For school children, population is a definition and a number in Social Studies to learn and score marks in exams. Later, it becomes a subject of science and economics. When slightly older, population is often what is felt in how busy the streets are or what the latest census figures reveal.
But population is far more than a number. That is why some governments have introduced birth-control policies, while others encourage larger families or welcome immigrants to offset ageing populations and shrinking workforces.
Population influences everything from economic growth and environmental sustainability to labour markets, cultural identity and the long-term future of societies.
Unsurprisingly, the question of population has fascinated storytellers for decades. Literature first explored many of these ideas, which later found their way to cinema through dystopian science fiction, speculative dramas, and even non-fiction.
Together, these stories explore five recurring demographic challenges:
• Overpopulation & Resource Scarcity: There are too many people.
• Population Decline & Fertility Crises: There are too few people.
• Ageing Populations & Demographic Imbalances: The age mix of the population changes.
• Migration, Borders & Identity: Where people live changes.
• Population Control, Eugenics & State Power: Who controls population becomes the central question.
The world is open to interpretations about it. If you haven’t read or seen any, here are a few picks for you.
• Too Many People
Soylent Green
Based loosely on ‘Make Room! Make Room!’ a dystopian novel from 1966 by Harry Harrison, this sci-fi classic explores the devastating consequences of overpopulation and dwindling resources. It is set in the then-future year of 2022.
Inferno
The adaptation of Dan Brown’s thriller revolves around a radical belief that unchecked population growth threatens humanity’s future, raising difficult ethical questions. It has a hero, trying to stop a radical scientist from unleashing a global plague- a genetically engineered virus designed to sterilize a portion of the world’s population.
The Thinning
A thriller set in a dying world struggling with overpopulation where students who fail a mandatory aptitude test are executed as part of a hidden population-control programme. There two students discover the test is hiding a larger conspiracy and they go against the system to expose and take it down.
• Too Few People
Children of Men
Set in a world where humans have become infertile, the film follows society’s struggle to survive amid the collapse of hope and a disillusioned former activist protecting a woman who gets pregnant, as she holds the key to humanity’s survival.
The Handmaid’s Tale
Margaret Atwood’s novel from 1985 depicts a totalitarian society that controls women’s reproductive rights in response to a global fertility crisis. The woman’s function is only to breed, to repopulate a devastated world.
I Am Mother
After humanity is nearly wiped out, an AI attempts to repopulate Earth by raising a new generation of humans. A robot raises a human girl and loves her like a daughter.
• Too Many Elders, Too Few Workers
Plan 75
This Japanese social drama imagines a government programme encouraging senior citizens to voluntarily end their lives to address an ageing society. The film follows an elderly woman whose means of survival are disappearing, a pragmatic Plan 75 salesman and a Filipino labourer face life and death choices.
Robot & Frank
A touching drama about an ageing man and his robot caregiver that reflects on elder care in rapidly ageing societies. It addresses the increase in the greying population, a demographic shift, where there are no enough care givers to look after them.
Logan’s Run
In this dystopian future, the state enforces a strict age limit, eliminating citizens once they reach a prescribed age in the name of social balance. Resources are managed by a population control rule that everyone who reaches the age of 30 is terminated in a ritual called “Carousel”.
• People on the Move
District 9
Adapted from Blomkamp’s 2005 short film Alive in Joburg, the film uses extraterrestrial refugees as an allegory. The narrative takes place in an alternate 1982 where over a million malnourished aliens are confined to a government camp outside Johannesburg. However, the camp quickly deteriorates leading to unforeseen troubles.
His House
This horror drama follows refugees seeking asylum while confronting trauma, displacement, and explores the refugee experience and immigrant population crisis through the life of a couple.
Code 46
Set in a future where movement is controlled through genetic passports, the film explores surveillance, identity and the ethical consequences of genetic regulation. It follows an investigator who travels to Shanghai to uncover fake “papelles” (genetic passports)
• Who Gets to Decide?
What Happened to Monday
Set in 2073, a future shaped by a strict one-child policy, identical septuplets must hide their existence from the authorities. When one among them goes missing, they investigate to find that the agency they assumed was cryogenically freezing excess children is actually incinerating them.
Gattaca
This acclaimed sci-fi drama explores a society where genetic selection determines social status, opportunity, and reproduction. The protagonist commits an identity fraud to pursue his dream of travelling to space.
Brave New World
Aldous Huxley’s classic novel envisions a future where human reproduction is entirely controlled by the state through artificial means. Citizens are genetically engineered into rigid castes and conditioned to embrace endless consumerism and compulsory happiness, sacrificing all art, religion, and genuine human connection.
These books and films remind us that behind population statistics lie questions of ethics, survival, identity and the future of humanity. They encourage us to think about demographic change not merely as a policy issue, but as a profoundly human one.
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