1. Why is the replacement-level total fertility rate (TFR) 2.1 — 2.3 and not 2.0?
2. What did Malthus fail to foresee when he published his treatise in 1798?
3. Explain how population pyramids can be used to plan for the needs of a country's population 20-50 years into the future.
4. Discuss the statement "Famine has always been a region's natural population control." Is this still true in the modern day?
5. Most of the news reports we see about population warn about population growth, overcrowding, and similar issues, but many countries have declining populations. Is an aging or declining population a burden on a society? How? What other problems might an industrialized country face if its population declines?
6. The 1994 Cairo Conference on Population and Development proposed giving women greater control over their lives as a way of reducing birth rates. What countries have the highest rates of population growth? Do women have less control of their own lives, including less economic and educational opportunities in these nations? What are the reasons for this inequality? What can be done about this?
7. The government of Singapore encouraged small families in the 1970s, later realized its mistake, and reversed its policy. Mao’s encouragement of large families in China through the 1960s created such overpopulation that later governments encouraged one child families. So you think governments should interfere directly in family planning? Are there more subtle (and helpful) ways for governments to affect population growth?
