Population Explosion - Rising Population a Global Threat

Population explosion:

The rapid growth of population of a particular species, specifically of the humans in the world since the end of World War II. This will lead to increased stress on all resources. 

All-round development in various fields significantly improved the quality of life of the people. However, increased health facilities along with better living conditions had an explosive impact on the growth of the population. During 1900, the world population which was around 2 billion (2000 million) rocketed to about 6 billion by 2000 and by 2011 it was recorded at 7.2 billion, the current population is 7.9 billion. A similar pattern was noticed in India. Our population, which was over 350 million at the time of our independence, had nearly surpassed a billion by 2000 and had crossed the 1.2 billion milestone in May 2011. 

Reasons for population explosion: 

1. Rapidly declining death rate.
2. Rapidly declining maternal mortality rate (MMR). 
3. Rapidly declining infant mortality rate (IMR). 
4. Increased life expectancy. 
5. Increase in number of people in reproducible age.

Impacts: 

According to the 2011 census report, the population growth rate was less than 2%, or 20/1000/year, indicating that our population may grow rapidly. Despite tremendous advances in these areas, such an alarming growth rate might lead to an extreme scarcity of even the most basic necessities, such as food, housing, and clothing. As a result, the government was forced to take substantial efforts to slow the rate of population growth.

Methods to control population explosion:

1. Promote smaller families
2. Promote the use of contraceptive methods
3. Raise the legal age for marriage (18 years for females and 21 years for males)
4. Incentivise couples with smaller families.