History Main / PopulationControl

There are a number of variations on this. Sometimes every couple is allowed a fixed number (frequently two); other times, the number allowed is tradeable, luck-based, or determined by some kind of eugenic principle (parenting skills are less commonly judged). Enforcement methods may range from punitive taxes on extra children, through mandated birth control and sterilization upon the birth of the last child allowed, to outright killing of excess population.

There are a number of variations on this. Sometimes every couple is allowed a fixed number (frequently two); other times, the number allowed is tradable, luck-based, or determined by some kind of eugenic principle (parenting skills are less commonly judged). Enforcement methods may range from punitive taxes on extra children, through mandated birth control and sterilization upon the birth of the last child allowed, to outright killing of excess population.

** In another Niven verse, ''A World Out Of Time'', the State has become a OneWorldOrder where IndividualityIsIllegal, and only massive fusion-powered desalinators on every shoreline can provide enough fresh water for the massive population. A few generations back, the State instituted compulsory sterilization for all those with harmful genes, both for eugenic reasons, to save money on heath care, and to slow the rapid population growth. No wonder they're so deperate to {{Terraform}}.

** Wait, they have population control to reduce numbers and then build robots to make up their low numbers? [[spoiler:No wonder humans are extinct at the end.]]
*** [[JustifiedTrope Robots don't eat or get pregnant]].

* Families in ''TheGiver'' by Lois Lowry are allowed one male and one female child. They can choose how they space the children - it's all adoption, anyway. And if a child dies, then the parents can apply (or maybe are just given) another child of the same gender, [[IndividualityIsIllegal with the same name.]] Yeah, it's a little creepy.
** Not to mention that if any child is "defective" they are ReleasedToElsewhere.

* The movie Fortress (with {{Highlander}} star Christopher Lambert) has the protagonist and his pregnant wife try to leave a dystopian US after it implements a no-births policy to fight increasing population growth.

* In ''[[{{Animorphs}} The Andalite Chronicles]]'', it is mentioned that the Andalites used to have population limits, but that they were repealed because of the war.

* A variation of this based on gender is put out in TheDarkElfTrilogy. (See the ForgottenRealms entry below, as these books are the ones that defined those rules.) The main character (who has since become [[TropeNamer well]] [[DrizztSyndrome known]]) was incidentally, a third son.

* In Mikhail Akhmanov and Christopher Nicholas Gilmore's novel ''Captain French, or the Quest for Paradise'', all colonies impose birth licensing policies once they reach a certain population density. While there are plenty of dystopian governments, even the nice ones do it. There is a group of women, whom the titular space trader nicknames "the Frantic Mothers", whose goal in life seems to be to bear as many children as possible, regardless of who the fathers are. They will do anything to move to a new colony that encourages this sort of behavior, including paying for passage with sex (preferrably with a fertile male, for obvious reasons). Since the protagonist had himself sterilized (completely reversible), so the Frantic Mothers are a little disappointed in him. Since most humans in this universe undergo a procedure that stops aging, it is possible for the same woman to be the progenitor of several colonies (imagine how many babies she can make in several centuries).

* Rather violently inverted in Romania under communist rule. President Nicolae Ceauşescu outlawed abortion, birth control and sex education, and instituted a 'celibacy tax' for women who failed to have children, with the goal of increasing the country's population. It worked, but [[ItGotWorse it didn't end well.]]

** It also appears in ''Time For The Stars''. Each family can have three children. Extra children are taxed and the family doesn't receive government financial help for them. Families can trade for each other's unused child slots or apply for reclassification for more children.
** In ''Podkayne of Mars'' Marsmen apply to the 'Population, Ecology and Genetics' Board to be 'pegged' at a preset number of children, probably because of the necessity of not exceeding the support potential of the semi-terraformed colony. However none of the mentioned families seem to have any trouble getting the number they want. Podkayne's parents are in fact offered seven children but her mother prefers five as 'all she has time for'.

** Which is now [[NiceJobBreakingItHero backfiring]] since, due to cultural values, there are now too many men and not enough women.
*** This is good from the point of view of further reduction of the population as fewer women means fewer children.
*** If women become rarer, they might be more valued, perhaps this will be a good thing (in general, obviously it won't be good for the excess males, they will have to get mail order brides from poorer countries). Of course, they might become more exploited by the sex trade, as well.
**** Maybe not, when you think about what they do to unwanted newborn girls to free up the quota.
** Mostly in rural areas anyway, who generally have the right to have a second child if their first is a daughter anyway. In fact, there are a number of exceptions to the policy, and richer families [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney that can afford to pay the fine]].
** Which is slowly being repealed even as we speak.
** One method being enforced to prevent this is the criminalization of sex-selective abortions, which is a large contributing factor to the gender imbalance.
** Although gender imbalance is a problem and many people think it is against human rights to have a hefty fine against multiple children, the one-child law makes sense. If China's population had continued at the rate it had before the one-child law was installed China would not be able to feed itself and the economic boom in China would not have happened.

* {{Anne McCaffrey}}'s ''Pegasus in Flight'' has limited children laws; the number of children you can have is dependent on social status (and other factors, like who has PsychicPowers). The first protagonist is an example of an illegal extra child, who escaped prosecution simply by talking to the officers. It also has a plot with a child smuggling ring.

* In Vietnam in the 1960's they had a two-child policy. It was stopped in 2003, although they are considering reviving it.

* In Russia, Vladimir Putin's government introduced finiancial reward schemes to encourage people to have more children. It's unclear to what extent it was responsible (probably not very much), but since then Russia's population has stabilised and is once again growing slowly.

* In ''TheCavesOfSteel'', anyone on Earth needs a license to beget a specific limited number of children, in an attempt to control overpopulation.

* In ''TheCavesOfSteel'', both Earth and the Spacer world (former Earth colonies) use this, though for different reasons. On Earth, a license is needed to beget a specific limited number of children, in an attempt to control overpopulation. On the Spacer worlds, children which are genetically imperfect are euthanised, both to eugenically keep the Spacers genetical prodigies and to keep up the universal luxurious lifestyle that stems from very low population.

[[AC:VideoGames]]
* In ''MassEffect'', the Quarian Migrant Fleet has to keep tight control of its population due to the limited resources. Tali mentions that they're currently running a one child policy, but also that the limit changes depending on the population and available resources and that there have even been some periods when the population dropped far enough that positive population control was used.
* The population of the [[spoiler:Kaka clan]] in ''{{BlazBlue}}'' is kept at 100 by the AppliedPhlebotinum that created them. A shortage of males keeps the population count from rising quickly, while parthenogenesis ensures that there will always be at least 100 [[spoiler:Kaka]].
* The Combine from [[HalfLife HalfLife 2]] are more thorough and have a no child per family policy, enforced by suppression fields.

[[AC:WebComics]]
* In ''SchlockMercenary'', Earth (Or rather, the United Nations of Sol) seems to have certain population-control measures set up to prevent undesireable genetic characteristics from spreading to future generations. The only such limit that has been mentioned so far is for the overly moronic - basically, stupid people aren't allowed to have children - but one must assume that other characteristics are likewise limited. Since over-population isn't a problem (plenty of planets to colonize, and space-station colonies to boot), such people can still have children, though - by 'ordering' genetically-designed kids at private companies, getting them grown in tanks, and then raising them... apparently, the Nature-Versus-Nurture debate ended with victory for 'Nature' somewhere along the line.
* A variation in ''DanAndMabsFurryAdventures'', when the number of {{Soul}}s of the Fae is physically limited. When one of them becomes "available", it can be given or auctioned, allowing one to produce offspring. They also sometimes let their soul randomly regenerate, causing, on one occasion, Mab's tea to turn into a baby.
* The BigBad emperor of ''RedAllOver'' orders every third child to be killed upon birth (and by draftees, no less).

[[AC:{{Tabletop RPG}}s]]
* The Drow families in ''ForgottenRealms'' are only allowed two sons at any one time, though they can have as many daughters as they like. They sacrifice the third to Lolth. Unless one of them conveniently dies beforehand. Driz'zt was the third child of his family, but one of his brothers was assassinated shortly after his birth, so they didn't have to sacrifice him. This tradition exists because Lolth herself demands it. She has...issues...with men to put it lightly.

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* The Combine from [[HalfLife HalfLife 2]] subvert this by changing it from X amount of children per family, to NO children per family. They installed suppression fields to keep people from reproducing.

Although negative population growth can also be a problem in RealLife, fictional Population Control is seldom directed toward encouraging or mandating births, either among some groups or the entire population.

** Wait, they have population control to reduce numbers and then build robots to make up their low numbers? [[spoiler: No wonder humans are extinct at the end.]]

* The combine from [[HalfLife HalfLife]] subvert this by changing it from X amount of children per family, to NO children per family. they install supresion fields to keep people from reproducing.

** In the side-book, ''Ethan of Athos'', the all-male planet of Athos gets their children via cloning and partners have to earn child credits through community service.

* In ''MassEffect'', Tali mentions that quarians have a one-child limit (never mind that [[FridgeLogic they've apparently had this law for several centuries without their population declining]]). This may have been {{Retcon}}ned by ''Ascension'', as at least one quarian in that book has a sibling without anyone finding it strange.
** She also mentions that the limit is changed depending on the current population size and available resources.

* ''SeaquestDSV'' had an episode with an island nation where street kids were hunted by death squads as a population control measure.
** Almost definitely based off the Marcos Government[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_children_in_the_Philippines]] in Real Life.
* On one of the worlds the ''{{Sliders}}'' visited, the population was kept low by heavy marketing of birth control (billboards advertised "Birth Control Cola"), and by [=ATMs=] which dispense free money to anyone willing to enter a lottery in which the winner must commit suicide via poison. "Winners" are treated like royalty until their time comes, and the ones the Sliders met considered it an honor.
** This was the result of them paying attention to one Reverend Thomas Malthus, who argued that human population growth would always outpace food production. As a result of their ubiquitous reinforcement of birth control, there are only 500 million people in the whole world.

* Rather violently inverted in Romania under communist rule. President Nicolae Ceauşescu outlawed abortion, birth control and sex education, and instituted a 'celibacy tax' for women who failed to have children, with the goal of increasing the country's population. It worked, but [[ItDidntEndWell it didn't end well]]