Building the Population Bomb by Emily Klancher Merchant

Abstract

This book seems to be about population, but it is really about justice. Merchant’s argument is that population growth is not a barrier to economic and environmental progress. Rather, population growth has been used as a scapegoat for a variety of global ills, thus distracting attention from the distributional injustices rising from the rich world fouling the air and water and using the majority of the earth’s resources despite having a minority of the world’s people. Moreover, she argues that the demography profession not only supported this scapegoating but rose to global prominence on its back. Whether pursuing the “moderate” approach—encouraging voluntary reductions in family size to slow growth—or the more extreme approach—vigorously promoting fertility control to reduce global population—scientists who tout fertility reduction as the crucial method to fight climate change or end poverty do substantial harm by blaming the poor and pushing phantom remedies for real ills.Many earnest and well-meaning scholars and policymakers who measure, and seek ways to manage, fertility will be pained by these arguments. Merchant backs up her view with a detailed history of scientific demography and population policies that plainly shows the profession’s role in emphasizing the dangers of population growth, and in encouraging governments to promote fertility reduction as a pathway to economic development. In the extreme—for example, the “population bomb”—natural scientists and popular writers have warned that failure to control population growth would bring catastrophe.Yet demographers are not entirely mistaken. No country has ever launched itself on the path to eliminating poverty and reaching middle-income status without having fertility fall considerably. Studies of the “demographic dividend” have shown clear benefits from an age structure with more young workers and fewer dependent children, a product of falling fertility. Changes in demographic factors—fertility, age structure, ethnic balances, urban/rural distribution—have proven relevant to patterns of women’s rights, ethnic conflict, and democracy.Merchant’s history is most valuable in making clear the horrific costs of treating population growth as a totemic factor that can change the world. In fact, population issues only have meaning, and can produce coherent policy, when embedded in the details of a local social, political, and economic context. Niger, where women typically have seven children (and fathers profess to desire ten) might benefit from shifting to a smaller average family size, but only in the right context. That is, if women have smaller families to improve their opportunities for meaningful and rewarding work, and to educate their children properly, lower fertility can be part of a comprehensive program to aid development. However, if women lack options for education and employment, their children face only low-paid work, and families depend on kin networks for support, any move toward smaller families will result in further poverty and unhappiness.From eugenics to coercive fertility reduction and erroneous and exaggerated warnings about the harm from population growth, demographers have much to answer for. Merchant beautifully shows how, despite good intentions (where does that road lead?), demographers spent decades promoting policies that visited great harm on people, did little to alleviate poverty or environmental damage, and diverted attention from the abuse of material wealth in rich countries. This valuable, sometimes shocking history should be required reading for all demographers and those interested in population policies.Yet, at the same time, we should note that even if the faults of capitalism are mainly responsible for environmental threats and global inequality, the successes of capitalism allowed the increase in global population to 8 billion not to be a critical problem. Similarly, demographers’ faults in earlier generations should not blot out their great accomplishments in developing measures, models, and data that have contributed enormously to our understanding of population dynamics—a vital part of the integrated policies that will address poverty, health, and the environment in the future.