Gender relations in households, the culture and society's view on things, and the economies all play into role. She also argues that decrease in population doesn't guarantee livelihoods of the people or the fact that they will meet their basic needs. She would argue with Hardin on the point that we are all better off if immigration is cut off. She believes that higher population and densities have lead of huge accomplishments for humans in areas such as literature, science and mathematics. What Hardin has to say would make perfect sense to me in a world where there was no mixture of any ethnicity to begin with and there has never been any migration or interaction between them.
Human beings are by nature scavengers.
They go where they see the possibility to survive and prosper. He seems to conveniently forget the fact that United States has in the past forced several people of different ethnic backgrounds to come to this land as slaves. That increased the population then, however, it didn't take away from the resources at the time, just added to it. Then slaves were viewed as resources, not as human beings, and therefore, they were never seen as a leech on American economies. Also, Hardin fails to recognize that there are other reasons to population growth other than rich countries helping out the poor countries.