Cultural level and access to contraceptives
More educated parents, aware of the mechanisms of fertilization, are certainly better able to avoid accidental conceptions. That is why we can certainly rely on better education to stop the demographic explosion.
Several flats, however:
Education goes hand in hand with access to progress. The proliferation of cultural contacts inevitably leads to the desire to share the benefits of developed countries. Progress in education will, therefore, jointly lead to an explosion in consumption, which will cost the world well before the birth-rate slowdown has resulted in a reduction in the population.
The essential challenge is not to curb population growth or to cancel it, but to reduce the world’s population to a value that the planet can bear. Better education would make the individual aware of the danger of overpopulation. But between this awareness and the determination to reduce the number of its own children, the gap is enormous. Imposing a single child per family to potential breeders would cause huge popular reactions.
Any demographic decline (even stabilization) is a threat to the economy, therefore to politics and society as a whole. It inevitably involves an ageing population, a lack of labour, an increased workload for young people in charge of old-age pensions, a reduction in consumption, economic crises, with all the social problems that this can entail.
In many countries, where religion is more prevalent than in the West, the “growth and multiply” is still relevant. Better (religious) education and a higher (temporary) standard of living will have the synergistic effect of pushing to procreation, for example in the name of full respect for life, or with the aim of transmitting these religious values to the rest of the world. Not to mention the kamikaze spirit of those who blindly obey the commandments of the Scriptures, sure that they can only be beneficial in all circumstances…
Even in our western countries, where education is particularly developed, the idea of a demographic regression is resuscitatory. Specialists, faced with the slightest denatality, speak of demographic “crash”. Any decline in the population remains seen as a form of national dishonour. The honor of the father and the image of the fertile mother are omnipresent. A couple without a child is unhappy, if not criticized, while it would take the opposite to save the world.
The Church adds its grain of salt to the commandment of Genesis and imbued with the absolute value of human life. Example: Dr. Schooyans, Professor Emeritus at the University of Leuven, The demographic crash. There you will find all the good reasons to prolong the proliferation of the species, and counterpoint to the dramatic consequences of population decline. The solidarity and love of neighbor must lead us to a true “action plan” for life…
Today, respect for life can only be achieved through population decline. Education is probably essential, but not just any education: that which would take into account the real risks to the environment and future generations, and which would provide a more accurate knowledge of the mechanisms underlying fertility rates. Among them are psychosexual mechanisms.