There seems to be a lot of sudden interest in limiting families to one child in order to ward off impending population disaster. There seems to be several ethical/ social / economic /scientific and historical problems with this solution.
1. Enforcement - how do you police such a scheme? Is it "encouraged" through the tax system? Or is a permit or licensing scheme envisaged. It seems likely that the strongest sanctions will be applied to those on benefits or dependent on state subsidies.
2. Socially this will be divisive and will lead to unintended consequences such as a rapid reduction in the proportion of young people in this country at a time when more are needed. China's version of this solution has resulted in a very skewed male : female ratio. While this is a cultural phenomenon it is possible that similar social effects will be seen.
3. The balance between working and non-working people will tilt even further towards the non-working as the older generations live longer but fewer new workers are born. Ultimately this will make everyone poorer or create a strong demand for increased immigration - not necessarily a bad thing. But over time growing populations have helped fuel economic growth and suddenly reversing this will have an impact on global prosperity.
4. One benefit of population growth is the challenge it provides to science to feed, clothe, employ and house the growing population. This challenge begets creativity When Malthus wrote at the beginning of the nineteenth century he could not have anticipated the advances seen in the last two hundred years - nor that the population we now have which is many times that of Malthus' day.
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