To Breed or Not to Breed?

[☭proletarian☭]

Is human population expanding? Or dwindling? Should we neuter ourselves at the SPCA? Or multiply like the Octomom? The answer is... both?! Yes. Depending on your GPS coordinates, human numbers are wiggling UP like sperm in an unprotected vaginal canal, or swirling DOWN like a condom in a flushed toilet. Humanity is simultaneously exploding and imploding.

Who’s always pregnant? Niger is Fertility Champ with its women producing an average of 7.19 children each. Malaria removes 20% of the tots, but Niger’s population still expands at a 3.49 annual population growth (PG) rate, good for 6th place behind Liberia, Burundi, Afghanistan, Western Sahara, and East Timor. Liberia’s population will double in 16 years, in Niger it’ll drag out to 20.
Notice the anti-intuitive equation? Poverty + War + Disease = Booming Population. Bloody, poor, sick nations often reproduce the fastest. We think everyone’s dying in the genocidal Democratic Republic of the Congo, but it’s #9 in PG rate because “war babies” are churned out at a 6.7 fertility rate. Other top PG rate nations with recent conflicts are Eritrea (7th), Uganda (8th), Palestine (10th), Somalia (16th), and every nation in the Top Five listed above.

To Breed or Not to Breed? | h+ Magazine