Overpopulation is a major cause of most of the world’s problems. Whether it is a question of food shortage, lack of drinking water or energy shortages, every country in the world is affected by it – or will be. Partly thanks to the import of goods from abroad, any particular country is able to maintain its own welfare. But this cannot go on in an unlimited way. The world population is threatening to rise from the current 7 billion to 11 billion according to the UN. There is a good chance that more and more countries will need their own products themselves. All continents except Africa have a total fertility rate around 2 children per woman, but Africa has an alarming total fertility rate around 4, which will result in an African population around 4.4 billion in 2100 from the current 1.3 billion if nothing is done. The African population boom is unsustainable and more action is needed to slow down the rapid population growth of Africa. If the problem won't be taken seriously enough by governments and other powerfull organisations, the result will be huge global environmental problems, terrorism, wars and massive global poverty everywhere. It will also harm the richest countries.
Our planet can offer a quality of life comparable to that enjoyed in the European Union to no more than 3 billion people. With a population of 11 billion, welfare per person on a world scale will drop to that of a poor farmer who can scarcely provide sufficient food for himself and knows nothing of welfare. The climate is changing – and it matters little whether this can be blamed on human activity or on changes in the solar system. The sea level only has to rise slightly in order to cause a great deal of valuable agricultural land to disappear. Human beings have a tendency to want more and more welfare. World-wide the numbers of cars, planes and refrigerators are increasing before our very eyes. But there will come a time when population growth and welfare collide. There is a reasonably good chance that floods of people will trek all over the world searching for more food and welfare.
Technicians are only too happy to point to technology that has solutions to all our problems up its sleeve. Unfortunately technical solutions have not as yet been able to combat world hunger in any significant way. Wherever there is no recognition or solving of the problems on a worldwide scale, war and violence would seem to be inevitable: Everyone wants to survive.
The business world and the religions are generally only interested in population growth. Allowing welfare to shrink is often just as difficult for the rich as fleeing from poverty is for the poor. The only solution for the continuing population growth is more investments in the poorest regions of the world. Some African nations have decent total fertility rates, but in a large amount of African nations, women still have around 6 children on average, which is unsustainable. Some countries also have too low birth rates, like Singapore with a TFR around 1. A very fast population decline will also result in problems, a balanced total fertility rate between 1.5 and 2 is needed in every country for the best of the world.
Education, especially for women, and free contraception helped a lot of poor countries with a rapid increase in living standards. Kenya did a great job for example with taking its population growth problems seriously. In the 1970s, they had a TFR of 8 and it is estimated to be 2.3 in 2020. They became one of the highest developed African countries. In countries with the highest birth rates, women often don't have the freedom to choose their amount of children, with social and religious pressure, lack of contraception and lack of education. The $2.5 billion "Family Planning 2020" project, which was founded by Bill and Melinda Gates, takes the population growth problem seriously and invested in a large amount of money in free contraception for the poorest regions of the world. This way, women will have more freedom in their choice for the amount of children they want, which is a great step forward. The next step for the poorest African countries in economic development can only be taken when their population growth will decline fast. Fortunately, a lot of African governments also started to take the problem seriously, but they often lack funds to have a huge impact. I hope governments and big organisations will invest more in Africa (especially free birth control and education) to decline its unsustainable rapid population growth.
Please also read these articles about population growth:
http://theconversation.com/nig…-recipe-for-unrest-108654
https://sciencing.com/environm…ation-growth-8337820.html
https://ourworldindata.org/exp…owth-rates_v7_850x600.svg
https://www.who.int/news-room/…rise---new-un-report-says
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub…019-05/jhub-pif052019.php
Fortunately, countries with high total fertility rates have falling rates. The countries with rates below replacement level, which is around 2.1, have stable rates.
Country - Total fertility rate - Population above 10 million
Niger 5.9 Yes
Mali 5.5 Yes
Somalia 5.5 Yes
Burundi 5.3 Yes
South Sudan 4.9 Yes
Uganda 4.9 Yes
Angola 4.8 Yes
Nigeria 4.7 Yes
Zambia 4.6 Yes
Burkina Faso 4.5 Yes
Guinea 4.5 Yes
Benin 4.4 Yes
Liberia 4.1 No
Malawi 4.1 Yes
Mozambique 4.1 Yes
Afghanistan 3.9 Yes
DR Congo 3.9 Yes
Senegal 3.9 Yes
Sierra Leone 3.9 No
Timor-Leste 3.9 No
Chad 3.8 Yes
Equatorial Guinea 3.8 No
Eritrea 3.8 No
Guinea-Bissau 3.8 No
São Tomé and Príncipe 3.8 No
Madagascar 3.7 Yes
Togo 3.7 No
Mauritania 3.6 No
Central African Republic 3.5 No
Rwanda 3.5 Yes
Sudan 3.5 Yes
Cameroon 3.4 Yes
Zimbabwe 3.4 Yes
Comoros 3.2 No
Congo 3.2 No
Ethiopia 3.2 Yes
The Gambia 3.2 No
Yemen 3.2 Yes
Côte d’Ivoire 3.1 Yes
Jordan 3.1 No
Tanzania 3.0 Yes
Iraq 2.9 Yes
Marshall Islands 2.9 No
Solomon Islands 2.9 No
Tonga 2.9 No
Tuvalu 2.9 No
Vanuatu 2.9 No
Papua New Guinea 2.8 No
Gabon 2.7 No
Ghana 2.7 Yes
Nauru 2.7 No
Philippines 2.7 Yes
Egypt 2.6 Yes
Samoa 2.6 No
Belize 2.5 No
Eswatini 2.5 No
Guatemala 2.5 Yes
Honduras 2.5 No
Kyrgyz Republic 2.5 No
Lao PDR 2.5 No
Lesotho 2.5 No
Oman 2.5 No
Tajikistan 2.5 No
Bolivia 2.4 No
Haiti 2.4 Yes
Israel 2.4 No
Pakistan 2.4 Yes
Cambodia 2.3 Yes
Fiji 2.3 No
Kenya 2.3 Yes
Kiribati 2.3 No
Micronesia 2.3 No
Syria 2.3 Yes
Botswana 2.2 No
Djibouti 2.2 No
Dominican Republic 2.2 Yes
Kuwait 2.2 No
Panama 2.2 No
Venezuela 2.2 Yes
Argentina 2.1 Yes
Bhutan 2.1 No
Cabo Verde 2.1 No
Ecuador 2.1 Yes
India 2.1 Yes
Kazakhstan 2.1 Yes
Mexico 2.1 Yes
Myanmar 2.1 Yes
South Africa 2.1 Yes
St. Vincent and the Grenadines 2.1 No
Turkey 2.1 Yes
Bangladesh 2.0 Yes
Brazil 2.0 Yes
Dominica 2.0 No
France 2.0 Yes
Grenada 2.0 No
Indonesia 2.0 Yes
Libya 2.0 No
Malaysia 2.0 Yes
Mongolia 2.0 No
Morocco 2.0 Yes
Nepal 2.0 Yes
New Zealand 2.0 No
Palau 2.0 No
Peru 2.0 Yes
Saudi Arabia 2.0 Yes
Sri Lanka 2.0 Yes
Turkmenistan 2.0 No
United States 2.0 Yes
Uruguay 2.0 No
Antigua and Barbuda 1.9 No
Colombia 1.9 Yes
DPR Korea 1.9 Yes
Guyana 1.9 No
Iceland 1.9 No
Ireland 1.9 No
Jamaica 1.9 No
Namibia 1.9 No
Paraguay 1.9 No
Suriname 1.9 No
Sweden 1.9 Yes
The Bahamas 1.9 No
Tunisia 1.9 Yes
Azerbaijan 1.8 Yes
Costa Rica 1.8 No
Denmark 1.8 No
El Salvador 1.8 No
Iran 1.8 Yes
Nicaragua 1.8 No
Norway 1.8 No
Qatar 1.8 No
Russia 1.8 Yes
Seychelles 1.8 No
St. Kitts and Nevis 1.8 No
United Kingdom 1.8 Yes
Algeria 1.7 Yes
Australia 1.7 Yes
Bahrain 1.7 No
Belgium 1.7 Yes
Brunei 1.7 No
Chile 1.7 Yes
Cuba 1.7 Yes
Czech Republic 1.7 Yes
Finland 1.7 No
Georgia 1.7 No
Latvia 1.7 No
Lebanon 1.7 No
Maldives 1.7 No
Netherlands 1.7 Yes
St. Lucia 1.7 No
Trinidad and Tobago 1.7 No
United Arab Emirates 1.7 No
Uzbekistan 1.7 No
Vietnam 1.7 Yes
Armenia 1.6 No
Barbados 1.6 No
Bulgaria 1.6 No
Canada 1.6 Yes
Estonia 1.6 No
Germany 1.6 Yes
Liechtenstein 1.6 No
Lithuania 1.6 No
Luxembourg 1.6 No
Montenegro 1.6 No
Romania 1.6 Yes
Slovenia 1.6 No
Albania 1.5 No
Austria 1.5 No
China 1.5 Yes
Moldova 1.5 No
Monaco 1.5 No
North Macedonia 1.5 No
San Marino 1.5 No
Serbia 1.5 No
Spain 1.5 Yes
Switzerland 1.5 No
Thailand 1.5 Yes
Ukraine 1.5 Yes
Andorra 1.4 No
Belarus 1.4 No
Bosnia and Herzegovina 1.4 No
Croatia 1.4 No
Cyprus 1.4 No
Greece 1.4 Yes
Hungary 1.4 No
Italy 1.4 Yes
Japan 1.4 Yes
Malta 1.4 No
Mauritius 1.4 No
Poland 1.4 Yes
Portugal 1.4 Yes
Slovak Republic 1.4 No
Korea 1.2 Yes
Singapore 1.2 No
Overpopulation was a big problem in China and India. That's why China forced people to get no more than one child, and that's why India forced sterilization on men because its population size limits were reached. It's a brutal way of population control, which can be prevented if a nation's birth rate is around 2 with affordable contraception and good family planning out of free will. And indeed, underpopulation can also be a problem. Singapore for example has a total fertility rate around 1, which means there will be too much elderly people dependent on the workers. A total fertility rate above 2.5 is also problematic, because it will result in more mass poverty, environmental problems, unemployment, terrorism and so on. If a too large part of the population is a child, there won't be enough funds for decent education systems, which are crucial to develop into a developed nation. Africa's birth rate is keeping the continent poor. If we want to take the next step in development, we need birth rates in Africa which are comparable with the highest developed countries in the world. A TFR between 1.5 and 2.5 is healthy, higher or lower is problematic on the long-term. If we want to get rid of mass poverty, it's crucial to get a total fertility rate around 2. You can see it in the list, the countries with the highest TFR are the poorest and the countries with the lowest TFR are among the richest in the world. Niger is the country with the highest TFR, they're also the poorest country in the world. That's no coincidence.
Africa's high birth rate is keeping the continent poor:
