Explosion or Implosion of the Global Population?
- Leon van Gelder
- Mar 7
- 4 min read
Overpopulation is imminent and is leading to extreme famines. This old term reemerged in 1986 in a famous book called The Population Bomb by Paul Ehrlich. He predicted that a massive famine and subsequent ecological problems would come in the next twenty years, arguing that food production and general resources could no longer keep up with the rapidly increasing global population. Ehrlich was wrong in two ways: Firstly, food production skyrocketed in the so-called “Green Revolution” during the next twenty years. It was caused by mechanization, increased crop variety, and higher usage of chemical fertilizers. Secondly, birth rates declined due to various reasons. Some of the most important are women obtaining better and longer-lasting education, waiting more before having children and having better access to contraception.
The other reason why Ehrlich’s prediction did not materialize is underpopulation. In particular, not enough working-age citizens to uphold the benefits for their elders and children. Extremely developed countries can encounter this when birth rates drop combined with an increase in life expectancy and the size of the elderly population. This puts enormous stress on working-age citizens since they pay for all the facilities and institutions that non-working-age citizens use. As they are so busy working, they lack time and resources to raise children, causing the birth rate to drop even lower and creating less economic activity. But is that really a bad thing? Or do we just value other things such as happiness, education, and sustainability more?
You might ask yourself what does this have to do with politics. Well, it is really important to know how politicians perceive the population they represent. Furthermore, it is important to ask ourselves what we value in society. Is it pure economic growth and nothing else? I do not think so. I think other things, such as sustainability, are also quite important. This is connected to the “Later, Longer, Fewer” policy implemented in 1971 in China. After extremely rapid population growth under Mao Zedong, Chinese policymakers deemed it unsustainable. They started to search for a fix to the food shortages and poverty caused by this massive increase. They did this by imposing restrictions on women, forcing them to wait more before having children until later in their lives and enforcing bigger gaps between births. A cap for the number of children a woman could have was set at two. In 1979, the policymakers, still fearing economic downturn implemented the “ One Child Policy”, decreasing the cap to one child only. We now know that this policy has had horrible consequences in the long term.
Only in 2016 did Chinese authorities stop the One Child Policy and even made a 180 on the subject, now encouraging families to have more children. The reason for this is the aging retired population, who put economic and social pressure on the working population to keep up unsustainable work pressure. China is not the only well-developed country to try to boost its birth rates. The most well-known examples are Japan and Sweden. Japan started doing so back in 1980, introducing pro-child policies, such as attracting young immigrants and encouraging men to take on bigger responsibilities in helping raise children. This would in turn cause women to have more children because they can have more time and be less stressed. Most of these policies have largely been unsuccessful and unable to break the negative circle of young women and men being more worried about their own careers and housing than that of their (potential) children. We should, however not blame these young people for making choices since they are practically forced to do so due to urbanization and the social norms in Japan.
The question now remains: How should policymakers and society at large respond to these insecurities about becoming too overpopulated or underpopulated? I think it depends on the economic situation in the country. It would be logical if a country is still severely underdeveloped it needs as many people as it can to try to boost its economic productivity. They then can use this increased economic activity to develop by investing in education and healthcare. But the problem is that it will always result in either a baby boom later down the line or massive civil unrest and emigration. If the country manages to develop, it will later be stuck with an enormous elderly population, with Japan being a prime example. Alternatively, it can spiral into civil unrest and mass emigration if it fails to achieve economic progress.
To conclude, I want to state that both underpopulation and overpopulation in a single country are mostly overstated. They can both be fixed with societal and policy changes. In the case of underpopulation, migration can be encouraged, R&D investments, and most importantly redefining underpopulation. If the population and economic activity shrink, while other, in my opinion, more important metrics (like happiness, health, and education) go up, should that be given a negative term such as underpopulation? Furthermore, it is not an issue if a population increases as long as the country can maintain its sustainability through, for example, green policies. Instead of using resources purely to improve soft and hard power, they should be used to promote sustainability, education, and equality, ultimately solving any underpopulation or overpopulation threats.
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