Population can be controlled by more than just starving off the poor. First world nations have either a flat or a negative population growth while developing countries generally have increasing populations. But clearly, industrializing a nation isn't an easy and immediate enough solution to confront overpopulation. But there are other things that can be done that have been done to slow or steady population growth among even third world countries. It turns out that empowering women is the answer. Giving women the ability to control how many children they want to bear actually decreases the amount of children they have. Go figure. But doesn't that sound like a tall order? How can we even do this? The way it was done in South America (can't remember the exact country) was through television. The leader made an effort to connect the majority of its population to the power grid. This enabled them to do many new things, but the access to television was very important. Through television, women became inspired by the 'first world' families they were seeing on various broadcasts, namely soap operas. They started demanding more rights and soon enough, the nation's out of control population growth halted. http://www.forbes.com/sites/worldviews/2013/06/20/womens-rights-world-population-a-conversation-with-suzanne-ehlers/ Similar situations have happened in other third and second world countries all around the globe, including Egypt.