The "solution" to overpopulation would essentially be getting the crude birth rate to equal (or become lesser) than the crude death rate. As such, the natural increase rate would reach what's called zero population growth (ZPG). The question you're asking is how do we reach ZPG?

Well there are two ways: Increase the death rates, or lower the birth rates.

Few people wish to see the former applied, leaving the latter as the only alternative. This is where the debate is - what is the best way to reduce birth rates? One alternative emphasizes reliance on economic development and the other on distribution of contraceptives.

1) Economic Development Alternative

A wealthier community has more money to spend on educaton and health-care programs that would lower birth rates. According to this method, women who receive more education stay in school longer, are more likely to learn employment skills, and gain more economic control over their lives. With better education, women would make more informed decisions regarding their reproductive choices and selecting contraceptives.

2) Distribution of Contraceptives

In the long run (and over a huge amount of time), economic development would promote lower birth rates (look at the evolution of the U.S. from the 1700s to modern day and compare with birth rates) but the world does not have this much time. Allocating resources in family-planning programs could reduce birth rates rapidly (look at Colombia, Morocco, and Thailand for evidence). Another example would be Bangladesh, which has seen little improvement in their economy, but with the increase of contraceptive use, their birth rate has in fact declined. But again there are problems that arise from this "solution". Many groups of people oppose contraceptive and birth-control programs for religious and political reasons

Most agree that applying both to lesser developed countries is the best method, but the many of the governments of LDCs are reluctant to allocate already scarce funds in a problem that does not "directly" affect them and their internal affairs.

Are There Too Many Columbians

On September 27-28, the University of La Sabana, a Catholic University located in Bogota,

Colombia, convened a conference on "Population, Life, and Development." Steven Mosher told

the assembly, which included senior government officials, that Colombia was not overpopulated.

Are There Too Many Colombians?

Like other Baby Boomers, I lived through the unprecedented doubling of the global population in

the second half of the 20th century. Never before in human history had our numbers increased so

far, so fast: from 3 billion in 1960 to 6 billion in 2000. But our numbers didn't double because we

suddenly started breeding like rabbits. They doubled because we stopped dying like flies. Fertility

was falling throughout this period, from an average of 6 children per woman in 1960 to only 2.6

by 2002.[1]

On the fantasy island of overpopulation human numbers are always exploding, but a close look at

the real world reveals a different reality. The unprecedented fall in fertility rates that began in

post-war Europe has, in the decades since, spread to every corner of the globe, including Latin

America. The latest forecasts by the United Nations show the number of people in the world the

population of the world will continue to creep up until about the year 2040, peaking at around 7.6

billion people.[2] Then it will begin to shrink. Many nations, especially in Europe, are already in a

death spiral, losing a significant number of people each year. Listen closely, and you will hear the

muffled sound of populations crashing.

This is the real population crisis, and it has now reached Colombia.

Latins Still Loving--But Not Procreating

The image of the loving Latin mamacita surrounded by a passel of barefoot children remains

scratched on the minds of Americans, even when it has largely vanished in the pueblos of Latin

America itself. Government-enforced sterilization campaigns, along with simple modernity, have

dramatically shrunk family size south of the border in recent years. When I speak to American

audiences, they are invariably surprised to learn that the average young Latino family in many

countries now numbers no more children than its American counterpart.

Everywhere in Latin America, countries are seeing their birthrates fall. Most Latin American

countries are now rapidly approaching replacement rate fertility, if they are not already there,

according to the UNPD. Women in Brazil, the largest South American country, currently average

only 2.25 children. In Mexico, 2.2 The inhabitants of Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile are even less

fertile. This is not a picture of a continent where fertility is wildly out of control, and cannot be said

to justify the continuing attention that the U.S.AID and UNFPA, along with other population control

groups, are devoting to the region.

Is Colombia Overpopulated?

            We cannot speak of Colombia, with a population of 41 million occupying an area twice the

size of Texas, as being "overpopulated."  First of all, demographers don't even know what

"overpopulation" means; there is no working definition.  Second, Colombia’s population density is

less than that of Texas.  No reasonable person would call the vast open spaces of Texas

"overpopulated."

            When people say "overpopulated," they actually mean "underdeveloped."  But Colombia's

economy is booming.  The economic policies of fiscal restraint that have been in place for the last

four years in Colombia seem to be succeeding.  Population control programs, on the other hand,

have been in place for 40 years, and have produced no appreciable economic benefits.  To put it

bluntly, you don't eliminate poverty by attempting to eliminate the poor through population control.

One way to illustrate how quickly Colombia has reached replacement rate fertility is to look at

what are called population pyramids.  These are pyramidal-shaped graphs that show the

numbers of people in each age group.  Note that the numbers of children in the earliest age

groups is not growing. 

With population growth leveling off, how long will it take for Colombia's population to peak and

then decline? This depends upon the number of children that the next generation of Colombians

have, and so is difficult to predict.

The low variant of the U.N. Population Division predicts that Colombia's population will peak at

53.5 million in 2035, and then decline.

The medium variant has population peaking about 15 years later, at approximately 62 million,

before beginning its descent. 

In neither case can it reasonably be argued that this is explosive, or disastrous, population

growth.  It is not.  The disaster comes later, as the population ages and declines.

Colombia's Current Population Policy

Makes No Sense

            The U.N. Population Division carried out a recent survey of government population

policies.  What it found, in the case of Colombia, was a seeming contradiction:  The Colombian

government in 2005 averred that its population size and growth are "satisfactory," but then goes

on to complain that the current fertility rate is “too high,” and that its policy is to lower it by

providing “Direct Support” for “access to contraceptive methods.”

I believe that this position is both contradictory and short-sighted.  It is contradictory because

populations grow only through births and immigration.  Colombian women are averaging 2.22

children, while the country has lost millions of people to emigration to Spain and to neighboring

countries over the past decades.  If the current growth rate is “satisfactory,” as the government

says it is, and if Colombians are leaving by the millions, as they are, then the fertility rate must

remain at current levels in order to maintain continued growth.  It is shortsighted because

Colombia’s fertility rate is rapidly falling towards replacement, as have discussed.     

               What has happened in Colombia is happening elsewhere as well.  Once people are

educated, urbanized, and begin to enjoy a certain level of wealth, birthrates plummet. More and

more couples live in urban conditions where children provide no economic benefits, but rather

are, as the Chinese say, “goods on which one loses.” Education delays marriage and provides

other options for women besides marriage and family. For materially minded couples in countries

where the state provides old age benefits, the way to get ahead is to remain perpetually childless.

Why give up a second income to bring a child into the world who will never, at least in material

terms, repay your investment? Why provide for your future in the most fundamental way, by

providing the next generation, if the government has pledged to keep you out of the poorhouse in

your dotage anyway.

               Add to these factors the raft of powerful population control programs that have been

forced on Colombia since the sixties.  The U.S. and other developed countries consciously set

out to engineer a radical decline in Colombia's fertility. As a weak nation, dependent on the U.S.

and Europe for financial aid, military security, or access to markets, Colombian leaders were

bullied or suborned into mandating anti-natal measures. Paid for by the West, these measures

ranged from the free provision of contraceptives to enforced sterilization programs.  Colombians

have been subjected to clever marketing schemes, bait-and-switch health ploys, anti-family TV

soap operas, and even blunt coercion in an effort to deprive them of the free exercise of their

fertility.[3]  Tremendous pressure has been put on the government over the years by such actors

as the U.N. Population Division, IPPF, and my own US Agency for International Development.

               The hundreds of millions of dollars that foreign agencies like USAID poured into

Colombian birth control programs is but a tiny fraction of the $100 billion or so that has been

spent on fertility reduction programs in the world at large. Imagine putting billions of dollars into

programs to undo the Industrial and Information Revolutions, and you will understand the insanity

of our current approach. We are making the old age tsunami, which will hit Colombia in a few

years, even worse.

What Should Colombia Do?

               Many countries still have foreign-funded programs in place that they find uncongenial

and which compromise their future. Take sparsely populated Bolivia, for example, a country

whose nine million inhabitants are spread out over an area the size of Texas. The democratically

elected government regards both its fertility rate (4.0) and its rate of population growth (2 percent

per annum) as “satisfactory”—both have been falling in recent years—and has specifically

adopted a hands-off policy of “no intervention” in these matters.[4] Yet the population control

establishment is not content to leave well enough alone. USAID and others pour tens of millions

of dollars into reproductive health programs in that country which have the effect, not

unintentional, of further reducing the birthrate.

               Given that fertility levels are already close to replacement and appear likely to continue

to fall, what should the government's population policy be?  First of all, it should discard its

anachronistic view that fertility levels in Colombia are "too high"--they are not--and abandon its

policy of attempting to convince couples to bear fewer children by promoting various methods of

contraception.

               Second, it should tell the U.N. Population Fund, and other population control agencies,

that its population control programs are no longer welcome in Colombia.

            Third, the government should instead seek to strengthen marriage and families by

enacting family-friendly tax policies that recognize, through tax deductions, the contribution that

parents make to the nation's economy by raising children.  Couples should be encouraged, as

were our first parents, to be fruitful and multiply.