The developing world faces unprecedented pressures on issues such as economic development, poverty, inadequate sanitation and, today more than ever, demographic crises. According to Eager's theory of demographic transition, there are three basic stages of development. The first stage has high mortality rates and fertility rates. The second stage includes decreasing mortality rates through better medical treatment and a continued high fertility rate (meaning high population growth rates). The third stage takes place in the long term and consists of a decline in fertility rates which is accompanied by industrialization. Most developing countries are in the second stage. This has magnificently increased insurmountable pressure on governments, particularly in education, healthcare and food security, as well as on the government's ability to raise living standards. Thomas Malthus, an 18th-century economist, argued voraciously that overpopulation would inevitably deplete populations. all natural resources, increase poverty and social disorder. Although his predictions did not include technological improvements, his pessimistic views were responsible for the emphasis on population control. Neo-Malthusian analysts argue that developing countries do not have time to reduce their fertility rates through social development, as developed countries have done. Thus, the only cost-effective way to defuse the population bomb is to directly reduce fertility rates. The most influential conferences that focused on population control through reducing fertility rates include the Tehran Conference in 1968 and the Cairo Conference in 1994. The Tehran Conference concluded that population growth was contributing ...... middle of article .. .... Population control." Radiant Reality (Atquad Publishing House) 11, no. 03 (March 2009): 28-33. "No empowerment of women: no sustainable growth." The African Excutive. April 16-23, 2008. http://www.africanexecutive.com/modules/magazine/articles.php?article=3071# (accessed April 13, 2012). Pillai, Vijayan K and Guang-zhen Wang. Women's Reproductive Rights in Developing Countries Brookfield: Ashgate, 1999. “Population Issues,” United Nations Population Fund, 6 billion, 1999. http://www.unfpa.org. /6billion/populationissues/empower.htm (accessed April 13, 2012). Rust, David R. "The Ethics of Controlling Population Growth in the Developing World." " Intersect 3, No. 1 (2010): 69-68. Sharif, Mohammed. Poverty Reduction - An Effective Means of Population Control. Rhode Island, USA: Ashgate, 2007. "The Threat of Growth demographic', Word press review, August. 1987: 58-59.