Human population planning

Human population planning is the practice of managing the growth rate of a human population. The practice, traditionally referred to as population control, had historically been implemented mainly with the goal of increasing population growth, though from the 1950s to the 1980s, concerns about overpopulation and its effects on poverty, the environment and political stability led to efforts to reduce population growth rates in many countries. More recently, however, several countries such as China, Japan,^[1][2] South Korea,^[3] Russia,^[4] Iran, Italy,^[4] Spain, Finland,^[5] Hungary^[6] and Estonia^[7][8] have begun efforts to boost birth rates once again, generally as a response to looming demographic crises.

While population planning can involve measures that improve people's lives by giving them greater control of their reproduction, a few programs, such as the Chinese government's "one-child policy and two-child policy", have employed coercive measures.