Describe, using examples you have studied, ways in which governments seek to control population change (8 marks)

Governments typically introduce population control policies when their country’s population is underpopulated or overpopulated, or has an ageing or youthful population.

Underpopulated countries are characterised by low birth and fertility rates. In these situations, there are too few people in an area to use the resources efficiently for a given level of technology. Therefore, governments encourage couples to have more children through creating policies that enable individuals to balance both their work and family. This is often referred to as the ‘Nordic Model’. For example, in Sweden, each parent is entitled to 12 months off work with 80% pay or 10 months with full pay. Schemes like these increase the birth rate whilst ensuring the economy remains stable.

On the other, overpopulated countries have high birth and fertility rates. This is where there are too many people in the area relative to the amount of resources and the level of technology available locally to maintain a high standard of living. An example of an overpopulated country is China. Owing to its overpopulation, there was widespread poverty and a reduced quality of life. In order to prevent this, the Chinese government implemented the ‘One Child Policy’ in 1979. On the one hand, this reduced their long-term problems of food scarcity and unemployment rate. On the other hand, it created an ageing population due to a fall in the birth rate which increased the dependency ratio. Another consequence of this policy is that there was a gender imbalance as male babies were preferred over female babies. For instance, in 2000, over 90% of the babies aborted were female. This example shows that whilst this policy did prevent population growth in the long-term, it had several negative consequences including an ageing population and a gender imbalance.

Other governments try to control the characteristics of their population through controlling the rate and type of migrants entering their country. This can be seen in Indonesia. Here, the population is unevenly distributed between different islands, for example, Java is very overpopulated. In response, the government helped 3.6 million individuals resettle in the outer lesser-populated islands where there is better healthcare and education available. This had several benefits. For example, more children were able to go to school and the status of women drastically improved as there was more work available. However, there were several negative impacts. A third of trans-migrants had never owned land before and therefore, were not equipped in the skills or knowledge to be able to use it efficiently. Furthermore, the rate of urban migration to Java continued to increase, which meant Jakarta continued to grow.

This answer has outlined several examples of where governments have tried to control population change. It has also shown how these policies can have both successful and negative consequences.