Chapter 11: Evolution of the Population System

A nation’s people are the driving force behind its production and consumption activities, and population issues not only constrain the social and economic development of a society but also determine whether the society survives or fails (Otovescu & Otovescu, 2019). In the 1970s, the population explosion became the focus of global demographic research due to fears of what Stanford professor Paul Ehrlich (1968) called the “population bomb.” In 1978, the United Nations Population Program predicted that the global population would reach 6.2 billion in 2000 and 14.9 billion in 2100 (UN-DESA, 1978), which appeared likely to seriously exceed the carrying capacity of Earth’s environment. Therefore, demographers and governments began to emphasize the need to reduce population growth.