Describe and explain governments attempts to control the number and distribution of people

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Describe and explain governments attempts to control the number and distribution of people

‘Every second 5 people are born and 2 people die, a net gain of 3 people. At this rate, the world population will double every 40 years and would be 12 billion in 40 years, 24 billion in 80 years, and more than 48 billion in 120 years.’

(United Nations, 2003)

Given this growth governments will and have to structure policies to manage both number (total population) and distribution (where people live often analysed as people per km2 [density]) within the country in order to meet the needs of its population and its resources in a sustainable manner. During late 1960’s and 70’s there was a major population scare, creating fairly widespread concern about the rapidly growing world population. Largely sparked off by the writing of P. Erlich (“The population bomb” 1968). The concern was that population growth would out pace the worlds capacity for food production. A great deal of pressure was put on governments to reduce population growth, for economic reasons as well as humanitarian ones. As a result countries such as China, Kenya, and Singapore adopted policies to try and curb the high birth rates. However, due to the different ageing population characteristics of many western nations, such as Sweden and France may have the opposite problem; birth rates are so low, that immigration and policies to increase birth rates are currently the only factors causing the population to expand. Throughout this essay I will be investigating on these attempts and policies to control the number and distribution of people. With reference to the examples mentioned.

        

Firstly we will look at several governments and their attempts to control the number of people within their country. One of the more extreme measures taken in an attempt to control population has been China’s one-child policy. Some environmentalists and population advocates have suggested the rest of the world adopt similar policies. Unfortunately when you get beyond the mythology and seriously examine the one-child policy, it is clear the policy is not viable even if one can recover from the awful human rights violations it entails. The government became concerned by a 1970’s baby boom, and wanted to restrict the population to 1.2 billion people in 2000. This policy has caused a great deal of controversy in China, as it opposes Chinese tradition. However, in urban areas it has been rigorously enforced, and has significantly slowed population growth. This has been done by closely monitoring people while at work and at home, using the “granny police”, and introducing a large system of bureaucracy in order to get a permit to have a child. Salary and education benefits have been offered to parents with one child, and harsh punishments for those who have more than one child. Following the strengthening of politically power by the Communists in China, the nation’s population exploded. Annual population growth exceeded 2 percent for most years between 1949 and 1974. Beginning in the mid-1970s, however, China abruptly shifted gears and fertility declined dramatically. The annual population growth rate has remained around 1.5 percent since the mid-1970s. This sequence of events is significant mainly for this reason the one-child policy wasn’t adopted by China until 1979, yet China’s huge fertility drop occurred between 1970 and 1979 when live births fell from 34 per 1,000 people to 18 per 1,000 people. Since the introduction of the one-child policy in 1979, there has been no large drop in fertility and in fact China experienced a slight increase fluctuating around 21 births per 1,000 people in the 1980s. The impact of the one-child policy has been minimal:

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The TFR [Total Fertility Rate] never fell below a 2.5 child-per woman average in rural areas, although it dropped to about 1.2 in urban areas. By the mid-1980s, less than one-fifth of all eligible married couples had signed the one-child certificate -- a contract which granted couples and their child economic and educational advantages in return for promising not to have more than one child. Throughout the 1980s, nearly half of all reported births were second, third, or higher order births. Various surveys suggested that the desire to have at least two children remained strong among Chinese couples. Why did ...

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