The debate on the possible population size cannot be separated from the debate on the desired quality of life. The earth can certainly support more population if the standards of the least developed countries are acceptable. But the earth cannot support that much population if the socio-economic and cultural standards of more developed countries are desired. There is a need to prevent the excessive growth of population in certain regions of the world and make reproductive decision a matter of choice for the individual couples and particularly for the women. As a matter of fact, it is in the interest of both developed and developing countries to achieve global improvement in mortality levels and reduce birth rate in the developing countries. In the increasingly globalized world, the large socio-economic and demographic disparities cannot be sustained. They are going to produce political results which are not in the best interest of any country.

INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION

Globalizaton and awareness of opportunities elsewhere, poverty, wars, political and ethnic conflicts going on in different parts of the world, natural disasters and climatic changes are producing large streams of international migration. As per the Population Reference Bureau estimates of 2008, there is a sizeable flow of international migrants from developing countries to developed countries. The net migration rate in the more developed countries is +3 per 1,000 population (+ indicating net immigration); the net migration rate in the developing countries is -1 per 1,000 (- indicating net emigration). The two rates suggest that the same amount of migration affects the developed countries more than it lessens the demographic burden in developing countries. Moreover, there are many developing countries with a large immigration rate (above 5 per 1,000). They are Western Sahara , Burundi , Seychelles , Botswana , Bahrain , Cyprus , and United Arab Emirates . According to Population Division of United Nations Secretariat, the estimates made in 2005 in some countries like USA , Russian Federation and Germany , which come in the category of top 20 countries having largest numbers of international migrants, the migrants constitute more than 5 percent of the total population of the country.