Population Control and Population Policy ELIZABETH WIRTZ Purdue University, USA Population control is the practice of artiicially altering the demographic composition of a given populace. Demographic composition refers to factors such as size, distribution, density, age, sex, ethnicity, and so on, that make up a particular population. Populations are frequently in lux due to natural causes such as birth and death rates and migra- tion. However, population control is the intentional altering of a given group of peo- ple, typically achieved through population control policies enacted by national and international governing bodies. hese poli- cies focus on regulating fertility, emigration, and/or immigration to achieve the desired population size and demographics. Govern- ing bodies are interested in attaining certain population demographics for varied purposes such as labor, taxation, political security, and ideology. hroughout much of history, popula- tion demographics have been considered so fundamentally important to societies that diverse institutions including medical, reli- gious, social, economic, and political, have subsumed the task of inluencing popula- tion dynamics (Tobin 2004; Connelly 2010). Governments, for instance, implement such control through diverse laws, policies, and programs. Some of these are more direct such as China’s one-child policy, or immi- gration laws restricting the number and national origin of immigrants, while others work more indirectly by encouraging or discouraging certain behavior. Examples of he Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies, First Edition. Edited by Nancy A. Naples. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. DOI: 10.1002/9781118663219.wbegss374 the latter include pro-natalist policies, such as government tax and labor beneits for citizens who have children, or immigrant employment programs that encourage labor- ers from foreign countries to cross national boarders in search of work (Tobin 2004; May 2012). Beyond national governments, inter- national governmental organizations like the United Nations (particularly the United Nations Population Fund), World Bank, and World Health Organization, and various non- governmental organizations throughout the world focus on issues of population control. Within the last century, the term “popula- tion control” has referred more speciically to controlling the overall numerical population of the world. hose who support population control eforts claim that overpopulation is currently leading, or will eventually lead to a variety of problems, and therefore needs to be addressed through curtailing global popu- lation growth or reducing the current global population. Within the last century, there has been a drastic increase in the global popula- tion. he world reached its irst billion people in the 1800s, second in the 1920s, third in the 1960s, fourth in the 1970s, ith in the 1980s, and sixth in the 1990s. Today, there are more than 7 billion people in the world. While the rate of growth has decreased, the overall pop- ulation continues to increase exponentially, with roughly 90% of this increase occurring in developing countries (Weisman 2013). his rapid population growth is attributed to technological advancements made in the twentieth century, particularly medical and agricultural innovations, that decreased over- all mortality and increased life expectancy (May 2012). More people are surviving, and for longer lifespans. Most consider these improvements beneicial for humanity. At the same time, such advancements resulted in a