“The battle to feed all of humanity is over.” This is the first line of Paul Ehrlich’s book ‘The Population Bomb’, published in 1968. The book sold millions of copies and was taken very seriously.
The Malthus’s prediction of what is now called Malthusian trap. That is more an observation of the cyclical patterns of population boom and bust that had happened for most of human existence. The the industrial revolution changed things at some great costs.
There are two famous Paul Ehrlich.
Paul Ehrlich (1854-1915), Nobel laureate, German immunologist. He found a cure for syphilis in 1909.
This Paul Ehrlich (1932-) is an American biologist best known for his warnings about the consequences of population growth and limited resources.
The policy of one-child birth control in China was initaited in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It tried to reduce the growth rate of China’s enormous population. This policy was ended in early 2016. The consequences is beyond the goal of reducing population growth. Most notably, the country’s overall sex ratio became skewed toward males, roughly between 3 and 4 percent more makes than females. Another is a growing proportion of elderly people.