Fall 2022 Colloquium - Emily Merchant

Science and Technology Studies, University of California – Davis

Title: Demographic Data and Global Population Control

Abstract: In the twentieth century, population growth became an object of intervention for governments, intergovernmental agencies, and nongovernmental organizations worldwide. Histories of population control typically assume that these interventions arose in response to evidence of rapid population growth. However, demographic data were sparse to nonexistent in many parts of the world during the decades immediately following World War II. This talk examines efforts by the United Nations to facilitate the collection and analysis of population data in all of its member states, and explores how the failure of those efforts created opportunities for U.S.-based philanthropies, and eventually the U.S. government, to promote population control programs throughout the Global South.