As of 2022, the world has experienced a population decline. Even China, one of the most populous countries in the world, has seen a decrease in population for the first time since the 1960s. Although the decreasing numbers have been a cause of alarm and concern for many, the smaller population is a result of several technological and cultural advancements humans have made in this century. In addition, previous worries about overpopulation have shown that a decline in numbers is beneficial to our planet. The human population does not necessarily need to grow exponentially, so population decline may be just what we need.

Approximately 60 years ago, the world population was spiking to uncontrollable numbers, and overpopulation became a rising issue, particularly in China. In a panic to curb population growth, China implemented the one-child policy. This policy was, obviously, not ideal, as it resulted in sterilization and forced abortions of women, child abandonment, and infanticide.

The “local officials often [resorted] to coercion, [encouraged] widespread abortion and [intruded] into the reproductive lives of most married couples,” said Michael Weisskopf, writer of China’s Birth Control Policy Drives Some to Kill Baby Girls. 

As a result, the number of males rose disproportionately higher than the number of females, with “30 million more men than women, 30 million bachelors who cannot find brides. …they are the biological dead ends of their family,” said Mei Fong, a journalist interviewed in How China’s One-Child Policy Led To Forced Abortions, 30 Million Bachelors. The enormous gap in the gender ratio is another result of China’s one-child policy, and one of the consequences that have affected the population for many years after. The lack of women marrying and bearing children has also been a huge contributing factor to population decline. More women are getting older and remaining unmarried until their later years, or never marrying at all.

However, the smaller, younger demographic that resulted from the one-child policy is given more opportunities to find work and attend higher education, something that was difficult to come by before the decrease in population. As the population declines, there is more room for all people to live adequate lives.

Now, as the population starts to decrease, the world is panicking yet again. While the decrease may seem like a source of alarm, the decline can be partially attributed to several factors, such as the changing expectations of women and their roles in society. The long-established assumption that women should marry and have children is slowly but surely evolving as more and more women enter the workforce, something civilization has toiled towards for decades. A decrease in birth rates is a result of women’s empowerment. As education and employment become more accessible to all genders, financially-independent women are inclined to pursue their careers rather than settle down and raise a family. Women had an average of 5 children; now, the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) has dropped nearly in half, settling at a rate of 2.5, and this is not a bad thing. The fact that more women are entering the workforce would be celebrated, and the decline in birthrates due to their newfound independence should not be frowned upon by whoever may blame these women for the population decline.

“As [women] gain access to education and jobs, they have alternatives to raising kids,” said Jeff Wise in America’s Population Could Use a Boom. “In the U.S., women with a master’s degree have their first child six years later than women who have only a high-school diploma.” Those who aim for a higher education put aside their plans for raising a family. 39.1% of women in the U.S. have completed at least four years of college, a significant increase from 35.3% in 1940. Women in the past had almost no options to choose their path in life, stuck in the roles of “wife” and “child bearer” with little to no education and limited to low-paying work. Now that women’s empowerment has resulted in population decline, are we going to enforce the opposite of China’s one-child policy and force women to have more children? We saw the horrors of the previous “solution” to overpopulation, and to act impulsively to “fix” population decline can result in similar devastating outcomes that can greatly impact population numbers for several years.

Along with culture and education, the modernization of healthcare has greatly influenced the population decline. 

“Average world life expectancy has increased from 51 years in 1960 to 73 in 2019, and even more so in China, from 51 in 1962 to 78 in 2019,” says Wang Feng in The Alternative, Optimistic Story of Population Decline. A person’s lifespan has nearly doubled, allowing people to continue working into their later years and plan marriage and parenthood slowly. In the past, people married young and reproduced quickly. As mortality rates were high, couples, in particular women, chose to have multiple children to ensure that at least some would survive to adulthood. It is no longer such a pressing matter for couples to have children, as healthcare has decreased child mortality rates and enabled women to safely have children in their later years, past optimal child-bearing ages. One of the main causes of overpopulation was the increase in both healthcare and birth rates, but the recent drop in births has helped reduce our population. Fewer children mean smaller families, and smaller families result in population decline. If birth rates had continued to grow alongside life expectancy, we would quickly be depleted of resources and room. There is only so much life that Earth can support.

Overpopulation has always been a global concern; this year, the population is reaching 8 billion people. If the population continued to grow exponentially without a decline, society would struggle to provide essential services such as healthcare, transportation, healthcare, education, and employment to every person. Population decline helps alleviate the pressure that humans have exerted over the world for decades.

The planet itself is vast and capable of sustaining life at an unimaginable level, but “with a population approaching 8 billion, even if everyone adopted a relatively low material standard of living like the one currently found in Papua New Guinea, it would still push Earth to its ecological breaking point,” said Joseph J. Bish in Overpopulation: Cause and Effect. Lack of space and vital resources such as fresh water, food, and energy has been a pressing problem for several decades, and even though natural resources span across the Earth, there is simply not enough to support more people. Resources have been stretched thin and unevenly across the human population, and an increase in population would only exacerbate the situation. With a surplus of produce available to the rich and little to none for those in poverty, agricultural industries have failed to create an efficient food distribution system, consequently allowing billions of pounds of food to be wasted in the U.S. alone. As the population decreases, so does the pressure on global resources, allowing the world to focus on increasing the quality rather than the quantity of life on Earth.

Population decline is what the world needs, especially since, just a few years ago, overpopulation and lack of resources became a pressing global issue. Overall, the population decline is beneficial because, as society advances, it should be expected that, at times, the numbers may drop or increase at certain rates. There is no reason that the human population should stay at its current numbers or increase. Sometimes, some regression is progression.

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