World Population Day, 11th July

 

Thailand's 'Mr Condom' Mechai Viravaidya, 82

I’m on the mailing list for Population Matters (patron: David Attenborough) and was sent a press release for ‘World Population Day, 11^th July’.  This blog began just before 8 Billion Day and population is a theme, so I was interested in reading the report.

While I think that it’s inevitable that population will fall steadily form mid-late century, we have a torrid time to get through in our, our children & grandchildren’s time. The Cerberus heatwave around the Mediterranean is looking very ugly and all the bad stuff is linked to human numbers and people’s reasonable aspirations, including to migrate in search of better opportunities (like the great European migration to the U.S.A. in the nineteenth century).

The report is basically encouraging reading and gives case studies on four countries/regions – Thailand, Rwanda, Costa Rica and the Indian state of Kerala. The nutshell message is that family size drops and economic prosperity rises following on from female education and gender equality. All four examples now have higher GDP per capita and lower TFR (total fertility rate) than their neighbours with less enlightened policies. All this is done with emphasis on human rights and not on coercion, and doubtless the neighbours are watching and learning so the important thing is to get the message out and spread best practice.

Rwanda is getting some critical focus in the UK for valid reasons unconnected with its government’s social policies (the report makes interesting reading) but seems to have had something of a turn-around. It was of course the country of the notorious genocide in 1994 where a million people were murdered in a country with a population of just eight million (and a million fled). In the 1980s, the country had a TFR of 8.5 and became the most densely populated country in Africa; it’s hard not to draw an obvious conclusion.

To quote the report, “In the early 2000s, population started to resurface as a policy concern. The National Policy for Sustainable Development was introduced in 2003. The plan identified the importance of addressing population growth as part of a holistic programme for sustainable development, including ensuring universal education for all children, and equal economic opportunity for men and women. Political will was growing, with population action internally motivated, rather than heavily influenced by external donors as it had been in the past.” All pretty sensible so no need to despair in the developed world that Africa isn’t doing its stuff (which would be a racist trope anyway), and get on with putting our own house in order on environmental and equality issues.

But, in a blog which praises a local hero from the 1890s (this village in Oxfordshire), it’s good to see local heroes at work around the globe, such as Thailand’s 82 year old ‘Mr Condom’ (main picture).

Picture credit:  BBC

Birthday Memorial for ‘Holmes of Hanney’, Family Planning pioneer

 

Biography of Holmes, paper of Hanney History Group

I wrote on 17th January 2023, that that would have a good claim to be ‘Un-Darwin-Day’ as the date when the world’s most populous country had entered numerical decline, overturning – in a symbolic way - one of the pillars of Natural Selection: “Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life”. This may seem strange when the world only reached 8 Billion Day on 15^th November 2022. I blogged about that at the time but also that the underlying trend in birth-rate was firmly down, leading to a surprising conclusion.

The reason for the De-Darwinisation of the human race lies of course in the exercise of personal choice, and with the availability of effective contraception. As with any technology, there are always early adopters, usually the rich and well-informed. The most famous or notorious of these was, of course, Giacomo Casanova (1725-1798) who enjoyed inflating them as a suggestive party trick. But these were ‘high end’ early technology and not yet ready for the mass market. Enter  Charles Goodyear and Thomas Hancock with their invention of the vulcanization of rubber (see a short history of the condom) which led to the first ‘American Tips’ being created in about 1858. ‘Full length’ had to wait until 1869.

There is lots to write about this, especially to put into its social context.  Observed effects of population pressure had been commented on well before 1800, most famously by Thomas Malthus. The North American continent provided a significant safety valve but emigration wasn’t for everyone, so pressure grew in intellectual circles to allow the matter to be discussed. A key moment in the Great Britain was the trial of freethinkers Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant (1876) for republishing an American treatise by Bostonian doctor Knowlton.

While information was easier to diffuse amongst the upper/middle classes, for the working class word was very hard to get round, and ‘channels to market’ were highly restricted by obscenity prosecutions – and certainly no clinics were available for women to get advice until one was opened by Margaret (Higgins) Sanger in NYC in 1916 (I’m pleased to note that she was born in Corning, N.Y. where I lived for three years in the nineties). No, word had to get around by post. I’m proud that the Oxfordshire village where I live was home to a young chap, James Robins Holmes, who was stirred up by the Bradlaugh/Besant trial, enough to do something about it by creating what we would call today a ‘Social Enterprise’, (he was a minor landlord and apparently a very good one at that). In 1891 he published a booklet ‘True Morality’ promoting the use of what we call family planning for married couples, and including a price list for ‘hygienic requisites’ (which could be washed after use for poor couples). This was “the greatest honour of my life”, which had him prosecuted and fined for ‘obscenity’, and he succeeded in distributing 150,000 copies the booklet in several editions. ‘Goods’ were supplied all over the Empire in little packages, sent from Hanney Post Office.

A splendid fellow, whose 164^th birthday it would be today, 17^th March.

My dog, Polly, paying her respects at J.R. Holmes memorial on his birthday

Picture credits:  Hanney History Group (Sam Green), David Gahan