Population according to Encarta world English dictionary is defined as the total amount of people who inhabit an area, region, or country.Population can therefore be seen as the number of individuals or people who inhabits an area, region, or country at a particular time. The population of a country is mainly determined by a periodic “head count” of people within a nation, this periodic count is also known as census. Census thus is a systematically survey intended to discover the whole population of a state at that time, given specific characteristic of such people, characteristics such as; age, gender, marital status.
The study of population is referred to as demography, while expert who count and analyse such figures are referred to as demographers.
Before 1925 the total world population was less than 3billion, however as at 2007 demographers estimated the world population to 6.6billion and 6.8billion in 2009; this illustrates that the world population is increasing geometrically as postulated by British writer Thomas Malthus 200years ago. It is suspected that the rate at which population is growing, demographers estimate that in 500 years to come the world population would reach 25quadrillion.
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The major factors responsible for this high growing population are as a result of high birth rate and low death rate, high immigration and low emigration. Thus many nations have adopted various population control measures and to some extent has helped reduce their populated growth rate, but not to the expected level of reduction. These adopted measures taken by states to control their vast growing population are viewed below;
One of such control measure is the one child family adopted by china in 1980s, in this policy couples were encouraged and were sometimes oblige to have only one child. In this policy families with one child were given incentives by the government such as; tax holiday, payment of school fees by the government, while families with more than one child were not favoured or assisted by the government, for example families with 3 children could result into a cut of wages for the parents by the government.
This policy has been able to reduce the birth rate in china to a large extent, which obviously led to the reduction of population in china especially during the period it was practised. This above fact is proved by demographers who believe the Chinese population could have risen up to 1.78billion in 2007 as against the present 1.3billion of their present population.
Another method adopted by many countries of the world to control birth rate is the use of contraceptives. Contraceptives are devices used in order to prevent fertilization of a female egg, for example the use of a condom either worn by the male or female during sexual intercourse or pills taken frequently by females. This method is mostly adopted by few educated individuals who believe in birth control; also countries like china and India have adopted this method; however India were recorded to have succeeded with only relative small successes, while in china contraceptives were given for free. According to Joshua .S, this contributed to the fall of China’s fertility from 6 children per woman to about 2.5 per woman.
Abortion is another method of controlling birth; abortion is defined by the Encarta English dictionary as an operation or other intervention to end a pregnancy by removing an embryo from the womb. In some countries such as the U.S, abortion has been legalised. In china which has the largest population in the world, abortion is not only legalised but also free to citizens of china. According William Jefferson Clinton Memorial Library abortion is now the most widely practiced form of birth control in the world and is legal in 172 countries. There were approximately 50 million abortions in the world in 1994.Therefore to an extremely great level abortion has been used to reduce or control unwanted pregnancy and unwanted children thus to some extent controlling the population.
Immigration policy is one of the major means of controlling population,
Such immigration method include quota system (this is a policy in which specific number of people from different countries would be allowed to enter the country that have adopted this policy). According to Jon C. Pevehouse, most industrialised countries try to limit immigration from the global south. Through immigration policies population to some extent can be limited and controlled.
Another way in which states have been able to control population is through the introduction of family programmes in other to solve the problem of rapid population growth. For example in India, the government introduce programmes that advocate smaller families; like the use of contraceptives, educating them on the need for healthier family planning. According to Jon Pevehouse “Mexico’s strong but non coercive family planning program, adopted in 1974 cut birth rate in half over 15years, to 2.7 per woman(and 2.4 as of 2009)” when looking at the statistics it is quit agreeable that through this method of organizing family or birth control programmes population can be controlled to some extent.
Another method that has been adopted by different states in order to control the growing rate of population is the promoting of worldwide sex education among youth especially in schools. This is an effective and more sensitive way of controlling population. Here, youths are educated on how to prevent unwanted pregnancy through the use of contraceptives, they are also advised and encouraged on how to abstain from early sex, this to some extent, helps reduce unwanted babies thus controlling population.
Another method that have greatly been adopted and encouraged by different states; like U.S, China in order to control population is the use of sterilization. English Encarta dictionary defines sterilization as a surgical process that put a stop to reproduction by total or partial removal of the reproductive organs. This method has even been legalized in the U.S and according to an article on the control of population by William Jefferson Clinton Memorial Library there have been different steps taken by different international organizations like; UN, I.P.P.F, W.HO, U.S. Aid, World Bank, and other population control groups in the effort of legalizing sterilizations all over the world. Through the use of sterilization population can be controlled. This however is a crude control measure.
Another method of controlling population growth which has been encouraged of recent and some countries fighting against discrimination of these people, (even though it is traditionally against the norms of family), is homosexual activities around the world. According to Anthony Giddens homosexuality involves the attraction for persons of one’s own sex, Anthony postulate that in some non-western cultures homosexuality is practiced and even encouraged among some groups like; the Batak people of northern Sumatra. Homosexuality to some extent reduces birth rate; this is because children can only be produced by two opposite sex, thus in order to reduce population, organizations promoting homosexuality has been supported even by U.S according to an article by William Jefferson Clinton Memorial Library.
Monogamy is another method in which has been able to reduce or control population. Monogamy is a type of marriage practice which allows a person to be married to one other person at a time which minimum number of children they can cater for. According to Jonathan Blundell the law in Britain and in other western countries only allows someone to be married to another person at a time, and that having more than one partner is a criminal offence (this practice of having more than one partner at a time is called bigamy). To some extent these laws have been able to control population.
Through all this processes mentioned above, growing population to some extent have been able to be controlled, nevertheless population have not been adequately and sufficiently controlled as intended. This is due to different factors that hinders and limit the effectiveness of all the above population control methods. These limitations are emphasized below;
The one child birth control adopted by china was not successful as intended because this policy created many problems: one of the problems this policy created is an inequality or imbalance in the population, (more boys than girls) this is because most couples wanted a male child to be the heir, thus girls who were first born were given away for adoption, sold or even allowed to die. The couples could then have a second child.
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A second reason for the failure of this policy is because this policy was enforced more in cities than country side, thus there were more children in the country side and education was better in the city, thus as a result china were producing fewer educated people. This reason contributed to the abolishment of this policy. This policy is against fundamental human right, in fact it is seen as one of the crudest method of birth control, this is perhaps why global bodies have criticized this policy thus the Chinese policy has now diminished and china is trying to hold down population growth by encouragement rather than force.
The use of contraceptives as a method of birth control is however hampered or hindered by religious believers and doctrines. According to Jonathan Blundell the catholic church, which had great influence in Latin America and other part of the world, opposes the use of contraception apart from this method is also ineffective in developing countries like Africa because of the low rate of literacy and traditional beliefs . for instance among the Yoruba and Hausa tribe in Nigeria the number of children a man posses is seen as a measure of wealth, this explains why this particular control method is not totally effective towards the growing population of the world.
Abortion which became legal in 1967 in the U.S, according to Jonathan Blundell has generated controversial augment about when exactly a foetus becomes a baby. The effectiveness of this measure is however hindered by religious belief and doctrine who belief that abortion is a murderous act thus discouraging other countries of the world from adopting this “sinful” method.
Immigration policy such as quote system, this method is however crude and to a large extent may not be efficient because the government cannot determine the number of people that would migrate into their country whose reasons for coming into the country are reasonable and important. It should be noted that this policy can only be adopted by the developed world because of the pull factors such as good jobs, social amenities existing in their country which attract people into their country.
Another population control method is the use of sterilize have been discouraged due to religious beliefs and doctrines, this method is risky hardly practiced because it is a permanent method of controlling childbirth or it results to permanent infertility.
The controlling of population through homosexuality is to a very large extent ineffective, this is because a lot of religions do not favor this view and lesbians can also produce children through the use of sperm implant in a woman’s womb. This practice is also against the traditional norm of a family.
The practice of monogamy is not effective because this method is a personal decision. Some individuals may choose to engage in multiple marriages, especially when their religion and tradition permits it, for example among the Mormons in Utah in USA multiple marriages were allowed which can ultimately give rise to more children like the case of tom green who have five wives and twenty nine children as at 2007. Among the Africans multiple marriages are common even within the upper class; this probably explains why the population increase rate in Africa is higher than any other part of the world.
Lastly tradition is also responsible for the failure of population control measure. For example among the Africans early marriage is encouraged for the girls there by making them produce more children thus populating the world.
In conclusion, there are several population methods to control both high birth rate (in developing countries) and high immigration rate (in developed countries). These control measures to a very large extent have played their roles and reduced population because when one compares the population growth rate to that of ten years ago, one can assert their effectiveness. However, the population control measures have not been able to totally stop population growth.
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