How does population control work?
Population control may involve culling, translocation, or manipulation of the reproductive capability. The growth of a population may be limited by environmental factors such as food supply or predation.
How can we control population growth? Methods used to control wildlife populations include hunting/culling, reintroducing predators, and sterilisation/neutering. Methods to control the human population include increased access to contraception, family planning, wealth redistribution, and one-child policies.
Population control may use one or more of the following practices although there are other methods as well: contraception. abstinence. medical abortion.
The United States is the world's largest donor to both maternal health and family planning programs. The U.S. does not endorse population “stabilization” or “control.” The “ideal” family size should be determined by the desires of couples, not governments. The U.S. strongly opposes coercive population programs.
Rank | Methods of Population Control |
---|---|
1 | Child Tax |
2 | Contraception |
3 | Infant Mortality Decrease |
4 | One-child policies |
One of the most obvious ways to decrease population is for people to have fewer children. In countries where babies and young children are less likely to survive into adulthood, it is more common for families to have a larger number of children.
FREY: No, the US isn't dealing with a shrinking population like China. I think we're going to continue to have growth, but much slower growth. These last few years, the pandemic created very slow growth, almost flat growth.
- Generously fund family planning programs.
- Make modern contraception legal, free and available everywhere, even in remote areas.
- Improve health care to reduce infant and child mortality.
- Restrict child marriage and raise the legal age of marriage (minimum 18 years)
These countries include China, Kenya, Pakistan, Taiwan, Turkey, Egypt, and Chile. In the United States, aspects of the population question, such as birth control and abortion, are among the most bitterly debated subjects.
Abstract. Population control, as a major international development strategy, is a relatively recent phenomenon. However, its origins reach back to social currents in the 19th and early 20th centuries, culminating in an organized birth control movement in Europe and the United States.
Which US states are losing population?
Change in population, 2020 to 2022
Idaho, Montana and Florida saw the most population growth, while New York, Illinois and Louisiana saw the most decline.
Earth's capacity
Many scientists think Earth has a maximum carrying capacity of 9 billion to 10 billion people.

In CBO's projections, the U.S. population increases from 336 million people in 2023 to 373 million people in 2053. Population growth is increasingly driven by net immigration, which accounts for all population growth beginning in 2042.
'Population control' causes real harm, upholds white supremacy, and suppresses the real issues causing the climate crisis. We must be critical of harmful narratives that undermine justice and human rights under the guise of environmentalism.
Rank | Country | Date of Information |
---|---|---|
1 | Syria | 2023 est. |
2 | South Sudan | 2023 est. |
3 | Niger | 2023 est. |
4 | Burundi | 2023 est. |
one-child policy, official program initiated in the late 1970s and early '80s by the central government of China, the purpose of which was to limit the great majority of family units in the country to one child each. The rationale for implementing the policy was to reduce the growth rate of China's enormous population.
Yes, for two main reasons. First, people are rapidly displacing wildlife species across the globe, initiating a mass extinction event.
In just 30 years, the world will look very different. Since 1950, the global population has grown from 2.5 billion to more than 7.7 billion. By 2050, however, that number is projected to reach just 9.7 billion.
Population growth could grind to a halt by 2050, before decreasing to as little as 6 billion humans on Earth in 2100, a new analysis of birth trends has revealed.
Under the lower-immigration scenario, the population would rise to 384 million in 2050, and new immigration would account for 71% of growth during the projections period. Under the higher-immigration scenario, the population would go up to 496 million, and new immigration would account for 87% of the increase.
Why is the US population so high?
Immigration provided a demographic boost for states. Compared to the previous year, net immigration from abroad rose in each state and the District of Columbia. This added to population gains in states that also drew large numbers of domestic (within-U.S.) migrants, such as Texas and Florida.
The U.S. birthrate is down sharply from 15 years ago, as women report that economic and social obstacles are causing them to have fewer children than they want. The number of babies born in the U.S. started plummeting 15 years ago and hasn't recovered since.
Our growing population
The global human population reached 8.0 billion in mid-November 2022 from an estimated 2.5 billion people in 1950, adding 1 billion people since 2010 and 2 billion since 1998.
Anxious that rapid population growth would strain the country's welfare systems and state-planned economy, the Chinese state began limiting how many children families could have in the late 1970s. The limit in most cases was just one child.
Population growth is a key driver of emissions, shortage of food, water and other resources, pollution, biodiversity loss, and disease emergence and spread.
Under the policy, those with more than two children will not be able to get government jobs or avail benefi ts like government housing or contest local body elections. ET Magazine takes a look at other such restrictions imposed by countries across the world and also incentives offered for people to have more kids.
China is forecast to lose almost half of its people by 2100, plunging from more than 1.4 billion to 771 million inhabitants. Russia, Germany, South Korea and Spain are all set to join this downward movement, with their populations beginning to decline by 2030.
In 1800, Earth had approximately 1 billion inhabitants, which rose to 2.3 billion in 1940, then 3.7 billion in 1970, and approximately 7.5 billion today. In the last five decades, Earth has experienced an extreme population boom.
In 1966, U.S. President Lyndon Johnson made foreign aid dependent on countries adopting population control. In 1969, President Richard Nixon established a separate Office of Population within USAID and gave it a $50 million annual budget.
What are the disadvantages of population control?
Cons of Population Control Bill:
families with more than two children can result in more sex-selective abortions. China also witnessed increased female foeticide incidents during the time of the one-child policy. So, that may happen in India too.
Florida is the fastest-growing state in America for the first time since 1957, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The population in the southeastern state, which is known for its warm weather and sandy beaches, now tops 22 million.
Population Losses
New York City continued to exhibit the largest numeric decline, losing 123,104 people from 2021 to 2022.
- Georgetown, Texas—14.4% (July 2021-July 2022)
- Santa Cruz, California—12.5%
- Kyle, Texas—10.9%
- Leander, Texas—10.9%
- Little Elm, Texas—8%
- Westfield, Indiana—7.7%
- Queen Creek, Arizona—6.7%
- North Port, Florida—6.6%
Remarkably, life on Earth only has a billion or so years left. There is some uncertainty in the calculations, but recent results suggest 1.5 billion years until the end. That is a much shorter span of time than the five billion years until the planet is engulfed by the Sun.
Based on known risks, the really cataclysmic ones, those that might exterminate us as a species, are fairly rare. Based on what we know today, it would be very unlikely that we wouldn't be around in the year 3000. There certainly would be bad times, but some of us would get through it. That leaves unknown risks.
Geographer Chris Tucker estimates that 3 billion is a sustainable number, provided human societies rapidly deploy less harmful technologies and best management practices. Other estimates of a sustainable global population also come in at considerably less than the current population of 8 billion.
Florida (318,855), Texas (230,961), and the Carolinas – North Carolina (99,796) and South Carolina (84,030) – were the states with the most net domestic migration gains in 2022. Positive net domestic migration and positive net international migration significantly boosted population growth in these areas.
Illinois' rural counties losing people at faster rates in 2022. Statewide, population decline has been driven entirely by domestic migration – residents moving out. The same is largely true at the county level. Of the 91 counties to lose population, 80 of them (88%) also experienced domestic outmigration.
United Nations projections
The UN Population Division report of 2022 projects world population to continue growing after 2050, although at a steadily decreasing rate, to peak at 10.4 billion in 2086, and then to start a slow decline to about 10.3 billion in 2100 with a growth rate at that time of -0.1%.
Why is uncontrolled human population a problem?
Rapid population growth makes it more difficult for low-income and lower-middle-income countries to commit sufficient resources to improving the health and education of their populations.
While many assume population decline would inevitably harm the economy, researchers found that lower fertility rates would not only result in lower emissions by 2055, but a per capita income increase of 10 percent. Lower fertility rates also typically signal an increase in gender equality.
Africans represented 9% of the world population in 1960, but will increase to 19% around 2025. The rapid population growth is the result of declining mortality since the 1950s unmatched by changes in fertility.
China currently holds the number one spot on this list. But the population of India is expected to surpass that of China's by later this year, eventually reaching a total of 1.67 billion in 2050.
On a percentage basis, all 10 countries that are projected to experience the biggest growth in population by 2100 are in Africa, led by Niger (581% increase), Angola (473%) and Tanzania (378%).
According to Policy Brief No. 153 from the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA), entitled “India overtakes China as the world's most populous country”, between 2023 and 2050, the number of persons aged 65 or over is expected to nearly double in China and to increase by more than double in ...
Overpopulation in China began after World War II in 1949, when Chinese families were encouraged to have as many children as possible in hopes of bringing more money to the country, building a better army, and producing more food.
Population control in the early 1980s, when the one-child policy was first implemented, is to blame for the decreasing numbers. China is establishing new cities – In order to curb the expanding population and desire for modern, urban lifestyles, China has taken to constructing new metropolitan areas.
Falling Mortality Rate
The primary (and perhaps most obvious) cause of population growth is an imbalance between births and deaths. The infant mortality rate has decreased globally, with 4.1 million infant deaths in 2017 compared to 8.8 million in 1990, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Natural control will be taken to mean that regula- tion of the numbers of a natural population which keeps them within the limits of a more or less clearly definable though often very wide range of abundance.
How can we overcome overpopulation?
- Empower women. Studies show that women with access to reproductive health services find it easier to break out of poverty, while those who work are more likely to use birth control. ...
- Promote family planning. ...
- Make education entertaining. ...
- Government incentives. ...
- 5) One-child legislation.
: having a lower density of population than is normal or desirable.
- Birth.
- Death.
- Migration.
PIP: In 1949, Mao Zedong encouraged the Chinese to have many children, continuing traditional practices. Other factors that contributed to high fertility at the time (1949-1957) were 1) social and economic conditions and 2) the high demand for manual labor.
Abstract. Population control, as a major international development strategy, is a relatively recent phenomenon. However, its origins reach back to social currents in the 19th and early 20th centuries, culminating in an organized birth control movement in Europe and the United States.