as it disproportionately affects the poor and creates a massive problem in the future in which the elderly and retired drastically outnumber their adult children, creating a huge financial dependency on the middle age group and the government. Furthermore, many people believe that giving birth and deciding the size of one’s family is a human right, a belief affirmed in the International Conference on Human Rights. However, humans cannot control every factor in population growth. One example of this is sub-Saharan Africa, it is part of their culture to have large families. This is shown in data from the Demographic and Health Surveys Program (DHS) which shows that women in sub-Saharan Africa want to have roughly five children; in areas such as Chad and Niger, that figure jumps to eight. Religious beliefs and poverty are other examples of factors that are tough to control.
Ways that anyone can act include going to public school meetings and attempting to convince the school to mandate sex education in their curriculum. Researches at the University of Washington in Seattle have found that teenagers who received sex education were 60 percent less likely to get pregnant or someone else pregnant. Lessons learned from sex education classes stick with students for the rest of their lives and can help reduce unintended pregnancies. People can also organize into groups to lobby for sex education in schools and support family planning organizations such as Planned Parenthood by donating, as Planned Parenthood is an organization that offers contraception and education on sex as well. Helping to raise awareness for education in developing countries and getting people to donate would help as well; websites such as educationafrica.org allow people to donate easily for this cause.
There are several ways in which people can help increase the availability of contraception worldwide. One can start off by voting for politicians who support making contraception more widely available. People can also spread awareness for the needs for contraception, which would help it become a problem that is more focused on and more likely to be dealt with. More publicity for the population growth problem would certainly cause more people to donate to potential solutions, such as contraception. Lobbying for your government to donate forms of contraception to developing countries where it is less abundant can also be effective. This happened in July of 2017, in which Ulla Tornaes, Minister for Development in Copenhagen, Denmark, said that the department would donate 14 million dollars to family planning programs that offer contraception in developing countries. If enough attention is given to the problem of global population growth, many other governments around the world could feel compelled to donate money for contraception. Joining a group that lobbies for government action on population growth could go a long way. Providing contraception to developing countries wouldn’t cost an unfathomable or unrealistic amount of money either; the UN estimates that there are 215 million women in developing countries who want to avoid pregnancy but don’t have birth control. It would cost only 3.5 billion dollars to provide contraception to these women, a fraction of the 134.8 billion dollars spent on developing countries as a whole.
So what are the potential effects of increasing education rates or prevalence of contraception? The average persistence to the last grade for the world is currently 79.27%; according to the model, if we can get the average persistence to the last grade up to 93%, then the population growth rate would be a manageable 0.873 percent. The average contraceptive prevalence worldwide is currently 63.38%; if we can increase that rate to 75%, the model suggests that the population growth rate would be just 0.60%. Both of these rates would be a good first step towards reducing population growth, which is currently at 1.12 percent per year. As of October 2017, the global populations stands at 7.6 billion people; if population growth rate were to be reduced to 0.7 percent, we would reach a population of nine billion in 24 years, while if the human population continues to grow at the rate it is now, we would reach a population of nine billion in just 14 years, a ten year difference.
In conclusion, there are many ways that people and government can act on population growth. The most effective and realistic ways to combat population growth is by increasing education rate and providing better and easier access to contraception.
Ways that anyone can act include going to public school meetings and attempting to convince the school to mandate sex education in their curriculum. Researches at the University of Washington in Seattle have found that teenagers who received sex education were 60 percent less likely to get pregnant or someone else pregnant. Lessons learned from sex education classes stick with students for the rest of their lives and can help reduce unintended pregnancies. People can also organize into groups to lobby for sex education in schools and support family planning organizations such as Planned Parenthood by donating, as Planned Parenthood is an organization that offers contraception and education on sex as well. Helping to raise awareness for education in developing countries and getting people to donate would help as well; websites such as educationafrica.org allow people to donate easily for this cause.
There are several ways in which people can help increase the availability of contraception worldwide. One can start off by voting for politicians who support making contraception more widely available. People can also spread awareness for the needs for contraception, which would help it become a problem that is more focused on and more likely to be dealt with. More publicity for the population growth problem would certainly cause more people to donate to potential solutions, such as contraception. Lobbying for your government to donate forms of contraception to developing countries where it is less abundant can also be effective. This happened in July of 2017, in which Ulla Tornaes, Minister for Development in Copenhagen, Denmark, said that the department would donate 14 million dollars to family planning programs that offer contraception in developing countries. If enough attention is given to the problem of global population growth, many other governments around the world could feel compelled to donate money for contraception. Joining a group that lobbies for government action on population growth could go a long way. Providing contraception to developing countries wouldn’t cost an unfathomable or unrealistic amount of money either; the UN estimates that there are 215 million women in developing countries who want to avoid pregnancy but don’t have birth control. It would cost only 3.5 billion dollars to provide contraception to these women, a fraction of the 134.8 billion dollars spent on developing countries as a whole.
So what are the potential effects of increasing education rates or prevalence of contraception? The average persistence to the last grade for the world is currently 79.27%; according to the model, if we can get the average persistence to the last grade up to 93%, then the population growth rate would be a manageable 0.873 percent. The average contraceptive prevalence worldwide is currently 63.38%; if we can increase that rate to 75%, the model suggests that the population growth rate would be just 0.60%. Both of these rates would be a good first step towards reducing population growth, which is currently at 1.12 percent per year. As of October 2017, the global populations stands at 7.6 billion people; if population growth rate were to be reduced to 0.7 percent, we would reach a population of nine billion in 24 years, while if the human population continues to grow at the rate it is now, we would reach a population of nine billion in just 14 years, a ten year difference.
In conclusion, there are many ways that people and government can act on population growth. The most effective and realistic ways to combat population growth is by increasing education rate and providing better and easier access to contraception.
Bibliography
World Bank. “World Development Indicators.” Persistence to Grade 5 (% of Cohort), World
Bank, www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds.
Sedgh, Gilda, et al. “Intended and Unintended Pregnancies Worldwide in 2012 and Recent Trends.” Studies in Family Planning, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Sept. 2014, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4727534/table/T2/.
Wormald, Benjamin. “Chapter 1: Main Factors Driving Population Growth.” Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project, 2 Apr. 2015, www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/main-factors-driving-population-growth/.
“Unintended Pregnancy in the United States.” Guttmacher Institute, Guttmacher, 20 Sept. 2017,
www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/unintended-pregnancy-united-states.
“Teen Pregnancies Highest In States With Abstinence-Only Policies.” ThinkProgress,
thinkprogress.org/teen-pregnancies-highest-in-states-with-abstinence-only-policies-8aa0deeebb41/.
“Why Are Fertility Rates so high in Sub-Saharan Africa?” World Economic Forum,
www.globalshapers.org/agenda/2016/05/why-are-fertility-rates-so-high-in-sub-saharan-africa.
“12 Pros and Cons of China One Child Policy.” Vittana.org, 27 July 2017,
vittana.org/12-pros-and-cons-of-china-one-child-policy.
“Denmark's Contraception Aid to Africa 'to Limit Migration'.” BBC News, BBC, 12 July 2017,
www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-40588246.
Brides, Girls Not. “Ending Child Marriage Can Help Curb Population Growth.” Girls Not Brides, 1 July 2014,
www.girlsnotbrides.org/ending-child-marriage-can-help-curb-population-growth/.
“Foreign Aid Reaches Record High.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 8 Apr. 2014,
www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/apr/08/foreign-aid-spending-developing-cou
World Bank. “World Development Indicators.” Persistence to Grade 5 (% of Cohort), World
Bank, www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds.
Sedgh, Gilda, et al. “Intended and Unintended Pregnancies Worldwide in 2012 and Recent Trends.” Studies in Family Planning, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Sept. 2014, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4727534/table/T2/.
Wormald, Benjamin. “Chapter 1: Main Factors Driving Population Growth.” Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project, 2 Apr. 2015, www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/main-factors-driving-population-growth/.
“Unintended Pregnancy in the United States.” Guttmacher Institute, Guttmacher, 20 Sept. 2017,
www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/unintended-pregnancy-united-states.
“Teen Pregnancies Highest In States With Abstinence-Only Policies.” ThinkProgress,
thinkprogress.org/teen-pregnancies-highest-in-states-with-abstinence-only-policies-8aa0deeebb41/.
“Why Are Fertility Rates so high in Sub-Saharan Africa?” World Economic Forum,
www.globalshapers.org/agenda/2016/05/why-are-fertility-rates-so-high-in-sub-saharan-africa.
“12 Pros and Cons of China One Child Policy.” Vittana.org, 27 July 2017,
vittana.org/12-pros-and-cons-of-china-one-child-policy.
“Denmark's Contraception Aid to Africa 'to Limit Migration'.” BBC News, BBC, 12 July 2017,
www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-40588246.
Brides, Girls Not. “Ending Child Marriage Can Help Curb Population Growth.” Girls Not Brides, 1 July 2014,
www.girlsnotbrides.org/ending-child-marriage-can-help-curb-population-growth/.
“Foreign Aid Reaches Record High.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 8 Apr. 2014,
www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/apr/08/foreign-aid-spending-developing-cou