Why has the human population increased so much in the last few centuries, although we actually invented effective birth control methods?
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Hormonal birth control is about 60 years old, which means that a significant portion of the humans alive today were born in its absence. Prior to that, there were some technological advances in condoms (mostly to make them cheaper rather than more effective), but the idea of creating a physical barrier goes back millennia. So we have really only had two or three generations in what you might call a “modern” birth control regime.
And the “we” bit here is important because I’m assuming you (like me) live in the developed world where access to hormonal birth control actually IS widespread. In those areas, population growth has mostly leveled off like you’d expect it to when women can control their fertility. In many places, like Italy and Japan, populations are declining. In even more places, like Germany and Spain, populations are only stable due to immigration.
The main engines of population growth for the past century have been in places where hormonal birth control is not widely available. There are a mind-boggling number of people living in India and China, and they have had a mind-boggling number of children over the past century. The demographic transition is coming for them too, but it will take time. China jumpstarted it with their one-child policy and is already facing the prospect of declining population despite a massive population where hormonal birth control is still not widely available or accepted.
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