The Hindu Business Line : Population problems

A SCHOOL in North-East Thailand grows frogs to feed hungry students. A poor Brazilian is reported to have started eating cats. In North Korea, during famines, people make dark brown noodles out of grass and leaves with absolutely no nutritional content.

Even in India, in some remote areas, there are instances of bread made with grass and leaves, or dried mango kernels being consumed by the hungry. Worse, the oppressed even scour cattle dung for the remains of undigested grains.

Countless people are caught in the spiral of slow death, almost getting inured to hunger.

These are shocking manifestations of poverty. But poverty itself is a condition that does not exist in the abstract but is produced by deeply iniquitous social structures and economic disparities.

The root cause of all this is overpopulation, and if the problem of poverty is to be tackled effectively, the solution lies in reducing the size of the human population. Otherwise, all other measures will prove infructuous. In fact, it is feared that "there are 1,000 times too many humans for the earth to support" if we take into account carbon-dioxide production, biomass consumption, energy use, and so on.

As one keeps reflecting on the matter, one is startled to learn how differently this problem is viewed in some advanced affluent countries. One hears that falling birth rate worries Japan!

Similarly, flagging birth rate is causing concern to the Government of Singapore.

The Government there is virtually appealing to its citizens to have more babies. The steady fall in fertility rate is a source of worry in the UK too. It is well-known that for long past, France has been under-populated. In Sweden, the low "procreative propensity" in women is engaging the government's attention.

Now, the various measures adopted by these governments are a little amusing. Singapore, France, and the UK provide paternity leave to the male employees. In addition, these Governments are only too glad to enlarge the maternity benefits — both in terms of leave and money.

In Singapore, the incentives increase with additional childbirths. Sweden went a step further. Early in 1999, the Swedish Government announced fabulous and enticing awards to the children born in 2000 (new millennium), inducing couples to win many awards which included a free villa and $12,000.

Singapore's novel "romance campaign" is aimed at promoting childbirths by encouraging unmarried men and women to get together to beget children. Moralists will bemoan all this, and puritans will outright condemn; but economists will approve!