How Can We Slow Population Growth?

Stephanie Carrea
Dr. Sanders
11/15/15
Population growth happens quickly. Many nations have recently discovered
that their population growth has increased to an enormous rate, and these nations
have since been attempting to slow these rates. Lower income countries experience
the greatest of these growth rates, but have the least amount of resources to slow
the population growth. The main ways in which growth is slowed are economic
development, empowering women, and family planning. These three strategies help
slow population growth because they give lower income countries a way to help
themselves in this resolution, versus relying on the help of other
nations/organizations alone.
Economic development is the first of these steps. Countries like India have
been impacted by this change the most, through many attempts to improve medical
care, education, and simple skills like taking care of the environment. Creating jobs
like helping in agriculture can keep families fed and healthy, in order to reduce the
need to have more children. The Annual Survey of Industries (ASI) which provides
data on formal industrial employment also shows a healthy spike in industrial
employment between 2005 and 2011, after stagnating since the nineties. (Creating
Jobs for India's Millions) Indias population rates have slowed due to changes in the

economy such as this, but have also changed due to the growth in medical supply.
Benson Medical Equipment is a leading provider of Medical Equipment and Medical

gas pipeline in India. The company was started in 1996 and is located out of New
Delhi, with operations across India. (http://bensonmedicalindia.com/) These
changes help keep families safe and healthy. Another possible step to helping
change the population growth in economic development is to incorporated sexual
education classes into all schools in India, in order to make the presence of family
birth control more aware to girls at a young age.
Empowering women is the most effective way to do this. Women all around
the world should have the power to make the decision of having a child, but in many
places, they do not have this ability. One way to help women is to make birth control
pills, injections, and other forms of contraception known and available to all women.
Watson Institute reported that medical doctor Angel Foster spoke on helping to
control pregnancies to their institute as well as many others in order to raise
awareness. Foster also talked about projects to enable access to emergency
contraception for women in Jordan, including a recent influx of Iraqi refugees, as
well as access to such contraceptive methods for women in the West Bank.
(Researching Contraception in the Middle East) Many problems in women empowerment
however, have to do with the lack of government regulation. Some countries
unfortunately do not see women as equal citizens and allow rape, bride buying, and
torture of women to occur. A change in moral is a huge part of the next step in
helping empower women to make these choices.
Many families are even unaware of the option of birth control. Family planning
can also be an effective practice. Thailand has put this into practice effectively,
according to Context Institute. Thailand has lowered its birth rate quickly and
substantially thanks to the creativity of family planning approaches, the openness

of the Thai people to new ideas, and the willingness of the government to work with
the Population and Community Development Association (PDA), a private non-profit
organization and the largest nongovernmental agency in Thailan d. (Thailand: A Family
Planning Success Story) Once other countries are able to put this same idea into

practice, the population growths could potentially be cut in half. China developed
the one child policy, which was affective in the short term but not the long term. Not
only was this idea demoralizing, it also created problems when the population
eventually became mostly consisting of elderly people. The better way to keep the
population at a sustainable, healthy level is to create family planning awareness.
Population growth can create many problems involving citizens, nature, and
our world as a whole. Population growth is especially present in developing/third
world countries. The best way to control population is to increase economic
development, help empower women, and create family planning solutions. Another
great way to help is to just bring awareness to people all around the world, as well
as keeping a constant reminder in our own brains. Population growth has recently
gone down in many countries due to these strategies, but need to continue to drop
with the efforts of people all around the world today.

Works Cited
"Researching Contraception in the Middle East." Researching Contraception in the Middle East. N.p.,
n.d. Web. 16 Nov. 2015.
"Creating Jobs for India's Millions." Http://www.livemint.com/. N.p., 05 Aug. 2014. Web. 16 Nov.
2015.
"Thailand: A Family Planning Success Story." Context Institute. N.p., 16 Sept. 2011. Web. 16 Nov.
2015.