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Encyclopedia of Environmental Issues, 3rd Edition

Population Connection

by Howard V. Hendrix

Fields of Study: Ethics, Advocacy, Policy, Protest; Ecology, Environment, Environmentalism; Organizations, Agencies, Commissions, Centers

Identification: U.S.-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 population stabilization based in an environmental and social justice perspective. This perspective emphasizes that overpopulation not only degrades the natural environment (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 health care services, including abortion. The organization is strongly opposed to race-based population-control arguments and also strongly opposed to 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.

Further Reading

1 

Ellis, Amanda, Claire Manuel, and C. Mark Blackden. Gender and Economic Growth in Uganda. Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 2006.

2 

Engelman, Robert. More: Population, Nature, and What Women Want. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2008.

3 

Sheehan, Molly. City Limits: Putting the Brakes on Sprawl. Washington, D.C.: Worldwatch Institute, 2001.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Hendrix, Howard V. "Population Connection." Encyclopedia of Environmental Issues, 3rd Edition, edited by Richard Renneboog, Salem Press, 2019. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=ENVIs2e_0543.
APA 7th
Hendrix, H. V. (2019). Population Connection. In R. Renneboog (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Environmental Issues, 3rd Edition. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Hendrix, Howard V. "Population Connection." Edited by Richard Renneboog. Encyclopedia of Environmental Issues, 3rd Edition. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2019. Accessed September 17, 2025. online.salempress.com.