In the mid 1990s, the president of Peru, Alberto Fujimori, created the “Voluntary Surgical Contraception Campaign” in attempts to control birth rates in Peru. This was created initially as a way to suit the economic needs of the country, as there were many poor indigenous people whom the government could not support. Although this campaign was advertised as voluntary, hundreds of thousands of women were forced to be sterilized. Many women were sterilized without their consent, and local clinic workers strongly encouraged women to stop having children once they already had five. Food was withheld from families who did not comply, and the lack of regulation and safety protocol caused physical and mental trauma in Peruvian women.

As Peru is considered a developing country, it had very high fertility rates compared to the world average in 1970. As shown in the graph, results from the forced sterilization brought Peru’s fertility rate down to the world average in 2102.

While the efforts technically succeeded in their goal of decreasing Peru’s fertility rate, they were very damaging to Peru’s society. Many of the procedures done were illegal, unsafe, and unethical. The president was arrested and tried for many crimes including the violation of human rights.

References:

Clowes, Brian (2017, January 26). “Exposing the Global Population Control Agenda.” Retrieved 5 February 2021 from https://www.hli.org/resources/exposing-the-global-population-control/?gclid=CjwKCAiA9vOABhBfEiwATCi7GHZErA6byHKqJ2OJSKwY9OABskfUHzd9FSCZjErHzlFHX08emMWFdBoCBMoQAvD_BwE

Lizarzaburu, Javier (2015 December 02). “Forced sterilisation haunts Peruvian women decades on.” Retrieved 5 February 2021 from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-34855804

Suresh, Arvind (2014 December 11). “Forced sterilization in Peru: Did modern eugenic practices slow population growth?” Retrieved 5 February 2021 from https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2014/12/11/forced-sterilization-in-peru-did-modern-eugenic-practices-slow-population-growth/

When it population control in Australia, this country may well be one of the better examples of how to manage a growing population. As Australia sees a growing population rate through immigration (McDonald, 2018), other policies are put in place to not only help the birth rate of native Australians but with the birth rates that come from immigration. While not enforcing a certain number of children to be born to a country, Australia does provide low-cost birth control methods, as well as funding parents’ paternal leave, subsidized childcare, and even having funding to assist children in being able to attend school (McDonald, 2018). Australia has also managed to succeed in the public health sector, allowing for public health campaigns to speak out against risks like smoking, and therefore effectively decreased the mortality rate of Australians from between their mid-50s and 70s to age 75 and beyond (McDonald, 2018).

However, policies do not come without their own setbacks. Although education about contraceptives and health keep the population steady, debates appear when the topic shifts to population growth via immigration. The immigration flow to Australia averages 200,000 per year (McDonald, 2018), which sounds like a large flux. This problem is leveled however because immigrants that arrive that are in the reproductive stage will be able to give birth to children, and see their children give birth to their grandchildren, essentially assisting in future population growth as well (McDonald, 2018). A big issue that does come from a population influx though is how the population should be distributed. In major cities, there tends to be varying population growth and shrinkage as a result of the amount of work available in the region (McDonald). A proposal that is being passed around is to send immigrants to small density communities away from the cities to more evenly distribute the population (McDonald, 2018).  A problem arises when immigrants move to less populated cities, as it forces native Australians to move into the city to look for more work, essentially replacing the immigrants that would’ve populated the region in the first place (McDonald, 2018). Whichever way one looks at the issue of evenly distributing the population, there isn’t necessarily a smart or even correct answer to propose, making it a hot topic for political discussion in the country.

For now, though, Australia has been able to get a hold of population control in their country. From education on birth control and human health to providing resources to new parents, to even providing a welcoming place for immigrants to stay, Australia is managing to keep its population growth at a steady pace and will continue in the same manner so long as its policies aren’t changed.

References:

McDonald, Peter. (2018, Oct. 2). How Does Australia Manage Population Growth?. Pursuit. Retrieved 4 Feb. 2021, from https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/how-does-australia-manage-population-growth.

Our World in Data. (n.d.) Fertility Rate over the long-term, 1800 to 2017. Our World in Data. Retrieved 5 Feb. 2021, from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/fertility-rate-complete-gapminder?tab=chart&country=~AUS.

The country of Singapore once had a two-child policy in place to limit their population growth. Beginning on August 1973, the government penalized families who had more than two children (Seng, 2016). Even before the policy took hold, the government had already been persuading the public to consider family planning. Through social campaigns and providing access to contraceptives, the crude birth rate went from 28.3 to 21.8 between 1966 and 1969 (Seng, 2016). However, this original campaign was not enough. Following an increase in the crude birth rate from 22.1 to 23.1 between 1970 and 1972, the government decided to introduce the two-child policy (Seng, 2016). The following graph illustrates the effects of the policy by looking at the total fertility rate (TFR) of Singapore (Fertility rate, n.d.).

In 1972 when the policy was first announced, the TFR of Singapore was 2.84. The TFR first dipped below 2 in 1977 when it was 1.95. Up to current day, Singapore’s TFR never returned to above 2 (Fertility rate, n.d.). However, this is despite the fact that in March 1987, the government changed policies to encourage people to have more children (Seng, 2016).

As seen in Singapore, implementing a population growth strategy is difficult. Although social campaigns did help, it was unable to accomplish the goals required of it. Major results didn’t occur until after the two-child policy. Simply put, what is required to slow population growth is to change the public’s mind about how many children they should have. By enforcing a limit on the quantity of children a family should have, the government changed the status quo. As children grow up in Singapore, they will see that two-children homes are common, and thus affecting how they view the amount of children in a perfect family.

References:

Seng, L.T. (2016, November 22). Two-child policy. Infopedia. Retrieved from https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/infopedia/articles/SIP_2016-11-09_103740.html

(n.d.). Fertility rate over the long-term, 1800 to 2017. Our World in Data. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/fertility-rate-complete-gapminder?tab=chart&country=~SGP

In 1956, the country of Iran realized it was on the verge of a population problem, when their census data revealed a rapid population increase. The Iranian government was aware of the economic, social, and environmental consequences of an increasing population, so in the 1960s the Iranian government intervened with a multi-stage plan of action. The first step was to reduce the annual increase in population to 1% per year. To do this, they passed legislation regarding the promotion of family planning practices, ran a mass media campaign promoting family planning, and raised the legal age of marriage from 9 years old to 15 years old for females, and 18 years old for men. The results from this first step began to show a slight decline, as evidenced in the blue shaded section of the graph below.

The program’s success stalled out in phase 2 when the country experienced a revolution resulting in a pro-natalist government. This new government disbanded the project by deeming it to be “too Western”. This spike in population is shown in the orange highlighted section of the graph.

The most effective stage of Iran’s plan came to be in the third and final stage of the project. After politics had shaken out, the relaunched family planning program worked to achieve three goals: encourage birth spacing intervals of 3-4 years, encourage pregnancy only between the ages of 18-35 for women, and encourage family size to no more than 3 children. They did this via educational programs delivered in schools and colleges, mass media campaigns, and increased free access to contraceptives. This success is shown in the green highlighted part of the graph.

Overall, this method of attempting to control the population significantly improved Iran’s population problems, however, I believe that it slightly infringed on people’s rights, privacy, and autonomy. I agree with the benefits of the increased access to contraception, but I don’t completely agree with the “encouragement” to only have 3 children. Another problem that may have occurred throughout this campaign was religious resistance, or the efficacy of the way the family planning education was delivered. Being culturally and religiously sensitive was probably a point of contention, and finding a perfect deliverable method that attracts every person is hard to do. However, Iran did ultimately decrease their population successfully.

This family planning program has since been dismantled completely (since 2010) and Iran’s overall population policy has reversed. This could lead the country to experience the same crisis again in the future.

Reference:

Overpopulation Research Project. (2020, December 02). The Iranian MIRACLE: The most effective family planning program in history? Retrieved February 03, 2021, from https://overpopulation-project.com/the-iranian-miracle-the-most-effective-family-planning-program-in-history/

Image Of Graph:  https://www.google.com/search?q=china%27s+one+child+policy&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS914US916&sxsrf=ALeKk02xMa2156cS7Lu-OA9qYN6MzNkn0A:1612193884323&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj9uKKegsnuAhVwF1kFHeqRA7sQ_AUoA3oECBoQBQ&biw=1440&bih=821&dpr=2#imgrc=OOI4wZ74R_LYKM

One of the most notorious population control efforts was implemented by China between 1978-1979 (Encyclopaedia Britanica).  These efforts were implemented in an effort to reduce China’s rapidly growing population.  The effort was more widespread than many know.  The one child policy did not simply limit the number of children that Chinese citizens could have but also worked on promoting contraceptives and increasing sex education.  Families who only had one child also received compensation from the government and special awards.  All of these methods worked to reduce the birth rate throughout the republic of China.  These efforts were extremely effective and China for a while touted the idea that somewhere in the range of 400 million births were prevented (Zhang, 2020).  While on paper such statistics may prove that China’s efforts were impactful, the aftereffects of these policies ended up being more harmful than positive.  As a result of these policies, China currently faces an aging population, with two few young people, as well as a gender imbalance.  An age imbalance as well as a gender imbalance has continued to cause the birth rate to stay slow and the death rate to rise (Kuo, 2019).  These problems plague China as a lack of a younger generation has economic, social, and numerous other impacts that will be felt in the coming years through the country.  

Works Cited:

Kuo, Lily. “Can China Recover from Its Disastrous One-Child Policy?” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 2 Mar. 2019, www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/02/china-population-control-two-child-policy. 

“One-Child Policy.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., www.britannica.com/topic/one-child-policy. 

Zhang, Alice. “Understanding China’s Former One-Child Policy.” Investopedia, Investopedia, 20 Dec. 2020, www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/120114/understanding-chinas-one-child-policy.asp#:~:text=China’s%20one%2Dchild%20policy%20was%20introduced%20in%201979%20as%20population,births%20since%20it%20was%20instituted. Child