Balancing Population Growth With Economic Stability

In 2021, I had a conversation with a friend about the Covid-19 Pandemic. At the time, I was really curious to know what started the pandemic. Of course, I searched the internet, but found different answers. My friend told me about a conspiracy theory that the covid-19 pandemic was intentional caused by the governments around the world to reduce the global population. When I first heard this, I thought, “Why would anyone go to great lengths—kill thousands of people just to reduce the global population?” Even till now, I still find it difficult to believe and don’t know whether it is true or not. The global population increases every day, causing economic dangers for countries around the world. This has led government and policy makers to come up with policies and incentives to prevent people from having more a particular number of children.

For today’s edition of the Hive Learners’ prompt, we are asked to discuss the complexities of global population. In order to tackle decline in economy, should the government incentivize smaller families? This approach is a double-edged sword, with advantages and disadvantages. However, if well managed, the advantages will overweigh the disadvantages. Also, it depends on the country. Now, the important question to ask is; do government need to do anything about the rising population in my country?

Currently, the population of Nigeria is about 230 million. Considering the economy of the country, this population is way too high. One thing about overpopulation is causes many economic damages, especially in poverty levels. Sadly, not too many people know about birth control. Or maybe they do but just stubborn to use it. One would expect that poor families would stick to having few children- at most two. Surprisingly, the reverse is the case. In my country, you see poor families having more children than they can cater for. Growing up, I remember a family that would always come to my parents for financial assistance. The mother was the breadwinner of the family, while the husband was jobless. The woman worked as a clearner in different houses, taking shifts. The interesting and surpring part of this is that, despite all this, they had 7 children, with the 8th one on the way.

If government provides incentives to encourage families from having only a certain number of children, this will affect the economy positively if well managed. An example of incentives that might work is subsidies for education and healthcare for families with smaller sizes. This will in turn lead to economic stability. In 1979, China adopted the one-child-per-family policy because the population of the country exceeded 900 million. The rate of poverty significantly increased and to stabilize the economy, the government had to do something about it. Families were only permitted to have one child. However, in cases where the first child is a female, they were permitted to have another child. To encourage this, the government provided those who complied with jobs, free education and other financial benefits. On the other hand, those who failed to comply were penalized.

In the long run, China’s economy got better. I believe that if this same approach is applied in other countries, the economy would significantly improve. However, there can also be disadvantages if not well managed. China enforced this policy for so long that it started causing disadvantages. When there's a ban on the number of children a family can have, in the long run, the population will decrease to a great extent, causing what we call aging population. Aging population means there are more of elderly people in the country, with only a few young ones to support the elderly. In a community, there can be only one young person. In 2015, due to these disadvantages, China ended the One-Child policy and adopted a Two-Child policy. Six years later, when the economy had gotten way better, China further increased it to three children per family.

In conclusion, if governments made policies and provided incentives to tackle global population, it would be a very good approach, making the country better. However, to prevent consequences, this should be done for a specified number of years. For example, there could be a one-child-per-family policy for ten years.

Thanks for reading.