ABSTRACT
The world population problem is a bewildering mixture of the simple and the complex, the clear and the confused. Thus, while a reduced death rate does, of course, increase the rate of population growth, it can also have the opposite effect – since families usually respond to a reduced rate of infant mortality by opting for fewer children. Thus, in human societies, there is a built-in control on population size: If the standard of living, which initiates the rise in population, continues to increase, the population eventually begins to level off. The world average value for birthrate is 31 1,000, which is indicative of the overall rate of growth of the world population (the world average crude death rate is about 13 1,000). And if the cause of poverty is the grossly unequal distribution of world’s wealth, then to end poverty, and with it the population crisis, we must redistribute that wealth, among nations and within them.
