Perspectives from Population Institute's New President

Reproductive RightsSocio-Economic Justice

Jun. 22

Great strides have been made in advancing women’s reproductive autonomy, but there is still much to accomplish. Kathleen Mogelgaard, new president of the Population Institute discusses the Institute’s work, including reducing the unmet need for family planning (affecting over 200 million women around the world) and an active effort to permanently repeal the global gag rule (which interferes with provision of important family planning services).

Regarding the recent surge in baby-bust alarmism, Kathleen notes that the lower birth rate in the U.S. represents real progress – women taking advantage of a greater diversity of opportunities, and fewer unintended and fewer teen pregnancies. We all agree the response to dropping birth rates – an emphasis on bumping up birth rates – is demeaning, reducing the role of women to manufacturers of future workers, consumers and taxpayers. Also on the agenda: the history of the “population taboo,” the continuing need to improve overpopulation literacy, and the real possibility of seeing an end to population growth this century.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

Kathleen Mogelgaard 0:00
Access to reproductive health services and family planning is something that is seen as a basic human right in its own right. And we do know that there are over two-hundred million women around the world who have what's called an unmet need for family planning, meaning they do not have access to the information and services that will enable them to freely decide the number, timing, and spacing of their children.

Nandita Bajaj 0:27
Those were the words of Kathleen Mogelgaard at an event called Double Dividends: Population Dynamics and Climate Adaptation at the Wilson Center in 2014.

Dave Gardner 0:37
Some very enlightened perspective from the new president and CEO of the Population Institute on this episode of the Overpopulation Podcast.

Dave Gardner 0:54
Welcome to the Overpopulation Podcast - the podcast that can't wait to be obsolete when the scale of the human enterprise has contracted back to a level that's in sustainable balance with nature. Then we can relax a little. I'm your co-host, Dave Gardner.

Nandita Bajaj 1:09
And I'm Nandita Bajaj, co-host and Executive Director of World Population Balance, an organization that boldly takes a stand on why human overpopulation is devastating our planet, and the many positive ways in which we can help address it.

Dave Gardner 1:24
Learn more about sustainable population at worldpopulationbalance.org. In this episode, we'll visit with the new president and CEO of the Population Institute. But a couple of things first. Checking the inbox, Nandita, I want to share a recent review of the Overpopulation Podcast posted by a listener. Overpopulation is an issue that needs to come to the forefront of recognition ahead of climate change as the latter is a part and a symptom of the former. These podcasts are critical to understanding this most important topic. They're informative, entertaining, thought provoking, and solution-based. All my life, I've been a solutionary. Now I know the term for it. Solutionary - is that something, you must have said something about that in a prior episode.

Nandita Bajaj 2:11
I might have. I almost wonder if this is a review from someone from the Institute for Humane Education because they use the word solutionary in their philosophy of addressing problems. But I'm so thrilled to see this word being normalized.

Dave Gardner 2:29
Yeah, word of the day, I like that word, it's cool. Otherwise, I don't agree with anything they wrote.

Nandita Bajaj 2:34
Yes. Do you want to define the word? I see you have a definition there.

Dave Gardner 2:39
Oh, I think we should offer that, we should, shouldn't we? Because I had to go look it up. So according to the Institute for Humane Education, a solutionary is a person who identifies inhumane, unsustainable, and unjust systems, and then develops solutions that are healthy and equitable for people, animals, and the environment. By the way, did you know that we have forty ratings on Apple podcasts? And the lion's share are a top rating of five stars and then there's a handful of four stars, and that's it. Nothing below four.

Nandita Bajaj 3:09
Well, I'm not surprised at all about that, Dave.

Dave Gardner 3:11
Don't let it go to your head. It's too late. It's already gone to mine. So we really do appreciate the ratings and reviews.

Dave Gardner 3:18
Thank you so much for writing to us. As always, if you have any feedback, or if there's a topic you'd like us to address on the podcast, send an email to podcast@worldpopulationbalance.org.

Dave Gardner 3:18
All right, let's get to the main event. Kathleen Mogelgaard.

Nandita Bajaj 3:32
So Kathleen, we are so excited to have you here. Just a little brief introduction to Kathleen Mogelgaard. She was appointed President and CEO of the Population Institute in May of 2021, just last month as we record this. Kathleen was also the Senior Advisor for Population, Gender, and Climate Change at Population Action International. Prior to that, she was also a policy advisor at Oxfam America. She worked as the Assistant Director of Government Relations at National Audubon Society, a fellow at the Population Reference Bureau. She also participated in negotiations on UN Framework Convention on Climate Change for World Resources Institute. Katnleen has a bachelor's degree in environmental science, a master's degree in public policy and natural resources, and she currently teaches courses in political engagement and advocacy at University of Maryland. Kathleen, we are so excited to have you here with us, and I'm especially thrilled knowing that you and I both began our leadership roles at population-related organizations on May 1st. Welcome.

Kathleen Mogelgaard 4:47
Thank you so much, Nandita, it's really nice to be talking with you.

Nandita Bajaj 4:51
All right, so we're gonna dive right into our questions. The first one. So Kathleen, you wrote a piece published in 2009 in Grist, Population: Off the Radar, Not Off the Map. Its premise was that population was one of the three main drivers of greenhouse gas trajectories. But you found that during informal conversations with country delegates and colleagues at other civil society organizations, that there was near universal agreement that population growth will affect greenhouse gas emissions between then, when you wrote the article, which was 2009, and 2050. However, in your own experience, demographic change did not come up in the context of these discussions. Why do you think it's such an uncomfortable subject?

Kathleen Mogelgaard 5:44
Thank you for that question, Nandita. And wow, you really have done your research, you dug into the archives to find that article from 2009.

Dave Gardner 5:54
We were looking for some dirt, we didn't find any.

Kathleen Mogelgaard 5:59
Well, as you have discovered in your research, this is an issue that I have been working on for quite some time. And I am very interested in how issues of population dynamics, women's reproductive health and rights, and women's status in general, how these things connect to other global concerns. And key among them for me in my terms of my personal passions and interests is the climate change issue. If we dial back even further to when I was an undergraduate and an environmental science major, as you raised in your intro, that was in the 1990s, when issues of climate change were really starting to come into the public consciousness, it was something that I was really interested in and concerned about, in terms of its impacts on people, in terms of its impacts on the natural systems that support us, in terms of its impacts on other species, was just something that I became very, very interested in. And at the same time, I was taking a course in the sociology department that was called Population Problems, which is maybe not a course title that you would see today. But in any case, I started to learn about population issues, about population trends. And some of these things began to click for me, and what I was learning about global environmental trends and some of the concerns there, but also learning about, you know, very rapid population growth around the world and trying to understand how these two things relate to one another. What's also fairly remarkable is at that time, it was 1994 and it was the International Conference on Population and Development. And so in that class that I was taking, called Population Problems, we were learning about this groundbreaking conference that was really helping to raise attention, not only about population trends, but also about the really important reproductive health and rights, the individual rights, that at that time, were not realized for women and families and couples around the world. And that to me, then really started clicking. And I got to thinking about what if we are able to really expand political will and resources to help meet the needs that already exist among people all over the world, to be able to avoid unintended pregnancy, to be able to have the family size that they want. And I understood right away that this is something that would slow population growth, it would be good for people, and wow, it would also be really good for the planet. It would make these big challenges that we have around addressing the climate change crisis around preserving biodiversity, around ensuring food security for people, all of these challenges that we're trying to address on a global scale, I began to believe would be not as difficult if we had slower population growth. That could be achieved by helping people have the ability to plan the number, timing, and spacing of their children. So it's something that, back at that time, became a real passion of mine. And I continued to learn about issues of climate change and got really interested in climate change policy, especially on the international stage, in the way that countries agree to set limits and targets for their emissions reductions, and also how they plan to adapt to the changes that are already coming. And I was concerned that the issues of population, and reproductive health, and rights of people around the globe weren't being incorporated into those conversations, even though they really matter. I know that's kind of a long, historic response to your question.

Nandita Bajaj 9:32
It's it's very good. And I can actually even build on that, that even when you brought up the '94 conference, that represented a transformative victory for reproductive rights and the movement. And to that same point, there was a shift away from a primary focus on population issues and fertility reduction to one that was grounded in the rights of individuals and couples, as you say, to prevent or delay pregnancy, and attain sexual and reproductive health. And like you say it was a shift away from using reproductive rights as a means to an end, which was population reduction or fertility reduction. It was a right in and of itself. That's something, you know, you have mentioned before. And bringing it back to the same point, there was one of the setbacks of that conference was that it became taboo to talk about population, the word kind of got dropped off. And have you noticed kind of unintended consequences of our shift away from talking about population? Is that what you were referring to in that Grist piece, was the discomfort people have in talking about population?

Kathleen Mogelgaard 10:49
Yeah, that's a really interesting way to think about it, Nandita. I think, the discomfort that people have in talking about population, I think there are some good reasons for that. There is a fraught history in the population movement that we need to always be cognizant of, that we always need to acknowledge, that there have been and there continue to be coercive measures around the world that are unacceptable. That if we really want to hold up the rights of people, that we have to be firm in our condemnation of population control policies, of efforts that attempt to have top-down measures in terms of coercing people to control their fertility choices. So I think we always need to be cognizant of that. And we need to recognize that there has been a lot of damage done and a lot of people's individual rights violated. And so when we move forward in talking about population issues, we cannot pretend like that never happened. But at the same time, we don't want to pretend that population dynamics don't matter. So it is our task to be able to talk about population dynamics and raise the importance that they hold, that population dynamics hold, for issues like climate change, or poverty alleviation, or food security. All of the other kinds of Sustainable Development Goals that we're all in agreement are important to achieve. And be able to talk about the way that population dynamics connect to those issues, and really to be able to offer solutions for addressing the challenging dimensions of population growth by highlighting and upholding the rights of individuals around the world. I know that all three of us in this podcast have a deep understanding of the ongoing needs among women and couples and families around the world that continue to be unmet, that unintended pregnancy rates around the world remain unacceptably high, maternal mortality, infant mortality, there are all kinds of trends that are actually heading in the wrong direction in a lot of places.

Nandita Bajaj 13:10
Yeah.

Kathleen Mogelgaard 13:11
And in order to achieve true reproductive freedom, reproductive agency and autonomy for people around the world, there's a lot that can and should be done. And I believe that when we're able to connect these issues to other global concerns, we can build a stronger base of support for meeting the needs that continue to exist for too many women and families around the world.

Dave Gardner 13:35
I think it's safe to say that we're all trying to get population dynamics on the radar. It's been twelve years since you wrote that piece. Do you think we've made some progress? Is it a little more comfortable to talk about today?

Kathleen Mogelgaard 13:49
I would say it's a lot more comfortable. When I wrote that piece in 2009 and I was participating in the, kind of the watershed climate change negotiations in Copenhagen, and it was very difficult to raise these kinds of issues with any of the constituencies that were participating in those negotiations. And for good reason. I think for anyone who has followed international climate change negotiations over the years, the Copenhagen negotiations were particularly fraught with the climate justice issue. And simply the effort to get industrialized countries to take on the larger commitments, as the ones who were most deeply responsible for the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, was very challenging. So to then interject another really sensitive issue into that kind of dialogue was just not welcome at that time because there was so much that was happening between low income countries and higher income countries to try to get the higher income countries to do the right thing and to take responsibility for their contribution to creating the problem in the first place. So what I have seen since then, though, in the way that the climate change negotiations have evolved over time, is there's greater recognition of that climate justice issue. We certainly have a long way to go in getting industrialized countries to really step up their commitments for both climate change mitigation and providing support for climate change adaptation, where climate change impacts are hitting people first and worst around the world. But at the same time, there is a broader recognition of the many factors that are at play in contributing to the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and also what we need to do to be able to adapt to the kinds of climate changes that are already baked into the system. There's greater recognition of the important gender dimensions of climate change impacts, and I think that has provided a real opening to talk about the resilience of people. And certainly when you have a conversation about the resilience of people, something that is really critical to that is whether people have reproductive autonomy in their own lives, and the ways in which meeting needs for family planning and reproductive health is something that creates healthier people, healthier families, stronger communities. And I've seen a great deal of more openness to looking at that holistic aspect of resilience that includes the empowerment of women on multiple dimensions, including their reproductive freedom. So I'm pleased that we have made progress in that arena. And I believe that there are a lot of opportunities for further collaboration with those who are working in the climate movement to really build these kinds of holistic solutions that are based in human rights, and that bring us closer to greater sustainability and health and wellbeing of people and the planet.

Dave Gardner 16:51
That's a great progress report. Yet, just last month, you didn't waste any time when you became President of the Population Institute. Two days later, Newsweek published your commentary titled, Don't Panic About Slower Population Growth. Tell us a little bit about that. Why did you feel it was important to get that out?

Kathleen Mogelgaard 17:08
Well, when the results of the US Census were first released, I'm sure you noticed, as I did, that, a lot of the coverage of the census results was somewhat alarmist.

Dave Gardner 17:20
Just a little.

Kathleen Mogelgaard 17:25
This was frustrating to me, as someone who has spent a couple of decades talking about the ways that population growth presents challenges for some of the societal goals that we are trying to achieve, and the way that addressing reproductive health needs is something that is a really important part of this picture, and celebrating the fact that we can reduce unintended pregnancy and create a whole new worlds for people, worlds of opportunity, that really create healthier, happier lives for people. To see this kind of hand wringing and alarmism about slower population growth and what that means, I mean, a lot of the hand wringing was because economists, some economists, tend to worry that if there is slower population growth, that's going to affect economic growth, and then oh my gosh, what are we going to do? To me, it's the extension of that argument is that somehow population would have to grow forever?

Dave Gardner 18:24
Apparently.

Kathleen Mogelgaard 18:25
For there to be ongoing economic growth. And it was kind of concerning to me that so much of the coverage was around this concern, that slower population growth is something that we need to worry about. And even characterizing slower population growth in the United States is something that might be a national security threat. It was kind of mind blowing to me that this was a mindset for some people. So I wanted to put a different narrative out there that pointed towards the ways in which slower population growth can be seen as a reflection of progress-

Nandita Bajaj 19:01
Right.

Kathleen Mogelgaard 19:02
In a lot of ways, that in the United States, a slower population growth rate actually reflects the fact that women around the country are delaying childbearing by their own choosing to pursue an education or to engage in professional opportunities that would be difficult for them if they had children earlier in life. It's also a reflection of dramatic drop in adolescent pregnancy rates, which is something that I think we can all celebrate. The fact that if adolescents are able to avoid unintended pregnancy that puts them on a path toward life that is something that has a whole lot of opportunities built into it.

Dave Gardner 19:45
You think even the economist would be pulled in on that one?

Kathleen Mogelgaard 19:50
Well, it's funny, I think I have a number of friends and colleagues who are economists, but I like to tease them about it being the dismal science. And a lot of the time, and I think what we saw reflected in these kinds of commentaries is that that is a preoccupation with numbers.

Nandita Bajaj 20:08
Yeah.

Kathleen Mogelgaard 20:08
The numbers of people, numbers that reflect our GDP, and that we don't always fully embrace the fact that behind those numbers are people and people's lives and the way that we live our lives. So I really wanted to draw attention to the fact that a slower population growth rate in the United States, first of all, it's inevitable that at some point, our population is going to slow down, our population growth rate is going to slow down. And that it is something again, this is a piece of population dynamics that we need to be aware of, that we need to understand how that connects to other aspects of our lives in our society and what that means, and that by increasing that understanding, we can plan and we can prepare and we can create lives, we can create social systems that are effective for our societal goals. So having an understanding of what slower population growth means for changing age structure in the United States, or what it means in terms of people in the older age cohorts, the proportion of the population that is working age and the proportion of the population that is young, like, we need to be working with demographers who understand how that shifting age structure works, and what that means for our social security systems, what that means for what we need to create from a policy perspective for eldercare in this country, what it means for how we support a productive labor force. I didn't read very much in the coverage of the census results that talked about it's not only units of labor, the population growth creates more units of labor in the labor force, but we need to also think about the productivity of those units of labor in the labor force. And of course, we don't have full employment of our current working age population right now. And what are the things that we could be doing to encourage greater productivity of the working age population that we have right now, in terms of job training, in terms of creating higher quality jobs that are better at retaining productive employees? You know, what are the kinds of things, especially as we're thinking about our COVID relief packages, how do we support a thriving and productive workforce with the numbers of workers that we have right now and how that working age population is likely to shift in size over time.

Dave Gardner 22:36
There seem to be, among the people who are expressing this hysteria about the slowing birth rate, there's this lack of understanding that that really is the only way that there can be a beautiful future for the next generation and the generation after that. That it's something to be celebrated, and so thanks for writing about the progress that that really represents. I wonder, do you think that this baby bust alarmism is going to be you know, one of the big obstacles in our path for the next, who knows how many years? Those of us who really want to somehow get back to a sustainable population level, is that alarmism over the baby bust gonna be a big factor in our lives?

Kathleen Mogelgaard 23:15
I think there will continue to be this kind of alarmism. So we as a community should continue to prepare ourselves for how we engage with people in conversation about this alarmism, because as we were just saying, population growth is slowing around the world and will likely slow according to UN demographers. We might even see an end to population growth this century. So it is coming.

Nandita Bajaj 23:42
We might go extinct!

Kathleen Mogelgaard 23:44
We we might, who knows what kinds of challenges we will see over the course of this century that connect to ongoing, rapid population growth in some parts of the world and the challenges that that poses. But I think that alarmism about the baby bust, I'm not sure that it's going to change anything about people's reproductive choices. Some of the coverage that I saw from demographers about the baby bust that was a little more thoughtful has really raised the point that this kind of alarmism actually opens up opportunities for conversation about how we really take care of people in the population that we have right now. So it's opening up conversations about the challenges for working mothers and the high costs of child care, and the problematic family-friendly, or I should say the lack of family-friendly work policies in this country. You know, there are a number of factors that make the cost of childbearing really untenable for many families in the United States. And that's probably something that we should be paying more attention to. Whether addressing those would result in a bump up in fertility, I'm not sure. And I think some of the work that I have read by different demographers suggest that we are not likely to change a lot about population growth through these kinds of policies that would ease the burden on parent - working parents in particular in this country. But it does give us an opportunity to have those conversations and to think about how we can create policies that make life easier and happier and healthier for the population that we have right now.

Nandita Bajaj 25:41
Yeah, there seems to be such a simplistic way of approaching this issue too. When you see the baby bust alarmism pieces, as you say, there is an emphasis on just bumping up the birth rates. But there does not seem to be a larger conversation about the complexity of the, like you say, the population we're currently working with, the level of employment or unemployment, lack of elderly care, lack of childcare or family-centered policies, there seems to be a lack of that complexity when looking at how to adapt to the lowering birth rates. But rather there's this knee jerk reaction to, "We need to do this to get our numbers up, to get our GDP up." It is just so simplistic. And I, I even think it's so demeaning to reduce the function of people to increasing our taxpayer base, and increasing fertility, and reducing basically women's function to reproduction so we can have more people.

Dave Gardner 26:44
Yeah.

Nandita Bajaj 26:45
So I appreciate, you know, the complexity that you're bringing in and instead of worrying about our falling birth rates, wouldn't it be great to put our attention on bringing in policies that then lead to better health, better equality, better, you know, upholding of rights for people who are already here. But that moves away from this dichotomous kind of thinking that our culture is drawn to - it's this or that rather than, you know, looking at the gray.

Dave Gardner 27:18
By the way, we'll include links in the show notes to the pieces that you've written and anything else of note that we talked about today.

Nandita Bajaj 27:24
Kathleen, I wanted to move on to some of the work that you did with the United Nations Population Fund. You were the lead researcher and writer for the UNPF's 2019 UNFPA State of the World Population Report, Unfinished Business: the pursuit of rights and choices for all. And we had a couple of questions specifically to that report. The first one being that you reported that UNFPA and its many partners have issued a clarion call for three zeros by 2030. There should be no unmet need for contraception, something you've talked about, no preventable maternal deaths, and no violence or harmful practices against women and girls. How do you think we are doing on moving towards those zeros?

Kathleen Mogelgaard 28:16
That is a really good question. There's been remarkable progress made in all three of those areas over the past fifty years, you know that UNFPA State of World Population Report was the 50th anniversary of the United Nations Population Fund and the work that they do around the world to raise the profile of population issues, but even more critically, to address these three issue areas that you've just talked about - addressing needs for reproductive health and family planning among people around the world, bringing an end to maternal death around the world, and ending harmful practices against women and girls. These are things that are intimately connected to population dynamics, and of course, are really important and vital rights in and of themselves for the health and well being of people. And there has been pretty dramatic progress in all three areas, but there remains a lot yet to be done. And we cannot forget that there are still many places where we need to reach the last mile in meeting these needs for women and families around the world. One of the issues that we work on quite a bit at the Population Institute is to remind people that there continues to be a significant unmet need for family planning services among women around the world. And you are considered to have an unmet need for family planning if you are sexually active and you do not want to become pregnant, now or in the next two years, but you're not using a modern method of family planning. So you are at high risk for unintended pregnancy. And we know that there are more than two hundred million women around the world who continue to have this unmet need for family planning. So that means that they are at risk for unintended pregnancy, they are at risk for maternal mortality - just is a really unfortunate position for women around the world to be in. And so we feel it's really important to continue to draw attention to the fact that there are women around the world who have an expressed need for the ability to avoid unintended pregnancy, and yet there are barriers that still exist that prevent them from being able to exercise that kind of reproductive autonomy and agency in their own lives. So we continue to draw attention to that fact. And we do advocacy with the US Congress and with the administration to really provide significant amounts of funding as part of the United States foreign assistance to address those unmet needs for women and families around the world. We still have a long way to go in contributing what would be considered the United States' fair share in addressing those needs. We have a much friendlier administration at the moment when it comes to providing that kind of assistance, and we have better prospects in Congress. So we are working very hard to draw attention to those issues to ensure greater funding for those kinds of programs. And critically, to ensure that there are fewer restrictions on the funding that goes for those programs. I'm sure you know, and probably many of your listeners are familiar with the global gag rule.

Nandita Bajaj 31:52
Yeah.

Kathleen Mogelgaard 31:52
Which is a policy that has been attached to US family planning assistance that goes to countries around the world that says that any of this assistance that comes from the United States, that's going to foreign nongovernmental organizations, can only go to organizations that don't use their own funds for counseling on abortion, or abortion referrals, or engaging with their governments in conversations about abortion in their own countries. This has really had dramatic consequences where organizations have had to make really difficult choices between choosing much needed funding to keep their health clinics running, or if they are going to accept that funding, then they have to change the kinds of services that they deliver and not be able to offer comprehensive care to the populations that they serve. When that policy is in place, many clinics close and it leaves women and whole communities without reproductive health care, but sometimes even without health care at all, because those are organizations that many of them offer comprehensive health care for communities in some of the hardest to reach areas around the world. So next week, we're actually participating in a big week of action on Capitol Hill with Congress to try to have a permanent repeal of the global gag rule, so that US International assistance for voluntary family planning programs will be free of this restriction. And organizations and countries around the world will be able to accept that funding, which they use for vital reproductive health and family planning services, and not have to be restricted in the other things that they do in terms of engaging with the populations that they serve, and engaging talking with their governments about abortion care or other kinds of vital needs for women and families.

Dave Gardner 33:42
Is that international aid a key part of your work at the Population Institute?

Kathleen Mogelgaard 33:46
It is. We do a lot of, as I said, a lot of education and advocacy around international family planning assistance and other reproductive health programs as part of the United States foreign assistance programs. And we also focus domestically on some really key reproductive health and rights issues in the United States, and seek to draw attention to attacks on reproductive freedom and to hold up examples of really powerful and important rights that continue to support reproductive freedom and the autonomy of women and people domestically and around the world.

Dave Gardner 34:24
Back to the 2019 report that you were the lead writer on. You wrote shrinking populations in some countries have opened the door to new forms of population policies aimed at pushing people to have children, while in other places, fears about population growth have reemerged. And this was before the latest surge of baby bust alarmism. But do you think this is crazy? I mean, it seems to me like we should have a better educated world that really understands the threat, the fact that we're really in an overpopulation crisis. So it just blows my mind that we've got these two opposite reactions going on out there.

Kathleen Mogelgaard 35:00
Yeah, that's an interesting question, Dave. And I think what it points to is that population dynamics, we often look at them on a global scale, or even a national scale, but at the end of the day, the population dynamics are very much impacting our day to day lives in the locales where we live. And the fact that in some locations, there may be shrinking, as we were talking about earlier, the potential for a shrinking labor force and aging populations sets off these concerns about what those changes mean, for for local economies, while in other places, of course, rapid population growth means that there's too many people and not enough jobs. So I think when this happens, it's been interesting to see conversations around being able to even out the population around the world, right? And have flows of migration, where we have an excess of working age population in one place and a shortage of working age population in another place. Are there solutions that can help to meet me in both places? Of course, those conversations are often very fraught, as well, I feel like I've been saying fraught a lot in this conversation. I guess my point here is that population dynamics look very different in different parts of the world, and people tend to feel that locally without always understanding the larger global trends that are at play.

Nandita Bajaj 36:42
Yeah.

Dave Gardner 36:42
Very diplomatic answer.

Nandita Bajaj 36:44
Yes.

Kathleen Mogelgaard 36:45
Were you looking for something a little different?

Dave Gardner 36:47
No, no, I kind of expected, I mean, you know, if - you're not where you are without having kind of figured out how to say it well and understand it. You know, I'm a little bit more of a bull in a china closet. And I think this is the century where everybody just sort of needs to get used to the idea that we're gonna see the end of population growth, and we need to build a economy and a society that works with a contracting population.

Nandita Bajaj 36:51
There was something that you said, Kathleen, for the previous question that I found to be so heartening. I did not know that you were involved in trying to permanently repeal the global gag rule. That's, that's really exciting. Because the the trend has been that with the changeover of administration every four to eight years, we are kind of playing a tennis match with the gag rule, with people's lives depending on what the administration decides. Whether we put it in, we repeal, and there you have, you know, millions of people are depending on that kind of funding for their lives. And so, you know, number one, there's so much wrong with the rule itself given that, you know, we as a wealthy country, have the ability to dictate the terms and project and impose our own values on how people might exercise their most basic human rights, you know, with the the gag rule. And so congratulations on the work that you're doing on that front, and I hope that it is successful in terms of a permanent repeal.

Kathleen Mogelgaard 38:23
Thank you, Nandita. And, you know, I think that you're absolutely right. The more that I have learned about the global gag rule, and the more that my excellent colleagues at the Population Institute have worked very hard to raise attention to this issue. I think in this particular moment, we are recognizing anew the kind of imperialism and neo-colonial spirit that is actually embedded in something like the global gag rule.

Nandita Bajaj 38:52
Yeah.

Kathleen Mogelgaard 38:52
That is offering this kind of assistance, but with really heavy strings attached, that reflect the values of a handful of legislators in our Congress who somehow are so far removed from the lived lives of women and families around the world who bear the consequences of their decisions around this, this rule that is really, I think, retains these vestiges of imperialism. And it's something that I really hope that more and more people around the country will become aware of and be able to make their voices heard with their representatives in Congress, because it really is members of Congress who have the levers of power on this global gag rule. And if we could pass a permanent repeal, that would take the power out of the hands of the whims of whichever president happens to be elected. And as you've said, It has been a tennis match with Republican presidents on their first or second day of office putting this policy back in the place with a stroke of their pen, and then a Democratic president will come in and remove the policy was a stroke of the pen. But of course, as you're saying, that's playing with people's lives, that is making it really difficult for just health systems to become established and build their own capacities and have that kind of consistency - to have this jerking around of their funding every four to eight years has been really unfortunate and damaging for health and wellbeing of people around the world.

Nandita Bajaj 40:23
Yeah. And do you find that funding is one of the main barriers? If we were to have, you know, an unlimited supply of contraceptive availability and family planning services, would that help alleviate the pressures?

Kathleen Mogelgaard 40:40
Absolutely, funding is a huge piece of being able to reach the last mile of women and families around the world who have this unmet need. But one of the issues that we dove into in that 2019 State of the World Population Report for the United Nations Population Fund, is that availability in and of itself doesn't always mean accessibility. And so, in addition to simply having the commodities, the contraceptive supplies, you know, available and in communities, there are also really a lot of important things that need to be considered, along with those supplies in terms of making those actually accessible to women and young people around the world. So there are a lot of barriers that are in place, not only cost and availability, but other factors, misunderstanding about side effects, for example. And so there's a need for really good counseling-

Nandita Bajaj 41:39
Right.

Kathleen Mogelgaard 41:40
Services. There are a lot of issues around the status of women that are important here too, where some women feel that they cannot use contraceptives if their spouse, if their husband does not approve, if their mother-in-law does not approve. And so this isn't anything that can be solved overnight, certainly, but having an understanding of the ways in which the status of women and girls comes into play here is also really, really key. And so when we're talking about reproductive health and family planning services, we also draw attention to the need to elevate the status of women and girls around the world. And that they're really important initiatives around girls education, around improving the legal frameworks for women, that improve their status in places around the world - that is really key in this conversation as well.

Nandita Bajaj 42:31
That's probably where some of your background in sociology really comes in handy, because you're you're not simply talking about, you know, funds and numbers and services, you really are talking about changing cultural norms, allowing people to understand the benefits of these reproductive services. I love the work your sister organization, Population Media Center does around really helping to challenge some of the cultural norms that tend to be oppressive and based in, you know, very old times. So, I love that intersection of culture, but also accessibility in helping to really uphold these values and rights for people around the world. I wanted to find out whether you think the 1994 conference had an impact, because we talked about how there was a move away from speaking about overpopulation. It became a taboo, just from my, you know, brief research. It sounds like there was an impact in terms of funding that was being provided to population-related initiatives, because the move away from talking about population more towards reproductive health ended up negatively impacting the social justice movement itself. Is that true from your understanding? Were there other unintended consequences of moving away from the population issue?

Kathleen Mogelgaard 44:08
Nandita, I'm sorry, I don't think I fully understand your question. Are you linking population organizations or population efforts with with social justice efforts? So you raised social justice, but I wasn't sure exactly how that was coming through in the question.

Nandita Bajaj 44:25
I think social by social justice, I mean, reproductive justice, and the '94 conference was actually a big pivotal moment to bringing reproductive rights to the forefront and not as a means to population control but as a human right in and of itself, which I think was an excellent victory. But do you think that anything was lost in terms of speaking about the overpopulation issue? It comes up a lot in my research that it it was a pivotal conference that moved the emphasis maybe in an unfair manner away from talking about population growth, did it have unintended consequences?

Kathleen Mogelgaard 45:08
Well, you know, it's hard for me to know what the intended what the intentions were around it. But certainly we did see a shift in discourse at that time from talking about population and numbers, kind of the numbers game, to talking about health and rights of individuals and meeting individual needs. I feel that was appropriate, that we really need to center the health and rights of individuals. And we need to always emphasize that meeting reproductive health needs of people is a worthy goal in and of itself.

Nandita Bajaj 45:44
Yeah.

Kathleen Mogelgaard 45:45
I think it has taken our community some time to really adopt that central message and be able to then talk about all of the other really beneficial ripple effects that can come from that centering of reproductive rights. I feel like we're making good progress there. I think sometimes there are, remain these challenges where an overemphasis on the numbers can really turn off people who have been in the reproductive justice and reproductive freedom fight for a long time. They understandably see that focus on numbers as something that is a potential threat to rights. So I feel like the pendulum is swinging here.

Nandita Bajaj 46:32
Yes, right.

Kathleen Mogelgaard 46:32
And we kind of are finding our way. I really believe that there are very few people or organizations out there that are pushing the population control agenda.

Nandita Bajaj 46:44
Yeah.

Kathleen Mogelgaard 46:44
But we cannot deny that there is this history.

Nandita Bajaj 46:48
Yeah.

Kathleen Mogelgaard 46:48
That is incredibly hurtful, damaging, and we need to understand that that is very real.

Nandita Bajaj 46:57
Yeah.

Kathleen Mogelgaard 46:57
Very real and represents a threat. So even terms like overpopulation can be seen as very off putting for those who are deeply embedded in the rights movement.

Nandita Bajaj 47:09
Right.

Kathleen Mogelgaard 47:10
So it's interesting to me, because working as I have over the years in communities other than the reproductive rights community, and I sometimes have worked with folks who are in really working hard on biodiversity conservation, or folks who are in the in the climate change movement, or folks who are really concerned about other aspects of natural resource management. And they naturally understand that growing population pressure is a challenge for the things that they are trying to do. And they may even understand that part of a response to population pressure is ensuring greater rights for people and building the status of women. But they will still use a term like population control, because they don't have an understanding of the baggage that's there and how that is something that is, so I'm going to say it again, something that is so fraught, and for people who have had their rights denied, or people who have worked very hard to protect and defend rights, even having someone who is well intentioned say something like overpopulation or population control without knowing what that might signal, you know, that has made working across these sectors challenging. But I do think that there are lots of opportunities for us. And I think we as the Population Institute, you as World Population Balance, we play a really important role in being able to bridge these communities and translate and do that kind of education all around, and bringing these different sectors together, to work together. Because we are going to be stronger together, and I believe we are all committed to these ideas of rights and improving the health and wellbeing of people, and having that ancillary effect of improving the health and wellbeing of the planet.

Dave Gardner 48:58
Let me offer my take on this and feel free to slap me around if you think I'm way off and got it wrong, Kathleen, but my thinking is that after 1994 as this more appropriate emphasis on reproductive autonomy came into play that people were discouraged from putting on the list of benefits, you know, reduced fertility and addressing population growth or overpopulation. You know, you were discouraged. People didn't feel like they could put that on the list. You almost, if that was something that was important to you, you almost had to use the code language of just empowering women and girls, you know. And people would say that - they would say, "Why don't you just talk about empowering women and girls and educating girls? That doesn't raise any red flags. Why do you have to raise a red flag by mentioning that we have a population challenge here too?" And I think the result of that, after a decade or two of that, is that we have a lot of people around the world who aren't aware that you know, let's face it, the world is overpopulated. We have outgrown the planet and people are unaware of it because we haven't been willing to talk about it. That's my take.

Kathleen Mogelgaard 49:58
Is that your experience, Dave, that you've wanted to put population issues on the list and you have gotten pushback from people saying, "Don't even put population on the list. Let's just focus on education for girls and empowerment for women?"

Dave Gardner 50:11
Yeah, and I wouldn't say I've gotten so much of that personally. But I've certainly seen that in the, in the dialogue out there.

Kathleen Mogelgaard 50:17
That's interesting. And so you feel that an unintended consequence of that is that there's just a lack of awareness? You know, it's interesting. For me, I feel like there's the lack of awareness can be broken down into a couple of different categories. And understanding where the awareness is lacking, I think will help us better design our outreach and education in ways that really targets that lack of awareness. And I think, you know, in my experience working with the climate change community, for example, I remember at the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Negotiations, one thing that we did, because we felt there was this lack of awareness, was to create a data sheet. Kind of like the wall charts, I don't know if you're familiar with the Population Reference Bureau does these great wall charts of-

Dave Gardner 51:03
Yeah, they're great.

Kathleen Mogelgaard 51:04
Demographic and health Indicators for countries around the world, right? And it's a really great snapshot to kind of get a quick education on on population trends and reproductive health indicators, and then they always choose a few other indicators to put in the wall chart so that we can see kind of the diversity around the world and where our greatest needs are and where progress is being made, and that kind of thing. So we made a wall chart, this was with PAI at the time, we made a wall chart that kind of looked at different kinds of climate change indicators, as well as some population and reproductive health indicators, including some population projections, because so much of the dialogue within the climate change community at that time was looking at goals and targets for greenhouse gas reductions by 2050, or by the end of the century. So we thought it would be useful to kind of do this, kind of, getting the data out there - a way to open some conversations. And that is because I perceived that there was often just kind of a lack of awareness of population growth trends in any given place. And since they were talking so much about 2050, we wanted to be able to say, "Okay, let's understand how some of these other population dynamics are perhaps playing out into between now and 2050 and beyond, so we can incorporate that knowledge, incorporate these considerations into the kinds of solutions that we're talking about to address climate change into the future." I think we were right, that when we had those conversations with people who dropped by our booth, there were a number of people who were kind of shocked to understand what reproductive health indicators were in their own countries, what the range of population projections were for the future of their own countries. And it opened up some really important conversations in that space. So I think that's one area of a lack of awareness, is really not even understanding population growth trends, or population projections, or reproductive health indicators and what they tell us. So that is a big part of what we do with the Population Institute, is try to draw attention to the basics of population dynamics, and looking at the future, and understanding what projections mean, and understanding kind of the assumptions that underlie different population projections for the future. Then there's another kind of lack of awareness, which is, I think maybe there are some in other communities who have an awareness of population dynamics or population growth trends, but they think that in order to do something about those trends, requires some kind of population control. Some kind of really harmful policy that they've heard about in other places. Like we can't do a population control policy, we can't have a one-child policy, we can't have a two-child policy that tramples all over humanity. So this is coming from a very good place. There's an understanding that population control policies are bad, and we can't do them. But the lack of awareness or understanding there, I think, is this concept of there being demand among the world's women for reproductive health and family planning services that is currently unmet.

Nandita Bajaj 51:06
Right.

Kathleen Mogelgaard 52:00
And, you know, it's it's not that difficult to mobilize political will to get the financial resources, even though as we were talking about earlier, there are these challenging social norms that this is embedded in. But still, there is a lot of need that exists out there that we have not yet addressed in terms of making services and supplies available to the people who want them. So that is another really important part of the education and awareness raising that we can be doing in our own efforts. And I think, Dave, sorry, again, another long-winded answer, but circling back to your original question is that there is a lack of awareness for whatever reason. And it could be that population issues kind of faded into the background as the rights issues came more to the foreground. It could be because we are becoming so, I mean, we've always lived in silos, right? And I think we're getting deeper and deeper into our own silos, whether you work on climate change, or whether you work on food security, or whether you work on reproductive rights, or poverty issues or justice issues - that it's sometimes difficult to work across those silos and to have an understanding of the bigger holistic picture. But I do think that we are moving into this really exciting time where we're understanding intersectionality and we're realizing that we need to have a greater awareness of how different issues are connected one to the other, and really beginning to value an integrated approach to the way we look at society's challenges. So I feel like we're on the cusp of a really exciting time. And yeah, I just, I feel like, Nandita, I'm excited for you and I to be stepping into these leadership roles at this really exciting time and to be working on an issue that is so critical and so valuable to people's lives and to the health and wellbeing of the planet. And that especially as marginalized communities are able to really raise their voices in ways we haven't seen before to be working on these issues and bringing the centrality of people's dignity and rights, inclusion and justice to the center of these conversations, I think is just incredibly exciting. And I'm glad we're on this journey together.

Nandita Bajaj 56:35
So well said.

Dave Gardner 56:37
You know, I often have said that Bill Ryerson is the smartest man on the planet about population. But I think you may be giving him a run for his money.

Kathleen Mogelgaard 56:47
Oh, my gosh, I'm not sure about that, Dave. You know, I've known Bill for a long time, and he is one of the people that I would put on the list of really inspiring voices out there who have really opened my mindset and really given me a lot of hope. For those of us who work on these kinds of issues, especially if you work on this and climate change and food security and harmful practices, and you know, it just, it can be really, really hard. And I hope that we're all practicing some good self-care in these moments too, but to have voices like Bill's, and like Bob Walker, who was the President at the Population Institute before me, and so many others out there who have paved the way for us and given us hope in being able to feel like there are really effective strategies out there that have expanded the rights and wellbeing of people, and have had all of these tremendous ripple effects across other things that we care about, too. I'm delighted that the Population Media Center is our sister organization, and that we are doing this work together.

Nandita Bajaj 57:57
I just feel this upswing of energy, and excitement in hearing you speak for the last few minutes. I definitely feel the same bubbling of hope and excitement to be coming into this movement at this time. Same kind of gratitude for all the work that's gone before me, you know, with World Population Balance in setting the stage. And, you know, same as you, Kathleen, I'm coming from this background of intersectionality of human rights and animal protection and environmental restoration. And it's such a great approach to bring into the population movement to tie it all back together to the wellbeing for everyone. And I'm so thrilled that they have found a gem in you and at the Population Institute, and I'm excited to be carrying on this partnership forward with you. So, so wonderful to have you.

Kathleen Mogelgaard 58:57
Thank you, Nandita. That's very kind of you to say that. And I will be very eager to follow the progress of World Population Balance as you continue your important work. And I look forward to continuing these conversations as we are on our our individual and collective journeys.

Dave Gardner 59:14
Kathleen, are there any top priorities you have for the Population Institute that haven't come up?

Kathleen Mogelgaard 59:18
You know, one issue that we haven't touched on directly that I believe Nandita and I were talking about a little bit earlier in our prior conversation, that I think is another one of these issues that is critically important, because it helps us get beyond the numbers, whether it's numbers of people or indicators of reproductive health, is this whole idea of comprehensive sexuality education, and what that means for people's lives, what that means in particular, I mean, I have a particular interest in the health and status of women and girls and our ability to have bodily autonomy, our ability to have agency in our lives. And the whole concept of comprehensive sexuality education, I think is something that is so critical to advancing those kinds of issues for women and girls in the United States, where we do not have a very good track record of sexuality education, let alone comprehensive sexuality education that really embraces concepts of bodily autonomy and people's feelings and people's understanding of their own sexuality. All of these things, I think, are very much embedded in a sexual and reproductive health and rights framework. And I feel like we're moving into an exciting time in talking about those issues in the United States, and also around the world in the various forms that comprehensive sexuality education can and should be taking in places around the world. So that's an area that the Population Institute has worked on a little bit, and that I think will be growing in the future. And of course, we're also trying to draw attention to places around the world where trends are coming together in important ways and where sometimes issues of population dynamics and the health and rights of women and girls are central to those kinds of issues, but are often not centralized in the conversations around those issues. So I'm thinking in particular about the Sahel in Africa, where we're seeing lots of concerns around growing security threats. And there is some conversation about youth bulges, and how that connects to growing potential for conflict in the region. But we really also want to be able to include in that conversation issues around the status of women and the education of girls, and how these things connect to population dynamics. And if we're thinking about long-term issues in the region that will ensure greater stability and wellbeing, issues of women and girls need to be a part of that conversation. So that's an area that we're interested in. Similarly, there's been a lot of attention on Central America and the Northern Triangle in recent years in terms of out migration from the region and what that means. Again, another one of those fraught issues. But we're working with partners in the region who are doing a lot of work in Indigenous communities in Northern Triangle countries. They're doing a lot of work to ensure access to reproductive health and family planning services for women and girls in the region. And of course, these are issues that are really intimately linked to the root causes of migration. When you've got climate change impacts and food insecurity concerns and growing populations, this is a mix of things that we really need to be thinking of as a holistic package. So centering conversations around the health and rights of women and girls in the region, and the ways in which they've been marginalized and left behind is something that we really want to be able to do, too. So these are just a handful of the things that we are doing at the Population Institute to really draw attention to issues that are important, but either misunderstood or just haven't gotten the kind of attention that they really should be getting in this moment.

Dave Gardner 1:03:14
Well, Kathleen Mogelgaard, President and CEO of the Population Institute, thank you so much for enlightening us for the past hour.

Kathleen Mogelgaard 1:03:21
It has been so nice talking with both of you, Nandita and Dave, I want to thank you for taking this time and for posing some really interesting questions. I have learned a lot from my conversation with you and I look forward to continuing our dialogue.

Nandita Bajaj 1:03:35
Likewise.

Dave Gardner 1:03:36
Anytime, we'll be glad to put you in the hot seat anytime. You did well.

Kathleen Mogelgaard 1:03:41
Thank you.

Nandita Bajaj 1:03:43
We usually close with an inspirational quote, and for this podcast episode, I actually would like to play a clip.

Orna Donath 1:03:55
We are being told that there is only one way that any woman, because she's a woman, should follow and that is motherhood. And our imagination is being occupied by this only allegedly one road. And we don't even want to talk about the possibilities that women might regret it. We don't want to talk about the possibilities that women may not be mothers and will not regret it. We just talked about this one row that is divided to two - women who will not be mothers will surely regret, mothers never regret. And in this book, I'm trying to sketch a more complex roadmaps of flesh and blood lives of women. We exist. All of us.

Dave Gardner 1:04:48
Wow, that's very cool.

Nandita Bajaj 1:04:49
Yeah, that was Orna Donath. She is an Israeli sociologist and a writer of the book Regretting Motherhood, which is where this clip was taken out of. The book was translated into fourteen languages in which she discusses the pressure that is placed on women whose choices are seen as a threat to the status quo. She's actually going to be one of the four brilliant panelists for our upcoming webinar on July 7th, called Pronatalism and Overpopulation: Challenging the Social Pressures to Procreate. And the premise of the event is that pronatalism, which as she spoke about in her clip, the social bias towards having children, is at the heart of the overpopulation issue. So as a lead up to the World Population Day, which is on July 11th, we are excited to bring together four women from different parts of the world. We've got Dr. Amrita Nandy from India, Laura Carroll from the US, Elisabeth Dimitras from Greece, and Orna Donath from Israel. They will be discussing why we have to address the oppressive and pervasive pronatalist forces in our society if we want to truly address overpopulation. The webinar will be run live from twelve to two Eastern Time on Wednesday, July 7th, and there's going to be a live Q and A afterwards. It's completely free of charge, but you do have to register to attend. And we will put a link in the show notes for this event.

Dave Gardner 1:06:25
For sure, for sure. Groundbreaking stuff, so you don't want to miss that. And I'll also put a link in the show notes to that clip and the really fascinating website motherhood, I don't know, I don't think I'm saying it. How would you say it? M-otherhood.com. I'll put a link in the show notes. It's an interesting website to explore some of the interesting work that Orna Donath is doing.

Nandita Bajaj 1:06:50
Great.

Dave Gardner 1:06:51
That's it for this edition of the Overpopulation Podcast. A good one, if I do say so myself. Thanks, Nandita, for the great partnership on this conversation and the really important work that you and the staff of World Population Balance are doing.

Nandita Bajaj 1:07:03
Thank you, Dave. Visit worldpopulationbalance.org to learn more about how we can address world overpopulation.

Dave Gardner 1:07:11
That's also a great place to find all episodes of our podcast, get on our email list, and make a donation to support our vital work.

Nandita Bajaj 1:07:18
Don't forget to recommend this podcast to friends, family, colleagues, journalists, and elected representatives.

Dave Gardner 1:07:24
And click subscribe or follow in your podcast app so you don't miss an episode.

Nandita Bajaj 1:07:28
Until next time, I'm Nandita Bajaj reminding you that we can all make a dent in this movement by choosing and advocating for small footprint families, whatever family means to you.