ABSTRACT
The topic of unsustainable population growth subsequently fell into abeyance as population control policies became politically toxic, the growth rate slowed, and neoliberals seized upon anti-Malthusian demographic revisionism. Population sustainability may be construed in three ways. First, it concerns the demographic viability of a particular population. Second, it refers to the material capacity of the external environment to support existing or projected numbers. Third, more prescriptive sense in which a sustainable population is equated with an optimum population. Since 1994, the “Cairo Consensus” reached at the final International Conference on Population and Development has effectively replaced demographic concerns a focus on development that foregrounds women’s rights, health, and empowerment. This is credited with reducing fertility rates without relying on contentious population policies.
