Claire Kim / Opinion / 20 October 2023
On November 15, 2022, the human population reached 8 billion people. There are 152 developing countries and 6.82 billion people inhabiting those areas. These countries are known to have the highest birth rates and the most unsustainable lifestyles: a lack of political/economic stability, deforestation of acres of land by the day, and the burning of tons of fossil fuels — just to name a few. How do we fix a problem that amplifies by the day? Surprisingly, the solution is quite unpredictable: the education of women around the world. By doing so, we can not only hugely reduce issues that will come with the upcoming population crisis but also address the unavoidable problems associated with climate change.
You may be wondering how the education of women, overpopulation, and climate change are even correlated. To start, we need to look at a term that will better help us understand this topic: a developing country. Most people have a common understanding that developing countries tend to have minimal industrial advancement. This is true; however, developing countries also tend to have a child labor force, high infant/child mortality rates, and very little upper-level education opportunities for women. These factors generally lead to higher birth rates among these types of countries. According to the Population Council, developing countries have, on average, 2.8 to 3.6 children per family. That is well above the developed countries with two children per couple. These birth rates are causing the quickly increasing global population that will eventually become too much for Earth to sustain. The problem, however, can be solved by teaching the women in these countries about being conscious of reproduction and introducing the concept of contraceptives. Consequently, fertility rates in developing countries have dropped/can drop to levels of the replacement level or less. Therefore, this suggests a very strong correlation between offering women education about these topics and lowering population growth rates.
Women’s education can do way more than just reduce birth rates in developing countries, however. For example, in 1977, environmentalist and Nobel Peace Prize Winner Wangari Maathai began a movement in Kenya called the Green Belt Movement. This movement was created with the goal of empowering women while saving the environment in the same process. Since its start, the Green Belt Movement has spread throughout Africa. The participating women have planted over 51 million trees, reforesting and mitigating areas that had been completely destroyed by deforestation and were damaged because of climate change. All over Africa, these women educate and raise awareness about climate change in local communities. Their impact on the environment seems to increase every day as they gain more female participants around the world.
Whether they are trying to solve issues about the growing population or anything to do with the environment, women can do wonders for this world as long as they have the educational backing to do so. As long as they have the opportunity, women can make the changes that could help the Earth in the long run. With the aid of forever-improving technology, women will be able to make advances that could solve even the most complicated problems, including but not limited to homelessness, food security and unemployment.
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