Why is overpopulation happening

Why is Over Population a Problem? Read More: The Increase in Population. Biodiversity Factsheet. Pollution Factsheet. Food of the Future Factsheet. On the other hand, if more reliable contraceptives are developed and virtually end unintended pregnancies the world over, birthrates could fall much faster than predicted. Nonetheless, this disagreement obscures a lot of agreement.

Everyone now agrees that without any totalitarian or coercive measures, populations will start declining; the big disagreement is simply when. It implies both good things — that coercive population controls will never be necessary — and concerning ones, like that societies will age and have a shrinking workforce. But on the whole, we are much better positioned for sustainable growth than it looked in , and the fall in rich-country birthrates is why. The connection between societies growing wealthier and people desiring smaller families is pretty straightforward.

In richer societies, people do not need their kids to do labor and support the family, and they typically invest money and other resources in their kids, to give them the best shot possible at a decent life.

The connection between drops in child mortality and smaller desired family sizes is less obvious. Indeed, at first, when child mortality falls, the population shoots up, as people are still having lots of kids, but more of them survive to adulthood. That produces a rapid increase in population. That was the state of the world in the s, and some parts of the world are still in that state now.

But then, overall growth rates started to fall. Demographers think of this process as occurring in five stages. First, birthrates are high but so are death rates, and the population is low but stable when child mortality is high, people have lots of children to reduce uncertainty. Then, in the second stage, technology helps more kids survive to adulthood.

Birthrates remain high, and the population grows rapidly: for one or two generations. In the fourth stage, birthrates fall and the population stabilizes.

What does this demographic transition look like in action? In the US in , the average woman had 3. Today, the average woman has 1. People used to think that ending child mortality would lead to a dramatic swell in global populations, and it does, in Stage 2 of the above chart, where death rates fall and birthrates remain high. But then in every country yet studied, birthrates eventually end up falling too. Some of the best research into the demographic transition was published in by British researchers Anthony Wrigley and Roger Schofield.

As the first country to have the Industrial Revolution, Britain was the first to have the demographic transition. Thanks to the state church, Britain also had unusually good birth and death records. Today, most developed countries have joined Britain on the right end of that graph, with low birthrates and low death rates.

That adds up to an overall global trend of a population that is still increasing, but it is increasing more slowly than ever. Public conversations are often still consumed by fear that the population is spiraling beyond what the world can support. Improvement in medical technology has led to lower mortality rates for many serious diseases.

Particularly dangerous viruses and ailments such as polio, smallpox and measles have been practically eradicated by such advances. While this is positive news in many ways, it also means that people are living longer than ever before. Though it only plays a minor role in comparison to the other causes of overpopulation, improved fertility treatments have made it possible for more people to have children. The number of women using various fertility treatments has been on the rise since their inception.

Now most have the option of conceiving children, even if they may not have been able to do so without such treatments. Unchecked immigration into countries may lead to overpopulation to the point where those countries no longer have the required resources for their population.

This is particularly problematic in countries where immigration numbers far exceed emigration numbers. In some cases, immigrants may be attempting to escape overpopulation in their own countries, only to contribute to the same issues in the countries they move to.

However, data also exists to show the immigration can bolster economies, with the effect in the UK being particularly pronounced. Effects of overpopulation mainly involve the number of resources required to support a large population, which can lead to a great deal of pollution and other detriments to the environment. In many countries. This will place those living in impoverished areas that already have limited access to such water at great risk. While higher life expectancy is leading to increases in population in developed countries, lower life expectancy may be caused by the booms in population that less developed nations are experiencing.

This stretches the resources these countries have thinner resulting in less access to medical care, fresh water, food and jobs, all resulting in a fall in life expectancy. As demand for land grows, so too does the destruction of natural habitats, such as forests. Data has also been collected to show that there is a direct link between increases in human population and decreases in the number of species on the planet.

And all that consumption contributes to ecological degradation, increased conflicts, and a higher risk of large-scale disasters like pandemics. An increase in population will inevitably create pressures leading to more deforestation, decreased biodiversity, and spikes in pollution and emissions, which will exacerbate climate change. Ultimately, unless we take action to help minimize further population growth heading into the remainder of this century, many scientists believe the additional stress on the planet will lead to ecological disruption and collapse so severe it threatens the viability of life on Earth as we know it.

According to estimates in a study by Wynes and Nicholas , a family having one fewer child could reduce emissions by The scarcity brought about by environmental disruption and overpopulation has the potential to trigger an increase in violence and political unrest. Many of the recent novel pathogens that have devastated humans around the world, including COVID, Zika virus, Ebola, and West Nile virus, originated in animals or insects before passing to humans.

As we carry out our work at Population Media Center PMC , we see first-hand that spreading awareness about family planning methods and the ecological and economic benefits of having smaller families can change reproductive behavior. Look Again! Discover how PMC is taking action against overpopulation today!

All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy. The Causes of Overpopulation Today the Earth is home to more than 7. Falling Mortality Rate The primary and perhaps most obvious cause of population growth is an imbalance between births and deaths. Underutilized Contraception The global fertility rate has fallen steadily over the years, down from an average of 5 children per woman in to 2.