The world’s population currently stands at around 8 billion people and is projected to hit 10 billion people by the year 2050 according to the United Nations (Simon, 2019). Population growth presents constraints to the world resources and its carrying capacity calling for quick interventions to curb population growth and ensure balanced utilization of the resources and their availability. There are various measures that international organizations and governments have advocated for to promote population growth control. Depending on how well people have accepted these measures and the rate of awareness that people have been exposed to some have done exceedingly well in some countries and poorly in others.
Contraceptives have been one of the popular birth control strategies that have been widely accepted in developing countries. Poor developing countries are associated with high population growth rates. This is due to the fact that women in the reproductive age are not economically productive thus have a lot of time to take care of children. Secondly, most of them are illiterate and lack the basic knowledge of family planning and its benefits. They are also not aware of the methods for family planning leaving them vulnerable to getting large families. With enough education on family planning and the use of contraceptives, contraceptives can do very well in developing nations since they are readily available, cheap and easy to use compared to other alternative methods of family planning.
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Developing countries are coming to terms with the importance of the girl child in education and economic activities. More and more girls are getting access to education and consequently job placements in sectors that were previously associated with men (Hite & Seitz, 2016). Women empowerment is another strategy to curb population growth. Engaging women in economic activities reduces the years of productivity as they are likely to start getting children at a later age in life compared to when they are not engaging in any economic activities. Empowered women are also likely to adopt family planning methods to prevent unplanned pregnancies and have the peace of mind in concentrating on their careers. Therefore, women empowerment can be a viable option for controlling population growth and especially in developing countries where women are marginally discriminated in education and jobs.
According to Chevis Benjamin, most population growth occurs in poor developing countries which is very correct. The fertility rate of women in developing countries is very high with a rate of about 4.9 children per woman. This is quite high considering it is after the introduction of contraceptives. This clearly shows that education on family planning has not been embraced by families in developing nations. Low illiteracy levels and scarcity of economic activities are to blame for such high birth rates in developing countries. In some countries, cultures such as preferences for boy child leads to high birth rates as couples chase on the elusive dream of having a boy child. This leads to such couples having a large family.
Low illiteracy levels in developing nations has been cited as a key barrier to contraceptives. Many women who have reached their limit on the number of children they had wished to get lack viable options on what to do. Lack of knowledge and the availability of the contraceptives inconvenience them on stopping reproduction. Some of the developing nations do not have the capacity to buy contraceptives and thus rely on donations and funds to ensure they provide these services to their citizens. This is a major setback for such countries in controlling population growth when donations are cut and cannot get the funding necessary to ensure continued supply of contraceptives.
References
Hite, K. A., & Seitz, J. L. (2016). Global issues: an introduction . John Wiley & Sons.
Simon, J. L. (2019). The economics of population growth (Vol. 5403). Princeton University Press.
