In nearly every historical case, a decrease in total fertility (and ulitamtely, a slowdown, stagnation or long-term decline in population growth rates) is precedded, predicted and correlated to a decrease in toital mortality (improved overall life expectancy), itself a factor of the level of a society’s economic development. In other words, in order to stabilize global population, we need to improve health outcomes for the people in the developing world. It sounds counterintuitive, but it’s not: rich coiuntries, without immigration, almost universally have below-repolacement fertility rates, and for the few Gulf States with high life expoectancy yet persistently high fertility rates, the answer appears to be the relative lack of female empowerement. Indeed, the only thing univerdsally corelated (inversely) to fertility rates is the rate of female literacy.