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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Longevity is partly a factor but infant mortality is a bigger one
There are so many fewer things that kill you now…
200 years ago if you lived in a city Cholera was a huge risk. So was influenza
But that isn’t the whole story. Birth rates very well might see a decrease in population in the next century or so.
well the catholic church convincing 3/4 of Africa and India that birth controle was a no-no certainly didnt help…
Besides that, more effective farming methods creating more food and better logistics spreading that food around.
Also, fighting diseases like Malaria actually prevents people from dying to Malaria…
Live birth rate up, life span longer, doctors wash hands, vaccines, much less mercury or molten lead in medicine, also math.
It’s not that more people are being born. The issue is that fewer people are dying
It used to be that if you had two kids, one was likely to die. Mom could die too if she’s unlucky. Children also got killed by things like Influenza or whooping cough. And even ignoring disease, malnutrition could kill people, or cripple them.
People just don’t die any more. Starvation rates have dropped. People with birth defects can live full lives. Death during child birth isn’t a thing anymore, polio is nearly extinct, and influenza is so weak that it’s a yearly thing for many people that we make jokes about.
Medicine alone has advanced to the point where humans are like freaking playdough. People in total kidney failure can be kept alive for days, waiting for someone else to willfully get cut open, have their kidney removed from their body, and then smacked into another person. AND BOTH COME OUT ALIVE.
It’s absurd how much quality of life has improved in the past centuries.
Most people are actually worried about the opposite problem. Developed countries are starting to have such low birth rates that it’s going to decrease the proportion of the population that is working age, especially relative to the elderly, and put a much bigger strain on the productive population to finance and provide for them.
There really aren’t many or any places anymore that you can point to and expect that overpopulation is going to be a calamitous problem.
I really find it hard to take you at your word that there’s a major problem of areas who succeed at developing, and lowering food and medicine related mortality, but not “changing their behaviour” to the point that population growth is a bigger issue than population decline/ demographic inversion.
Effective birth control methods have existed for millenia as have various methods to make conception more likely. Population has increased more rapidly in recent times because of increased life expectancy (including a decrease in infant deaths) and the exponential nature of population growth. People use birth control when they want to avoid having children and they use methods to increase their fertility when they are trying to have children.
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