At least zombies would lead to a real sense of communal brotherhood when you off 'em.

Gane
IMO, poeple don't have more babies because they are poor and vice versa.
western Europe population growth stopped well before europeqn became wealthy and full of social benefits.

Russia as well as the Baltics and north eastern europe has got a declining population because poeple were poorer than before after the fall of the Soviet Union. Today these countries see a slight reversal in this trend, yet still under replacement rate while the economic situation is improving, also slightly.

It has much more to do with culture: For West and East eruorpean, you first have to make sure you have enough money, have a degree and started a good job and have a car and an home before having your first child.

For Chinese, the most important is to have a son, otherwise your name will disapear in shame. This is much more important than money, confort and education. Chinese either will have as many kids as it take until they have at least one boy or, more recently, make use of echography to abort if the featus is female. Some chinese would even kill new born babies if it's a girl because the law forbid them to have a secnd chance.
This seems horrible to us, westerner, but it's absolutely obvious for Chinese.

In Africa, India and other 3d world countries, large families are a sign of wealth. They care less about boys but any kid is seen, traditionaly as one more arm to work at the family farm, thus a source of prosperity. While it was true in the past, the equation is now wrong because rich land and water is much more a problem than labor. In cities, where poeple don't live out of agriculture, large families is even more a source of poverty. Still, the tradition is so strong and contraception so much ignored by their culture, that they still do many children.

War, famine and epidemic will never solve the problem: They only worsen it.
In such situation there is no money and no safety for protecting the environement and the population plunder natural resources in the least rational manner. In Congo villagers have been eating mountain gorillas, an highly endangered species. In the Amazonia bassin, farmers are burning forests because it's the fastest and cheapest way to enrich the soil. In these two example, poeple couldn't afford to do otherwise.

There is overpopulation because there is an inadequation between the large traditional family and the economic reality.
Let's hope that these poeple will finaly realize that they are better off with one or two kids who will recieve decent health care and education and who will earn more than 8 kids with no school degree.
But let's not forget that they have a completely different view than our. For them lining up 8 kids is the sign of success, never mind the shack they are living in.

Add to the fact that your name is Turd Ferguson and you have a Fear & Loathing avatar, and this makes me chuckle.