Population Control In The Lottery

Edward Abbey once said, “A crowded society is a restrictive society; an overcrowded society becomes an authoritarian, repressive, and murderous society (Goodreads).” Overpopulation has constantly been a controversy in regards to the well being of the Earth. Overpopulation can lead towards environmental issues, mass extinction, promotion of global warming and more. How can overpopulation be stopped with the constant cycle of life and death occurring every second? The authors of both “Welcome to the Monkey House” and “The Lottery” display methods to control overpopulation in their societies with the use of birth control pills, suicide parlors, and lotteries, while present-day countries develop methods of their own for population control. Kurt

Jackson provided a method called a lottery, where everyone had to participate and one person would end up being stoned to death. The narrator stated, “..But now that the population was more than three hundred and likely to keep on growing, it was necessary to use something that would fit more easily into the black box (Jackson 530).” The society was well aware that the population was still growing and could soon cause a problem. They created a system where every family was entered in a black box and everyone got the opportunity to pick out of the box. Whoever had a black dot on the paper would be the person to get stoned. With the decision to have every family participate in the lottery, it helped reduce the population at a gradual

China’s communist party created this policy in 1979 and has prevented over 400 million births with the use of forced abortions and sterilizations like Uzbekistan. In January of 2016, this policy has been changed into a two-child policy due to a realization that there can be an economic consequence to the failing birth-rate. Also, due to the fact that couples can only have one child, the future of China’s population can be a burden. Researchers stated, “The graying population will burden health care and social services, and the world’s second-largest economy will struggle to maintain its growth (Jiang, Steven)”. With the lack of production for more newborns, the population will gradually have a majority of elderly people within their society. The new population policy made add an increase in population, but it still puts a limit on the population. If couples had this policy lifted, it can make the overpopulation problem occur again. Therefore, this transition from one child to two children helps balance out under-population and overpopulation in