The Population Problem; 2; Europe: The European Experience
- Series
- The Population Problem
- Episode Number
- 2
- Episode
- Europe: The European Experience
- Producing Organization
- National Educational Television and Radio Center
- United States Productions
- Contributing Organization
- Thirteen WNET (New York, New York)
- AAPB ID
- cpb-aacip/75-54xgxk0v
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- Description
- Episode Description
- The European Experience, the second in a series of six episodes, examines how European countries throughout the centuries have maintained a relatively stable population growth rate. The lesson to be gained from Europe is of vital significance to the rest of the world, much of which is staggering under the problems of overpopulation.
- Series Description
- Five of these six episodes will examine population growth as it exists and as it is being slowed or increased in Latin America, Europe, Japan, India, and the United States. The sixth episode will take viewers into the laboratories of scientists who are on the one hand, trying to find methods of birth control satisfactory and morally acceptable to everyone and, on the other hand, are trying to unlock the riddles of barren marriages. The human race is growing faster than ever before in history. At its present rate of growth, world population will double in 35 years. Today there are well over three billion people on earth. Demographer scientists who study population say that by the year 2,000 there will be nearly seven billion if the current rate continues. This staggering projection threatens the living conditions of most of the worlds people. And the present growth rate is crippling the globes poorer nations, nations trying desperately to step into the Twentieth Century as the western world understands it. 2028Thus, population growth constitutes one of mans most awesome crises. It was a lowered death rate rather than a higher birth rate that lead to rapid population growth. For centuries man lived with a high death rate the result of war, disease, and famine. Man kept his birth rate high to insure survival. But revolutions in agriculture, industry, transportation, and education, increased food supply, the spread of public sanitation, and medical advances all lowered the death rate. The Europeans were the first to lower their birth rates to bring them into line with their lowered death rates. This demographic transition a changeover from high birth and death rates to low ones has been successfully carried out in the USSR, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan, Developing nations are still striving for this goal. Through the demographers scientific eyes and the cameras documentary eyes, The Population Problem will study the seriousness of this modern and perplexing crisis. The demographic advisory committee that is working with National Educational Television for THE POPULATION PROBLEM is composed of the following members: 1. Frank Notestein (Chairman of the Committee), president of the Population Council; 2. Bernard Berelson, vice president of the Population Council; 3. Ansley J. Coale, director, Office of Population Research, Princeton University; 4. Robert Cook, President of the Population Reference Bureau; 5. Howard C. Taylor, MD, professor of obstetrics and gynecology, College Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University; and 6. P. K. Whelpton, director of the Scripps Foundation for Research in Population Problems. THE POPULATION PROBLEM is a 1965 National Educational Television presentation. Produced for NET by United States Productions. Executive producer: Tom Hollyman. Executive producer for NET: Charles Vaughan. The series is being produced under a grant from Cordelia S. May. The 6 hour-long episodes that comprise this series were originally recorded on film, with episodes 1, 2, 5, 6 in black and white and episodes 3 and 4 in color. (Description adapted from documents in the NET Microfiche)
- Description
- The European Experience, the second in a series of six programs, examines how European countries throughout the centuries have maintained a relatively stable population growth rate. The lesson to be gained from Europe is of vital significance to the rest of the world, much of which is staggering under the problems of overpopulation. The opening segments of the program were filmed in Milan, Italy; in Vezelay, a small town outside Paris; and in Brussels, where there are interviews with local residents who discuss the early history of Europe and how various social and economic revolutions played dominant roles in governing the population of Europes nations. With the Middle Ages, there came an awakening in man who began reaching out, discovering new lands, instituting social changes, and designing a new humanism. It was an Age of Discovery and the dawn of the Age of Science. Yet the population of mankind in Europe remained in the hands of the destructive forces of nature. Plagues and the Great Fire nearly wiped out the population of London. Mans years on earth were constantly being cut down: by plague, disease, and natural destruction. In the years before 1750, it is estimated, 75 percent of the children born in London died before reaching their fifth birthday. It was not until the middle of the Eighteenth Century that there was a noticeable decline in the death rate. The population of Europe began to climb: from 140 million in 1750 to 187 million by 1800. It was enough for an English cleric, Thomas Malthus, to comment that mouths were multiplying faster that food to predict for man a life of poverty and disaster unless he married later in life and had fewer children. While the birth rate climbed, Europe was undergoing another transition the Agricultural and Industrial Revolution. With them came slum cities, disease, and abundant child labor. Emigration is described as the escape valve Europe created to continue feeding its growing population. Yet the disease that was breeding in Europes slum cities had to be conquered. Preventive medicine was being discovered by such scientist as Jenner, Pasteur, and Koch. But with new medical techniques there came a lower birth rate and greater life expectancy. The 187 million population of 1800 became 266 million by 1850. In England alone the population nearly doubled. Slowly, there began a second transition in Europe. It did not depend on sickness and famine, disease ad destruction. It was mans decision to control the population. Parents began having fever children and the small-family concept which began among the wealthy in England and slowly filtered down to the masses crossed the channel to the continent. The small-family trend continued into the 20th Century and by the 1930s low birth rates were the rule among European countries. The program examined what has happened in Europe to check the threat of a menacing population growth. Although, birth control was pioneered by many, including Annie Besant who went to jail in 1876 for advocating it, the birth-control concept appears to have been the effects of the small-family concept rather than a cause. Compulsory education for children also has an impact as the child became a dependent rather than a economic asset for the family. Emancipation of women also was a factor. Europe today is seen through an interview with a Danish mother of two who works in a telephone factory and who tells of the benefits of a small family. Narrator Karl Weber explains Europes solution, The Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions, the Political and Educational Revolutions brought about tremendous achievements. But none had more far-reaching effects than the Vital Revolution that gave the people of Western Europe control fertility and morality.
- Broadcast Date
- 1968-10-06
- Asset type
- Episode
- Genres
- Documentary
- Media type
- Moving Image
- Credits
-
-
Associate Producer:
Blay, John S.
Director: Ingram, Daniel
Editor: Sommerschield, Bengt
Executive Producer: Hollyman, Tom
Executive Producer: Vaughan, Charles
Narrator: Weber, Karl
Producing Organization: National Educational Television and Radio Center
Producing Organization: United States Productions
Story Editor: Blay, John S.
Writer: Comte, Gilbert
- AAPB Contributor Holdings
-
Thirteen - New York Public Media (WNET)
Identifier: wnet_aacip_2622 (WNET Archive)
Format: 16mm film
Duration: 00:58:52?
-
Thirteen - New York Public Media (WNET)
Identifier: wnet_aacip_2623 (WNET Archive)
Format: 16mm film
Duration: 00:58:52?
-
Indiana University Libraries Moving Image Archive
Identifier: [request film based on title] (Indiana University)
Format: 16mm film
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- Citations
- Chicago: “The Population Problem; 2; Europe: The European Experience,” 1968-10-06, Thirteen WNET, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed October 2, 2026, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-75-54xgxk0v.
- MLA: “The Population Problem; 2; Europe: The European Experience.” 1968-10-06. Thirteen WNET, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. October 2, 2026. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-75-54xgxk0v>.
- APA: The Population Problem; 2; Europe: The European Experience. Boston, MA: Thirteen WNET, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-75-54xgxk0v