Human population planning is the practice
of intentionally controlling the rate of growth
of a human population.
Historically, human population planning has
been implemented with the goal of increasing
the rate of human population growth.
However, in the period from the 1950s to the
1980s, concerns about global population growth
and its effects on poverty, environmental
degradation and political stability led to
efforts to reduce human population growth
rates.
More recently, some countries, such as China,
Iran, and Spain, have begun efforts to increase
their birth rates once again.
While population planning can involve measures
that improve people's lives by giving them
greater control of their reproduction, a few
programs, most notably the Chinese government's
"one-child policy and two-child policy", have
resorted to coercive measures.
== Types ==
Four types of population planning goals pursued
by governments can be identified:
Increasing the overall population growth rate
Reducing the overall population growth rate
Decreasing the relative population growth
of a less favoured subgroup of a national
population or ethnic group, such as people
of low intelligence or people with disabilities.
This is known as eugenics.
Instead of trying to control the rate of population
growth per se, trying to arrange things so
that all population groups of a certain type
(e.g. all social classes within a society)
have the same average rate of population growth.
== Methods ==
While a specific population planning practice
may be legal/mandated in one country, it may
be illegal or restricted in another, indicative
of the controversy surrounding this topic.
=== Reducing population growth ===
Population planning that is intended to reduce
a population or sub-population's growth rates
may promote or enforce one or more of the
following practices, although there are other
methods:
Higher taxation of parents who have too many
children
Contraception
Abstinence
Reducing infant mortality so that parents
do not need to have many children to ensure
at least some survive to adulthood.
Abortion
Changing status of women causing departure
from traditional sexual division of labour.
Sterilization
One-child and Two-child policies, and other
policies restricting or discouraging births
directly.
Family planning
Create small family "role models"
Changes to immigration policies
Marry a foreigner and go to their country.The
method(s) chosen can be strongly influenced
by the religious and cultural beliefs of community
members.
The failure of other methods of population
planning can lead to the use of abortion or
infanticide as solutions.
=== Increasing population growth ===
Population policies that are intended to increase
a population or sub-population's growth rates
may use practices such as:
Higher taxation of married couples who have
no, or too few, children
Politicians imploring the populace to have
bigger families
Tax breaks and subsidies for families with
children
Loosening of immigration restrictions, and/or
mass recruitment of foreign workers by the
government
== 
History ==
=== 
Ancient times through Middle Ages ===
A number of ancient writers have reflected
on the issue of population.
At about 300 BC, the Indian political philosopher
Chanakya (c. 350-283 BC) considered population
a source of political, economic, and military
strength.
Though a given region can house too many or
too few people, he considered the latter possibility
to be the greater evil.
Chanakya favored the remarriage of widows
(which at the time was forbidden in India),
opposed taxes encouraging emigration, and
believed in restricting asceticism to the
aged.In ancient Greece, Plato (427-347 BC)
and Aristotle (384-322 BC) discussed the best
population size for Greek city-states such
as Sparta, and concluded that cities should
be small enough for efficient administration
and direct citizen participation in public
affairs, but at the same time needed to be
large enough to defend themselves against
hostile neighbors.
In order to maintain a desired population
size, the philosophers advised that procreation,
and if necessary, immigration, should be encouraged
if the population size was too small.
Emigration to colonies would be encouraged
should the population become too large.
Aristotle concluded that a large increase
in population would bring, "certain poverty
on the citizenry, and poverty is the cause
of sedition and evil."
To halt rapid population increase, Aristotle
advocated the use of abortion and the exposure
of newborns (that is, infanticide).Confucius
(551-478 BC) and other Chinese writers cautioned
that, "excessive growth may reduce output
per worker, repress levels of living for the
masses and engender strife."
Confucius also observed that, "mortality increases
when food supply is insufficient; that premature
marriage makes for high infantile mortality
rates, that war checks population growth."Ancient
Rome, especially in the time of Augustus (63
BC- AD 14), needed manpower to acquire and
administer the vast Roman Empire.
A series of laws were instituted to encourage
early marriage and frequent childbirth.
Lex Julia (18 BC) and the Lex Papia Poppaea
(AD 9) are two well known examples of such
laws, which among others, provided tax breaks
and preferential treatment when applying for
public office for those that complied with
the laws.
Severe limitations were imposed on those who
did not.
For example, the surviving spouse of a childless
couple could only inherit one-tenth of the
deceased fortune, while the rest was taken
by the state.
These laws encountered resistance from the
population which led to the disregard of their
provisions and to their eventual abolition.Tertullian,
an early Christian author (ca.
AD 160-220), was one of the first to describe
famine and war as factors that can prevent
overpopulation.
He wrote: "The strongest witness is the vast
population of the earth to which we are a
burden and she scarcely can provide for our
needs; as our demands grow greater, our complaints
against Nature's inadequacy are heard by all.
The scourges of pestilence, famine, wars and
earthquakes have come to be regarded as a
blessing to overcrowded nations, since they
serve to prune away the luxuriant growth of
the human race."Ibn Khaldun, a North African
Arab polymath (1332–1406), considered population
changes to be connected to economic development,
linking high birth rates and low death rates
to times of economic upswing, and low birth
rates and high death rates to economic downswing.
Khaldoun concluded that high population density
rather than high absolute population numbers
were desirable to achieve more efficient division
of labour and cheap administration.During
the Middle Ages in Christian Europe, population
issues were rarely discussed in isolation.
Attitudes were generally pro-natalist in line
with the Biblical command, "Be ye fruitful
and multiply."
=== 16th and 17th centuries ===
European cities grew more rapidly than before,
and throughout the 16th century and early
17th century discussions on the advantages
and disadvantages of population growth were
frequent.
Niccolò Machiavelli, an Italian Renaissance
political philosopher, wrote, "When every
province of the world so teems with inhabitants
that they can neither subsist where they are
nor remove themselves elsewhere... the world
will purge itself in one or another of these
three ways," listing floods, plague and famine.
Martin Luther concluded, "God makes children.
He is also going to feed them."Jean Bodin,
a French jurist and political philosopher
(1530–1596), argued that larger populations
meant more production and more exports, increasing
the wealth of a country.
Giovanni Botero, an Italian priest and diplomat
(1540–1617), emphasized that, "the greatness
of a city rests on the multitude of its inhabitants
and their power," but pointed out that a population
cannot increase beyond its food supply.
If this limit was approached, late marriage,
emigration, and war would serve to restore
the balance.Richard Hakluyt, an English writer
(1527–1616), observed that, "Throughe our
longe peace and seldome sickness... wee are
growen more populous than ever heretofore;...
many thousandes of idle persons are within
this realme, which, havinge no way to be sett
on worke, be either mutinous and seeke alteration
in the state, or at leaste very burdensome
to the commonwealthe."
Hakluyt believed that this led to crime and
full jails and in A Discourse on Western Planting
(1584), Hakluyt advocated for the emigration
of the surplus population.
With the onset of the Thirty Years' War (1618–48),
characterized by widespread devastation and
deaths brought on by hunger and disease in
Europe, concerns about depopulation returned.
== Population planning movement ==
In the 20th century, population planning proponents
have drawn from the insights of Thomas Malthus,
a British clergyman and economist who published
An Essay on the Principle of Population in
1798.
Malthus argued that, "Population, when unchecked,
increases in a geometrical ratio.
Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical
ratio."
He also outlined the idea of "positive checks"
and "preventative checks."
"Positive checks", such as diseases, war,
disaster, famine, and genocide are factors
that Malthus considered to increase the death
rate.
"Preventative checks" were factors that Malthus
believed to affect the birth rate such as
moral restraint, abstinence and birth control.
He predicted that "positive checks" on exponential
population growth would ultimately save humanity
from itself and that human misery was an "absolute
necessary consequence."
Malthus went on to explain why he believed
that this misery affected the poor in a disproportionate
manner.
There is a constant effort towards an increase
in population which tends to subject the lower
classes of society to distress and to prevent
any great permanent amelioration of their
condition….
The way in which these effects are produced
seems to be this.
We will suppose the means of subsistence in
any country just equal to the easy support
of its inhabitants.
The constant effort towards population...
increases the number of people before the
means of subsistence are increased.
The food, therefore which before supplied
seven millions must now be divided among seven
millions and half or eight millions.
The poor consequently must live much worse,
and many of them be reduced to severe distress.
Finally, Malthus advocated for the education
of the lower class about the use of "moral
restraint" or voluntary abstinence, which
he believed would slow the growth rate.Paul
R. Ehrlich, a US biologist and environmentalist,
published The Population Bomb in 1968, advocating
stringent population planning policies.
His central argument on population is as follows:
A cancer is an uncontrolled multiplication
of cells; the population explosion is an uncontrolled
multiplication of people.
Treating only the symptoms of cancer may make
the victim more comfortable at first, but
eventually he dies - often horribly.
A similar fate awaits a world with a population
explosion if only the symptoms are treated.
We must shift our efforts from treatment of
the symptoms to the cutting out of the cancer.
The operation will demand many apparent brutal
and heartless decisions.
The pain may be intense.
But the disease is so far advanced that only
with radical surgery does the patient have
a chance to survive.
In his concluding chapter, Ehrlich offered
a partial solution to the "population problem,"
"[We need] compulsory birth regulation...
[through] the addition of temporary sterilants
to water supplies or staple food.
Doses of the antidote would be carefully rationed
by the government to produce the desired family
size".Ehrlich's views came to be accepted
by many population planning advocates in the
United States and Europe in the 1960s and
1970s.
Since Ehrlich introduced his idea of the "population
bomb," overpopulation has been blamed for
a variety of issues, including increasing
poverty, high unemployment rates, environmental
degradation, famine and genocide.
In a 2004 interview, Ehrlich reviewed the
predictions in his book and found that while
the specific dates within his predictions
may have been wrong, his predictions about
climate change and disease were valid.
Ehrlich continued to advocate for population
planning and co-authored the book The Population
Explosion, released in 1990 with his wife
Anne Ehrlich.
However, it is controversial as to whether
human population stabilization will avert
environmental risks.Paige Whaley Eager argues
that the shift in perception that occurred
in the 1960s must be understood in the context
of the demographic changes that took place
at the time.
It was only in the first decade of the 19th
century that the world's population reached
one billion.
The second billion was added in the 1930s,
and the next billion in the 1960s.
90 percent of this net increase occurred in
developing countries.
Eager also argues that, at the time, the United
States recognised that these demographic changes
could significantly affect global geopolitics.
Large increases occurred in China, Mexico
and Nigeria, and demographers warned of a
"population explosion," particularly in developing
countries from the mid-1950s onwards.In the
1980s, tension grew between population planning
advocates and women's health activists who
advanced women's reproductive rights as part
of a human rights-based approach.
Growing opposition to the narrow population
planning focus led to a significant change
in population planning policies in the early
1990s.
== Population planning and economics ==
Opinions vary among economists about the effects
of population change on a nation's economic
health.
US scientific research in 2009 concluded that
the raising of a child cost about $16,000
yearly ($291,570 total for raising the child
to its 18th birthday).
In the US, the multiplication of this number
with the yearly population growth will yield
the overall cost of the population growth.
Costs for other developed countries are usually
of similar order of magnitude.
Some economists, such as Thomas Sowell and
Walter E. Williams, have argued that poverty
and famine are caused by bad government and
bad economic policies, not by overpopulation.
In his book The Ultimate Resource, economist
Julian Simon argued that higher population
density leads to more specialization and technological
innovation, which in turn leads to a higher
standard of living.
He claimed that human beings are the ultimate
resource since we possess "productive and
inventive minds that help find creative solutions
to man’s problems, thus leaving us better
off over the long run".
He also claimed that, "Our species is better
off in just about every measurable material
way."Simon also claimed that when considering
a list of countries ranked in order by population
density, there is no correlation between population
density and poverty and starvation.
Instead, if a list of countries is considered
according to corruption within their respective
governments, there is a significant correlation
between government corruption, poverty and
famine.
== Views on population planning ==
=== 
Population increase reductions ===
==== 
Support ====
As early as 1798, Thomas Malthus argued in
his Essay on the Principle of Population for
implementation of population planning.
Around the year 1900, Sir Francis Galton said
in his publication Hereditary Improvement:
"The unfit could become enemies to the State,
if they continue to propagate."
In 1968, Paul Ehrlich noted in The Population
Bomb, "We must cut the cancer of population
growth", and "if this was not done, there
would be only one other solution, namely the
'death rate solution' in which we raise the
death rate through war-famine-pestilence etc.”
In the same year, another prominent modern
advocate for mandatory population planning
was Garrett Hardin, who proposed in his landmark
1968 essay Tragedy of the commons, society
must relinquish the "freedom to breed" through
"mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon."
Later on, in 1972, he reaffirmed his support
in his new essay "Exploring New Ethics for
Survival", by stating, " We are breeding ourselves
into oblivion."
Many prominent personalities, such as Bertrand
Russell, Margaret Sanger (1939), John D. Rockefeller,
Frederick Osborn (1952), Isaac Asimov, Arne
Næss and Jacques Cousteau have also advocated
for population planning.
Today, a number of influential people advocate
population planning such as these:
David Attenborough
Michael E. Arth
Jonathon Porritt, UK sustainable development
commissioner
Sara Parkin
Crispin Tickell
Christian de Duve, Nobel laureateThe head
of the UN Millennium Project Jeffrey Sachs
is also a strong proponent of decreasing the
effects of overpopulation.
In 2007, Jeffrey Sachs gave a number of lectures
(2007 Reith Lectures) about population planning
and overpopulation.
In his lectures, called "Bursting at the Seams",
he featured an integrated approach that would
deal with a number of problems associated
with overpopulation and poverty reduction.
For example, when criticized for advocating
mosquito nets he argued that child survival
was, "by far one of the most powerful ways,"
to achieve fertility reduction, as this would
assure poor families that the smaller number
of children they had would survive.
==== Opposition ====
The Roman Catholic Church has opposed abortion,
sterilization, and artificial contraception
as a general practice but especially in regard
to population planning policies.
Pope Benedict XVI has stated, "The extermination
of millions of unborn children, in the name
of the fight against poverty, actually constitutes
the destruction of the poorest of all human
beings."In Protestantism, at least an organisation
called "ChurchCouncil.org" (which does not
reveal any actual churches as members on its
web site) wrote a "Reformed Theology ICCP
Document Topic 24 Article 20" which states
that "We affirm that human multiplication
and filling of the Earth are intrinsically
good (Genesis 1:28) and that, in principle,
children, lots of them, are a blessing from
God to their faithful parents and the rest
of the Earth (Psalm 127; 128).
We deny that the Earth is overpopulated; that
“overpopulation” is even a meaningful
term, since it cannot be defined by demographic
quantities such as population density, population
growth rate, or age distribution; and that
godly dominion over the Earth requires population
control or “family planning” to limit
fertility."
The reformed Theology pastor Dr. Stephen Tong
also opposes the planning of human population.
=== Natalism ===
The Nation has criticised some white Quiverfull
families for having large families motivated
by demographic change and worries about "race
suicide".
== Pro-natalist policies ==
In 1946, Poland introduced a tax on childlessness,
discontinued in the 1970s, as part of natalist
policies in the Communist government.
From 1941 to the 1990s, the Soviet Union had
a similar tax to replenish the population
losses incurred during the Second World War.
The Socialist Republic of Romania under Nicolae
Ceaușescu severely repressed abortion, (the
most common birth control method at the time)
in 1966, and forced gynecological revisions
and penalties for unmarried women and childless
couples.
The surge of the birth rate taxed the public
services received by the decreţei 770 ("Scions
of the Decree 770") generation.
A consequence of Ceaușescu's natalist policy
is that large numbers of children ended up
living in orphanages, because their parents
could not cope.
The vast majority of children who lived in
the communist orphanages were not actually
orphans, but were simply children whose parents
could not afford to raise them.
The Romanian Revolution of 1989 preceded a
fall in population growth.
=== Balanced birth policies ===
Nativity in the Western world dropped during
the interwar period.
Swedish sociologists Alva and Gunnar Myrdal
published Crisis in the Population Question
in 1934, suggesting an extensive welfare state
with universal healthcare and childcare, to
increase overall Swedish birth rates, and
level the number of children at a reproductive
level for all social classes in Sweden.
Swedish fertility rose throughout World War
II (as Sweden was largely unharmed by the
war) and peaked in 1946.
== Modern practice by country ==
=== Australia ===
Australia currently offers fortnightly Family
Tax Benefit payments plus a free immunisation
scheme, and recently proposed to pay all child
care costs for women who want to work.
=== China ===
==== 
One-child era (1979–2015) ====
The most significant population planning system
in the world was China's one-child policy,
in which, with various exceptions, having
more than one child was discouraged.
Unauthorized births were punished by fines,
although there were also allegations of illegal
forced abortions and forced sterilization.
As part of China's planned birth policy, (work)
unit supervisors monitored the fertility of
married women and may decide whose turn it
is to have a baby.The Chinese government introduced
the policy in 1978 to alleviate the social
and environmental problems of China.
According to government officials, the policy
has helped prevent 400 million births.
The success of the policy has been questioned,
and reduction in fertility has also been attributed
to the modernization of China.
The policy is controversial both within and
outside of China because of its manner of
implementation and because of concerns about
negative economic and social consequences
e.g. female infanticide.
In oriental cultures, the oldest male child
has responsibility of caring for the parents
in their old age.
Therefore, it is common for oriental families
to invest most heavily in the oldest male
child, such as providing college, steering
them into the most lucrative careers, and
so on.
To these families, having an oldest male child
is paramount, so in a one-child policy, a
daughter has no economic benefit, so daughters,
especially as a first child, is often targeted
for abortion or infanticide.
China introduced several government reforms
to increase retirement payments to coincide
with the one-child policy.
During that time, couples could request permission
to have more than one child.According to Tibetologist
Melvyn Goldstein, natalist feelings run high
in China's Tibet Autonomous Region, among
both ordinary people and government officials.
Seeing population control "as a matter of
power and ethnic survival" rather than in
terms of ecological sustainability, Tibetans
successfully argued for an exemption of Tibetan
people from the usual family planning policies
in China such as the one-child policy.
==== Two-child era (2015-) ====
In November 2014, the Chinese government allowed
its people to conceive a second child under
the supervision of government regulation.On
October 29, 2015, the ruling Chinese Communist
Party announced that all one-child policies
would be scrapped, allowing all couples to
have two children.
The change was needed to allow a better balance
of male and female children, and to grow the
young population to ease the problem of paying
for the aging population.
Two-child policy begin from January 1, 2016
and one-child policy abolished follow the
beginning of two-child policy.
=== India ===
Only those with two or fewer children are
eligible for election to a gram panchayat,
or local government.
We two, our two ("Hum do, hamare do" in Hindi)
is a slogan meaning one family, two children
and is intended to reinforce the message of
family planning thereby aiding population
planning.
Facilities offered by government to its employees
are limited to two children.
The government offers incentives for families
accepted for sterilization.
Moreover, India was the first country to take
measures for family planning back in 1951.
=== Iran ===
After the Iran–Iraq War, Iran encouraged
married couples to produce as many children
as possible to replace population lost to
the war.Iran succeeded in sharply reducing
its birth rate from the late 1980s to 2010.
Mandatory contraceptive courses are required
for both males and females before a marriage
license can be obtained, and the government
emphasized the benefits of smaller families
and the use of contraception.
This changed in 2012, when a major policy
shift back towards increasing birth rates
and against population planning was announced.
In 2014, permanent contraception and advertising
of birth control were to be outlawed.
=== Israel ===
In Israel, Haredi families with many children
receive economic support through generous
governmental child allowances, government
assistance in housing young religious couples,
as well as specific funds by their own community
institutions.
Haredi women have an average of 6.7 children
while the average Jewish Israeli woman has
3 children.
=== Japan ===
Japan has experienced a shrinking population
for many years.
The government is trying to encourage women
to have children or to have more children
– many Japanese women do not have children,
or even remain single.
The population is culturally opposed to immigration.
Some Japanese localities, facing significant
population loss, are offering economic incentives.
Yamatsuri, a town of 7 000 just north of Tokyo,
offers parents $4 600 for the birth of a child
and $460 a year for 10 years.
=== Myanmar ===
In Myanmar, the Population planning Health
Care Bill requires some parents to space each
child three years apart.
The measure is expected to be used against
the persecuted Muslim Rohingyas minority.
=== Russia ===
Russian President Vladimir Putin directed
Parliament in 2006 to adopt a 10-year program
to stop the sharp decline in Russia's population,
principally by offering financial incentives
and subsidies to encourage women to have children.
=== Singapore ===
Singapore has undergone two major phases in
its population planning: first to slow and
reverse the baby boom in the Post-World War
II era; then from the 1980s onwards to encourage
couples to have more children as the birth
rate had fallen below the replacement-level
fertility.
In addition, during the interim period, eugenics
policies were adopted.The anti-natalist policies
flourished in the 1960s and 1970s: initiatives
advocating small families were launched and
developed into the Stop at Two programme,
pushing for two-children families and promoting
sterilisation.
In 1984, the government announced the Graduate
Mothers' Scheme, which favoured children of
more well-educated mothers; the policy was
however soon abandoned due to the outcry in
the general election of the same year.
Eventually, the government became pro-natalist
in the late 1980s, marked by its Have Three
or More plan in 1987.
Singapore pays $3,000 for the first child,
$9,000 in cash and savings for the second;
and up to $18,000 each for the third and fourth.
=== Spain ===
In 2017, the government of Spain appointed
a "minister for sex", in a pro-natalist attempt
to reverse a negative population growth rate.
=== Turkey ===
In May 2012, Turkey's Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan argued that abortion is murder
and announced that legislative preparations
to severely limit the practice are underway.
Erdogan also argued that abortion and C-section
deliveries are plots to stall Turkey's economic
growth.
Prior to this move, Erdogan had repeatedly
demanded that each couple have at least three
children.
=== United States ===
Enacted in 1970, Title X of the Public Health
Service Act provides access to contraceptive
services, supplies and information to those
in need.
Priority for services is given to people with
low incomes.
The Title X Family Planning program is administered
through the Office of Population Affairs under
the Office of Public Health and Science.
It is directed by the Office of Family Planning.
In 2007, Congress appropriated roughly $283
million for family planning under Title X,
at least 90 percent of which was used for
services in family planning clinics.
Title X is a vital source of funding for family
planning clinics throughout the nation, which
provide reproductive health care, including
abortion.
The education and services supplied by the
Title X-funded clinics support young individuals
and low-income families.
The goals of developing healthy families are
accomplished by helping individuals and couples
decide whether to have children and when the
appropriate time to do so would be.Title X
has made the prevention of unintended pregnancies
possible.
It has allowed millions of American women
to receive necessary reproductive health care,
plan their pregnancies and prevent abortions.
Title X is dedicated exclusively to funding
family planning and reproductive health care
services.Title X as a percentage of total
public funding to family planning client services
has steadily declined from 44% of total expenditures
in 1980 to 12% in 2006.
Medicaid has increased from 20% to 71% in
the same time.
In 2006, Medicaid contributed $1.3 billion
to public family planning.
==== Natalism in the United States ====
In a 2004 editorial in The New York Times,
David Brooks expressed the opinion that the
relatively high birthrate of the United States
in comparison to Europe could be attributed
to social groups with "natalist" attitudes.
The article is referred to in an analysis
of the Quiverfull movement.
However, the figures identified for the demographic
are extremely low.
Former US Senator Rick Santorum made natalism
part of his platform for his 2012 presidential
campaign.
This is not an isolated case.
Many of those categorized in the General Social
Survey as "Fundamentalist Protestant" are
more or less natalist, and have a higher birth
rate than "Moderate" and "Liberal" Protestants.
However, Rick Santorum is not a Protestant
but a practicing Catholic.
=== Uzbekistan ===
It is reported that Uzbekistan has been pursuing
a policy of forced sterilizations, hysterectomies
and IUD insertions since the late 1990s in
order to impose population planning.
== See also ==
Birth control
Birth credit
Eugenics
Human overpopulation
List of population concern organizations
Malthus' Dismal Theorem
Steady-state economy
Pledge two or fewer (campaign for small families)
Voluntary Human Extinction Movement
=== 
Fiction ===
Logan's Run - State-mandated euthanasia at
21 for all people (30 in the film) to conserve
resources
Make Room!
Make Room!
Avengers: Infinity War - Antagonist and villain
Thanos kills half of all living things throughout
universe in order to maintain ecological balance
Shadow Children series - Families are allowed
two children maximum, and "shadow children"
(third children and beyond) are subject to
be killed
