Will the wonders of technology save us from overpopulation?

As Achara Deboonme points out in her fine column, population growth is a primary factor in humanity’s future wellbeing. But the dangers are frequently derided with faulty statistics and poor logic. I would go a step further and point out that we cannot count on future technological advances improving our lot. These could meet an upper threshold with shortages of raw material or capital, or simply a failure to come up with the right ideas.

I think the solution lies in finding a way to encourage people to limit the number of children they have. We know that increasing education, upping the standard of living, and empowering women all help limit family size. And the Thai experience with popularisation of birth control has also been effective. But the rate at which these factors are increasing (if at all) is too slow to affect the population problem much. Few of us would tolerate coercive government programmes such as China’s “one child” policy – though it has clearly been effective. 

One alternative is to offer families financial incentives to limit the number of offspring. It has been tried in India with a degree of success. The need for financial security in old age is a major reason for having larger families in Thailand and elsewhere. To address this, an annual payment could be made to a provident fund for seniors. Of course, there is a downside: the funding itself, and the fact that its successful implementation would result in a drop in economic growth rates.

Brian Hunter