澳洲预科essay:Overpopulation in Developing Countries and Regions_澳洲essay_ESSAY

Research Question:研究问题：

世界上绝大多数人口来自发展中国家和地区，解决这些地区的人口过剩问题具有重要意义。这个问题的原因和影响是什么？有什么可行的解决办法？

As the majority of the world population comes from developing countries and regions, it is of great importance to resolving the overpopulation issue in those areas. What are the causes and effects of this issue, and what solutions are practicable to be implemented?

1. Introduction介绍

“人口过剩是指当前全球人口超过地球提供能力的情况”（Kukreja，2013年）。与发达国家的人口数量相比，发展中国家的巨大人口给自然资源和环境带来了不可避免的负担。因此，制定切实可行的解决方案，以便在全国范围内实施以控制人口，以保护有限的资源，这一点至关重要。

本文探讨了发展中国家（地区）人口过剩问题的一般原因和影响，并针对我国的实际情况提出了三种切实可行的解决办法，以有效地改善当前的形势。此外，提供的解决方案将在最后得出最终结论之前进行评估。

"Overpopulation refers to a condition where the current global population exceeds the capacity the Earth provides" (Kukreja, 2013). In contrast to the number of the population contributed from developed countries, huge population that comes from developing ones has brought unavoidable burden on both natural resources and environment. Therefore, it is of vital importance to come up with practical solutions that could be implemented on a national scale for the purpose of population control, in order to preserve limited resources.

This essay investigates the general causes and effects regarding overpopulation issue in developing countries (and regions), followed by three practical solutions offered towards the case of China specifically to efficiently improve the current situation. Furthermore, provided solutions would be evaluated before a final conclusion is drawn at the end.

2. Situation情况

随着人类文明的进步，全球人口也在迅速增加。据联合国估计，到本世纪中叶，全球人口将达到约93亿（Walsh，2011年）。如果全球人口仍以这样的速度增长，不可避免的，总有一天，自然资源将被耗尽，超过我们地球提供的能力。因此，必须制定人口控制目标的规划，以发展中国家和地区为主要目标。

如下图1所示，发展中国家的人口增长趋势近似呈指数增长。虽然一些一流的发达国家已经实现了国民人口零增长甚至负增长的“目标”，但发展中国家，特别是欠发达地区的人口激增，是由于死亡率较低和人口增长迅速导致的。合格率。

With the advancement of human civilization, the number of global population is increasing rapidly as well. According to the UN, it is estimated that the global population will reach to around 9.3 billion by the mid-century (Walsh, 2011). If the global population increases still at such rates, inevitably, one day natural resources will be used out, exceeding the capacity our Earth provides. Therefore, it isnecessary to make plans for the goal of population control, with developing countries and regions being the main targets.

As shown in Figure 1 below, in developing countries the trends of population growth approximate exponential increase. While some first-class developed countries already realized the ‘goal' of zero or even negative increase in national population, the surge in the population of developing countries, especially those under-developed regions, has been resulted from lower mortality rates and rapidly increasing fertility rates.

Source: Lester L., (2011), ESA .

Particularly in China, the population size has already risen up to 1.42 billion by this year (World Population Review, 2018). As the country with the largest population in the world, the ‘one-child’ policy established since 1979 has been relaxed by the government (Verrill, 2016); and this led to even more severe status quo of population issue in China.

3. Problem

3.1 Causes

Based on the context of the overpopulation issue in developing countries, in general, three major causes are concluded below:

(a) Lack of Family Planning

‘Family planning’ refers to by various means, the desired number of children could be attained, as well as their spacing (WHO, 2018). Because many people living in developing nations have little knowledge about the concept of family planning, even not to mention the harmfulness of overpopulation, most of them get married at an early age. And this situation usually becomes more common in rural areas, greatly increasing the chances of having more children (Kukreja, 2013).

(b) Lack of Sex &Procreation Education

The root reason that accounts for the considerable portion of the world population distributed in developing countries has to be insufficient education. As education is probably the most effective way to cut down population size from the roots, it plays a very essential role in the population control.

Besides lacking procreation education, the large population in developing regions also partially results from lack of sexual protection, as sex and procreation are closely related.

As the government is the ‘head’ of a nation, it also has the responsibility to make practicable policies corresponding to the population status. However, the awareness towards the urgency of population control has not been spread to every developing country. One typical example of this is India, which has not taken any effective measures in recent years......

Moreover, in terms of increasing military force, some developing countries do not constraint population number, instead, their governments even encourage having more kids, misleading those who have not comprehended the seriousness of the overpopulation ‘crisis’.

3.2 Effects

(a) Environmental destruction

Because of the unavoidable damages overpopulation caused to the environment, it has been now regarded as one of the most pressing environmental issues worldwide. Particularly, the depletion of natural resources due to increasing population has posed a great threat to our future sustainable development. This unstoppable population growth is also exhausting finite resources of nature.

Furthermore, global warming, among current top priorities, has a lot to do with huge CO2 (carbon) emissions contributed from considerable population. In some developing countries, like China, the air pollution in its capital, Beijing, has become so severe that even possibly threatens the health of residents in the city.

(b) Loss of habitats & biodiversity

As a major driving force that leads to the loss of ecosystems, the excessive reclamation of land resources for the needs of an increasing population has resulted in serious desertification in many parts of the world. The glaciers at two poles are at the risk of melting nowadays, as in recent two decades the area of permanent ice cover already declined around 23% (NASA, 2018).

On the other hand, the increase of human population also aggravated the loss of biodiversity, due to our apparent advantages in competing with other species, whose habitats might be destroyed due to overpopulation.

With a rapidly growing population inside a country, the job market will become much more competitive,leaving much fewer opportunities on average for everyone, especially for university graduates in developing countries.

As a specific case, the unemployment rate across India has steadily risen in recent five years, from 3.41% to above 3.52%, along with its increasing population (Trading Economics, 2018).

4. Solutions

As it is difficult to come up with a universal plan for all developing countries to control population growth, three following solutions are proposed below specifically using China as a typical example, though similarities may be spotted also for others.

(a) Enhancing sex and procreation education;

Though the ‘one-child’ policy has been implemented for more than three decades in China, achieving successful and surprising outcomes in population control correspondingly, in order to avoid its rebounce, more efforts need to be spared towards education.

Starting from primary and middle schools, sex and procreation education should be included as a part of the curriculum. The consciousness of family planning needs to be established at an earlier age, through sex and procreation education, for ensuring the sustaining satisfactory achieved along with the ‘one-child’ policy.

(b) Providing incentive policies for ‘one-child’ family.

As Chinese government has relaxed the restriction of giving birth to only one child since 2015, with the new ‘two-child’ policy officially updated, more and more family are taking this precious timing to have a second baby (Winston, 2015). However, this new policy has brought invisible pressure once again towards population control, on the basis of the achievements already accomplished previously.#p#分页标题#e#

Considering that the population in China already takes up about 1/5 of the world population, though this new policy was published corresponding to the appeal from citizens, incentive policies should be published by the government towards ‘only-child’ families. This will surely encourage more young people to continue the ‘old tradition’, while enjoying the benefits and welfares offered by the government.

As previously stated, that the consciousness of family planning is yet to be enhanced especially in under-developed regions, which is also true for most rural areas in China. Due to limited education resources, many students living in rural areas cannot receive sex and procreation education in time, ending with too many children of their owns. Thus it is essential for the government to arrange staff to go to these areas regularly for the completion of education goals in population control.

5. Evaluation

(a) Solution 1- Education

The advantages (or Pros) of this solution are: first, it tackles the overpopulation problem using a very powerful tool, education, covering a wide range of people; second, as young generations are the ‘hope’ of the future, hence for achieving the ultimate goal of population control by the end of this century, it is necessary for them to realize the needs of population control via sex and procreation education.

Whereas disadvantages (or Cons) may include: first, it would be quite hard to make the sex and procreation education fit into the current curriculum, especially for developing countries; second, it is a problem regarding how to incorporate this education into the class, considering that the teachers might also have to be trained beforehand.

(b) Solution 2- Incentive policies

As the purpose of this plan is to achieve the balance between ‘one-child’ and ‘two-child’ families with respect to population control, its obvious advantage is to encourage as many as more youth to have only one child.

However, people also have the rights to choose the number of children they wish to raise, therefore, concerning its practical outcomes, nothing can be predicted for certain. Whether the implementation of incentive policies will affect the population demography much still depends on the reflection from the public’s voice.

With reference to above ‘one-child’ policy, promotion of family planning across the nation could effectively avoid further rapid increase in population, maintaining a stable trend in fluctuation of the population. Besides, it also brings many individual benefits, relieving the economic burden on a family.

While on the other hand, a country also requires enough human resources to ensure its normal operation, hence stable population resulted from effective family planning, or even decrease, may lead to lack of workforce in a certain age group.

6. Conclusion

Overall, this essay offers practical solutions to the overpopulation issue in developing countries (and regions), with further evaluations, based on the previous analysis of causes & effects.

Referring to the context of overpopulation in China, education, incentives and family planning are three useful keys to overcome overpopulation, while education ranks the first as a priority. What is more, Education is also a powerful tool to help resolve overpopulation in other developing countries (and regions), where the government plays a crucial role.

7. References

Kukreja, R. (2013). Overpopulation: Causes, Effects and Solutions. Published by Conserve Energy Future. Retrieved Sep. 27th 2018 from:

https://www.conserve-energy-future.com/causes-effects-solutions-of-overpopulation.php.

(Fig. 1) Lester, L. (2011). We are the 7 billion. Published by Ecological Society Of America. Retrieved Sep. 27th 2018 from:

https://www.esa.org/esablog/ecology-in-the-news/we-are-the-7-billion/.

n.d. (2018). Arctic Sea Ice Minimum. Published by NASA. Retrieved Sep. 27th 2018 from: https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/arctic-sea-ice/.

n.d. (2018). India Unemployment Rate (1983-2018). Published by TRADING ECONOMICS. Retrieved Sep. 27th 2018 from:

https://tradingeconomics.com/india/unemployment-rate

n.d. (2018). Family planning/Contraception. Published by WHO. Retrieved Sep. 27th 2018 from:

http://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/family-planning-contraception.

n.d. (2018). China Population 2018. Published by World Population Review. Retrieved Sep. 27th 2018 from:

http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/china-population/.

Verrill, C. (2016). Mesmerizing photographs of China's crushing overpopulation. Published by BUSINESS INSIDER.

Retrieved Sep. 27th 2018 from:

https://www.businessinsider.com/chinas-over-crowded-population-2016-3.

Walsh, B., (2011). The Environment Will Be the Real Victim of Overpopulation. Retrieved Sep. 27th 2018 from:

http://science.time.com/2011/10/26/the-environment-will-be-the-real-victim-of-overpopulation/.

Winston, A. (2015). Can the planet handle China's new two-child policy?

Published by The Guardian. Retrieved Sep. 27th 2018 from:

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/nov/24/china-two-child-policy-sustainable-population.