Population Connection
Population Connection is a U.S.-based nonprofit organization founded in 1968, dedicated to addressing the complex issues surrounding population stabilization both domestically and globally. Originally known as Zero Population Growth, the organization has shifted its focus from the notion of "population control" to advocating for voluntary actions that promote sustainable population levels, resource management, and environmental health. Population Connection recognizes that human overpopulation contributes to critical challenges such as climate change, deforestation, and resource scarcity, as well as social issues like weakened democracies and intensified urban problems.
Central to the organization's mission is the empowerment of women, emphasizing that access to education, healthcare, family planning, and economic opportunities is vital for achieving slower population growth and reduced family size. Population Connection advocates for gender equality and opposes coercive population control measures, instead emphasizing ethical and voluntary solutions. Positioned as a moderate voice in the population discourse, the organization navigates between extreme views on population growth and environmental sustainability, promoting a pragmatic approach that seeks realistic solutions to global challenges. Its focus on education, advocacy, and legislative action aims to foster a balanced understanding of population dynamics in the context of social justice and environmental stewardship.
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Population Connection
IDENTIFICATION: US-based nonprofit organization working toward population stabilization in the United States and globally
DATE: Founded in 1968
Population Connection emphasizes education, advocacy, voluntary action, and service efforts to lower birthrates in its efforts to promote the achievement of sustainable balances among population levels, resources, and the environment, both in the United States and worldwide.
Over the several decades of its history, Population Connection (originally founded as Zero Population Growth) has evolved an increasingly nuanced and sophisticated approach to issues of human overpopulation. This evolution has moved the organization away from the idea of “population control” (with that term’s coercive overtones) to an emphasis on voluntary action for based in an environmental and social justice perspective. This perspective emphasizes that overpopulation not only degrades the natural (exacerbating problems such as deforestation, wildlife extinction, and climate change) but also degrades the social environment (weakening democratic governments, multiplying urban problems, and increasing competition for agricultural land, fresh water, and a host of other scarce resources).
Key to the organization’s change in emphasis has been the realization (arising out of the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development) that slower population growth and reduced family size are strongly dependent on the free choice and empowerment of women. In line with this realization, Population Connection works for the equality of women and men in the United States and worldwide—not only under law and in politics but also in terms of access to education, careers, property, family planning, and healthcare services, including abortion. The organization is strongly opposed to race-based population-control arguments and also the use of force or violence as a means toward population stabilization.
Although Population Connection’s emphasis on social justice might seem to place it on the political left in the United States, where the organization is based, its “educate, motivate, legislate” approach in fact occupies a middle ground in the spectrum of population responses, between believers in unlimited abundance (and unfettered population growth), who deny that overpopulation is a problem, and those who feel overpopulation is such a tremendous threat to the planet that human population growth must be curbed quickly through the implementation of negative population growth strategies. The pragmatic Utopianism of Population Connection’s middle way—despite the organization’s reliance on the United States to exercise international leadership in population matters—provides perhaps a more realistic appraisal of the global environmental situation and of global political realities than either of the other two ends of the spectrum.
Bibliography
Ellis, Amanda, Claire Manuel, and C. Mark Blackden. Gender and Economic Growth in Uganda. Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 2006.
Engelman, Robert. More: Population, Nature, and What Women Want. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2008.
"New Partnership: Population Connection Global Partners Program." Women for Conservation, 30 Jan. 2023, womenforconservation.org/new-partnership-population-connections-global-partners-program/. Accessed 22 July 2024.
Sheehan, Molly. City Limits: Putting the Brakes on Sprawl. Washington, D.C.: Worldwatch Institute, 2001.
Starkey, Marian. "Is It Time for Another World Population Conference?" Population Connection, 17 July 2024, populationconnection.org/blog/is-it-time-for-another-world-population-conference/. Accessed 22 July 2024.