How stupid do you have to be?
The subject has fallen out of favour for a couple of reasons. One is that those apocalyptic predictions have, so far, proved wrong. The famines did not happen, the world is not running out of resources and the population curve did not move ever more steeply upwards. Improvements in technology meant that humanity got better at producing more with less, and population growth rates crashed in countries that prospered. South Korea’s fertility rate has fallen from nearly five to less than one in 50 years.
While Asia’s growth rate has dropped sharply, Africa’s remains high. That’s part of the reason why this subject has become toxic. As antiracism and anticolonialism have risen up the progressive agenda, so ideas that could be seen as even faintly tainted by the West’s shameful past became unacceptable. Talking about population pressures in Africa is uncomfortably close to saying that there are too many black babies in the world.
Asia grew, fertility fell. Africa’s fertility hasn’t fallen – well, it has, but not so much – so we must send condoms.
Umm, why not do what worked last time? Help Africa grow by buying stuff from them?
Especially since the standard analysis says that family planning affects 10% of actual fertility, it being desired fertility that explains the other 90%. And 90% solutions are better than 10% ones…..