Photo by: Paul Kellog
Globalization and population have been inherently intertwined since capitalism became a dominating force in international economics. The issue of population stabilization and whether or not it is manageable has also been debated along these same lines. The issue derives a “chicken and the egg” debate about whether or not globalization is the cause of “over population” in under-developed countries, or if it is these countries’ choice to have a rapidly growing population that causes them to fail in the international economy and thus sows their own failure.
Arguments for both sides of the issue hold their merit, yet both need to be further scrutinized to test their validity. To claim that either globalization or particular countries are at fault for the instability in global population is difficult seeing as so many factors need to be taken into consideration. Culture, resources, governments, and geographic location are just some factors that can be considered when looking at this issue.
In Betsy Hertmann’s book Reproductive Rights & Wrongs The Global Politics of Population Control, she discusses how countries of low GNP and high rates of poverty put families in positions in which having a large amount of offspring is the only insurance they have for prolonged security. Without ample incomes a poor family, in i.e. Sub-Saharan Africa, needs as many able bodied workers as it can produce in order to help produce food and work for the family’s greater good. Also, with high infant mortality rates and low life expectancy it is not sure that a couple’s child will survive past infancy, or that the heads of household will live long enough to raise the children, thus leaving the older children with the responsibility of raising the family’s young.
The National population increase in the U.S. per decade at the beginning of the 19th century was 35%. The total number of inhabitants in the country was estimated to have increased from 5.3 million to 7.2 million in between the years 1800 and 1810 (U-s-history.com). Although the national population has ebbed continuously to today’s percentage of growth, and it is difficult for a country’s population to continue at such a rate that occurred in the 19th century, it would be safe to say that our country supported the belief that rapid population increases encourage growth.
According to Allan and Anne Findlay’s book, Population and Development in the Third World, the stage of population growth in which our country now finds itself in can be demonstrated by “Notestein’s Theory.”1 This theory was created by Frank Notestein in 1945, as well as demographic-transition model that he used to explain the change that occurs within a country’s rates of birth and mortality in relation to their social and economic progress. Stage one is when a country experiences a high rate of mortality and birth as well as having a low GNP. The second stage sees a lowering death rate in the country and then a lowering birth rate following some years later as the country begins to see an increase in its GNP, better health care and public services. The third stage is when the two have stabilized and the mortality and birth rates are both low. This final stage occurs when a country has begun to reach a state of economic stability that allows its citizens to pursue lifestyles that don’t revolve around purely surviving and needing a large family to do so.
This model can be seen as a broad generalization, but it also has the potential to display the “evolution” of a country’s progress. The error in using it to predict current growth models in developing countries is that Notestein created the model based on Western European countries. Nonetheless, it can be considered when looking at birth and mortality rates vs. GNP throughout the world. Even if GNP levels might not enter into a current day developing country’s version of this model the same way as a Western European country’s once did, there is a relation between a country’s economic stability and birth/mortality rates that can be demonstrated in Notestein’s model. In this model the United States, and other first world countries, would be placed in the third stage where citizens live long and they have less children.
Although, China implemented its one-child policy in 1979 that curbed its high birth rate significantly and is increasing its overall GNP through its booming economy, it nonetheless has held to its socialistic ideals that emphasize even distribution of wealth and public services that were in place even before these two changes occurred. Sri Lanka has also emphasized even distribution of wealth and public services despite low GNP per capita. South Korea followed the same route and took advantage of the industrial infrastructure that was set in place by its previous Japanese rulers. The country that can demonstrate the most drastic example of birth rate decline related to distribution of wealth is Cuba.
An issue that plagues the international population dilemma is that access to birth control knowledge and contraception as well as abortion clinics is limited or withheld in places where their option of use is needed. “In many Central American countries abortions are outlawed because the profound influence that the Catholic Church has over the countries and because of their anti-abortion views.”2 Women who seek abortions in places that don’t offer the proper medical facilities to perform the operations go about having the procedures done unprofessionally and often times dangerously. These ad hoc abortions can result in permanent damage of a woman’s reproductive system or even death. “One quarter of all the pregnancies in the world are aborted, implying that the facilities to perform abortions safely are needed, or more importantly, safe contraceptives need to be more available to people.”3
Many of the women that are giving birth to the large number of children in countries that have high birth rates often do so against their wishes or out of necessity to hold a respectable social standing. In Mexico 80% of women in relationships have experienced physical abuse. “They are also significantly overworked and have to birth more children in order to alleviate their domestic workloads, which is also especially true in Sub-Saharan Africa.”4 Those women who are not active in the workforce become defined by their domestic household duties. This makes a woman dependent on her husband, and more prone to discrimination and abuse.
Many cases of economic investment abroad by first world countries into developing countries have found the benefits to the poor to not be so evident. A case in point is the history of the United Fruit Company in Central America, particularly Guatemala, where the UFCO practically controlled the country and all its dealings between the years 1901 and 1970. Right-wing dictators granted anything that the UFCO asked for and implemented it upon the people through terrorizing, torture, and death. “Even when the Guatemalan dictator was overthrown in 1954 the U.S. helped stage a coup that reinstated a leader who would support U.S. investments in the country.”5
These examples of influence that large companies have often require governments to divert their attention and funds from whatever public services that they might be performing within their countries. Many of the jobs offered are also “dead-end”, offering no upward mobility and further hindering peoples’ education and women’s possibility for equal rights. In Puerto Rico some corporations required that women be sterilized in order to work in its factories. In Mexico, along the border to the U.S., there are over a thousand export-processing plants that employ seventy percent female workers and are famous for their poor working conditions. “They commonly fire women who become married and have children or suffer some sort of ailment to avoid paying for benefits.”6 Those that manage to escape poor work conditions and become educated often leave the country in search of a better life or join a minority class of well-to-do people in the country.
The influence that globalization has had over population increases and decreases is obviously mixed, but when corporations take the upper-hand on a country’s domestic policy it has proven to often have had dire affects on the people and aggravate the population situation. If a corporation drives down wages and sacrifices a nation’s resources and environment for the sake of its profits it is hurting the country far more than it is helping it. When globalization brings low wages, less jobs, discrimination against women, environmental degradation, and governmental abuse of its citizens it is setting up the scenario in which people are forced to have more children in order to survive. All of these symptoms push people back to relying on themselves and their nuclear family. With less money and less jobs the family will need more hands to earn money or find and grow food.
According to globalization’s history, it has seemingly worsened the “population explosion” that many claims it helps alleviate. Those countries that have seen successful population declination (without forced population control) have mostly done so through their own chosen roles in the international economy without letting it control them. The likes of Cuba have found a way to participate in the international economy (especially now that the U.S. has lifted the trade embargo), mainly on its own terms, while still emphasizing distribution of wealth and public services among its citizens. Perhaps a country like Cuba can be looked upon as an example of how less emphasis on endless growth and more focus on even domestic distribution of resources can allow those people who already exist to live more comfortably, than they would in other countries, with low incomes. If this could be achieved in countries throughout the world there would be less need for people to birth as many offspring to help in their fight for scraps and allow them to share in the wealth that exists already. Perhaps the western man’s relentless pursuit of “more” is helping create an environment that requires those who have nothing to pursue any means necessary to survive, including having more children to help them in their struggle.
1 Hartmann, Betsy. Reproductive Rights & Wrongs: The Global Politics of Population Control. Boston, MA: South End Press, 1995. 52.
2 Hartmann, Betsy. Reproductive Rights & Wrongs: The Global Politics of Population Control. Boston, MA: South End Press, 1995. 50.
3 Hartmann, Betsy. Reproductive Rights & Wrongs: The Global Politics of Population Control. Boston, MA: South End Press, 1995. 45.
4 Kinzer, Stephen. Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change From Hawaii to Iraq.
5 Hartmann, Betsy. Reproductive Rights & Wrongs: The Global Politics of Population Control. Boston, MA: South
