How to Defuse the Population Bomb

World population growth--and how to slow it--continues to be a subject of great controversy. The planet's poorest nations have yet to find effective ways to check their population increase--at least without restricting citizens' rights and violating such traditions as the custom of having large families as insurance in old age. India's new government, for example, has abandoned coercive birth control procedures, even though the country, with a population of 635 million, is growing by a million new people per month. The U.S. National Security Council has said that runaway population growth is "a threat to our national security. " Nonetheless, some analysts see cause for hope--if action is taken in time. Among them is World Bank President Robert S. McNamara, who examined the status of the Malthusian threat and what can be done about it in a speech at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Excerpts:

Except for thermonuclear war, population growth is the gravest issue the world faces over the decades immediately ahead. In many ways it is an even more dangerous and subtle threat than war, for it is less subject to rational safeguards, and less amenable to organized control. It is not in the exclusive control of a few governments, but rather in the hands of hundreds of millions of individual parents. The population threat must be faced--like the nuclear threat--for what it inevitably is: a central determinant of mankind's future, one requiring far more attention than it is presently receiving.

Last year the world's population passed 4 billion. Barring a holocaust brought on by man or nature, the world's population right now is the smallest it will ever be again. How did it reach 4 billion? For the first 99% of man's existence, surprisingly slowly. For the last 1% of history, in a great rush. By 1750, the total had reached only about 800 million. Then, as the Industrial Revolution gathered momentum, population growth began rapidly to accelerate. By 1900, it had doubled to 1.6 billion; by 1964, it had doubled again to 3.2 billion; and by the end of the century, it is projected to double again to about 6.3 billion. Given today's level of complacency in some quarters, and dis couragement in others, the likely scenario is for a world stabilized at about 11 billion.

The sudden population surge has been a function of two opposite trends: the gradual slowing down of the growth rate in the developed nations, and the rapid acceleration of the rate in the developing countries. The experience of the developed countries gave rise to the theory of the demographic transition. It holds that societies tend to move through three distinct demographic stages: 1) high birth rates and high death rates, resulting in near stationary populations; 2) high birth rates but declining death rates, producing growing populations; and finally, 3) low birth rates and low death rates, re-establishing near stationary populations.

The fundamental question is: What, if anything, can rationally and humanely be done to accelerate the demographic transition in the developing world? Is that acceleration realistically possible? It is.

With the help of modern mass communications, which are both more pervasive and more influential than ever, an increasing number of governments in the developing world are committed to lowering fertility, and an even larger number to supporting family-planning programs. Family-planning services are essential, but can succeed only to the extent that a demand for lower fertility exists. That demand apparently does not now exist in sufficient strength in most of the developing countries. There are a number of policy actions that governments can take to help stimulate the demand. None of them is easy to implement. All of them require some reallocation of scarce resources. Some of them are politically sensitive. But governments must measure those costs against the immeasurably greater costs in store for societies that procrastinate while dangerous population pressures mount.

What, then, are those specific social and economic actions most likely to promote the desire for reduced fertility?

The importance of enhancing the status of women is critical.

The number of illiterate females is growing faster than illiterate males.

Of all the aspects of social development, the educational level appears most consistently associated with lower fertility.

And an increase in the education of women tends to lower fertility to a greater extent than a similar increase in the education of men. In Latin America, for example, studies indicate that women who have completed primary school average about two children fewer than those who have not.

Schooling tends to delay the age of marriage for girls, and thus reduces their total possible number of childbearing years.

Further, education enables both men and women to learn about modern contraceptives and their use. It broadens their view of the opportunities and potential of life, inclines them to think more for themselves, and reduces their suspicion of social change.

Infant and child mortality rates can be brought down relatively simply and inexpensively, if national health policies are carefully designed. The return in lowered fertility and healthier children and more equitably served families is clearly worth the effort. Malnourished mothers give birth to weak and unhealthy infants, and have problems nursing them. Such infants often die, and this leads to frequent pregnancies, which in turn diminish their occupational and economic status. This makes sons more desirable than daughters, and when only daughters are born, another pregnancy must ensue in order to try again for a son.

In addition, policies must be shaped that will assist the urban poor to increase their work productivity. In practice, this means a comprehensive program designed to increase earning opportunities in both the traditional and the modern sectors; provide equitable access to public utilities, transport, education and health services; and establish realistic housing policies.

Economic growth must be distributed more equitably. Typically, in most of the developing countries, the upper 20% of the population receives 55% of the national income, and the lowest 20% receives 5%. In the rural areas, this is reflected in the concentration of land ownership. According to a survey by the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization, the wealthiest 20% of the land owners in most developing countries own between 50% and 60% of the cropland. The roughly 100 million small farms in the developing world--those less than 5 hectares--are concentrated on only 20% of the cropland. It is little wonder that national economic growth itself has had less than optimum effect on the fertility patterns of the vast mass of the population.

Excessive fertility is itself a serious obstacle to economic growth. But unless the benefits of growth are directed more equitably to the lower 40% of the income groups, where in fact fertility rates are likely to be the highest, then economic growth as such will not move the society forward at an optimum rate of progress. But through an increase in income, small-farm families will almost certainly experience a beneficial decline in their traditionally high fertility. For the income will give them access to better health and education and living standards, which in turn are likely to lead to smaller families.

A number of governments are moving in the direction of coercion. Some have introduced legal sanctions to raise the age of marriage. A few are considering direct legal limitations on family size and sanctions to enforce them. No government really wants to resort to this. But neither can any government afford to let population pressure grow so large that social frustrations finally erupt into irrational violence and civil disintegration.

We know that eventually the world's population will have to stop growing. What is uncertain is how. And when. At what level. And with what result. We can avoid a world of 11 billion, and all the misery that such an impoverished and crowded planet would imply. Man is still young in cosmic terms. In the time perspective of the universe, he is recent, and tentative, and perhaps even experimental. He makes mistakes. And yet, if he is truly sapiens--thinking and wise--then surely there is promise for him.

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