Environmental Problems, Their Causes, and Sustainability 1

The government has provided information aboutthe advantages of small families for years. Yet Indianwomen still have an average of 3.1 children. One reasonis that most poor couples believe they need manychildren to do work and care for them in old age. Anotheris the strong cultural preference for male children,which means some couples keep having childrenuntil they produce one or more boys. These factors inpart explain why even though 90% of Indian couplesknow of at least one modern birth control method,only 43% actually use one.Population experts expect China’s population topeak around 2040 and then begin a slow decline. Thishas led some members of China’s parliament to call foramending the country’s one-child policy so that someurban couples can have a second child. The goalwould be to provide more workers to help supportChina’s aging population.What lesson can other countries learn from China?One possibility is to try to curb population growth beforethey must choose between mass starvation and coercivemeasures that severely restrict human freedom.What Success Has China Had in ControllingIts Population Growth? Good Progress,Enforced with an Iron HandSince 1970 China has used a government-enforcedprogram to cut its birth rate in half and sharplyreduce its total fertility rate.Since 1970, China has made impressive efforts to feedits people and bring its population growth under control.Between 1972 and 2004, China cut its crude birthrate in half and cut its total fertility rate from 5.7 to 1.7children per woman (Figure 10-22).To achieve its sharp drop in fertility, China hasestablished the world’s most extensive, intrusive, andstrict population control program. Couples are stronglyurged to postpone marriage and to have no more thanone child. Married couples who pledge to have no morethan one child receive extra food, larger pensions, betterhousing, free medical care, salary bonuses, freeschool tuition for their one child, and preferential treatmentin employment when their child enters the jobmarket. Couples who break their pledge lose suchbenefits.The government also provides married coupleswith ready access to free sterilization, contraceptives,and abortion. This helps explain why about 83% ofmarried women in China use modern contraception.Government officials realized in the 1960s that theonly alternative to strict population control was massstarvation. China is a dictatorship. Thus, unlike India,it has been able to impose a fairly consistent populationpolicy throughout its society.China has 21% of the world’s population. But ithas only 7% of the world’s fresh water and cropland,4% of its forests, and 2% of its oil. Soil erosion in Chinais serious and apparently getting worse. In the 1970s,the Chinese government had a system of health clinicsthat provided basic health care for its huge rural farmpopulation. This system collapsed in the 1980s asChina embraced capitalist economic reforms. Accordingto government estimates, more than 800 millionpeople—9 of every 10 rural Chinese—now have nohealth insurance or social safety net.10-5 CUTTING GLOBAL POPULATIONGROWTHWhat Can We Do to Slow Population Growth?A New VisionExperience indicates that the best way to slowpopulation growth is a combination of investingin family planning, reducing poverty, and elevatingthe status of women.In 1994, the United Nations held its third once-in-adecadeConference on Population and Developmentin Cairo, Egypt. One of the conference’s goals was toencourage action to stabilize the world’s population at7.8 billion by 2050 instead of the projected 8.9 billion.The major goals of the resulting population plan, endorsedby 180 governments, are to do the followingby 2015:■ Provide universal access to family planning servicesand reproductive health care■ Improve health care for infants, children, and pregnantwomen■ Develop and implement national populationpolices■ Improve the status of women and expand educationand job opportunities for young women■ Provide more education, especially for girls andwomen■ Increase the involvement of men in child-rearingresponsibilities and family planning■Sharply reduce poverty■ Greatly reduce unsustainable patterns of productionand consumptionThis is a tall order. But it can be done if developedand developing nations work together to implementsuch reforms. Some good news is that the experience ofJapan, Thailand, South Korea, Taiwan, Iran, and Chinaindicates that a country can achieve or come close toreplacement-level fertility within a decade or two.192 CHAPTER 10 Applying Population Ecology: The Human Population