View source for Human population planning

{{Short description|Practice of controlling rate of growth}}
{{redirect|Population planning|the practice among non-humans|Population control}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2025}}
[[File:2025-2026 world fertility map.png|thumb|Map of countries by [[List of sovereign states and dependencies by total fertility rate|total fertility rate]] (2025–2026), referring to the average number of children that are born to a woman over her lifetime, (Estimated based on historical trends) according to the [https://geofactbook.com Geo Factbook].<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Factbook |first1=Geo |date=4 November 2025 |title=Total fertility rate 2026 |url=https://geofactbook.com/fact/total-fertility-rate/2026 |access-date=12 May 2026 |website=Geo Factbook}}</ref>]]
'''Human population planning''' is the practice of managing the [[Human population growth|growth rate of a human population]]. The practice, traditionally referred to as [[population control]], had historically been implemented mainly with the goal of increasing population growth, though from the 1950s to the 1980s, concerns about [[human overpopulation|overpopulation]] and its effects on [[poverty]], [[Human impact on the environment|the environment]] and [[political stability]] led to efforts to reduce [[population growth]] rates in many countries. More recently, however, several countries such as [[China]], [[Japan]],<ref>{{cite web |title=Fears grow that Japan's birth rate and aging crisis could be worsened by pandemic |url=https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/08/18/national/social-issues/birth-rate-aging-crisis-coronavirus/ |website=The Japan Times |date=18 August 2020 |access-date=4 August 2021 |archive-date=4 August 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210804163540/https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/08/18/national/social-issues/birth-rate-aging-crisis-coronavirus/ }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Japan to fund AI matchmaking to boost birth rate |work=BBC News |date=8 December 2020 |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-55226098 |access-date=4 August 2021}}</ref> [[South Korea]],<ref>{{cite web |last1=Lee |first1=David D. |title=Can South Korea lift the world's lowest birth rate by offering cash incentives? |url=https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/health-environment/article/3115396/can-south-korea-lift-worlds-lowest-birth-rate-offering |website=South China Morning Post |date=27 December 2020 |access-date=4 August 2021}}</ref> [[Russia]],<ref name="BBC News">{{cite news |title=How do countries fight falling birth rates? |work=BBC News |date=15 January 2020 |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51118616 |access-date=4 August 2021}}</ref> [[Iran]], [[Italy]],<ref name="BBC News"/> [[Spain]], [[Finland]],<ref>{{cite web |title=Business lobby calls for govt action to boost Finland's birth rate |url=https://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/business_lobby_calls_for_govt_action_to_boost_finlands_birth_rate/11165325 |website=Yle.fi |date=19 January 2020 |access-date=4 August 2021}}</ref> [[Hungary]]<ref>{{cite news |title=Hungary tries for baby boom with tax breaks and loan forgiveness |work=BBC News |date=11 February 2019 |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-47192612 |access-date=21 September 2021}}</ref> and [[Estonia]]<ref>{{cite web |last1=Rooney |first1=Katharine |title=This is how Estonia is growing its population |url=https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/11/family-subsidy-birth-rate-estonia-finland-france/ |website=World Economic Forum |date=12 November 2019 |access-date=21 September 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Männi |first1=Marian |title=Feature: Estonians starting to have more kids — because they can |url=https://news.err.ee/1111731/feature-estonians-starting-to-have-more-kids-because-they-can |website=ERR Online |date=11 July 2020 |access-date=21 September 2021}}</ref> have begun efforts to boost birth rates once again, generally as a response to looming demographic crises.

While population planning can involve measures that improve people's lives by giving them greater control of their [[Human reproduction|reproduction]], a few programs, such as the Chinese government's "[[one-child policy]] and [[two-child policy]]", have employed coercive measures.

==Types==
{{Eugenics sidebar}}
Three types of population planning policies pursued by governments can be identified:

# Increasing or decreasing the overall population growth rate.
# Increasing or decreasing the relative population growth of a subgroup of people, such as those of high or low intelligence or those with special abilities or disabilities. Policies that aim to boost relative growth rates are known as [[positive eugenics]]; those that aim to reduce relative growth rates are known as [[negative eugenics]].
# Attempts to ensure that all population groups of a certain type (e.g. all social classes within a society) have the same average rate of population growth.

==History==

===Ancient times through Middle Ages===
A number of ancient writers have reflected on the issue of population. At about 300 BC, the Indian [[political philosopher]] [[Chanakya]] (c. 350-283 BC) considered population a source of political, economic, and military strength. Though a given region can house too many or too few people, he considered the latter possibility to be the greater evil. Chanakya favored the remarriage of [[widows]] (which at the time was forbidden in India), opposed taxes encouraging emigration, and believed in restricting [[asceticism]] to the aged.<ref name="Neurath 1994 7">{{cite book |title=From Malthus to the Club of Rome and Back |last= Neurath |first=Paul |year=1994 |publisher= M.E. Sharpe|isbn=978-1-56324-407-0 |page=7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_ZHx3GO_xLMC&q=%22population+control%22}}</ref>

In [[ancient Greece]], [[Plato]] (427-347 BC) and [[Aristotle]] (384-322 BC) discussed the best population size for Greek [[city-state]]s such as [[Sparta]], and concluded that cities should be small enough for efficient administration and direct citizen participation in public affairs, but at the same time needed to be large enough to defend themselves against hostile neighbors. In order to maintain a desired population size, the philosophers advised that [[procreation]], and if necessary, immigration, should be encouraged if the population size was too small. Emigration to colonies would be encouraged should the population become too large.<ref name=" Neurath 1994 6"/> Aristotle concluded that a large increase in population would bring, "certain poverty on the citizenry and poverty is the cause of sedition and evil." To halt rapid population increase, Aristotle advocated the use of [[abortion]] and the exposure of newborns (that is, [[infanticide]]).<ref>{{cite book |title=From Malthus to the Club of Rome and Back |last= Neurath |first=Paul |year=1994 |publisher= M.E. Sharpe|isbn=978-1-56324-407-0 |pages=6–7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_ZHx3GO_xLMC&q=%22population+control%22}}</ref>

[[Confucius]] (551-478 BC) and other Chinese writers cautioned that, "excessive growth may reduce output per worker, repress levels of living for the masses and engender strife." Some Chinese writers may also have observed that "mortality increases when food supply is insufficient; that premature marriage makes for high infantile mortality rates, that war checks population growth."<ref name="Neurath 1994 6">{{cite book |title=From Malthus to the Club of Rome and Back |last= Neurath |first=Paul |year=1994 |publisher= M.E. Sharpe|isbn=978-1-56324-407-0 |page=6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_ZHx3GO_xLMC&q=%22population+control%22}}</ref> It is particularly noteworthy that [[Han Fei]] (281-233 BC), long before Malthus, had already noted the conflict between a population growing at the exponential rate and a food supply growing at the arithmetic rate.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Schwermann |first1=Christian |last2=Sabattini |first2=Elisa Levi |title=Between Command and Market.Economic Thought and Practice in Early China|date=2022 |publisher=Brill |location=London |isbn=978-90-04-44863-6 |page=24}}</ref> Not only did he conclude that overpopulation was the root cause of the intensification of political and social conflict, but he also reduced traditional morality to an evolutionary product of material surplus rather than having any objective value. Nevertheless, during the Han Dynasty, the emperors enacted a large number of laws to encourage early marriage and childbirth.

[[Ancient Rome]], especially in the time of [[Augustus]] (63 BC-AD 14), needed manpower to acquire and administer the vast [[Roman Empire]]. A series of laws were instituted to encourage early marriage and frequent childbirth. Lex Julia (18 BC) and the Lex Papia Poppaea (AD 9) are two well-known examples of such laws, which among others, provided tax breaks and preferential treatment when applying for public office for those who complied with the laws. Severe limitations were imposed on those who did not. For example, the surviving spouse of a childless couple could only inherit one-tenth of the deceased fortune, while the rest was taken by the state. These laws encountered resistance from the population which led to the disregard of their provisions and to their eventual abolition.<ref name="Neurath 1994 7"/>

[[Tertullian]], an early Christian author (ca. AD 160-220), was one of the first to describe famine and war as factors that can prevent overpopulation.<ref name=" Neurath 1994 7"/> He wrote: "The strongest witness is the vast population of the earth to which we are a burden and she scarcely can provide for our needs; as our demands grow greater, our complaints against Nature's inadequacy are heard by all. The scourges of pestilence, famine, wars, and [[earthquake]]s have come to be regarded as a blessing to overcrowded nations since they serve to prune away the luxuriant growth of the human race."<ref name="Neurath94-page8"/>

[[Ibn Khaldun]], a North African [[polymath]] (1332–1406), considered population changes to be connected to economic development, linking high birth rates and low death rates to times of economic upswing, and low birth rates and high death rates to economic downswing. Khaldoun concluded that high [[population density]] rather than high absolute population numbers were desirable to achieve more efficient division of labour and cheap administration.<ref name=Neurath94-page8 >{{cite book |title=From Malthus to the Club of Rome and Back |last= Neurath |first=Paul |year=1994 |publisher= M.E. Sharpe|isbn=978-1-56324-407-0 |page=8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_ZHx3GO_xLMC&q=%22population+control%22}}</ref>

During the [[Middle Ages]] in Christian Europe, population issues were rarely discussed in isolation. Attitudes were generally pro-[[natalist]] in line with the [[Biblical]] command, "Be ye fruitful and multiply."<ref name=Neurath94-page8 />

When Russian explorer [[Otto von Kotzebue]] visited the [[Marshall Islands]] in Micronesia in 1817, he noted that Marshallese families practiced [[infanticide]] after the birth of a third child as a form of population planning due to frequent [[famine]]s.<ref>{{cite book |last=Hezel |first=Francis X. |date=1983 |title=The First Taint of Civilization: A History of the Caroline and Marshall Islands in Pre-colonial Days, 1521–1885 |series=Pacific Islands Monograph Series |location=Honolulu |publisher=University of Hawaii Press |pages=92–94 |isbn=978-0-8248-1643-8}}</ref>

===16th and 17th centuries===
European cities grew more rapidly than before, and throughout the 16th century and early 17th century discussions on the advantages and disadvantages of population growth were frequent.<ref name="Neurath 1994 10">{{cite book |title=From Malthus to the Club of Rome and Back |last= Neurath |first=Paul |year=1994 |publisher= M.E. Sharpe|isbn=978-1-56324-407-0 |page=10 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_ZHx3GO_xLMC&q=%22population+control%22}}</ref> [[Niccolò Machiavelli]], an Italian [[Renaissance]] [[political philosopher]], wrote, "When every province of the world so teems with inhabitants that they can neither subsist where they are nor remove themselves elsewhere... the world will purge itself in one or another of these three ways," listing [[floods]], [[Yersinia pestis|plague]] and [[famine]].<ref name="Neurath 1994 9">{{cite book |title=From Malthus to the Club of Rome and Back |last= Neurath |first=Paul |year=1994 |publisher= M.E. Sharpe|isbn=978-1-56324-407-0 |page=9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_ZHx3GO_xLMC&q=%22population+control%22}}</ref> [[Martin Luther]] concluded, "God makes children. He is also going to feed them."<ref name="Neurath 1994 9"/>

[[Jean Bodin]], a French [[jurist]] and [[political philosophy|political philosopher]] (1530–1596), argued that larger populations meant more production and more exports, increasing the wealth of a country.<ref name="Neurath 1994 9"/> [[Giovanni Botero]], an Italian priest and diplomat (1540–1617), emphasized that, "the greatness of a city rests on the multitude of its inhabitants and their power," but pointed out that a population cannot increase beyond its food supply. If this limit was approached, late marriage, emigration, and the war would serve to restore the balance.<ref name="Neurath 1994 9"/>

[[Richard Hakluyt]], an English writer (1527–1616), observed that, "Through our longe peace and seldom sickness... we are grown more populous than ever heretofore;... many thousands of idle persons are within this realme, which, having no way to be sett on work, be either mutinous and seek alteration in the state, or at least very burdensome to the commonwealth." Hakluyt believed that this led to crime and full jails and in ''A Discourse on Western Planting'' (1584), Hakluyt advocated for the emigration of the surplus population.<ref name=" Neurath 1994 10"/> With the onset of the [[Thirty Years' War]] (1618–48), characterized by widespread devastation and deaths brought on by hunger and disease in Europe, concerns about depopulation returned.<ref>{{cite book |title=From Malthus to the Club of Rome and Back |last= Neurath |first=Paul |year=1994 |publisher= M.E. Sharpe|isbn=978-1-56324-407-0 |pages=10–11 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_ZHx3GO_xLMC&q=%22population+control%22}}</ref>

==Population planning movement==
In the 20th century, population planning proponents have drawn from the insights of [[Thomas Malthus]], a British clergyman and economist who published ''[[An Essay on the Principle of Population]]'' in 1798. Malthus argued that, "Population, when unchecked, increases in a [[geometric progression|geometrical]] ratio. [[Subsistence]] only increases in an [[arithmetic progression|arithmetical]] ratio." He also outlined the idea of "positive checks" and "preventative checks." "Positive checks", such as [[disease]]s, [[war]]s, [[disaster]]s, [[famine]]s, and [[genocide]]s are factors which Malthus believed could increase the death rate.<ref name="geography.about.com">{{cite web|author=Rosenberg, M.|date=9 September 2007|title=Thomas Malthus on Population|work=About.com Education |url=http://geography.about.com/od/populationgeography/a/malthus.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090624052900/http://geography.about.com/od/populationgeography/a/malthus.htm |archive-date=24 June 2009 }}</ref>
"Preventative checks" were factors which Malthus believed could affect the birth rate such as moral restraint, abstinence and [[birth control]].<ref name="geography.about.com"/> He predicted that "positive checks" on [[exponential growth|exponential population growth]] would ultimately save humanity from itself and he also believed that human misery was an "absolute necessary consequence".<ref name="Knudsen 2006 2–3">{{cite book |title=Reproductive Rights in a Global Context |last= Knudsen |first=Lara |year=2006 |publisher= Vanderbilt University Press |isbn=978-0-8265-1528-5 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/reproductiverigh0000knud/page/2 2]–3 |url=https://archive.org/details/reproductiverigh0000knud |url-access=registration |quote=reproductive rights. }}</ref> 
[[File:World population growth rate 1950–2050.svg|300px|thumb|[[Population growth#Population growth rate|World population growth rate 1950–2050]]]] Malthus went on to explain why he believed that this misery affected the poor in a disproportionate manner.

{{Blockquote|There is a constant effort towards an increase in population which tends to subject the lower classes of society to distress and to prevent any great permanent amelioration of their condition…. The way in which these effects are produced seems to be this. We will suppose the means of subsistence in any country just equal to the easy support of its inhabitants. The constant effort towards population... increases the number of people before the means of subsistence are increased. The food, therefore which before supplied seven million must now be divided among seven million and a half or eight million. The poor consequently must live much worse, and many of them are reduced to severe distress.<ref>Bleier, R. The Home Page of the International Society of Malthus. Retrieved June 20, 2009, from The International Society of Malthus Web site: {{cite web |url=http://desip.igc.org/malthus/principles.html |title=Malthus Society Rationale and Core Principles |access-date=2009-06-26 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090618035115/http://desip.igc.org/malthus/principles.html |archive-date=2009-06-18 }}</ref>}}

Finally, Malthus advocated for the education of the lower class about the use of "moral restraint" or voluntary abstinence, which he believed would slow the growth rate.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://homepage.newschool.edu/het/profiles/malthus.htm|title=Thomas Robert Malthus, 1766-1834|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090801082256/http://homepage.newschool.edu/het/profiles/malthus.htm |archive-date=1 August 2009 |website=The History of Economic Thought Website}}</ref>

[[Paul R. Ehrlich]], a US biologist and environmentalist, published ''[[The Population Bomb]]'' in 1968, advocating stringent population planning policies.<ref>{{cite book |title=Reproductive Rights in a Global Context |last= Knudsen |first=Lara |year=2006 |publisher= Vanderbilt University Press |isbn=978-0-8265-1528-5 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/reproductiverigh0000knud/page/3 3] |url=https://archive.org/details/reproductiverigh0000knud|url-access=registration |quote=reproductive rights. }}</ref> His central argument on population is as follows:

{{Blockquote|A cancer is an uncontrolled multiplication of cells; the population explosion is an uncontrolled multiplication of people. Treating only the symptoms of cancer may make the victim more comfortable at first, but eventually, he dies - often horribly. A similar fate awaits a world with a population explosion if only the symptoms are treated. We must shift our efforts from the treatment of the symptoms to the cutting out of cancer. The operation will demand many apparently brutal and heartless decisions. The pain may be intense. But the disease is so far advanced that only with radical surgery does the patient have a chance to survive.|<ref name="Knudsen 2006 3">{{cite book |title=Reproductive Rights in a Global Context |last= Knudsen |first=Lara |year=2006 |publisher= Vanderbilt University Press |isbn=978-0-8265-1528-5 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/reproductiverigh0000knud/page/3 3] |url=https://archive.org/details/reproductiverigh0000knud |url-access=registration |quote=reproductive rights. }}</ref>}}

[[File:World population history.svg|thumb|280px|World population 1950–2010]]
[[File:Human population growth from 1800 to 2000.png|thumbnail|right|World population 1800-2000]]

In his concluding chapter, Ehrlich offered a partial solution to the "population problem",
"[We need] compulsory birth regulation... [through] the addition of temporary sterilants to water supplies or staple food. Doses of the antidote would be carefully rationed by the government to produce the desired family size".<ref name="Knudsen 2006 3"/>

Ehrlich's views came to be accepted by many population planning advocates in the United States and Europe in the 1960s and 1970s.<ref>{{cite book |title=Reproductive Rights in a Global Context |last= Knudsen |first=Lara |year=2006 |publisher= Vanderbilt University Press |isbn=978-0-8265-1528-5 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/reproductiverigh0000knud/page/3 3]–4 |url=https://archive.org/details/reproductiverigh0000knud |url-access=registration |quote=reproductive rights. }}</ref> Since Ehrlich introduced his idea of the "population bomb", overpopulation has been blamed for a variety of issues, including increasing poverty, high unemployment rates, [[environmental degradation]], famine and genocide.<ref name="Knudsen 2006 2–3"/> In a 2004 interview, Ehrlich reviewed the predictions in his book and found that while the specific dates within his predictions may have been wrong, his predictions about climate change and disease were valid. Ehrlich continued to advocate for population planning and co-authored the book ''The Population Explosion'', released in 1990 with his wife Anne Ehrlich.

However, it is controversial as to whether human population stabilization will avert environmental risks. A 2014 study published in the ''[[Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America]]'' found that given the "inexorable demographic momentum of the global human population", even mass mortality events and draconian one-child policies implemented on a global scale would still likely result in a population of 5 to 10 billion by 2100. Therefore, while reduced fertility rates are positive for society and the environment, the short term focus should be on mitigating the [[human impact on the environment]] through technological and social innovations, along with reducing [[overconsumption]], with population planning being a long-term goal.<ref>{{cite news |first=Matt |last=McGrath |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-29788754 |title=Population controls 'will not solve environment issues' |publisher=BBC |date=27 October 2014 |access-date=8 May 2016 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160504092235/http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-29788754 |archive-date=4 May 2016 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |title=Human population reduction is not a quick fix for environmental problems |last1=Bradshaw |first1=Corey J. A. |last2=Brook |first2=Barry W. |journal=[[Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America]] |volume=111 |issue=46 |pages=16610–16615 |doi=10.1073/pnas.1410465111 |pmid=25349398 |year=2014 |pmc=4246304 |bibcode=2014PNAS..11116610B |doi-access=free }}</ref> A letter in response, published in the same journal, argued that a reduction in population by 1 billion people in 2100 could help reduce the risk of catastrophic climate disruption.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Dean |last=Spears |title=Smaller human population in 2100 could importantly reduce the risk of climate catastrophe |journal=[[Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America]] |volume=112 |issue=18 |doi=10.1073/pnas.1501763112 |pages=E2270 |pmid=25848063 |pmc=4426416 |bibcode=2015PNAS..112E2270S |year=2015 |doi-access=free }}</ref> A 2021 article published in ''Sustainability Science'' said that sensible population policies could advance social justice (such as by abolishing child marriage, expanding family planning services and reforms that improve education for women and girls) and avoid the abusive and coercive population control schemes of the past while at the same time mitigating the human impact on the climate, biodiversity and ecosystems by slowing fertility rates.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Wolf |first1=C. |last2=Ripple |first2=W.J. |last3=Crist |first3=E. |date=2021 |title=Human population, social justice, and climate policy |journal=Sustainability Science |volume=16 |issue=5 |pages=1753–1756 |url=https://scientistswarning.forestry.oregonstate.edu/sites/sw/files/Wolf2021.pdf |doi=10.1007/s11625-021-00951-w |bibcode=2021SuSc...16.1753W |s2cid=233404010 |access-date=9 November 2021 |archive-date=26 October 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211026131650/https://scientistswarning.forestry.oregonstate.edu/sites/sw/files/Wolf2021.pdf }}</ref>
[[File:Human population since 1800.png|alt=|thumb|World population since 1800 in billions. Data from the [https://population.un.org/wpp/ United Nations projections in 2019].]]
Paige Whaley Eager argues that the shift in perception that occurred in the 1960s must be understood in the context of the demographic changes that took place at the time.<ref name=WhaleyEager>{{cite book |title=Global Population Policy |last= Whaley Eager |first=Paige |year=2004 |publisher= Ashgate Publishing|isbn=978-0-7546-4162-9 |page=36|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G2WBj4BDLqYC&q=reproductive+rights }}</ref> It was only in the first decade of the 19th century that the world's population reached one billion. The second billion was added in the 1930s, and the next billion in the 1960s. 90 percent of this net increase occurred in developing countries.<ref name=WhaleyEager/> Eager also argues that, at the time, the [[United States]] recognised that these demographic changes could significantly affect global geopolitics. Large increases occurred in [[China]], [[Mexico]] and [[Nigeria]], and demographers warned of a "population explosion", particularly in developing countries from the mid-1950s onwards.<ref>{{cite book |title=Global Population Policy |last= Whaley Eager |first=Paige |year=2004 |publisher= Ashgate Publishing|isbn=978-0-7546-4162-9 |page=37|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G2WBj4BDLqYC&q=reproductive+rights }}</ref>

In the 1980s, tension grew between population planning advocates and women's health activists who advanced women's [[reproductive rights]] as part of a [[human rights]]-based approach.<ref>{{cite book |title=Reproductive Rights in a Global Context |last= Knudsen |first=Lara |year=2006 |publisher= Vanderbilt University Press |isbn=978-0-8265-1528-5 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/reproductiverigh0000knud/page/2 2] |url=https://archive.org/details/reproductiverigh0000knud |url-access=registration |quote=reproductive rights. }}</ref> Growing opposition to the narrow population planning focus led to a significant change in population planning policies in the early 1990s.{{further explanation needed|date=January 2013}}<ref>{{cite book |title=Reproductive Rights in a Global Context |last= Knudsen |first=Lara |year=2006 |publisher= Vanderbilt University Press |isbn=978-0-8265-1528-5 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/reproductiverigh0000knud/page/4 4]–5 |url=https://archive.org/details/reproductiverigh0000knud |url-access=registration |quote=reproductive rights. }}</ref>

==Population planning and economics==
Opinions vary among economists about the effects of population change on a nation's economic health. US scientific research in 2009 concluded that the raising of a child cost about $16,000 yearly ($291,570 total for raising the child to its 18th birthday).<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE57367220090804 | work=Reuters | first=Charles | last=Abbott | title=Pricetag to raise a child -- $291,570, says U.S | date=4 August 2009 | url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100824010713/http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE57367220090804 | archive-date=24 August 2010 }}</ref> In the US, the multiplication of this number with the yearly population growth will yield the overall cost of the population growth. Costs for other developed countries are usually of a similar order of magnitude.

Some economists, such as [[Thomas Sowell]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell021298.html%22|title=Thomas Sowell Julian Simon, combatant in a 200-year war|archive-url=http://arquivo.pt/wayback/20090708044535/http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell021298.html%22 |archive-date=8 July 2009|author=Thomas Sowell|date=12 February 1998}}</ref> and [[Walter E. Williams]],<ref>{{cite web|archive-date=15 May 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160515032842/http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/williams022499.asp|author=Walter Williams|date=24 February 1999|title=Population control nonsense|url=http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/williams022499.asp}}</ref> have argued that poverty and famine are caused by bad government and bad economic policies, not by overpopulation.

In his book ''[[The Ultimate Resource]]'', economist [[Julian Simon]] argued that higher population density leads to more specialization and [[technological innovation]], which in turn leads to a higher standard of living. He claimed that human beings are the ultimate resource since we possess "productive and inventive minds that help find creative solutions to man's problems, thus leaving us better off over the long run".<ref>{{Cite web|author=Moore, S.|date=March–April 1998|title=Julian Simon Remembered: it's a Wonderful Life|url=http://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_report/cpr-20n2-1.html |website=CATO Institute Web site|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090626035831/http://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_report/cpr-20n2-1.html |archive-date=26 June 2009 }}</ref>

Simon also claimed that when considering a list of [[List of countries by population density|countries ranked in order by population density]], there is no correlation between population density and poverty and starvation.{{citation needed|date=November 2013}} Instead, if a list of countries is considered according to corruption within their respective governments, there is a significant correlation between government corruption, poverty and famine.{{citation needed|date=November 2013}}

==Views on population planning==

===Birth rate reductions===
====Support====

As early as 1798, [[Thomas Malthus]] argued in his ''[[Essay on the Principle of Population]]'' for implementation of population planning. Around the year 1900, Sir [[Francis Galton]] said in his publication ''Hereditary Improvement'': "The unfit could become enemies to the State if they continue to propagate." In 1968, Paul Ehrlich noted in ''[[The Population Bomb]]'', "We must cut the cancer of population growth", and "if this was not done, there would be only one other solution, namely the 'death rate solution' in which we raise the death rate through war-famine-pestilence, etc."

In the same year, another prominent modern advocate for mandatory population planning was [[Garrett Hardin]], who proposed in his landmark 1968 essay ''[[Tragedy of the commons]]'', society must relinquish the "freedom to breed" through "mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon." Later on, in 1972, he reaffirmed his support in his new essay "[[Exploring New Ethics for Survival]]", by stating, "We are breeding ourselves into oblivion." Many prominent personalities, such as [[Bertrand Russell]], [[Margaret Sanger]] (1939), [[John D. Rockefeller]], [[Frederick Osborn]] (1952), [[Isaac Asimov]], [[Arne Næss]]<ref>{{Cite book |last=Goodrick-Clarke |first=Nicholas |author-link=Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke |title=Hitler's Priestess: Savitri Devi, the Hindu-Aryan Myth and Neo-Nazism |title-link=Hitler's Priestess |year=1998 |publisher=[[New York University Press]] |isbn=978-0-8147-3111-6 |language=en |pages=227–228}}</ref> and [[Jacques Cousteau]] have also advocated for population planning.
Today, a number of influential people advocate population planning such as these:

* [[David Attenborough]]<ref>{{cite news | url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article855953.ece | location=London | work=The Times | first=Jonathan | last=Leake | title=Attenborough cut population by half | date=3 August 2003 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090508161558/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article855953.ece | archive-date=8 May 2009 }}</ref>
* [[Christian de Duve]], Nobel laureate<ref>{{cite web|author=Lloyd, Robin |date=30 June 2011|url=http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2011/06/30/laureate-urges-next-generation-to-address-population-control-as-central-issue/ |title=Laureate urges next generation to address population control as central issue|archive-url=http://archive.wikiwix.com/cache/20120410093447/http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2011/06/30/laureate-urges-next-generation-to-address-population-control-as-central-issue/ |archive-date=10 April 2012 | website=Scientific American}}</ref>
* [[Sara Parkin]]<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.kingston.ac.uk/environment/conf_parkin.ppt|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080527203213/http://www.kingston.ac.uk/environment/conf_parkin.ppt|title=Local to Global: Kingston University|archive-date=27 May 2008}}</ref>
* [[Jonathon Porritt]], UK sustainable development commissioner<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.theguardian.com/society/2004/sep/01/environment.farrightpolitics | location=London | work=The Guardian | first=Walter | last=Schwarz | title=Crowd control | date=1 September 2004 | url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161116102021/https://www.theguardian.com/society/2004/sep/01/environment.farrightpolitics | archive-date=16 November 2016 }}</ref>
* [[William J. Ripple]], lead author of the 2017 [[World Scientists' Warning to Humanity|World Scientists' Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice]]<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Crist|first1=Eileen|last2=Ripple|first2=William J.|last3= Ehrlich|first3=Paul R.|author-link3=Paul R. Ehrlich|last4=Rees|first4=William E. |last5=Wolf|first5=Christopher |date=2022 |title=Scientists' warning on population|url=https://scientistswarning.forestry.oregonstate.edu/sites/default/files/Crist2022.pdf|journal=[[Science of the Total Environment]]|volume=845 |article-number=157166 |doi=10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.157166|pmid= 35803428|bibcode=2022ScTEn.84557166C |s2cid=250387801 }}</ref>
* [[Crispin Tickell]]<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg13318134.700-the-green-diplomat-sir-crispin-tickell-has-had-adistinguished-diplomatic-career-he-has-also-helped-to-put-climate-changeatthe-top-of-the-worlds-political-agenda-.html|title=Last Word Archive - New Scientist|website=newscientist.com|access-date=9 May 2018|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131019120449/http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg13318134.700-the-green-diplomat-sir-crispin-tickell-has-had-adistinguished-diplomatic-career-he-has-also-helped-to-put-climate-changeatthe-top-of-the-worlds-political-agenda-.html|archive-date=19 October 2013}}</ref>

The head of the UN Millennium Project [[Jeffrey Sachs]] is also a strong proponent of decreasing the effects of overpopulation. In 2007, Jeffrey Sachs gave a number of lectures (2007 [[Reith Lectures]]) about population planning and overpopulation. In his lectures, called "[[Bursting at the seams (Reith lectures)|Bursting at the Seams]]", he featured an integrated approach that would deal with a number of problems associated with overpopulation and [[poverty reduction]]. For example, when criticized for advocating mosquito nets he argued that child survival was, "by far one of the most powerful ways", to achieve fertility reduction, as this would assure poor families that the smaller number of children they had would survive.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2007/lecture1.shtml|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090412162642/http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2007/lecture1.shtml |archive-date=12 April 2009 |title=Bursting at the Seams}}</ref>

====Opposition====
Critics of human population planning point out that attempts to curb human population growth have resulted in violations of [[human rights]] such as [[forced sterilization]], particularly in [[China]] and [[India]].<ref>{{cite report |last1=Follet |first1=Chelsea |title=Neo-Malthusianism and Coercive Population Control in China and India: Overpopulation Concerns Often Result in Coercion |date=2020 |publisher=Cato Institute |jstor=resrep26887}}</ref> In the latter half of the twentieth century, India's population reduction program received substantial funds and powerful incentives from Western countries and international population planning organizations to reduce India's growing population. This culminated in "the Emergency," a period in the mid-1970's where millions of people were forcibly sterilized. Violent resistance to forced sterilization led to [[police brutality]] and some instances of [[mass shooting]]s of civilians by police.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Gupte |first1=Prajakta R. |title=India: "The Emergency" and the Politics of Mass Sterilization |journal=Education About Asia |date=2017 |volume=22 |issue=3 |doi=10.65959/eaa.1478 |url=https://www.asianstudies.org/publications/eaa/archives/india-the-emergency-and-the-politics-of-mass-sterilization/}}</ref> Critics also argue that supposedly voluntary population planning is often coerced.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Nandagiri |first1=Rishita |title=What's so troubling about 'voluntary' family planning anyway? A feminist perspective |journal=Population Studies |date=2021 |volume=75 |issue=sup1 |pages=221–234 |doi=10.1080/00324728.2021.1996623 |pmid=34902284 |s2cid=245125394 |doi-access=free }}</ref> Some also believe that the environmental problems caused by supposed overpopulation are better explained by other factors, and that the goal of human population reduction does not justify the threat to human rights posed by population planning policies.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Shrivastava |first1=Aseem |title=Overpopulation: The Great Red Herring? |journal=Economic and Political Weekly |date=1992 |volume=27 |issue=38}}</ref>

Other causes for opposition emerge from the feasibility of substantially impacting human population. According to some researchers, even rapid global adoption of a one-child policy would result in a world population exceeding 8 billion in 2050, and in a scenario involving catastrophic mass death of 2 billion people, world population would exceed 8 billion by 2100.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bradshaw |first1=Corey J.A. |last2=Brook |first2=Barry W. |title=Human population reduction is not a quick fix for environmental problems |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America |date=2014 |volume=111 |issue=46|pages=16610–16615 |doi=10.1073/pnas.1410465111 |pmid=25349398 |pmc=4246304 |bibcode=2014PNAS..11116610B |doi-access=free }}</ref>

The Catholic Church [[Catholic Church and abortion|has opposed abortion, sterilization, and artificial contraception]] as a general practice but especially in regard to population planning policies.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Saunders|first1=William|title=Church Has Always Condemned Abortion|url=https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/resource/55397/the-catholic-church-and-abortion|website=Catholic News Agency|publisher=Arlington Catholic Herald|access-date=20 March 2017|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170321081341/http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/resources/abortion/catholic-teaching/the-catholic-church-and-abortion/|archive-date=21 March 2017}}</ref> [[Pope Benedict XVI]] has stated, "The extermination of millions of unborn children, in the name of the fight against poverty, actually constitutes the destruction of the poorest of all human beings."<ref name="Vatican.va">{{cite web|url=https://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/messages/peace/documents/hf_ben-xvi_mes_20081208_xlii-world-day-peace_en.html|title=42nd World Day of Peace 2009, Fighting Poverty to Build Peace - BENEDICT XVI|website=www.vatican.va|access-date=9 May 2018|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111011230252/https://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/messages/peace/documents/hf_ben-xvi_mes_20081208_xlii-world-day-peace_en.html|archive-date=11 October 2011}}</ref> The reformed Theology pastor Dr. [[Stephen Tong]] also opposes the planning of human population.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://ww123.net/redirect.php?tid=4862770&goto=lastpost |title=唐崇荣牧师 圣经难解经文 第二十九讲 诺亚咒诅迦南 - 宗教与信仰 - 旺旺网 给你一片纯净的天空 |access-date=22 March 2017 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170323053413/https://ww123.net/redirect.php?tid=4862770&goto=lastpost |archive-date=23 March 2017 }} 唐崇荣牧师 圣经难解经文 第二十九讲 诺亚咒诅迦南, Retrieved 22 March 2017.</ref>

==Pro-natalist policies==
{{See also|Natalism}}
In 1946, Poland introduced a [[:pl: Bykowe|tax on childlessness]], discontinued in the 1970s, as part of natalist policies in the Communist government. From 1941 to the 1990s, the Soviet Union had a [[Tax on childlessness|similar tax]] to replenish the population losses incurred during the Second World War.

The [[Socialist Republic of Romania]] under [[Nicolae Ceaușescu]] severely [[abortion in Romania|repressed abortion]], (the most common [[birth control]] method at the time) in 1966,<ref name="Scarlat">{{Citation | language = RO | last = Scarlat | first = Sandra | url = http://www.hotnews.ro/articol_22541-Decreteii-produsele-unei-epoci-care-a-imbolnavit-Romania.htm | title = 'Decreţeii': produsele unei epoci care a îmbolnăvit România | trans-title = Scions of the Decree': Products of an Era that Sickened Romania | newspaper = [[Evenimentul Zilei]] | date = 17 May 2005 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070926221359/http://www.hotnews.ro/articol_22541-Decreteii-produsele-unei-epoci-care-a-imbolnavit-Romania.htm | archive-date = 26 September 2007 }}.</ref><ref>{{Citation | first = Gail | last = Kligman | title = The Politics of Duplicity. Controlling Reproduction in Ceausescu's Romania | place = Berkeley | publisher = Univ. of California Press | year = 1998 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=JhkImAIcqCMC| isbn = 978-0-520-91985-3 }}.</ref> and forced gynecological revisions and penalties for unmarried women and childless couples.
The surge of the birth rate taxed the public services received by the ''[[Decree 770|decreței 770]]'' ("Scions of the Decree 770") generation. A consequence of Ceaușescu's natalist policy is that large numbers of children ended up living in [[orphanages]], because their parents could not cope. The vast majority of children who lived in the communist orphanages were not actually orphans, but were simply children whose parents could not afford to raise them.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4629589.stm|title=What happened to Romania's orphans?|work=BBC News|access-date=19 July 2017|date=8 July 2005}}</ref> The [[Romanian Revolution]] of 1989 preceded a fall in population growth.

===Balanced birth policies===
Nativity in the Western world dropped during the [[interwar period]]. Swedish sociologists [[Alva Myrdal|Alva]] and [[Gunnar Myrdal]] published ''[[Crisis in the Population Question]]'' in 1934, suggesting an extensive [[welfare state]] with universal healthcare and childcare, to increase overall Swedish birth rates, and level the number of children at a reproductive level for all social classes in Sweden. [[Demographics of Sweden|Swedish fertility]] rose throughout World War II (as [[Sweden during World War II|Sweden was largely unharmed by the war]]) and peaked in 1946.

==Modern practice by country==

===Australia===
[[Australia]] currently offers fortnightly Family Tax Benefit payments, a Child Care Subsidy based on income and other circumstances, and free immunizations.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Family Tax Benefit: Department of Social Services, Australian Government |url=https://www.dss.gov.au/families-and-children/benefits-payments/family-tax-benefit |access-date=22 June 2022 |website=www.dss.gov.au}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Child Care Subsidy: Department of Education, Australian Government |url=https://www.education.gov.au/early-childhood/providers/child-care-subsidy|access-date=1 March 2026 |website=www.education.gov.au}}</ref>
===China===
{{Main|Family planning policies of China}}

====One-child era (1979–2015)====
{{Main|One-child policy}}
The most significant population planning system in the world was China's [[one-child policy]], in which, with various exceptions, having more than one child was discouraged. Unauthorized births were punished by fines, although there were also allegations of illegal forced [[abortion]]s and [[forced sterilization]].<ref name=dewey>{{cite web |url=http://statelists.state.gov/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0412c&L=dossdo&P=401 |title=Arthur E. Dewey, Assistant Secretary for Population, Refugees and Migration Testimony before the House International Relations Committee Washington, DC 14 December 2004 |access-date=31 July 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110721062432/http://statelists.state.gov/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0412c&L=dossdo&P=401 |archive-date=21 July 2011 }}</ref> As part of China's planned birth policy, (work) unit supervisors monitored the fertility of married women and may decide whose turn it is to have a baby.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+cn0081) |title= China: a country study|website=lcweb2.loc.gov |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130303220526/http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd%2Fcstdy%3A%40field%28DOCID+cn0081%29 |archive-date=3 March 2013}}</ref>

The Chinese government introduced the policy in 1978 to alleviate the social and [[Environmental issues in the People's Republic of China|environmental problems of China]].<ref>{{citation|author=Pascal Rocha da Silva|title=La politique de l'enfant unique en République Populaire de Chine|year=2006|publisher=[[Université de Genève]]|pages=22–28|url=http://www.sinoptic.ch/textes/recherche/2006/200608_Rocha.Pascal_memoire.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071128072311/http://www.sinoptic.ch/textes/recherche/2006/200608_Rocha.Pascal_memoire.pdf |archive-date= 28 November 2007}}</ref> According to government officials, the policy has helped prevent 400 million births. The success of the policy has been questioned, and reduction in fertility has also been attributed to the modernization of China.<ref>{{cite news | url = http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7000931.stm | work = BBC News | title = Has China's one-child policy worked? | date = 20 September 2007 | url-status = live | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080719103208/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7000931.stm | archive-date = 19 July 2008 }}</ref> The policy is controversial both within and outside of China because of its manner of implementation and because of concerns about negative economic and social consequences e.g. [[female infanticide]]. In Asian cultures, the oldest male child has responsibility of caring for the parents in their old age. Therefore, it is common for Asian families to invest most heavily in the oldest male child, such as providing college, steering them into the most lucrative careers, and so on. To these families, having an oldest male child is paramount, so in a one-child policy, daughters have no economic benefit, so daughters, especially as a first child, are often targeted for abortion or infanticide. China introduced several government reforms to increase retirement payments to coincide with the one-child policy. During that time, couples could request permission to have more than one child.<ref>{{cite news |first=Max |last=Fisher |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/11/16/chinas-rules-for-when-families-can-and-cant-have-more-than-one-child/ |title=China's rules for when families can and can't have more than one child |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=16 November 2013 |access-date=8 May 2016 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160610152024/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/11/16/chinas-rules-for-when-families-can-and-cant-have-more-than-one-child/ |archive-date=10 June 2016 }}</ref>
[[File:China Pop Pyramid Forecast.gif|thumb|China's population distribution in 2012, 2015 and 2020]]
According to [[Tibetology|Tibetologist]] [[Melvyn Goldstein]], natalist feelings run high in China's [[Tibet Autonomous Region]], among both ordinary people and government officials. Seeing [[population control]] "as a matter of power and ethnic survival" rather than in terms of ecological [[sustainability]], Tibetans successfully argued for an exemption of [[Tibetan people]] from the usual [[family planning]] policies in China such as the [[one-child policy]].<ref>{{Cite journal | doi = 10.2307/2645246 | title = China's Birth Control Policy in the Tibet Autonomous Region| journal= [[Asian Survey]] | author1-link= Melvyn Goldstein |first1= Melvyn |last1= Goldstein |first2= Beall|last2= Cynthia|date=March 1991|volume= 31 | issue= 3| pages= 285–303| jstor = 2645246}}</ref>

==== Two-child era (2016–2021) ====
{{Main|Two-child policy}}
In November 2014, the Chinese government allowed its people to conceive a second child under the supervision of government regulation.<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-08-01/with-end-of-chinas-one-child-policy-there-hasnt-been-a-baby-boom | work=Bloomberg | title=Why China's Second-Baby Boom Might Not Happen | url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160306230412/http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-08-01/with-end-of-chinas-one-child-policy-there-hasnt-been-a-baby-boom | archive-date=6 March 2016 }}</ref>

On 29 October 2015, the ruling Chinese Communist Party announced that all one-child policies would be scrapped, allowing all couples to have two children. The change was needed to allow a better balance of male and female children, and to grow the young population to ease the problem of paying for the aging population. The law enacting the [[two-child policy]] took effect on 1 January 2016, and replaced the previous one-child policy.<ref>{{cite news |title= China to end one-child policy and allow two |work= BBC |date= 29 October 2015 |url= https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-34665539 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-27/chinas-one-child-policy-officially-scrapped/7055834|title=China officially ends one-child policy, signing into law bill allowing married couples to have two children|publisher=[[ABC Online]]| date=27 December 2015}}</ref>

==== Three-child era (2021–) ====
{{Main|Three-child policy}}
In May 2021, the Chinese government allowed its people to conceive a third child, in a move accompanied by "supportive measures" it regarded "conducive" to improving its "population structure, fulfilling the country's strategy of actively coping with an ageing population and maintaining the advantage, endowment of human resources" after declining birth rates recorded in the [[2020 Chinese census]].<ref>{{Cite news|date=31 May 2021|title=China allows three children in major policy shift|language=en-GB|work=BBC News|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-57303592|access-date=6 September 2021}}</ref>

===Hungary===
During the [[Second Orbán Government]], Hungary increased its family benefits spending from one of the lowest rates in the [[OECD]] to one of the highest.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://visegradinsight.eu/the-v4s-greatest-existential-threat05082014/|title=The V4's greatest existential threat|date=5 August 2014|website=Visegrad Insight}}</ref> In 2015, it amounted to nearly 4% of GDP.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.oecd.org/els/soc/PF1_1_Public_spending_on_family_benefits.pdf|title=Wayback Machine|website=www.oecd.org}}{{dead link|date=May 2026}}</ref>

===India===
{{Main|Family planning in India}}
Only those with two or fewer children are eligible for election to a local government.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Buch|first=Nirmala|date=2005|title=Law of Two-Child Norm in Panchayats: Implications, Consequences and Experiences|journal=Economic and Political Weekly|volume=40|issue=24|pages=2421–2429|issn=0012-9976|jstor=4416748}}</ref>

''Us two, our two'' ("Hum do, hamare do" in Hindi) is a slogan meaning ''one family, two children'' and is intended to reinforce the message of family planning thereby aiding population planning.

Facilities offered by government to its employees are limited to two children. The government offers incentives for families accepted for sterilization. Moreover, India was the first country to take measures for family planning back in 1952.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://iussp.org/sites/default/files/event_call_for_papers/IUSSP_40FP_0.pdf | title=40 YEARS OF PLANNED FAMILY PLANNING EFFORTS IN INDIA | access-date=26 June 2019 | author=Aalok Ranjan Chaurasia, Ravendra Singh | page=1}}</ref>
{{cquote|In the south west of India lies the long narrow coastal state of Kerala. Most of its thirty-two million inhabitants live off the land and the ocean, a rich tropical ecosystem watered by two monsoons a year. It's also one of India's most crowded states – but the population is stable because nearly everybody has small families… At the root of it all is education. Thanks to a long tradition of compulsory schooling for boys and girls Kerala has one of the highest literacy rates in the World. Where women are well educated they tend to choose to have smaller families… What Kerala shows is that you don't need aggressive policies or government incentives for birthrates to fall. Everywhere in the world where women have access to education and have the freedom to run their own lives, on the whole they and their partners have been choosing to have smaller families than their parents. But reducing birthrates is very difficult to achieve without a simple piece of medical technology, contraception.||[[David Attenborough]]|[[Horizon (British TV series)|BBC ''Horizon'']] (2009)|''How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth''
}}

In 2019, the [[Population Control Bill, 2019]] bill was introduced in the [[Rajya Sabha]] in July 2019 by [[Rakesh Sinha]]. The purpose of the bill is to control the population growth of India.

===Iran===
{{Main|Family planning in Iran}}
{{Multiple issues|section=yes|
{{contradict-self|section|date=March 2017}}
{{Update|section|date=March 2017}}
}}
After the [[Iran–Iraq War]], [[Iran]] encouraged married couples to produce as many children as possible to replace population lost to the war.<ref>{{cite web | title = 'Get back to your washing machine': Iran's ambitious women | url = http://mondediplo.com/2016/02/02iran | work = Le monde diplomatique | date = 2 February 2016 | access-date = 27 April 2016 | last = Beaugé | first = Florence | url-status = live | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160408082339/http://mondediplo.com/2016/02/02iran | archive-date = 8 April 2016 }}</ref>

Iran succeeded in sharply reducing its birth rate from the late 1980s to 2010.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Abbasi-Shavasi |first1=Mohammad J. |last2=McDonald |first2=Pater |title=National and Provincial-level fertility trends in Iran, 1972-2000 |journal=Working Paper in Demography |date=February 2005 |issue=94 |pages=9–10 |url=https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/156615121.pdf |access-date=20 February 2019}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Iran's declining birth rate alarms country's leaders |date=30 July 2020 |url=https://www.dw.com/en/iran-birth-rate-decline/a-54371973 |access-date=22 June 2022 |website=DW.COM |language=en-GB}}</ref> Mandatory contraceptive courses are required for both males and females before a marriage license can be obtained, and the government emphasized the benefits of smaller families and the use of contraception.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/Update4ss.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080917192303/http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/Update4ss.htm|title=Iran's Birth Rate Plummeting at Record Pace|archive-date=17 September 2008}}</ref> This changed in 2012, when a major policy shift back towards increasing birth rates was announced. In 2014, permanent contraception and advertising of birth control were to be outlawed.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iran-to-ban-permanent-contraception-after-islamic-clerics-edict-to-increase-population-9662349.html|title=Iran bans permanent contraception in attempt to increase population|date=11 August 2014|website=independent.co.uk|access-date=9 May 2018|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170829204243/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iran-to-ban-permanent-contraception-after-islamic-clerics-edict-to-increase-population-9662349.html|archive-date=29 August 2017}}</ref>

===Israel===
In [[Israel]], [[Haredi Judaism|Haredi]] families with many children receive economic support through generous governmental child allowances, government assistance in housing young religious couples, as well as specific funds by their own community institutions.<ref>{{cite web|first=Dov|last=Friedlander|url=https://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/completingfertility/RevisedFriedlanderpaper.PDF|title=Fertility in Israel: Is the Transition to Replacement Level in Sight?|series=Completing the Fertility Transition|publisher=[[United Nations]], Department of Economic and Social Affairs Population Division|year=2002|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171211125436/http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/completingfertility/RevisedFriedlanderpaper.PDF|archive-date=11 December 2017}}</ref> Haredi women have an average of 6.7 children while the average Jewish Israeli woman has 3 children.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.thejc.com/comment-and-debate/essays/117247/israeli-women-do-it-numbers | title=Israeli women do it by the numbers | work=The Jewish Chronicle | date=7 April 2014 | access-date=20 May 2014 | first=Paul | last=Morland | url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140521085616/http://www.thejc.com/comment-and-debate/essays/117247/israeli-women-do-it-numbers | archive-date=21 May 2014 }}</ref>

===Japan===
[[Japan]] has experienced [[Aging of Japan|a shrinking population]] for many years.<ref name='economist-japan'>{{cite news|url=https://www.economist.com/blogs/banyan/2014/03/japans-demography|title=Japan's demography: the incredible shrinking country|newspaper=[[The Economist]]|date=25 March 2014|access-date=25 March 2017|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170324183812/http://www.economist.com/blogs/banyan/2014/03/japans-demography|archive-date=24 March 2017}}</ref> The government is trying to encourage women to have children or to have more children – many Japanese women do not have children, or even remain single. A 2020 study found that there is widespread [[opposition to immigration]] in Japan.<ref>{{Cite journal|url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369183X.2020.1862645|title=Views on immigration in Japan: identities, interests, and pragmatic divergence|first1=Jeremy|last1=Davison|first2=Ito|last2=and Peng|date=18 August 2021|journal=Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies|volume=47|issue=11|pages=2578–2595|via=Taylor and Francis+NEJM|doi=10.1080/1369183X.2020.1862645}}</ref>

Some Japanese localities, facing significant population loss, are offering economic incentives. [[Yamatsuri]], a town of 7,000 just north of [[Tokyo]], offers parents $4,600 for the birth of a child and $460 a year for 10 years.

===Myanmar===
In [[Myanmar]], the Population planning Health Care Bill requires some parents to space each child three years apart.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://apnews.com/article/id-7aa2bc05d5264653b5b969d337e89e16|title=Myanmar president signs off on contested population law|date=23 May 2015|access-date=28 November 2025|work=[[Associated Press]]}}</ref> The Economist, in 2015, stated that the measure was expected to be used against the persecuted Muslim [[Rohingyas]] minority.<ref>{{cite news |title=Rohingyas: Still in peril: Myanmar's repression of Rohingyas continues apace |url=https://www.economist.com/news/asia/21653661-myanmars-repression-rohingyas-continues-apace-still-peril |access-date=7 June 2015 |newspaper=[[The Economist]] |date=6 June 2015 |location=Singapore |quote=This measure grants local authorities the power to mandate that mothers in areas deemed to have high rates of population growth have children no fewer than three years apart. Buddhist chauvinists in Myanmar have fomented fears of high birth rates among Muslims; this measure is likely to be used against Rohingyas. |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150607020301/http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21653661-myanmars-repression-rohingyas-continues-apace-still-peril |archive-date=7 June 2015 }}</ref>

===Pakistan===
{{main|Family planning in Pakistan}}

=== Russia ===

Russian President [[Vladimir Putin]] directed Parliament in 2006 to adopt a 10-year program to stop the [[Aging of Russia|sharp decline]] in [[Russia]]'s population, principally by offering financial incentives and subsidies to encourage women to have children.<ref name='nytimes-russia'>{{cite news| url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/11/world/europe/11russia.html| title=Putin Urges Plan to Reverse Slide in the Birth Rate| work=The New York Times| first=C.J| last=Chivers| date=11 May 2006| url-status=live| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170515125939/http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/11/world/europe/11russia.html| archive-date=15 May 2017}}</ref>

In August 2022, Russia revived the Soviet-era [[Mother Heroine]] award for women with 10 children.<ref>{{Cite web |date=18 August 2022 |title=Putin revives Stalin-era 'Mother Heroine' award for women with 10 children |url=https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/18/europe/putin-mother-heroine-award-decree-intl/index.html |access-date=19 June 2023 |website=CNN |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Putin revives Soviet 'Mother Heroine' award for women who have 10 children |date=17 August 2022 |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220819143212/https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/17/russia-ukraine-putin-mother-heroine-award-children/ |archive-date=19 August 2022 |url-status=live |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/17/russia-ukraine-putin-mother-heroine-award-children/}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Reid |first=Jenni |date=18 August 2022 |title=Russia is offering a hero's medal and $16,000 to women who have 10 kids |url=https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/18/russia-offers-mother-heroine-medal-and-16800-for-having-10-children.html |access-date=19 June 2023 |website=CNBC |language=en}}</ref>

In November 2024, Putin signed a bill into law that bans "[[childfree]] propaganda" to boost birthrates in Russia.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2024/11/24/putin-signs-child-free-propaganda-bill-into-law-en-news|title=Putin signs 'child-free propaganda' bill into law|website=Novaya Gazeta Europe}}</ref>

=== Singapore ===
{{main|Population planning in Singapore}}

Singapore has undergone two major phases in its population planning: first to slow and reverse the [[Post-World War II baby boom|baby boom]] in the [[Post-World War II]] era; then from the 1980s onwards to encourage couples to have more children as the [[birth rate]] had fallen below the [[Sub-replacement fertility|replacement-level fertility]]. In addition, during the [[demographic transition|interim period]], [[eugenics]] policies were adopted.<ref>{{citation | url = http://www.populationasia.org/Publications/RP/AMCRP12.pdf | title = Fertility and the Family: An Overview of Pro-natalist Population Policies in Singapore | first1 = Theresa | last1 = Wong | first2 = Brenda S.A | last2 = Yeoh | series = Asian MetaCentre Research Paper Series | date = June 2003 | issue = 12 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110727182245/http://www.populationasia.org/Publications/RP/AMCRP12.pdf | archive-date = 27 July 2011 | access-date = 30 November 2013 }}</ref>

The [[anti-natalist]] policies flourished in the 1960s and 1970s: initiatives advocating small families were launched and developed into the ''Stop at Two'' programme, pushing for two-children families and promoting [[sterilisation (medicine)|sterilisation]]. In 1984, the government announced the ''Graduate Mothers' Scheme'', which favoured children of [[Population Planning in Singapore#The demographic transition and the Graduate Mothers Scheme|more well-educated mothers]];<ref>{{cite book| first =Pekka | last = Louhiala |title= Preventing intellectual disability: ethical and clinical issues |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9bb8grOsEyEC&pg=PA62|year= 2004|publisher= Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-53371-3|page= 62}}</ref> the policy was however soon abandoned due to the outcry in the [[Singapore general election, 1984|general election of the same year]].<ref>{{cite journal|last=Quah|first=Jon |title= Singapore in 1984: Leadership Transition in an Election Year |journal=Asian Survey|year=1985|jstor=2644306 |doi= 10.2307/2644306 |volume= 25|issue=2 |pages=220–231 }}</ref>
Eventually, the government became [[pro-natalist]] in the late 1980s, marked by its ''Have Three or More'' plan in 1987.<ref>{{cite web |title=Singapore: Population Control Policies |url=http://www.photius.com/countries/singapore/society/singapore_society_population_control_p~11008.html |work=Country Studies |year=1989 |publisher=[[Library of Congress]] |access-date=11 August 2011 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110411115633/http://www.photius.com/countries/singapore/society/singapore_society_population_control_p~11008.html |archive-date=11 April 2011 }}</ref> Singapore pays $3,000 for the first child, $9,000 in cash and savings for the second; and up to $18,000 each for the third and fourth.<ref name= 'nytimes-russia' />

===Spain===
In 2017, the government of Spain appointed [[Edelmira Barreira]], as "Government Commissioner facing the Demographic Challenge", in a pro-natalist attempt to reverse a negative population growth rate.<ref name='spain-independent'>{{cite news|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/spain-sex-tsar-population-crisis-baby-parents-demographic-government-a7599091.html|title=Spain appoints 'sex tsar' in bid to boost declining population|website=The Independent|date=25 February 2017|access-date=25 March 2017|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170326052733/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/spain-sex-tsar-population-crisis-baby-parents-demographic-government-a7599091.html|archive-date=26 March 2017}}</ref>

===Turkey===
In May 2012, [[Turkey]]'s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan argued that abortion is murder and announced that legislative preparations to severely limit the practice are underway. Erdogan also argued that abortion and [[Caesarean section|C-section deliveries]] are plots to stall Turkey's economic growth. Prior to this move, Erdogan had repeatedly demanded that each couple have at least three children.<ref>{{cite news | url = https://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/03/us-turkey-abortion-idUSBRE85207520120603 | work = Reuters | date = 3 June 2012 | type = article | title = US, Turkey: abortion | url-status = live | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150102120545/http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/03/us-turkey-abortion-idUSBRE85207520120603 | archive-date = 2 January 2015 }}</ref>

===United States===
{{Main|Family planning in the United States}}
Enacted in 1970, [[Title X]] of the [[Public Health Service Act]] provides access to contraceptive services, supplies and information to those in need. Priority for services is given to people with low incomes. The Title X Family Planning program is administered through the [[Office of Population Affairs]] under the Office of Public Health and Science.
It is directed by the [[Office of Population Affairs#Office of Family Planning|Office of Family Planning]].<ref name="pop">{{cite web|url=http://opa.osophs.dhhs.gov/titlex/ofp.html |title=Office of Population Affairs|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071019032539/http://opa.osophs.dhhs.gov/titlex/ofp.html |archive-date=19 October 2007 }}</ref> In 2007, Congress appropriated roughly $283 million for family planning under Title X, at least 90 percent of which was used for services in family planning clinics.<ref name="pop" /> Title X is a vital source of funding for family planning clinics throughout the nation,<ref name="pp">{{cite web|url=http://www.plannedparenthood.org/news-articles-press/politics-policy-issues/birth-control-access-prevention/family-planning-6553.htm|title=Newsroom and Media Kit - Planned Parenthood|website=www.plannedparenthood.org|access-date=9 May 2018|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071208000810/http://www.plannedparenthood.org/news-articles-press/politics-policy-issues/birth-control-access-prevention/family-planning-6553.htm|archive-date=8 December 2007}}</ref> which provide reproductive health care, including abortion.

The education and services supplied by the Title X-funded clinics support young individuals and low-income families. The goals of developing healthy families are accomplished by helping individuals and couples decide whether to have children and when the appropriate time to do so would be.<ref name="pp" />

Title X has made the prevention of [[unintended pregnancies]] possible.<ref name="pp" /> It has allowed millions of American women to receive necessary reproductive health care, plan their pregnancies and prevent abortions. Title X is dedicated exclusively to funding family planning and reproductive health care services.<ref name="pop" />

Title X as a percentage of total public funding to family planning client services has steadily declined from 44% of total expenditures in 1980 to 12% in 2006. Medicaid has increased from 20% to 71% in the same time. In 2006, Medicaid contributed $1.3 billion to public family planning.<ref>{{Cite web | last1 = Sonfield | first1 = Adam | last2 = Alrich | first2 = Casey | last3 = Gold | first3 = Rachel Benson | title = Public Funding for Family Planning, Sterilization and Abortion Services, FY 1980–2006 | url = https://www.guttmacher.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/pubs/2008/01/28/or38.pdf | series = Occasional Report | place = New York | publisher = Guttmacher Institute | year = 2008 | number = 38 | url-status = live | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20170910082729/https://www.guttmacher.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/pubs/2008/01/28/or38.pdf | archive-date = 10 September 2017 }}</ref>

In the early 1970s, the United States Congress established the Commission on Population Growth and the American Future (Chairman [[John D. Rockefeller III]]), which was created to provide recommendations regarding population growth and its social consequences. The Commission submitted its final recommendations in 1972, which included promoting contraceptives and liberalizing abortion regulations, for example.<ref>{{Cite book|date=1972|title=Population and the American future; the report. United States.|url=https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015007261855|via=HathiTrust Digital Library|publisher=Washington|hdl=2027/mdp.39015007261855}}</ref>

====Natalism in the United States====
In a 2004 [[editorial]] in ''[[The New York Times]]'', [[David Brooks (journalist)|David Brooks]] expressed the opinion that the relatively high birth rate of the United States in comparison to Europe could be attributed to social groups with "natalist" attitudes.<ref>{{Citation | url = https://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/07/opinion/07brooks.html?ex=1260162000&en=ebdde83f03fe6d2e&ei=5090 | title = The New Red-Diaper Babies | first = David | last = Brooks | newspaper = The New York Times | access-date = 21 January 2006 | date = 7 December 2004 | url-status = live | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070311175027/http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/07/opinion/07brooks.html?ex=1260162000&en=ebdde83f03fe6d2e&ei=5090 | archive-date = 11 March 2007 }}.</ref> The article is referred to in an analysis of the [[Quiverfull]] movement.<ref>{{Citation | url = http://www.thenation.com/article/arrows-war | newspaper = The Nation | date = 27 November 2006 | first = Kathryn | last = Joyce | title = Arrows for the War | access-date = 10 March 2015 | url-status = live | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150320060132/http://www.thenation.com/article/arrows-war | archive-date = 20 March 2015 }}.</ref> However, the figures identified for the demographic are extremely low.

Former US Senator [[Rick Santorum]] made natalism part of his platform for his [[Rick Santorum presidential campaign, 2012|2012 presidential campaign]].<ref name="santorum">{{cite web |url= https://www.politico.com/blogs/politico-now/2012/01/santorum-more-babies-please-110897 |first= Seung Min |last= Kim |website= Politico |date= 15 January 2012 |title= Santorum: More babies, please! |url-status= live |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20120118215636/http://www.politico.com/blogs/politico-live/2012/01/santorum-more-babies-please-110897.html |archive-date= 18 January 2012 }}</ref> Many of those categorized in the General Social Survey as "Fundamentalist Protestant" are more or less natalist, and have a higher birth rate than "Moderate" and "Liberal" Protestants.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=McKeown |first1=John |title=Receptions of Israelite Nation-building: Modern Protestant Natalism and Martin Luther |journal=Dialog |date=14 June 2010 |volume=49 |issue=2 |pages=133–140 |doi=10.1111/j.1540-6385.2010.00517.x |hdl=10034/254540 |hdl-access=free }}</ref> However, Rick Santorum is not a Protestant but a practicing Catholic.

===Uzbekistan===
{{Main|Compulsory_sterilization#Uzbekistan|l1=Compulsory sterilization in Uzbekistan}}
It is reported that [[Uzbekistan]] has been pursuing a policy of forced sterilizations, hysterectomies and IUD insertions since the late 1990s in order to impose population planning.<ref name=iwpr-2005-11-18>{{cite web|url=http://iwpr.net/report-news/birth-control-decree-uzbekistan |title=Birth Control by Decree in Uzbekistan|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131019132115/http://iwpr.net/report-news/birth-control-decree-uzbekistan |archive-date=19 October 2013 |publisher=[[Institute for War and Peace Reporting|IWPR Institute for War & Peace Reporting]]|date=18 November 2005}}</ref><ref name=bbc-news-2012-04-12>{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17612550|title=BBC News: Uzbekistan's policy of secretly sterilising women|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150405112247/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17612550 |archive-date=5 April 2015 |publisher=[[BBC]]|date=12 April 2012}}</ref><ref name=bbc-cc-2012-04-12>{{cite web|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01fjx63|title=Crossing Continents: Forced Sterilisation in Uzbekistan|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160903195248/http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01fjx63 |archive-date=3 September 2016|publisher=[[BBC]]|date=12 April 2012}}</ref><ref name=moscow-2010-03-10>{{cite web|url=http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/uzbeks-face-forced-sterilization/401279.html|title=Uzbeks Face Forced Sterilization|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131019203218/http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/uzbeks-face-forced-sterilization/401279.html |archive-date=19 October 2013 |publisher=[[The Moscow Times]]|date=10 March 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cat/docs/ngos/omctuzbekistan39.pdf|title=Shadow Report: UN Committee Against Torture|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141109020604/http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cat/docs/ngos/omctuzbekistan39.pdf |archive-date=9 November 2014 |publisher=[[United Nations]], authors Rapid Response Group and OMCT|date=November 2007}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Antelava |first=Natalia |date=12 April 2012 |title=Uzbekistan's policy of secretly sterilising women |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17612550 |newspaper=BBC World Service |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150302071400/http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17612550 |archive-date=2 March 2015 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Antelava |first=Natalia |date=12 April 2012 |title=Uzbekistan's policy of secretly sterilising women |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17612550 |newspaper=BBC World Service |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150405112247/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17612550 |archive-date=5 April 2015 }}</ref>

===United Kingdom=== 
In the United Kingdom, access to contraception has been expanded through NHS-commissioned services, including the Pharmacy Contraception Service (PCS) launched in 2023 to initiate and continue oral contraception in community pharmacies, thereby increasing choice and relieving pressure on GP and specialist services.<ref>{{cite web |title=NHS Pharmacy Contraception Service |url=https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/nhs-pharmacy-contraception-service/ |publisher=NHS England |date=2025 |access-date=28 October 2025}}</ref> 
A 2023 study of a free online contraception service operating in the UK found the service was accessible to ethnically and socioeconomically diverse users, but that users obtaining emergency contraception did not commonly transition to ongoing oral methods, indicating that access initiatives may need to be paired with proactive counselling to support method continuation.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bury |first1=F |last2=Iguyovwe |first2=V |last3=Trivett |first3=M |last4=Baraitser |first4=P |year=2023 |title=Patterns of use of emergency and oral contraceptives from an online service in the United Kingdom during the COVID-19 pandemic: A quantitative study of routinely collected data |journal=Contraception |volume=121 |article-number=109017 |doi=10.1016/j.contraception.2023.109992 |pmid=36849031 |pmc=9968475 }}</ref> 
More evidence shows that pharmacy-based delivery of contraception is acceptable to adolescents in high-income settings, supporting UK policy efforts to diversify access points beyond traditional clinics.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Assifi |first1=AR |last2=Norris Turner |first2=AN |last3=Fitzsimons |first3=DA |year=2025 |title=Contraception and abortion information and care in community pharmacies: a systematic review of adolescents' experiences and acceptability |journal=eClinicalMedicine |volume=76 |article-number=102550 |doi=10.1016/j.eclinm.2025.102550 |doi-broken-date=15 May 2026 |url=https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(25)00326-8/fulltext}}</ref>

== See also ==
{{columns-list|colwidth=15em|
* {{annotated link|Population ethics}}
* {{annotated link|Antinatalism}}
* {{annotated link|Birth control}}
* {{annotated link|Dependency ratio}}
* {{annotated link|Eugenics}}
* {{annotated link|Human overpopulation}}
* {{annotated link|List of population concern organizations}}
* {{annotated link|Malthusianism}}
* {{annotated link|Overconsumption}}
* {{annotated link|Steady-state economy}}
* {{annotated link|Population ageing}}
* {{annotated link|Population growth}}
* {{annotated link|Population Matters#Pledge two or fewer|Pledge two or fewer}} (campaign for small families)
* {{annotated link|Planet of the Humans}}
* {{annotated link|Voluntary Human Extinction Movement}}
}}

===Fiction===
* ''[[Logan's Run]]'' (book) - State-mandated euthanasia at 21 for all people (30 in the [[Logan's Run (film)|film]]) to conserve resources. 
* ''[[Make Room! Make Room!]]'' (book) - Novel, explores the consequence of overpopulation.
* ''[[Ishmael (Quinn novel)]]'' - Explores the biological and ecological causes of overpopulation which is a result of [[Carrying capacity#Further reading|increased carrying capacity]] for humans. The planning proposal is to limit that capacity (see [[Food Race]]).
* ''[[Avengers: Infinity War]]'' (film) - [[Thanos (Marvel Cinematic Universe)|Thanos]] uses the [[Infinity Gauntlet (Marvel Cinematic Universe)|Infinity Gauntlet]] to kill half of all life in the universe, achieving his goal of maintaining ecological balance. 
*[[Inferno (2016 film)|''Inferno'']] (film) - A billionaire has created a virus that will kill 50% of the world's population to save the other 50%. His followers try to release the virus after his suicide.
* ''[[Shadow Children]]'' (book series) - Families are allowed two children maximum, and "shadow children" (third children and beyond) are subject to be killed.
* ''[[2 B R 0 2 B]]'' (book) - Aging is cured and each new life requires the sacrifice of another to maintain a stable population.
* ''[[2BR02B: To Be or Naught to Be]]'' (film) - Based on the above book.
* ''[[The Thinning]]'' and ''[[The Thinning: New World Order]]'' (film series) - Involves a [[dystopia]]n United States enforcing population control via [[aptitude test]] and an [[Secret police|authoritarian police force]] known as the Department of Population Control.

==References==
{{Reflist|colwidth=25em}}

==Further reading==
*{{cite web|url=https://dks.library.kent.edu/?a=d&d=dks19980424-01.2.44&|title=Controlled food supply could stop overpopulation|work=Carrie Gazarish|publisher=Daily Kent Stater, Volume 32, Number 52, [[Kent State University]]}}
* Thomlinson, R. 1975. ''Demographic Problems: Controversy over Population Control''. 2nd ed. Encino, CA: Dickenson.
*{{cite book|author=[[David Pimentel (scientist)|David Pimentel]]|title=The Case for Population Reduction: Miscellaneous papers of David Pimentel|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tOdFAAAAYAAJ|publisher=Collection of papers, reprints, and other publications on population control and related issues. [[Cornell University]]}}{{efn|Also co-authored Hopfenberg, Russell, and David Pimentel. "[https://dn790008.ca.archive.org/0/items/human-population-numbers-as-a-function-o/Human_population_numbers_as_a_function_o.pdf Human population numbers as a function of food supply]." Environment, development and sustainability 3.1 (2001): 1-15.}}
*{{cite journal|url=https://ia801807.us.archive.org/28/items/from-population-control-to-reproductive-rights-feminist-fault-lines/From%20population%20control%20to%20reproductive%20rights%20feminist%20fault%20lines.pdf|title=From population control to reproductive rights: feminist fault lines|journal=Rosalind Pollack Petchesky|publisher=Reproductive Health Matters Volume 3, Issue 6, November 1995. Taylor & Francis}}
*Hopfenberg, Russell. [http://www.panearth.org/WVPI/Papers/GeneticFeedback.pdf "Genetic feedback and human population regulation"]. (PDF) Human Ecology 37.5 (2009): 643-651.

==Notes==
{{Notelist}}

==External links==
{{externalvideo|video1=[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wG7R1SOupJg Could We Control Human OVER Population? BBC Earth Lab]}}
* [[Wikiversity:Should we aim to reduce the Earth population?]]
* [https://overpopulation-project.com/thirty-years-is-too-long-to-turn-a-blind-eye-to-world-population-growth/ "Thirty years is too long to turn a blind eye to world population growth"] by Jane O'Sullivan. The Overpopulation Project
* {{cite web|url=http://www.abc.net.au/quantum/info/q95-19-5.htm|title=A chat with Tim Flannery, senior research scientist, on Population Control|work=Karina Kelly, Peter Kirkwood, Owen Craig|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100113095438/http://www.abc.net.au/quantum/info/q95-19-5.htm|archive-date=13 January 2010}}
{{Human impact on the environment}}
{{Population}}
{{Population country lists}}
{{Sustainability|state=collapsed}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Human Population Planning}}
[[Category:Human population planning| ]]
[[Category:Birth control]]
[[Category:Human overpopulation]]
[[Category:Population density]]
[[Category:Climate change mitigation]]
[[Category:Natalism]]