In agricultural countries, it has been the belief of many that it is beneficial to have more children to help with the work in the fields and to take care of the parents in their old age. Added to this belief is the lack of access and knowledge to affordable yet effective family planning techniques. Parents do not realize that they would need to spend more to provide for basic needs (i.e. food, clothing and shelter) if they have more children. As such, more and more developing countries have continuously increasing populations. Population growth must be controlled because of its major impacts such as the rise of poverty, lawlessness and environmental degradation. Population control is a means of improving living standards and a necessary tool to achieve a country's growth potential. China in the late 1970's took the Draconian measure of limiting each family to one child to improve the country economic situation and provide the basic necessities for its people. Thirty years hence, China still has the biggest population in the world but is projected to become a world economic power in ten years time.



As the population grows, more and more people settle in the more developed sections of the country. This leads to a host of problems including decreasing availability of natural resources in that area because more people would need access to housing, water, fuel, and food for their survival. The rise of human activity is related to the loss and degradation of habitats of certain species which can lead to endangerment or even extinction of plants and animal species. The extinction of plant and animal species would affect the gentle balance of an ecosystem and would lessen biological diversity, increase the proliferation of pests, lower agricultural productivity and in the long run will make the environment uninhabitable for the human species. Factors of overpopulation that contribute to wildlife extinction and environmental degradation include high consumption rate of humans, deforestation, human settlements, illegal extractive activities in the coastal areas and forests, unregulated trade in wildlife products, wildfires and use of pesticides. The image on the left shows a graphical representation of how the growth in population has affected the extinction of plant and animal life.

Another factor of overpopulation that contributes to environmental degradation is rural to urban migration. People from rural areas migrate to cities in the hopes of having a better life. Unfortunately, they do not see that cities are already overcrowded and overpopulated as it is. The increased number of people in urban areas leads to overwhelmed water provision and treatment systems. This can result in water shortage and water pollution. Water shortage would affect the health and hygiene of people, especially infant and child well being and mortality. Lack of access to clean water is the leading cause of diarrhea in infants and small children, which often leads to death, in under developed countries.

The effects of population growth are overwhelming and countries must provide resources in educating and providing services for population development and family planning to enable its citizens to have an informed choice on the matter. With increased accessibility to family planning and better education about population growth, the world's population will hopefully, stabilize.