A growing population means increasing pressure on critical resources, tightening environmental constraints and widespread poverty. The widening gap between rich and poor is creating extreme inequalities in access to and control over resources, including knowledge and opportunity.
Population is not the only deplete resources and a parameter of a country’s development. In counties where the factors contributing to population growth far outweigh the factors for development, the population is no longer a resort, but a burden on society. A population growth is a serious obstacle to development efforts.
A couple of centuries ago, large families were the fashion. Mothers wanted to bear as many children - mainly children - as possible. The reason was economic in nature. Many hands are needed to work on farms. The more we have hands, the most profitable exploitation. There was also another reason for the desirability of large families. The infant mortality rate was quite high and also, not many people live to ripe old ages as they do today. In many countries the highest life expectancy was less than thirty years.
At present, both the above reasons for large families have been eliminated. Modern medicine is assured, at least in the more developed countries, that the infant mortality rate is low. Fewer children die and most of them live to become adults. For the adults also life expectancy is high. With better living conditions and health, many men and women of today are living beyond six decades. All this simply means that the world’s population continues to grow rapidly while declining resources to follow all the time.
The incentives that are directly and indirectly relevant to parents who want to have or not have children are considered together with effective techniques to persuade parents to limit family size. It is essential to determine attitudes toward parents who have too many children and to find practical ways to change these attitudes in the direction of population control.
Scientists warn us repeatedly that there is a time of severe food shortages on the horizon. Food production is increasing very slowly compared with rapid population growth. It is feared that has come a time when it may not be enough food for the survival of the masses.
The question can be asked whether it would be possible to have more food production. Unfortunately, this frees another serious problem. To increase food production, farmland must be increased. This means the destruction of precious woods. This is an extreme sacrifice, and causing terrible damage as the greenhouse effect and El Niño affect it, since it is creating an enormous chaos to the world of time.
To avoid serious environmental problems, we must stop the destruction of nature. If we do not create more food, then market forces will cause food prices to rise - perhaps to really unrealistic heights. That would mean less food available to more and more people. This will trigger another round of health problems. Countries that have problems of food shortages will have to take all sorts of ways to feed people. This may include war and the return to the cave-dweller days of survival of the fittest.
Certainly all the problems that must be prevented from ever rising. In any country, rapid population growth represents an unreasonable burden on available resources. Obviously it would be almost impossible to solve them once they begin to make its impact felt. The most practical way to prevent problems seems to be growing population control. Hence, population control is essential for the survival of the human race.