seeoverpopulation

What do you mean, Overpopulation?

Imagine this. You are in New York City trying to get into a Taylor Swift concert. The arena is packed with kids, teens, teens with parents, adults, and tourists. Taylor Swift is about to come on stage but more than half of the audience is still trying to squeeze in and get a seat. There's pushing and then some shoving. People are getting irritated and angry. A group of die hard fans are in the back yelling. People stepping on each other's toes. Elbows digging into backs. Tensions rise. A fight breaks out.

Merriam-Webster defines overpopulation as "the condition of having a population so dense as to cause environmental deterioration, an impaired quality of life, or a population crash" This simple situation shows what happens when there are too many people in an area; when there is overpopulation. According to The World Counts there are 7.2 billion people in the world and predicts by 2100 there will be a massive 11 billion people. 1The economy could grow by 26 times and there will be enormous strain on Earth’s resources. We are already consuming 160% more than we should be. There are limited resources on this Earth and if something doesn’t change, there will be a complete collapse of our consumer society. 2 In extremely overpopulated areas such as China and India, living conditions are poor. Too much people in one area competing for resources, jobs, polluting the air, etc.

The effects of population isn’t just depletion of natural resources, we are hurting the environment, causing a rise in living, increasing unemployment, and much more. 3 Just look at Seattle. With the new economy bloom, people from all around are moving into Seattle, increasing the house prices by the thousands. Many people are competing for not just houses, but jobs too. There are only a certain amount of jobs available and with more people coming into Seattle to compete for these jobs, that means more people are left unhired. There are many more issues connected to overpopulation but there is no easy solution. Yet there are countries that are in dire need of a solution because they simply cannot adequately support this population growth. We will be looking at overpopulation in one of the leading countries, China while looking at an underpopulated country such as Japan. We will also be looking at how overpopulation is prevalent in our own home country; how is it possible that the United States, a country with one of the largest area is becoming overpopulated? Come with us on this journey to search for a possible solution to overpopulation on seeoverpopulation and help save ourselves and the Earth.

1“World Population - Right Now.” The World Counts.

2 United Nations report: UNEP Yearbook 2009, p43

3 “Overpopulation: Causes, Effects and Solutions.” Conserve Energy Future, 12 Apr. 2017, www.conserve-energy-future.com/causes-effects-solutions-of-overpopulation.php.

China seeking change

There are numerous countries experiencing the issue of overpopulation. China is one of the most populated countries in the world estimating around 1.2 billion people. That is 21% of the world's population. Overpopulation have been a dire problem in this country posing social and economic threats. Previously actions have been taken to solve the issue such as the One-child policy. China reported that during the time this policy was implemented, around 400 million births were prevented. 1 There has also been birth control programs and economic changes to stall the fast-growing population. In the early 80s, sterilization target goals were made for people with two children. When the economy changed from primarily one of agriculture to industry, the government used this to its advantage through spreading the view that economic growth would hinder population growth 2 However, other countries such as the United States have publicly shown their disapproval for for their sterilization policies. In relation to the One-child Policy, many Chinese citizens had also retaliated with acts of violence and due to the cultural preference for sons, there has been a huge increase in female infanticide. In response, the Chinese government then implemented the "daughter-only household" policy that allowed families that had a girl first to have a second child. 3 

While the living standards in China is still low. It has increased slightly since taking action in trying to lower the population growth rate. For example, access to natural resources have increased dramatically since 1980. Coverage of natural gas has risen from sixteen percent to seventy-three percent. To make up for the birth policies, medical coverage has been extended to include birth insurance and workers compensation for mothers. Another benefit is an increase in average life expectancy which went from thirty five years in 1949 to seventy years in 1996. Infant mortality rates were also decreased from two hundred per one thousand to thirty three per one thousand. 4 As can be seen, there are numerous social and economic benefits to solving the issue of overpopulation. 

To solve the issue of overpopulation and continue to control China's population certain reforms need to be put into place. One of the reasons SeeOverpopulation plans to help in this issue is to help raise education standards. As according to an article "Female Education and Childbearing: A Closer Look at the Data" by Elina Pradhan, "data show that the higher the level of a woman's educational attaintment, the fewer children is is likely to bear." 5 If we can help raise all the women in China to a certain education level, it will likely help slow down the birth rates in China. Furthermore, we plan to help make birth control and family planning more accessible to all citizens in China despite economic status, area of residence, etc. There are a lot more steps SeeOverPopulation plans to take to help slow down and find a permanent solution to solve overpopulation in not just China, but in all overpopulated countries. A detailed call-to-action will be coming soon... stay tuned!

1 Parkinson, Justin. “Five Numbers That Sum up China's One-Child Policy.” BBC News, BBC, 29 Oct. 2015.

2 Hilali, A.Z. "Chinaís Population Growth: Policy and Prospects." China Report 33.1 (1997): 1-34.

3 Jiali Li. "Chinaís One-Child Policy: How and How Well Has It Worked?" Population and Development Review 21.3 (1995): 563-585.

4 State Family Planning Commission of China. www.sfpc.gov.cn.

5 Pradhan, Elina. “Female Education and Childbearing: A Closer Look at the Data.” Governance for Development, 3 Dec. 2015, blogs.worldbank.org/health/female-education-and-childbearing-closer-look-data.

US is already being affected

The United States is the third largest country in the world in regards to area after Russia and Canada. As of 2017, the US has a total of 9,857, 348 total square miles with a population of 325.7 million people. 1  With such a large amount of land accompanied by a fair amount of people how is it possible that the US could be categorized under "overpopulation"? The United States is overpopulated in the sense that we are consuming our national ecological resources at an unsustainable rate. 2 This can be seen by the large 28.8% of our energy supplies coming from foreign countries. Over the last four years, the US population has increased dramatically resulting in a steady increase in our consumption of national resources. If we continue at this rate, there are serious implications to come in the future and scientists have predicated that the US would be in chaos with not enough resources for all its citizens. 

This can be changed. The problem was detected early and there is still enough time to find a solution. However, this contributes to the idea of curbing population growth and consumption of resources while increasing productivity. One of the easiest ways to limit population growth is to limit number of immigrants. This however, an issue that only policy makers can influence. We as citizens however, can easily limit consumption of resources. There are resources: renewable resources and nonrenewable resources. We need to stop our overconsumption of nonrenewable resources and replace them with renewable resources. If we don't, there will be land and resource shortages, ecological degradation and urban congestion which all jeopardizes the natural inheritance we leave for future generations. The United States already has environmental policies in place to help with the issue of overconsumption, however, there are no policies in place to help with the issue of growing population. Hence, there are no huge improvements in the issue of overconsumption/ overpopulation. 

If we are able to solve the issue of overpopulation it can help improve the quality of life index developed by The Economist Magazine. The index found that low population growth correlates closely with a healthy GDP per capita. 3 Only five of 20 top ranked nations had annual population growth greater than half of one percent in 2005 and 11 of the top-rated 20 nations experienced annual population growth of one-tenth of one percent or lower. The opposite can be said for the lowest-ranked 20 nations. This shows the correlation between a low population growth rate and a high-ranking on the index. Talking about he U.S. population, there is 325.7 million residents with an annual average growth rate of 0.975 percent. 4 That number may not seem huge now but with that rate of estimate for the future growth rate, the number is huge. The problem of increase in population is escalated by the lack of U.S. immigration policies. The US turns away no one, thus immigrant count is high.  There is no ethical or practical barrier to population stabilization. 5

There are ways to help preserve our Earth and the US citizens such as making the issue more aware. Not many people are aware that the US is overpopulated in the sense that resources are being depleted rapidly. If everyone knows, the US citizens are not without compassion. We can all bond together and find a solution to conserving our resources. Conserving our resources can be simple everyday things such as starting a compost site, turning down central heating and using a jumper, borrow books from a library instead of buying your own books, bike instead of driving, driving at 50mph instead of 70mph (reduces fuel use by 25%), drink tap or filtered water instead of bottled water, etc. All of these things are easy ways to save not just the resources of United States but our planet. Secondly, we need better immigration laws in place. While SeeOverpopulation can not do much in that aspect, if citizens can bond together, that voice can make a change. Population control can be helped not only through immigration control but also through US citizens controlling their number of children births. There are multiple ways that SeeOverpopulation plans to help promote citizens to help save the United States along with future generations. Stay tuned for suggestions on direct action! 

1 “U.S. and World Population Clock Tell Us What You Think.” U.S. Trade with Haiti, www.census.gov/popclock/.

2 "Annual Energy Outlook 2007," Table A1, Energy Information Administration, U.S. Department of Energy.

3"The Economist Intelligence Unit’s quality-of-life index," The Economist Magazine, 2005.

4 The World Factbook, "Field Listing: Population growth rate." 2009 est. Central Intelligence Agency.

5 Cafaro, P. and W. Staples III. "The Environmental Argument for Reducing Immigration to the United States." June, 2009, Center for Immigration Studies.

Japan is worried

We often correlate well developed countries with being perfect. It is the world’s third largest economy yet Japan is facing a problem that threatens to destroy their “perfect” world. It is facing a decline in population. The first sign of their population decline was in 1920 and the situation has worsened; the Japanese has been worrying for a while about whether its population may one day become extinct. According to the Japanese National Institute of Population and Social Security Research in 2006, it predicted that by the end of the present century, population would decline to around 50m, falling further to 10m by the end of the next. Furthermore, by 2350 only 1m people would be left and by the year 3000 the population would be merely 62 people. 1 However, most East Asian countries (beside China) are now facing an issue of population decline.

One reason why Japan is facing this population decline is its ration of death to birth rate. The number of births in Japan is about 1.001 million births which is at an all time low. With that low birth rate, Japan’s population is losing about 268,000 people. In a census in 2014, Japan release that 15% of its population was elderly, and 40% of Japanese are projected to be over 65 by the year 2060. 2  Japan is one of the countries with the largest population of elderly citizens and over the last forty years, that number has only quadrupled.

Japan's life expectancy in 2016 was 85 years old with it being 81.7 for males and 88.5 They are able to achieve that through improved nutrition, advanced medical and pharmacological technologies reduced the prevalence of diseases and improving living conditions for its citizens. The second cause that drives this crisis is a low fertility rate. Japan's total fertility rate (the number of children born by each woman in her lifetime) has been below the replacement threshold of 2.1 since 1974 and reached a historic low of 1.26 in 2005. Experts believe that this is because of a “tempo affect” The reason for low fertility rate being a variety of reasons some which are, fewer marriages, higher education, urbanization, increase in nuclear family households (rather than extended family), poor work–life balance, increased participation of women in the workforce, a decline in wages and lifetime employment along with a high gender pay gap, small living spaces, and the high cost of raising a child. 3

This issue needs to be fixed soon as Japan is one of the main driving forces in the global economy. It likely to lead to a shrinking economy if productivity does not increase faster than the rate of Japan's decreasing workforce. 4 The OECD estimates that similar labor shortages in Austria, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain, and Sweden will depress the European Union's economic growth by 0.4 percentage points annually from 2000 to 2025, after which shortages will cost the EU 0.9 percentage points in growth. In Japan labor shortages will lower growth by 0.7 percentage points annually until 2025, after which Japan will also experience a 0.9 percentage points loss in growth. 5 All of these are negative side effects that we don’t want to happen. However, if we don’t do something that may soon become a reality in our generation or the next generation. Our call for action will soon be posted, stay tuned!

1 Gietel-Basten, Stuart. “Japan Is Not the Only Country Worrying about Population Decline – Get Used to a Two-Speed World.” The Conversation, The Conversation, 1 June 2018, theconversation.com/japan-is-not-the-only-country-worrying-about-population-decline-get-used-to-a-two-speed-world-56106.

2 Macauley, Richard. “Japanese Deaths Outnumbered Births by Almost 300,000 Last Year.” Quartz, Quartz, 2 Jan. 2015,qz.com/320338/japanese-deaths-outnumbered-births-

by-almost-300000-last-year/.

3 Statistics Bureau, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Japan. "Statistical Handbook of Japan 2014". Chapter 5. Retrieved 18 January 2016.

4 “Into the Unknown.” The Economist, http://search.proquest.com/docview/807974249

5 Paul S. Hewitt (2002). "Depopulation and Ageing in Europe and Japan: The Hazardous Transition to a Labor Shortage Economy". International Politics and Society. Archived from the original on 27 December 2007. Retrieved 2007-12-15.

Help us Help you!

Now that we have explored all the many areas of the world that is dealing with population issues whether it is overpopulation or underpopulation, what can we do? SeeOverpopulation can help answer that question! We are providing a simple 5-step action plan that everyone in the world can get involved with to help better our people and the Earth.

First, we need to EMPOWER WOMEN. Many studies have shown that in run down countries, the birth rates are increasing and contributing to overpopulation. Furthermore, other studies have shown that women with access to reproductive health services are more likely to break out of poverty and working women are more likely to use birth control. We need to empower women and make them feel like they have a voice and a right on what they want to do with their body through also showing them the resources that they can get to. Empowering women can be as simple as supporting girls/women that you may know while they need help, mentor a girl you know in your neighborhood, tell the women in your life that you care about them and using your voice to help speak out about women. 1 This is the first step that we all need to do to help solve the issue of birth rates which correlates to population issues.

Secondly, FAMILY PLANNING services should be promoted more and made more available. Many women in more run down countries don’t know the concept of birth control. They don’t know that you are able to take control of your body and when you are ready to start a family. Simply just showing people that there are ways to prevent getting pregnant can make a huge impact as shown in 1989 in Iran. Iran introduced a national family program and its fertility rate fell from 5.6 births per woman to just 2.6birth per woman in 10 years. 2 The effectiveness of showing family planning services can also be seen in Rwanda when they introduced a similar family planning program and usage in contraception increased by 3 fold in just 5 years. 3 In order to help with the promotion of family planning services, it could be directing someone to Planned Parenthood or pushing to improve sex ed at a school.

Third step is to be a supporter of ABORTION RIGHTS. Whether you agree or disagree with abortion that is a different question, however, everyone should have a choice on what they want to do with their body. That right to choice still exists even if they are pregnant and thus the individual should have the right to choose whether or not they want the child or if they want to abort the child. Furthermore, it can help improve the living conditions of kids who are born to mother’s who wanted to abort their child. Statistics has shown that in the United States, 42% of women who go through abortion are considered poor. 4 This goes to shown that these kids, if born, would not have had a great life and that these women chose not to bring their child into the world because of their circumstance. That is a valid reason that we should all support.

Next step is to BE CONSIDERATE of your peers and family. These days many people are being pressured into giving birth by parents, friends, children, etc. Deciding to start a family or increase a family size is a huge deal and should be made by the person giving birth only. It is their body, their family, and their decision. Putting pressure on someone to have kids when she is not ready could have serious consequences. It is crucial to keep in mind that if you the person giving birth, you are the sole person who has to deal with your decision for the rest of your life. Others may be affected, but as the mother you are effect the most. However, there may be people who try and pressure you to do what they think is right, either for you, your child, or both. Nevertheless, it needs to be your decision. Everyone else can go on with their day after a decision has been made, but you have to feel the consequences of your choice. 5 With all this in mind, pressuring someone into giving birth is never the right thing to do. Be considerate and supportive of your peer, family, or friend and allow them the freedom of choice.

Last step is to just BE A FRIEND for friends and family to talk about things pregnancy related, whether it is sex, birth control, or kids. 6 When we talk to people it helps us say out thoughts out-loud and realize if what we are saying makes sense or if it just sounds pretty in our head. Furthermore, by being able to talk with a trusted person, they can help support us on the journey and provide new insight to our ideas. Especially something as major as planning a family, it is always good to have someone you trust to talk to. You can be that person! It is as simple as being willing to talk to them and give your honest opinion on what they should do.

All of these things added together can make a huge difference. These are things that everyone can do, whether you are a child, teen, or adult. Whether you are a maid, doctor, firefighter, architect, or cashier. If everyone devotes themselves to doing one thing, this world would be a much better place where population issues would cease to exist.

Again, here is the 5-step-action-plan. Be sure to check out our poster that you can print out if you would like to share this plan with friends and family!

1. Empower Women

2. Promote Family Planning Services

3. Support Abortion Rights

4. Be considerate

5. Be a friend!

1 “7 Ways to Empower Women and Girls.” World Vision, 11 Apr. 2018, www.worldvision.org/gender-equality-news-stories/seven-ways-empower-women-girls.

2 “Aiming for Quality in Iran's National Family Planning Program - Two Decades of Sustained Efforts.” Egyptian Journal of Medical Human Genetics, Elsevier, 22 Nov. 2015, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010782415006745.

3 “Rwanda.” Family Planning 2020, www.familyplanning2020.org/entities/81.

4 Guttmatcher.org -&Nbspguttmatcher Resources and Information., ww3.guttmatcher.org/.

5 “I'm Being Pressured Into Placing. What Should I Do?” Adoption.com, adoption.com/Im-being-pressured-into-placing-what-should-i-do.

6 “8 Things You Can Do about Population.” Grist, Grist, 14 Jan. 2011, grist.org/population/2011-01-13-10-8-things-you-can-do-about-overpopulation/.