Fertility Control

One way to destroy the vicious cycle of high birth rates is to empower women through social change, specifically, education. There is a proven connection between the education level of a mother and how many children she will have, statistically. In the United States, birth rates of women with less than 12 years of total education are more than triple their college-educated counterparts. This can logically be applied to Guatemala’s situation to find that if more women are educated, not only in school, but in proper child care and contraception use, their Total Fertility Rate should rapidly decrease to a more sustainable level. This is a one-two punch: not only will women have less children, the ones they do have will likely be raised more effectively and are less likely to die of disease in infancy. Guatemala must engage in a campaign to enroll more girls in school. This will be difficult, due to the culture of the country. Women are expected to stay at home and work the fields. Culture must shift to make progress, as it so often does.

Population growth has been running rampant in developing countries for the past century due to a lack of education, medical care, and gender equality. According to Jonathon Porrit, a British environmentalist and writer, “The combined population of the four countries [Ethiopia, Uganda, Somalia and Kenya] was 40 million in 1960. Now it is nearly 170 million [in late 2011].” “Overall, the human population has quadrupled in the twentieth century”(Cromwell 167) alone due to technological and medical advancements of the industrial revolution Because of the Industrial revolution, there have been many advancements in medicine, leading to lower morality rates in developed and developing countries alike. Developing countries lack the education and family planning that they need in order to maintain a stable and healthy population. Family planning is the act of” anticipate and attain their desired number of children and the spacing and timing of their births. It is achieved through use of contraceptive methods and the

Overpopulation is an issue that many persons fail to bring attention, but don’t know the underlying effects that it can have on the United States itself. The hardships of overpopulation, affects the economy, the available of resources, and also the success of the future generations to come. Without much thought, someone may have children not knowing that it can affect the livelihood of the future generations who plan to land that job or that position they were aspiring to get. There are those individuals that continue having children, knowing that they are not financially capable of supporting another innocent child. In result this negatively affects the quality of living. If there are more births, it foreshadows that there are more jobs to be created, which causes employment hard to acquire, nevertheless, causing the economy to make a turn for the

Scientists and economists equally agree that the answer to our population problem is education; specifically the education and empowerment in women. “The relationship between population and development with education is undeniable.” Education among women affects fertility rates in many ways, it

Kristof ‘s most important solution to the overpopulation pandemic is worldwide access to contraceptives. He notes that some countries still have lackluster access to contraceptives, “In rural Africa, I’ve come across women who have never heard of birth control.” (Kristof A31) With this statement, he lets us know that he has personally seen the problems of undersized population control regulation and that he is an authority on the issue. “What’s needed isn’t just birth control pills or IUDs. It’s also girl’s education and women’s rights. (Kristof A31) ” Kristof’s logic in this is that educated women have fewer children. He gives no evidence for this however, it is not difficult to come to the conclusion that if more women would know about the risks

Perhaps one of the most pressing issues faced by women in Many African countries today are the many barriers preventing them from having access to sexual health and family planning services. “The World Health Organization (WHO) defines family planning as “the ability of individuals and couples to anticipate and attain their desired number of children and the spacing and timing of their births. It is achieved through use of contraceptive methods and the treatment of involuntary infertility” (Tessema, Gizachew Assefa, 2). By examining the causes of what is preventing women in areas Africa from taking control of their sexual health, and the number of children they wish to have, possible solutions can be contrived. In Kenya for example, “20.9 percent

For a few years, America has had quite a low fertility rate, but it is not something that we should be afraid of. “America’s fertility rate may be holding up, but America’s middle-class women are producing at rates far below the Golden Number” (Last, 6). For me, there is no “Golden

Major progress has been made in curbing population growth. The United Nations Population facts August 2010 states that there has been substantial declines in fertility, total fertility in the rest of the developing world(excluding the least developed countries) declined by about 50 per cent between 1970-1975 and 2005-2010: from 5.0 to 2.5 children per woman. Additionally fertility in the least developed countries dropped by 34 per cent since 1970-1975, from 6.7 to 4.4 children per woman. Bangladesh is exceptional with a reduction of over 60 per cent, from 6.9 children per woman in 1970-1975 to an estimated 2.4 in 2005-2010.

The fertility rate of a country measures the average number of children capable of being born per woman. The rate gives an idea of the future growing or declining population trend. For Liberia the number stands at 4.7 children born per woman. The number is an indication that the population is growing and increasingly becoming younger. As stated earlier, people under the age of 14 comprises over 40% of the total population, which coincides with the younger growing trend predicted by the fertility

Peru is one of Latin America´s largest nation and contains over 26 million people. In Peru the adolescent fertility rate determines a lot about how the country works and functions on multiple things. When teenage girls are having children it leads to the country having a higher adolescent fertility rate, increasing the population and possibly the poverty rate. Since 2014 there are about 7 million people living in poverty in Peru and then a little more than a million living in extreme poverty. When young girls in poverty drop out of school to help support their families, it leads them to not getting a proper education which results to them having more children.

Africa has a total fertility rate (TFR) of 5.2 children per woman, a problem that is

West Africa has the highest infant mortality rate in the world - for every 1000 live births, 70 children die before their first birthday (Wang, 2014). National infant mortality rates vary from 18.8 deaths per 1000 live births in Cape Verde to 89.9 deaths per 1000 live births in Guinea-Bissau. Nonetheless, the leading causes of infant mortality are largely the same across the region: neonatal conditions (26 percent), malaria (21 percent), pneumonia (21 percent), diarrhea (17 percent), measles (6 percent) and HIV/AIDS (4 percent). The “desired children” hypothesis of fertility asserts that high fertility primarily reflects desired number of children (Pritchett, 1994). In this regard, high infant mortality may motivate women to have more children to attain their preferred family size. Thus aside the important population health implications of reducing high infant mortality rates, demographic theory predicts that improved child survival is accompanied by declines in fertility reflecting reduced demand for replacement births to achieve a given target family size. The influence of reduced infant mortality on fertility decline has also been established empirically in a wide range of settings (Barnum, 1988). Declines in infant mortality, falls in fertility rates, and lower average family sizes lead to changes in population age structure and stimulate increased female labor

According to the book, there are three main factors that influence population growth. The first factor the book addresses is childhood mortality. Childhood mortality refers to the amount of children who die before age five. According to a website called ourworldindata.com, the child mortality rate in 2015 was around 4.3 percent. Childhood mortality can impact population growth because if the mortality rate is high, the amount of childhood deaths would cause less population growth. A decrease in childhood mortality could cause families to have smaller families since there is a higher likelihood of their children surviving. Education is the second factor that impacts population growth. According to the book, people who are educated tend to wait to have children or get married due to their occupation or due to them working towards their occupation. This can impact population growth by reducing the number of children a women has due to her getting married older, having children when she is older, and dedicating time to work and children. Women who live in uneducated areas tend to marry and have children around their teens, increases the population yet also increasing poverty and lack of hygiene. The third and last factor is the lack of access to contraceptives. According to the book, contraceptives tend to decrease the amount of children a women has, allows more women to have children who survive the birthing process, and reduces the amount of women who die in childbirth. This

Divided into groups ranging from 1 to 5, one being the highest equality and 5 being the lowest, states from group 3 and higher have greater gender equality than states in groups 4 and 5. The “Trends in Contraceptive Use Worldwide 2015” report from the United Nations will be used to estimate contraceptive prevalence by any method, the unmet need for family planning, and the demand for family planning satisfied with modern methods, as well as the specific contraceptive type for married or in-union women aged 15-49. Using these two reports, the level of gender equality in each state will be assessed in relation to the states’ achievement of good governance.

Given the potential of family planning for far reaching health, development, and economic gains, governments and their development partners should consider strengthening efforts and looking for new ways to increase the uptake and quality of family planning services.