In February 2009, the UK Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Optimum Population Trust (OPT) launched a pledge called ‘Stop At Two’ [Ref: Optimum Population Trust]. This is a voluntary pledge ‘aimed at encouraging couples to consider having no more than two children to reduce population pressures on the world environment’. The pledge received a high level of publicity, largely due to the high profile of some of those associated with OPT; patrons include Jonathon Porritt CBE, chair of the UK government’s Sustainable Development Commission [Ref: Sustainable Development Commission] and the recently-appointed veteran broadcaster Sir David Attenborough CVO CBE [Ref: Optimum Population Trust]. Beyond dedicated campaigns such as OPT, concerns about the sustainability of the growing world population are becoming more widespread. United Nations (UN) predicts that world population, which currently stands at 6.83bn, will reach 9.15bn by 2050 [Ref: Guardian]. The world food crisis of 2008, which saw rocketing prices of wheat, rice and cooking oil and left millions across the world with the prospect of starvation, not only unleashed widespread political unrest, but led many to ask whether a growing world population might be the culprit. Reports of a gathering world oil crisis and a leap in prices triggered by growing global demand have prompted similar concerns. Equally, for those already concerned about the impact of people’s carbon footprint upon the planet, it is logical to worry that an increased number of people will make this problem worse.

But critics point out that fears about overpopulation have been around for two centuries, and argue that the recent concerns about the impact of population growth are best understood as a new form of this historically negative concern [Ref: Spiked]. Critics point to the dubious history of population control programmes suggesting that past fears about the impact of population growth upon society have been exaggerated, and further that arguments for population control have been proven to be false time and again [Ref: Wikipedia]. Anxieties about population, they suggest, have historically always been tied to other concerns [Ref: The Economist] – from elite anxieties about Europe’s urban working class at the end of the nineteenth century, to Third World challenges to Western hegemony throughout twentieth. If population control is the answer to such a divergent range of issues, they ask, how can it be right?

Are current levels of population growth sustainable?
Debate about population control tends to hinge on concerns about the scarcity of resources.  Bolstered by the global food crisis [ref: BBC News], the Optimum Population Trust forecast that the predicted drastic increases in population by 2050 could have potentially devastating consequences for water and food resources [Ref: Optimum Population Trust]. The US campaign group CWAC also highlight problems caused by population growth in terms of water supplies, cropland, forests, fisheries, global warming and species extinction. One writer maintains that over-stepping the Earth’s ‘carrying capacity’ for humans is potentially catastrophic [Ref: Guardian], whilst another reminds us that Britain might not be a very pleasant place to live in the future should we continue to reproduce at the predicted rate [Ref: Guardian]. But others argue that this is a new form of Malthusianism [Ref: Economist]; that Malthus’ predictions were proved to be overly pessimistic in their time, and that population increases now will not hamper society’s ability to deal with problems with food production or tackling climate change.  They feel that facing up to any changes that population growth may bring and addressing them as they occur is a more positive solution than telling people to have smaller families.

The history of population control
In 1798, Thomas Malthus’ famous ‘Essay on the Principle of Population’ warned that population growth would lead to a crisis of food supply and falling wages [Ref: McMaster]. Since then, fears about population growth have taken several forms. Notably, fears about overpopulation and the ‘wrong kind of people’ being born formed the basis of eugenic ideologies and policies which focused on discouraging people from a particular race or social class from breeding. These days there is little appetite for state-led population control policies, and initiatives such as China’s One-Child Policy are generally viewed by the western world as repressive and unacceptable [Ref: Geography.com]. However, as concerns about the effect of population growth upon the environment become more widespread, there is a question about whether women and couples will find themselves pressured into making decisions about their family size for social, rather than personal, reasons [Ref: Spiked].

Do women benefit from a concern with population size?
Increased access to family planning – contraception and abortion – is generally recognised in the developed world as an important and positive gain for women’s rights and health. One strand of the population discussion is that providing the means for population reduction through the use of family planning is good both for the environment and for individual women [Ref: BMJ].  The UN-organised International Conference on Population and Development in 1994 brought the issue of population and the developing world together; improving women’s access to birth control was seen as a key strategy for improving health and managing economic development [Ref: UN]. However, there are disagreements about whether population reduction does lead to economic development [Ref: World views]. There is also some concern that the promotion of family planning, particularly in the developed world, uses the language of ‘reproductive rights’ to justify a population control agenda, which ultimately has a negative impact on women’s rights by cajoling them into using birth control [Ref: Alternet]. As one writer has put it, ‘the assumption that the goals of population control and women’s rights are inherently compatible is mistaken and, in fact, dangerous.’ [Ref: CWPE]

Are people the problem?
Voluntary or not, the idea that population size needs to be reduced raises the idea that a major problem facing modern society is the number of people on the planet. This has provoked a reaction from some commentators, who object that a society made up of human beings should not view people as a problem [Ref: Mercator]. Some commentators have drawn attention to the fact that, historically, the tendency to blame social problems on ‘too many people’ has been the preserve of elite groups, keen to divert attention from their own systems failure to provide. For some, this is related to a general discussion about the sanctity of human life: those who are inclined towards a pro-life perspective are likely to be sceptical about the morality of contraception and abortion in all circumstances, and especially so when fertility control is being promoted for reasons other than individual choice [Ref: Independent]. But for others, asking people to think about limiting their families is simply a sensible and practical reaction to the problems posed by climate change, dwindling resources and lack of space [Ref: Guardian].  In other words, we should be moving towards a pleasant standard of living for everyone, rather than simply fitting in as many people as possible.