[Animated NET logo,hectic music] [Music] [Announcer:] The following programis from NET, the National Educational Television Network. [Dramatic music] [Narrator:] The human race isgrowing in numbers faster than ever before in history. At its present rate ofgrowth, world population will double in 35 years. Today, there are well over3 billion people on Earth. In 35 years or less, therewill be nearly 7 billion if the current rate continues. [Music] [Aerial view] This kind of population growththreatens the living conditions of most of the world, politicalstability, personal freedom, health and well-being. In short, it threatensthe happiness of man. Population isincreasing most rapidly in poorer nations. Countries seeking to move fromtraditional agrarian to modern industrial societies,countries for whom time is beginning to run out. [Music] Modern nations, such as Japanand those of Western Europe, have voluntarilylowered birth rates to bring them into linewith lowered death rates. [Music] But the majority ofthe world's people are far from thisgoal, especially the peoples of the developingnations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. [Uplifting folk music] [The Population Problem] The Population Problemwill explore the dynamics of population throughthe eyes of demographers. Scientists who study the vitalstatistics of a world's people. [The European Experience] The exploration begins withthe European experience. [The European Experience] [Music] [Babies crying] Of all the peoples in theworld, except for the Japanese, only Europeans and theiroverseas descendants have completed the demographictransition from a high to a low level ofbirths and deaths. Because it has gone throughits vital revolutions as well as its agricultural andindustrial revolutions, Western Europe has been able toshed the shackles of poverty. [Babies crying] Today's Europeans are heir toa great humanistic tradition, the product of acivilization concerned with the dignityof each individual and the well-being of all. [Gentle music] Europeans haveachieved a civilization in which most ofthe people can share in the good thingsof life and plan for future generationswith reasonable confidence. [Music] [Mother after delivery] For hundreds ofyears, Europe's people barely managed to survivenature's disasters and the evil of man's own making. However, they struggledand always forged ahead. [Gentle flute music] The road was not an easy one. [Music] In Vézelay , a town 125miles southeast of Paris on the outskirts ofBurgundy, the past is close. Isolated medievaltowns like this one had to be self-sufficient. Through unending labor, peopleate and wore what they raised. Farming methods were primitive. [Ominous music playing] Tools were crude. Crops were uncertain. And when they failed,famine rode the countryside. [Ominous music playing] [Stringed instrumental music] For the great majorityof the people, it was life at baresubsistence level. [Stringed instrumental music] [Sketches of town life] The towns of the Middle Ages,huddled within stone walls, were overcrowded and filthy. Their narrow streets strewnwith garbage, refuse, manure, and dead animals. [Music continues] Medicine was in its infancy. Sick were cared for at home. [Music] Church hospitals were forthe incurables, the lepers, the cripples, the blind. Plagues and epidemicsswept across Europe. [Ominous music playing] War took a continuoustoll of human life. [Ominous music playing] [Musical fanfare] Man lived under theshadow of early death. [Music] His life expectancy was only 30. [Music] Among infants and the veryyoung, mortality was very high. Against this kindof stern mortality, man had only onedefense, enough children to exceed death's demands. [Music] The more the children, thelarger the labor force, and the better off the family. Children also guaranteedcare for parents in old age. The high birth ratesof the Middle Ages were balanced byhigh death rates. [Music] Families would haveeight or more children, but no more than three orfour would reach adulthood. Thus, the population of WesternEurope grew very slowly. [Music] Toward the end ofthe Middle Ages, the population beganto move towards and to grow withindeveloping cities. [Music] New customs, new traditions wereneeded to meet urban demands. [Music] Merchants and traders ofan emerging middle class brought about innovationsthat would one day change the whole social fabric. [Musical fanfare] This new middle classprotected its interests by grouping together inguilds and corporations. Merchants, ship owners, moneychangers, bankers, artisans, and craftsmen beganto build industry. Very powerful guilds didnot want their apprentices to marry until they'dcompleted their training, so Western Europeanswere themselves keeping some measure ofcontrol over population. [Music] [Dramatic musical sting] Plagues and epidemicscontinued to take their toll and kept themortality rate high. From 1348 to 1350, a quarterof the population of Europe perished from thebubonic plague. And in the next few decades,the scourge of the Black Death struck again and again,six times in France, [Dramatic musical sting] five times in England, [Dramatic musical sting] and nine times-- [Dramatic musical sting] --in Italy. Europe lost some 25 millionpeople to the Black Death. At the beginning ofthe Christian era, there had been 50million people in Europe. After 10 centuries, therewere only between 80 and 90 million people. [Ominous music playing] However, the greatsocial changes that took place at theclose of the Middle Ages heralded an era that introduceda new humanism, a renewed emphasis on the dignityof man and a new hope for the good life on Earth. [Music] [Visual pan of the city] All over WesternEurope, man began to shake off ancient shackles. [Upbeat music] [Woman opens shutters] [Tilt down view of a building] [Santa Maria] Men like Columbus, Vascoda Gama, and Magellan began to cross uncharted seas. Their discovery ofsparsely-populated lands would one day bea source of hope to millions ofEuropean immigrants and an escape valve that wouldease population pressures. [Music] In today's world, developingnations facing huge population problems cannot use immigrationto ease the pressure of numbers. [Music] [Man at a workbench] The wealth of these new worldsmade possible lavish patronage of artists and artisans. Printing, a crucialforward step, spread the availabilityof education and literacy beyond the limitedcircle of scholarship. [Man at a workbench] [Music] These da Vinci drawingsand other major works would slowly begin to reachthe mass of the population. The first hesitant steps towardwide compulsory education had their start here. [Leonardo da Vinci drawings] In the dawn of anage of science, Galileo constructedthe first telescope and proved the validity ofthe Copernican hypothesis. [Eerie music] In England, Francis Bacon wroteof an all inclusive science that would make man master ofboth the world and his fate. [Eerie music] William Harvey tookmedicine a step forward with his study of the heartand of the circulatory system. [Anatomical drawings] Isaac Newton forever alteredman's picture of the universe with the law ofuniversal gravitation. Modern science waslaying the foundations of great technologicalchange that would affect the life of every human being. This growth inscientific knowledge was to cause not only increasedpopulation pressures but was to prove a vital factorin Western Europe's ultimate decision tocontrol its birth rate. [Gentle uplifting music] With trade growing,the middle class gained in wealth,self-confidence, and power. [Music] [Crowded tavern] The techniques ofagriculture began to undergo far-reaching changes. [Music] Jethro Tull pioneereda crop rotation system. [Music] The production ofwheat per acre doubled. [Music] The poor continuedto be very poor. But for many of them, lifewas substantially improved. [Animated population chart] It had taken Europe'spopulation thousands of years to reach 100 million. But between 1650 and 1750,increasing wealth, the growth of the middle class,the progress of science the beginnings of humanism,and agricultural improvements caused the populationto surge to 140 million. In only one century, Europehad added 40 million people. Before 1750, about one thirdof Western Europe's children died before theywere five years old. [Music] But by 1750, refinedmidwifery, the establishment of maternity hospitals,and other medical advances began to cut into the high deathrate among very young children. By 1750, Western Europe wasentering the first stage of its demographic transition. Its mortality ratewas being lowered. [Music] Thomas Malthus pointed outthat mouths multiply faster than food to feed them. He said that, unlessman exercised restraint, population growthwould always be checked by the four traditionallevelers, famine, want, war, and disease. [Eerie music] [Graveyard] [Machinery clicking] [Music] But by 1798, the ageof the machine arrived. Western Europe wasbeginning to experience the upheaval of theIndustrial Revolution, [Water splashing] and the lives of thecontinent's people were about to undergostill another great change. [Spinning machinery sounds] The Industrial Revolutionwould have died at birth without some new andbetter source of power to replace falling water, thewind, animal, and human muscle. [Music] A Scottishinstrument-maker named Watt was responsible forindustry's decisive turn when, in 1782, he perfectedthe steam engine, the most importantsingle agent in the Industrial Revolution. [Music] Steam meant coal, andthe shafts of coal mines dotted the English countryside. [Music] Before daybreak, childrenof seven or even less descended into the pits. [Music] [Coal mines] Underground untillong after dark, mingling with themen who worked naked, the children would notsee the light of day from Sunday to Sunday. Long and hard struggleswould be necessary to correct these abuses. However, as soonas children stopped being a useful partof the workforce, they were to become an economicburden on both their parents and their society. [Music] [Harsh, tense music] An agriculturalrevolution kept pace with the progress of industry. Increasing mechanizationprovided more food for Europe's growing populationbut also drove many farmers from the land. Children who had been anasset as extra farm laborers now became only asurplus labor force. Still, in 800, about 3/4 of thepopulation lived on the land. [Tense music playing] But a revolutionin transportation, spearheaded by railroads,played a mighty role in moving masses of peopleto the grim industrial towns that began sproutingup all over Europe. [Steam engine chugging] Life in the squalid slumsof the new cities was bleak, but life was better for thepoor than it had ever been. And in spite of thewidespread poverty, death rates slowly began to falland the population mushroomed. [Music] In spite of the rapidlygrowing population, Europe maintainedan uneasy balance through emigration, amethod no longer available. In the half centuryending in 1915, 15 million left northern Europeand 22 million more left southern and eastern Europe. [Dark music] During the 19th century, as theindustrial upper middle class became dominant, there arosea new concern for sanitation, including the widespread useof soap and public health. And with that concern,great progress in medicine. [Music] Jenner's vaccinefor smallpox, which had at first metwith deep suspicion, was put into general use. [Ominous music playing] Pasteur developed thegerm theory of disease and discovered avaccine for hydrophobia. [Music] Koch isolated the germs oftuberculosis and cholera. [Soft rousing music] Applying Pasteur'stheories, Lister introduced antiseptic surgery. Increasing sanitationchecked plagues. Mortality rates dropped further. Life expectancy increased. Years were added to a woman'schildbearing lifetime. [Animated population chart] New York's population increasedmore and more rapidly. It climbed from 187 million in1800 to 266 million by 1850. In England alone, the populationin this 50-year period nearly doubled. [Population chart] In the last quarterof the 19th century, as Victoria's reignreached its end in a crowning blaze ofglory, Western Europe was about to enterthe second stage of its demographic transition. [Graphic] Birth rates, are already lowin Ireland and in France, began to decline, firstin the northwest of Europe and then in the south. They declined in ruralareas and in urban centers. In Catholic countries andin Protestant countries, the trend continued. [Music] By the 1930s, low birthrates were the rule. The small family concepthad been accepted. Now had Europe accomplishedits demographic transition? [Music] Certainly, pioneeringreformers, like Annie Besant, who advocated birth controlcannot be given all the credit. [Music] Advocacy of birthcontrol, in fact, seems to have been an effectof the small family more than a cause. [Music] In the last quarterof the 19th century, contraceptive practice spread. Parents themselves weremaking personal decisions to have smaller families. [Music] Mass education and ultimatelycompulsory education for all children was certainlya factor in this decision. Children, no longer potentialmembers of the family labor force, became economic burdens. And a well-educated society isbetter able to see advantages to certain courses of action. [Music] [Suffragists with banners] The emancipation ofwomen was another factor. [Light drum music] [Whimsical music] After achieving social equalityand political recognition, women could nolonger be considered mere household chattelsand child-bearing machines. [Music] Women assumed more andmore responsibilities. [Ceremonial music] They filled more andmore professional roles. That they gain ameasure of freedom from continuous childbearingbecame an obvious necessity. Thus, emigration, popularizationof advanced birth control methods, compulsory educationto further the interests of an industrializedcontinent, the recognition of women's rights toequality, all of these factors were contributors. [Music] [Graphic] In 1800, Western Europe'sdeath rate had been about 25 per 1,000. Today, it's about 10 per 1,000. The average lifeexpectation, which was less than 40 years in1800, has shot up to 70 years. Out of 100 newborn babies, morethan 95 will reach adulthood. But the average numberof children for a family is now about two. It was five in 1800. The birth rate has gone from30 per 1,000 to 18 per 1,000. Thus, the growth rateis less than 1% a year, a manageable ratein relation to all of Western Europe's resources. [Gentle music] [Park with pony ridesand electric cars] The age structure,the distribution of the population accordingto the number of people in each age group,is favorable to social and economic progress. [Music] There are neither enoughyoung nor old to cause serious problems. [Music] Today, the far-reaching effectsof the demographic transition that accounts forslow population growth, the balancing ofbirths and deaths and about replacement level,are evident in all modern, wealthycountries of Western Europe. [Music] In the more advancedScandinavian nations, population control is oneof the contributing factors toward expanding cultural andeconomic opportunities, a most advanced system ofsocial legislation. [Music] And plentiful leisure time. [Sailboats] In the south, too,indeed all over Europe, there are unmistakable signsof widespread prosperity. In Milan's markets, thereis an abundance of food. Healthy diets are now withinthe means of almost everyone. [Marketplace] [Tense music] Life is no longer limitedto bare necessities. [Cash register clicking] [Pop music] Modern technology has putextraordinary luxuries within reach. [Pop music] Leisure and culture are nolonger the exclusive privilege of a few. [Music] [Energetic music] Within a continuouslyexpanding economy, industry provides jobs atdecent wages and productivity increases steadily. [Energetic music] These are some of the rewardsof an urban, industrialized society that has nearlybalanced births with death. [Factory mechanic] Europeans haveachieved a civilization in which most peopleshare in the good life and plan for future generationswith reasonable confidence. [Group talking] [Scooter engine reeving] The great revolutions Europewent through in 150 years, the agricultural and industrialrevolutions, the political, [Horn sounds] scientific, andeducational revolutions, brought about tremendousadvances and achievements. [Traffic sounds] But these were madepossible in large part by the far-reaching effectsof the vital revolution that gave Western Europeans greatercontrol over birth and death. In just more than acentury and a half, Western Europe managed itsdemographic transition. [Children playing] That Europe had time on itsside and the opportunity to send more than 60million people overseas only emphasizes the urgency andthe enormity of the task facing today's developing nations. [Outdoor pool, playful screaming] These nations donot have time nor do they have opportunity toexport millions of people. They must have massivehelp to implement steps to control population growth. [Mello music] From the Europeans,the developing nations know that declining birth ratesaccompany agricultural, social, technological, industrial,and educational revolutions. Unfortunately, today'sdeveloping nations cannot wait until all of these conditionsare met before they seriously attempt to control theirrapidly-expanding populations. However, the mostvaluable lesson of the European experienceis that successful population control, rests withthe intimate decisions of well-educated parents actingin their own self-interest and for the welfare ofchildren already born. [Lively music] [Mother bathing child] [Produced by: In-Sight Productions, Inc. Charles Vaughan: President] [Writer: Edward Pfister] [Narrator: Ron Allen] [Produced under a grant from: Cordelia S. May] [Hour version produced in associationwith United States Productions, Inc.] [Francis C. Thayer, President] [Credits] [Animated NET logo,hectic music] [Music] [Announcer:] This is NET, the NationalEducational Television Network.