Figuring the Population Bomb: Gender and Demography in the Mid-Twentieth Century

by Carole R. McCann

Figuring the Population Bomb traces the genealogy of twentieth-century demographic “facts” that created a mathematical panic about a looming population explosion. This narrative was popularized in the 1970s in Paul Ehrlich’s best-selling book The Population Bomb, which pathologized population growth in the Global South by presenting a doomsday scenario of widespread starvation resulting from that growth.

Carole McCann uses an archive of foundational texts, disciplinary histories, participant reminiscences, and organizational records to reveal the gendered geopolitical grounds of the specialized mathematical culture, bureaucratic organization, and intertextual hierarchy that gave authority to the concept of population explosion. These demographic theories and measurement practices ignited the population “crisis” and moved nations to interfere in women’s reproductive lives. Figuring the Population Bomb concludes that mid-twentieth-century demographic figures remain authoritative to this day in framing the context of transnational feminist activism for reproductive justice.

Genres: Politics

436 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 1, 2016

About the author

Carole McCann is professor of gender and women's studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She is the author of Birth Control Politics in the United States, 1916-1945, and coeditor of Feminist Theory Reader: Local and Global Perspectives.

Reviews

[Sinem Esengen · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book does a feminist reading of early demographer’s works. It discusses the boundary work and exclusion of Margaret Sanger from academic demographic science and then explains the development of pop council, PAA and Iussp. It also provides a case study of the Indian family planning and criticizes two early demographer’s work. I think it would be more compelling to me if the book had used contemporary texts (especially for the case study). Critiques of early demographers’ works are abundant and reflections on those critiques from those institutions also exist. Writing from today, the author could use more recent material and shed light on more recent developments/ responses and missings/lack in the field of demography.