(Phys.org) —Partha Dasgupta an economist with the University of Cambridge and Paul Ehrlich, a conservation biologist at Stanford University have published a paper in the journal Science in which they suggest that peer pressure and a desire to keep up with others can lead to unsustainable population growth. They use data from several sources to compare population growth rates between people in African—where population growth is exploding in some areas—with others where it is not, to show that when people experience peer pressure to have large families and also feel pressure to keep up with the consumption habits of other people where they live, the result can be explosive population growth.
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