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When couples are asked why they have children, their answers are almost always about their
feelings. For most, having a child is the symbol of a successful union. It also ensures that the family will
have a successor of generation that will continue its name. The kinship is preserved, and the family's
story continues. A few, however, worry how much strain a child can bring to the household as he/she
''competes'' for the parents attention and in reverse how much energy the family needs to shower its
love to an additional member. Viewed from above, however having or not having children is mainly
driven by economics. Behind the laughter or the tears lies the question, will the child be an economic
asset or a burden to the family?

Rural communities often welcome an extra hand to help in crop cultivation, particularly during
planting and harvesting season. Urbanized, educated, and professional families with two incomes,
however, desire just one or two progenies. With each partner tied down, or committed to his/ her
respective profession, neither has the time to devote to having a kid, much more to parenting. Rural
families view multiple children and large kinship networks as critical investments.

Urban populations have grown, but not necessarily because families are having more children. It is
rather the combination of the natural outcome of significant migration to the cities by people seeking
work in the "more modern" sectors of society. This movement of people is especially manifested in the
developing countries where industries and businesses in the cities are attracting more people from the
rural areas.

International migration also plays a part. Today, 191 million people live in countries other than their
own, and the United Nations projects that over 2.2 million will move from the developing world to the
First World countries.

The "Perils" of Overpopulation

Development planners see urbanization and industrialization as indicators of a developing society,

but disagree on the role of population growth or decline in modernization. This lengthy discussion brings
back ideas of British scholar Thomas Malthus who warned in his 1798 "An Essay on the the Principle of
Population" that population growth will inevitably exhaust world food supply by the middle of the 19th
century.
 Malthus' prediction was off base, but it was revived in the late 1960s when American biologist Paul R.
Ehrlich and his wife, Anne, wrote The Population Bomb, which argued that overpopulation in the 1970s
and the 1980s will bring about global environmental disasters that would, in turn, lead to food shortage
and mass starvation. They proposed that countries like the United states take the lead in the promotion
of global population control in order to reduce the growth rate to zero. Their recommendations ranged
from the bizarre (chemical castration) to the policy-oriented (taxing an additional child and luxury taxes
on child related products) to monetary incentives (paying off men who would agree to be sterilized after
two children) to institution-building (a powerful Department of Population and Environment).

There was some reason for this fear to persist. The rate of global population increase was at its
highest between 1955 and 1975 when nations were finally able to return to normalcy after the
devastations wrought by World War II. The growth rate rose from 1.8 percent per year from 1955 to
1975, peaking at 2.06 percent annual growth rate between 1965 and 1970. By limiting the population,
vital resources could be used for economic progress and not be "diverted" and "wasted" to feeding
more mouths. In the mid-20th century, the Philippines, China, and India sought to lower birth rates on
the belief that unless controlled, the free expansion of family members would lead to a crisis in
resources, which in turn may result in widespread poverty, mass hunger, and political instability.

As early as 1958, the American policy journal, Foreign Affairs, had already advocated "contraception
and sterilization" as the practical solutions to global economic, social,, and political problems. In May
2009, a group of American billionaires warned of how a "nightmarish" explosion of people was "a
potentially disastrous environmental, social, and industrial threat" to the world.

This worry is likewise at the core of the economist argument for the promotion of reproductive
health. Advocates of population control contend for the universal access to reproductive technologies
(such as condoms, the pill, abortion, and vasectomy) and , more importantly, giving women the right to
choose whether to have children or not. Finally, politics determine these "birth control" programs.
Developed countries justify their support for population control in developing countries by depicting the
latter as conservative societies.

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It's the Economy not the Babies!

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The use of population control to prevent economic crisis has its critics. For example, Betsy
Hartmann disagrees with the advocates of neo- Malthusian theory and accused governments of using
population control as a "substitute for social justice and much needed reforms - such land distribution,
employment creation, provision of mass education and health care, and emancipation. Others pointed
out that the population did grow fast in many countries in the 1960s, and this growth "aided economic
development by spurring technological and institutional innovation and increasing the supply of human
ingenuity."

The median of 29.4 years for females and 30.9 for males in the cities means a young working
population. With this median age, states are assured that they have a robust military force. The
productive capacities of this generation are especially high in regions like East Asia as "Asia's remarkable
growth in the past half century coincided closely with demographic change in the region.

Population growth has, in fact, spurred "technological and institutional innovation" and increased "
the supply of human ingenuity." Advances in agricultural productions have grown that the Malthusian
nightmare can be prevented. The "Green Revolution" created high-yielding varieties of rice and other
cereals and, along with the development of new methods of cultivation, increase yields globally, but
more particularly in the developing world. The global famine that neo-Malthusian predicted did not
happen. Instead, between 1950 and 1984, global gain production increased by over 250 percent,
allowing agriculture to keep pace with population growth, thereby keeping global famine under control.
Women and Reproductive Rights

The character in the middle of these debates - women - is often the subject of these population
measures. Reproductive rights supporters argue that if population control and economic development
were to reach their goals, women must have control over whether they will have children or not and
whey they will have their progeny, if any. By giving women this power, they will be able to pursue their
vocations - be they economic, social, or political - and contribute to economic growth.

This serial correlation between fertility, family, and fortune has motivated countries with growing
economies to introduce or strengthen their reproductive health laws, including abortion. High-income
First World nations and fast-developing countries were able to sustain growth in part because women
were given the power of choice and easy access to reproductive technologies.

Most countries implement reproductive health laws because they worry about the health of the
mother. Opponents regard reproductive rights as nothing but a false front for abortion. They contend
that this method of preventing conception endangers the life of the mother and must be banned. The
religious wing of the anti-reproductive flank goes further and describes abortion as a debauchery that
sullies the name of God; it will send the mother to hell and prevents a new soul, the baby, to become
human.

Muslim countries do not condone abortion and limit wives to domestic chores and delivering babies.
The Philippines with a Catholic majority now has a reproductive health law in place , buth conservative
politicians have enfeebled it through budget cuts and installed its implementation by filing a case
against the law in the Supreme Court.

A country being industrialized and developed, however, does not automatically assure pro-women
reproductive regulations.

The Feminist Perspective

Feminists approach the issue of reproductive rights from another angle. They are, foremost, against
any form of population control because they are compulsory by nature, resorting to a carrot-and-stick
approach (punitive mechanism co-exist alongside benefits) that actually does not empower women.
They believe that government assumptions that poverty and environmental degradation are caused by
overpopulation are wrong. These factors ignore other equally important causes like the unequal
distribution of wealth, the lack of public safety nets like universal health care, education, and gender
equality programs.

Feminists also point out that there is very little evidence that point o overpopulation as the culprit
behind poverty and ecological devastation. Governments have not directly responded to these criticisms,
but one of the goals of the 1994 United Nations International Conference on Population and
Development suggests recognition of this issue.

Population Growth and Food Security

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Today's global population has reached 7.4 billion. it is estimated to increase to 9.5 billion in 2050,
then 11.2 billion by 2100. The median age of this population is 30.1, with the male median age at 29.4
years and female, 30.9 years. Ninety-five percent of this population growth will happen in the
developing countries, with demographers predicting that by the middle of this century, several countries
will have tripled their population.

Demographers predict that the world population will stabilize by 2050 to 9 billion, although they
warn that feeding this population will be an immense challenge. The decline in fertility and the existence
of a young productive population, however, may not be enough to offset this concern over food security.
The food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warns that in order for countries to mitigate the impact of
population growth, food production must increase by 70 percent; annual cereal production must rise to
3 billion tons from the current 2.1 billion; and yearly meat production must go up to 200 million tons to
reach 470 million.

The problem here is that the global rate of growth of cereals had declined considerably - from 3.2
percent in 1960 to just 1.5 percent in 2000. The FAO recommends that countries increase their
investments in agriculture, craft long-term policies aimed at fighting poverty, and invest in research and
development. The UN body suggests also that countries develop a comprehensive social service
program that includes food assistance, consistent delivery of health services, and education especially
for the poor.