On November 15, 2022, the United Nations marked a significant milestone in human history with the announcement of the eight billionth person born on Earth. This landmark event has reignited discussions about global population growth, resource management, and the socio-economic dynamics of human life on the planet.
In the past several decades, the dynamics of global population have shifted radically. In that decade, women around the world were having an average of five children. This helped drive a population explosion the likes of which our planet has never seen. As we know, current fertility rates have changed drastically. They sit today at a fertility rate of around 2.3 children per woman, right around the replacement level necessary for long-term stable population maintenance. Projections indicate that the global birthrate will decline further to around 1.8 by the year 2100, suggesting a potential stabilization in population growth.
In reality, the world hit its first billion well into the 19th century. This figure doubled to two billion by around 1925 and doubled again to four billion by about 1975. Such exponential growth trends have historically sparked fears of a Malthusian crisis— depletion of earth’s resources and collapse of the environment. Notably, Thomas Malthus famously warned at the turn of the 19th century that “the period when the number of men surpass their means of subsistence has long since arrived.”
Discourse on the topic of population growth reached a peak with Paul and Anne Ehrlich’s popularized book “The Population Bomb” released in 1968. The authors projected dire scenarios for humanity, stating, “The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death.” Statements like these have fueled decades of fears for sustainable development, resource use, and conservation.
Based on recent research done in Malaysia, we know that the UN is probably still undercounting these currently invisible populations—in rural areas, by more than half! This mismatch may result in serious underappreciation of where acute demographic shifts are heading and what they mean for future global resource distributions. Africa will be responsible for over half of the total world increase in population over the next thirty years. Meanwhile, Latin America and Asia will make up the remaining two-fifths.
Concerns about overpopulation are really less about equations and more about assumptions based on specific groups of people. As historian Alison Bashford points out, concerns around overpopulation often just express fears about “the wrong sort of people.” This outlook moves the discussion away from transactional data to focus on equity, environmental justice, and social equity.
Around the world, population control measures focused on lowering birth rates, especially in developing countries. In 1979, China’s Communist Party instituted a one-child policy. They followed this with a province-wide, multi-year sterilization campaign. In the mid-1970s, when India experienced its own Emergency period, the Indian government undertook an aggressive program to reduce the rate of population growth. As a consequence, millions of men were sterilized.
As Jonathan Kennedy writes, today’s population control efforts are misguided. They complain too much about problems in what he terms the “majority world,” consisting largely of developing nations. This shift in focus raises critical ethical considerations regarding issues of equity and who has access to these resources. In the real world, consumption patterns vary widely on both geographic and socioeconomic levels.
We know that global dynamics are ever-changing. It is important to grasp how population growth contributes to climate change, economic inequality, and the global inequality in resource use and consumption. It’s true, Japan’s current fertility rate is 2.3. In other words, populations can expect to stop growing, but they are unlikely to fall off a cliff anytime soon without profound shifts in social norms and policies.
The political ramifications of such demographic changes are enormous. As nations grapple with providing adequate resources for their populations, concerns about food security and environmental sustainability will only intensify. The African continent is set to expand more than anywhere else. With this growth comes new challenges, calling for unprecedented international cooperation and innovative solutions to meet future demands.