Overpopulation Too Many Mouths

By Anastasia Toufexis

Close to the Zocalo, Mexico City's great central square, lies the barrio of Morelos, a vast warren of dusty, potholed streets and narrow entryways. The passages lead to a gloomy world. On each side of a roofless patio is a ten- room jumble. Each room holds a family; each family averages five people. The only bathrooms -- two to serve 100 people -- are located at the back of the patio. The odor of grease and sewage permeates the air. Flies buzz relentlessly. The people who live here are considered lucky.

In the shantytowns on Mexico City's outskirts, tens of thousands of people shelter in huts made of cardboard with aluminum roofs. There is no running water and no sanitation. The stench is overpowering: garbage and human waste heap up in piles. Rats roam freely, like stray domestic animals.

To the more privileged, those scenes look like a science-fiction vision of civilization's breakdown, perhaps after a nuclear war. In fact, Mexico City has been described as the anteroom to an ecological Hiroshima. With 20 million residents -- up from 9 million only 20 years ago -- the Mexican capital is considered the most populous urban center on earth. Mexico City has been struck not by military weapons but by a population bomb.

Ultimately, no problem may be more threatening to the earth's environment than the proliferation of the human species. Today the planet holds more than 5 billion people. During the next century, world population will double, with 90% of that growth occurring in poorer, developing countries. African nations are expanding at the fastest rate. During the next 30 years, for example, the population of Kenya (annual growth rate: 4%) will jump from 23 million to 79 million; Nigeria's population (growth rate: 3%) will soar from 112 million to 274 million. Expansion is slower in Brazil, China, India and Indonesia, but in those countries the sheer size of existing populations translates into a huge increase in people.

In the poorest countries, growth rates are outstripping the national ability to provide the bare necessities -- housing, fuel and food. Living trees are being chopped down for fuel, grasslands overgrazed by livestock, and croplands overplowed by desperate farmers. Horrifying images of starvation in northeastern Africa have captured world attention in the past decade. In India, according to government reports, 37% of the people cannot buy enough food to sustain themselves. Warned Shri B.B. Vohra, vice chairman of the Himachal Pradesh state land-use board in northern India: "We may be well on the way to producing a subhuman kind of race where people do not have enough energy to deal with their problems."

Prospects are so dire that some environmentalists urge the world to adopt the goal of cutting in half the earth's population growth rate during the next decade. "That means a call for a two-child family for the world as a whole," explained Lester Brown, president of the Worldwatch Institute. "In some countries there may be a need to set a goal of one child per family." That is a daunting challenge. During the past decade, many of the world's poor nations condemned the notion of family planning as an imperialist and racist scheme touted by the developed world. Yet today virtually all Third World countries are committed to limiting population growth.

But the effort needs to be speeded up. For starters, contraceptive information and devices should be available to every man or woman on earth who wants them. According to surveys by the United Nations and other organizations, fully half the 463 million married women in developing countries (excluding China) do not want more children. Yet many have little or no access to effective methods of birth control, such as the Pill and the intrauterine device (IUD). The World Bank estimates that making birth control readily available on a global basis would require that the $3 billion now spent annually on family-planning services be increased to $8 billion by the year 2000. The increase in funds could shave projected world population from 10 billion to 8 billion over the next 60 years. However, few modern contraceptive methods are ideally suited to the daily lives of Third World citizens. Two-thirds of the 60 million users of condoms, diaphragms and sponges live in the industrialized world. Men in developing countries frequently view condoms as a threat to their masculine image; women often find diaphragms impractical since clean water for washing the device is scarce.

The most popular form of population control in developing countries is sterilization. Some 98 million women and 35 million men around the world have resorted to that permanent solution. The other current mainstay is abortion, which the Worldwatch Institute's Brown called "a reflection of unmet family- planning needs." An estimated 28 million abortions are performed in Third World nations annually, and an additional 26 million in industrial countries. About half are illegal.

New forms of birth control are desperately needed, and a few are slowly appearing. Last year a French pharmaceutical firm introduced RU 486, a drug that helps induce a relatively safe miscarriage when given to a woman in the early stages of pregnancy. Another recent arrival is Norplant, steroid-filled capsules that are embedded in a woman's arm and deliver contraceptive protection for five years. The implant is approved for use in twelve countries, including China, Thailand and Indonesia.

But progress is too slow. Additional spending on contraceptive research and development is badly needed. In 1972 global spending was estimated at $74 million annually, a paltry sum compared with many Third World military budgets. The funding in 1983 was just $57 million. One reason for the decrease was the Reagan Administration's antiabortion policy. U.S. contributions to international population-assistance programs declined 20% between 1985 and 1987, to about $230 million.

Bruce Wilcox, president of the Institute for Sustainable Development, an environmental-research organization based in Palo Alto, Calif., declared that solutions to the population challenge will demand "fundamental changes in society." Ingrained cultural attitudes that promote high birthrates will have to be challenged. Many families in poor agrarian societies, for example, see children as a source of labor and a hedge against poverty in old age. People need to be taught that with lower infant mortality, fewer offspring can provide the same measure of security. In some societies, numerous progeny are viewed as symbols of virility. In Kenya's Nyanza province, a man named Denja boasts that he has fathered 497 children.

Of all entrenched values, religion presents perhaps the greatest obstacle to population control. Roman Catholics have fought against national family- planning efforts in Mexico, Kenya and the Philippines, while Muslim fundamentalists have done the same in Iran, Egypt and Pakistan. Still, religious objections need not entirely thwart population planning. Where such resistance is encountered, vigorous campaigns should be mounted to promote natural birth-control techniques, including the rhythm method and fertility delay through breast feeding.

If there is a single key to population control in developing countries, experts agree, it lies in improving the social status of women. Third World women often have relatively few political or legal rights, and not many receive schooling that prepares them for roles outside the home. Said Robert Berg, president of the International Development Conference: "Expanding educational and employment opportunities for women is necessary for permanently addressing the population issue."

The effect of special programs for women has been demonstrated in Bangladesh. In 1975 the government launched a project in which associations of rural village women were provided with start-up loans for launching small businesses, such as making pottery, raising poultry and running grocery stores. About 123,000 women are currently enrolled in the cooperative. At weekly meetings, health-care and contraceptive information are distributed among members. An extraordinary 75% of the co-op members of childbearing age use contraceptives, while nationwide only 35% of married women practice birth control.

Ultimately, slowing the population juggernaut will depend on the ability of family-planning experts to create well-tailored programs for different societies and even for different segments of societies. But first, governments will have to raise public awareness and rally support for population control with a cohesive message about the dangers of rampant growth. India, one of the first countries to adopt a family-planning program, some 30 years ago, failed to forge a national will for the task, and the population is now growing at 2% a year.

In contrast, China has galvanized its people behind a huge population- plannin g effort. Still, its program demonstrates just how difficult -- and risky -- social tinkering can be. The nation launched its "one-family, one- child" policy in 1979. The aim: to contain population at 1.2 billion by the year 2000. In pursuit of that goal, local authorities have offered such incentives as a monthly stipend until the sole child turns 14 and better housing. Penalties for violating the policy have included dismissal from government jobs and fines of up to a year's wages for urban workers. China's effort has had some distressing consequences. Women have been coerced into having abortions, and there have been reports of female infanticide by parents determined that their one child should be a boy. Moreover, officials have acknowledged that exceptions to the one-child rule have been frequently condoned, especially in rural areas. In fact, only 19% of Chinese couples have one child. Beijing has announced that the nation will miss its target: the country's projected population in the year 2000 is 1.27 billion.

Yet for all its failings, China's effort has produced results. The population growth rate, once among the highest in the world, has been slashed in half, to 1.4%. And the Chinese are determined to reduce the rate still further. The same formidable task will face other developing countries as they confront the population bomb. But confront it they must.