population growth and gender inequality

In a world largely dominated by men, circumstances and events often favour men over women, and this male chauvinism is often directly held responsible for population growth and gender inequality. Theoretically stating the increase in population growth would result in greater gender inequality, and the decrease in population growth would be achieved by addressing the issues of gender inequality. However, population growth and gender inequality are two entities, yet concurrent and relative terms encompassing many other factors.

Both ‘population growth and gender inequality’ are dire issues which India dearly faces today. In 1954, India introduced the first government sponsored family planning program, designed to keep their population growth rate at below 1.3 percent. Still, India’s population nemesis remains one of the most rapidly growing in the world, and its implications are the widespread poverty and growing disparity between rich and poor. These two factors are simultaneously held responsible for the increase in birth rate and population growth.

On the contrary, the cultural bias against female in India is also causing an increase number of ‘female infanticide and foeticide’. This problem is intimately tied to the institution of ‘dowry system’ prevalent across the Indian continent, in which the family of a prospective bride must pay enormous sums of money to the family of the groom. Since, a daughter is considered a liability; abandonment of girl child at the bus and train stations is all but an old story in India.

In 1979, China introduced their ‘one-child’ policy, which set mandatory limits to people’s reproduction. Ever since, the Chinese birth rate has plummeted drastically, with officials in 2000 proudly stating that they had managed to prevent over 250 million births. But, the Chinese cultural bias towards male children has also led to an imbalance in their population, with over 32 million more men than women in 2009. So, decrease in population growth doesn’t also necessarily mean ‘gender equality’.

The issues of gender inequality pertaining to China and India are typical cases, which defies the very law of humanity. Such imbalance between the sexes has resulted in distorted sex-ratio. Unmarried men from some of the Indian states has to seek bride from another state for he can’t find one in his state, and there’re about 111 million men in China who will not be able to find a wife. This has resulted in an increase of international racketeering, kidnapping and slave-trading of women.

A viable holistic approach to address the issues of ‘population growth and its affect to gender inequality’ is not the cessation of birth rate; rather it’s the radical need to change the individual attitudes and social dogmas pertaining to ‘women and feminism’.