Overpopulation and the Impact on the Environment

Figure 5. Fertility Rates vs. Ideal Number of Children in Western Africa, Central Africa and 
Eastern Africa.
Source: Elizabeth Leahy Madsen. ''What's Behind West and Central Africa's 
Youthful Demographics? High Desired Family Size.'' 
New Security Beat. 
May 11, 2015. 

---

26 
Furthermore, abortion rate is increasing in sub-Saharan Africa, although it is forbidden in 
fourteen countries (Baird 58). Illegal abortion occurs in at least 29 per 1,000 women (Baird 58), and 
with lack of medical attention to the procedure, it is carried out unsafely resulting in high mortality 
rates. Nigeria ranks as the nation with the highest rate of unsafe abortion, which “claims the lives of 
more than 3,000 women a year’’ (Baird 57). Whereas in other parts of the world abortions declined 
from 45.5 million in 1995 to 41.6 million procedures in 2003, in Africa they increased from 5.0 
million to 5.6 million (Baird 58). Out of these, only 100,000 were carried out safely (Baird 58). 
The main reasons for abortion lie in the poverty, lack of education, and social norms. Many 
African young women are forced to trade their body for money, while other women experience 
inadequate support from their husbands, who fear women will be unfaithful and perhaps 
contraception will make them infertile: therefore, “abortion is perceived as safer than 
contraception” (Baird 60). Similarly, the need for education is clear from the fact that Nigerian 
young women thought antibiotics and aspirin are used as contraceptives. The more educated a 
woman is, chances are higher that she will have control over her fertility and the number of children 
she wants to have. In Peru, 300,000 men and 30,000 women have been sterilized as a result of 
governmental program of “effective” family-planning to combat poverty (Baird 65). Many women 
who underwent procedure of tubal litigations were either forced to go or illiterate. 
CHAPTER 3: 
Effects of overpopulation
The reason for environmental degradation is the humanity’s footprint. With the growing 
population, degradation increases. Expanding of urban areas, race for food and water resources, and 
lack of housing and employment opportunities arise as consequences of overpopulation. Burning of 

---

27 
fossil fuels and unsustainable use of other natural resources provided developed countries with a 
“cheap ride to growth” (Goldin 3), but left undeveloped nations with an excessive demand for that 
resources which are taken.