Uncertain future for family planning on World Population Day
“Even if there were no environmental pressures caused by population growth, we should still support the measures required to tackle it: universal sex education, universal access to contraceptives, better schooling and opportunities for poor women. Stabilising or even reducing the human population would ameliorate almost all environmental impacts.” George Monbiot, author and journalist “The UN has been over-anticipating fertility decline and underestimating population growth.” Jane N. O’Sullivan, population and climate change researcher World Population Day is July 11 and its purpose since 1990 has been to highlight major social justice and environmental concerns relating to human population. https://tinyurl.com/events-population-day Although the UN has dedicated resources to do more to protect women’s right to be in control of their fertility, 40% of women have still not achieved this. Cutting back on family planning initiatives, even in the United States, has forced many more women and children into poverty. Furthermore, population growth in general makes those very voluntary family planning goals more difficult to achieve. Although fertility rates are lower in many parts of the world, this will have very limited impact on population growth in this century. If the ecological foundations for human wellbeing are to be stabilized and enhanced, society must look to other ways than solely fertility rates to bring this about. As we will see, a smaller population brings many benefits. Economic growth does not necessarily translate into a healthier society. On the contrary, degrowth policies can have more positive outcomes. In a 2023 article, Jane Nancy O’Sullivan put forward the strong argument that the models showing a levelling off of population growth are inaccurate and that in the long run it will be only by family planning that world populations will decrease. “The common assumptions that fertility decline is driven by economic betterment, urbanization or education levels are not well supported in historical evidence. In contrast, voluntary family planning provision and promotion achieved rapid fertility decline, even in poor, rural and illiterate communities. Projections based on education and income as drivers of fertility decline ignore the reverse causation, that lowering fertility through family planning interventions enabled economic advancement and improved women’s education access…” https://tinyurl.com/demographic-delusions And in a recent interview, O’Sullivan pointed out: “Family planning in Africa is no substitute for reducing the footprint of the rich countries, but even if we do the latter perfectly, we’ll still fail if world population is too high. And it would be people in high-fertility countries who’d suffer most.” The opportunity to have an education increases literacy rates, and this in turn enables women to have a stronger voice in a country’s affairs. Today only six countries have 50% or more women in their parliaments, thereby enabling women to influence the national legislation to bring justice for more women: family planning ultimately gives greater prosperity to girls and women when they are heard. Large families can mean far fewer opportunities for children, and unbridled population growth in a country can plague that country’s ability to provide better health care, education, infrastructure and biodiversity protection as well as