Does passing a rule to limit birthrate will solve the overpopulation problem?

Answer 1

Well, first one has to assume that there is an overpopulation problem, and while this was a consensus in the late '60s and early '70s, when environmental theory was dominated by the "bio-environmentalist" movements, currently, seeing that world population growth rates are decreasing, and that in the developed world population has reached something of a plateau (even with significant decrease in some cases), and considering that mainstream environmentalism is now dominated by institutionalists, overpopulation is considered to be less of a problem, with distribution (of both labor needs and scarce resources) becoming more of a concern.

Legislating limits also has three major problems - first, it does not address the distribution factor - if a very poor family from a poor country is allowed to have say, just, 1 child, same as a middle class Swedish family, there will be an issue on quality of care, resources used by that family, etc. Similarly, there will be a problem on estimating targets - it is very hard to compute actual labor requirements 25-30 years in advance, or estimate resource usage, and, by legislating, you may end up with less people than actually required, and thirdly, being a coercive rule, people will consider it an invasion of their privacy and an attack at their rights, doing as much as possible to circumvent it.

Answer 2

Limiting birthrates alone may not fully solve the overpopulation problem. It could help reduce population growth, but addressing other factors like resource consumption, sustainability, and economic development is also crucial to create a more balanced approach to managing population growth and its impact on the environment. Comprehensive strategies that consider multiple factors are necessary to effectively address the issue of overpopulation.