“Population explosion” or “population bomb” is an emotional term used to refer to the rapid population growth. Since 1650 to 1950 and onwards the population of the world grew at a startling rate. The reasons for this population explosion are poverty, better medical facilities and migration. The abnormal rise in population has brought about an increase in individual consumption of food, water and exploitation of natural resources such as land, water, fossil fuels and minerals. Increasing poverty, air and water pollution and a shortage of food, health resources and educational resources are evidence of the population increase in developing countries. It is important that countries and individuals work together to control the population growth in order for the next generation to have a future.
Unfortunately, as the population increases the resources do not. People that have to struggle to make two ends meet produce more children because the more children you have the more earning hands you have. Due to poverty, the infant mortality rate among such families is much greater because of the lack of facilities such as food and medical resources. Hence, they produce more children making the assumption that not all them will be able to survive. Religious beliefs, traditions and cultural norms are also the reasons for the rise in the population. India’s culture particularly runs very deep in history. The amounts of educational facilities are insufficient in India due to the increased population. Consequently, most people rely on ancient belief. “God said ‘Go forth and produce’ and we just went ahead and did exactly that.” said Shobha De. Additionally, many families are partial to having a son rather than a daughter. Consequently, many families have more children than they actually can manage, resulting in increased poverty, insufficient resources and increased population. One of the many of India’s cultural norms is for a girl to get married at an early age. In most of the rural areas, families are partial to get their daughters married at the age of fourteen. Even though child marriage is illegal in India, the culture surrounding the girls does not allow them to speak against such decisions taken by their family. Since these girls are married off at such a young age, they have more potential of bearing children. Therefore, the younger they are when they start bearing children, the more children they have throughout their life span. This will cause an increase in the global fertility rate. These girls also do not have the opportunity to get an education since they get married off very young. For that reason they remain ignorant and impart the same cultural norms to their own children. Leaving the tradition to go on to one generation to the next. The advancement in medical facilities today has been astounding. This advancement maybe acknowledge as progressive but when it comes to population increase, it has solely been progressive in terms of expanding the population further. Although our love ones would live longer, because of the rise in the population, the available resources per person would decrease.
