An international concern growing in relation to the global population is that population. The world has reached a population of approximately eight billion people and all nations struggle with how resources may serve even higher numbers projected. More people translates to more productivity, but it also translates to unprecedented strains on resources in place. Some of these, such as clean water and agricultural lands, can only extend so far. Added to this is how disease and unhealthy conditions are more likely to exist in highly populated areas. On one level, rises in population are signs of healthy societies. On another, however, the current rates of birth present extreme challenges never before faced. Then, as medical technology advances and life spans are increased, so too does population become an urgent matter.

In the past, the world has usually relied on natural and man-made events to curb population rates. Over history, a range of diseases has wiped out untold millions of people. Also, major wars and certain economic realities have helped to keep populations lower. For example, nations rely on economic recessions to slow population rates. In times of financial hardship, it is seen that birthrates tend to decrease until there is some recovery (Espenshade, Serow, 2013: p. 51). The obvious problem with any of these events is that they cannot be predicted. Moreover, they entail suffering to many in the process of curbing population.

As the world exists today, the major cities are virtually overcrowded with populations competing for all resources. As this occurs, prices rise and living conditions worsen. Then, industrialization expands to meet rising needs but this also threatens the natural resources necessary for all societies. A cycle is in place wherein more people equates to more likely hardships for all. The real challenge facing the world is then to promote the most favorable living conditions while reducing population rates in humane and rational ways. This is not easy, as most cultures insist on personal freedoms regarding having children. Nonetheless, certain measure put in place by governments and cultural institutions could have the desired effect of decreasing birth rates.

To begin with, one important change relates to gender roles. When women are more educated and have greater opportunity, they are less motivated to have more children, and this is a universal reality: “In every culture surveyed to date, women who have completed at least some secondary school have fewer children on average…than do women who have less education” (WWI). The society that takes this direction then accomplishes both goals described: life is improved for the men and women, and birthrates go down. Then, societies with consistent sex education offered to children will be less likely to experience over-population. This relates to the need for governments to provide access to contraception (WWI). Both of these approaches have been problematic in various cultures. People resist what they perceive as governmental interference in their personal choice. It is also usual that cultures have religious traditions objecting to sex education and contraception practices. However, these obstacles should not be allowed to prevent the efforts being made. All set norms are only changed only over time. Then, population growth is often created by pregnancies in adolescent girls with no wish to become mothers. Education and access to contraception then also promote the well-being of all societies because younger men and women have greater opportunity to mature before deciding upon assuming roles as parents.

In the final analysis, there is no rational means of reducing population rates through legislation efforts. Having children is always a personal matter based on a variety of individual and social influences and preferences. No understanding of population is possible without recognizing that rising rates are matters of behaviour. What is then most effective is the noted education and the opening up of opportunity to women. Changes in the fabrics of societies will then have the desired effect. It is also likely that a global pattern may develop once these approaches are increasingly adopted. Historically, nations seek to adopt those practices observed as beneficial within other societies. Those with decreased birth rates will then enjoy the greater states of well-being attractive to other societies desiring the same results. In a very real sense, then, the same technology enabling globalization may work to address this global problem. The key is communication. As diversity increases, there is greater familiarity with nations once largely unknown. In this process alone, and as happens with commercial matters, those nations more developed are obligated to assist the less developed. The challenges of over-population are never restricted to any single region of the world. This is a reality more true now than ever before. Consequently, it seems urgent that the stronger nations take proactive steps now in promoting education, gender equality, and access to contraception to their populations.