A Misunderstanding about overpopulation.

• Position: From Readers

I am responding to the letter in the July/August 2002 issue by Mr. William Dickinson. Like many people concerned about overpopulation, Mr. Dickinson seems to be unaware that the single best predictor of a woman's fertility is education.

It wasn't just that "fertility fell as Europeans became richer," it was that fertility fell as women were getting an education, joining the work force, and finding many other ways to feel valuable. The same happened in the United States. As women begin to value themselves for something other than their ability to have children, they voluntarily limit the number of children they have.

In every country where women are educated on an equal par with men, the birth rate has dropped. One of the enduring effects of patriarchy in the so-called "third world" is that women are still vastly undereducated, and their whole social milieu teaches them that having children, the more the better, is what they must do to gain respect, or, more vaguely, what society expects of them. Muslim countries are particularly hard for women.

Dickinson cites figures for Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, without noting that educational opportunities for women are practically non-existent in both countries, except in the very small upper classes, because of age-old prejudice. The same could be said of India, though there are already feminist forces...