Well, I believe it represents not just births but also new arrivals.  Calirfornia's population went up pretty fast on a weekly basis during the American gold rush.  As more housing & food resources get built and become available new colonists are allowed to settle from elsewhere.

Well as you said, it does require a little imagination as we play our pretend games.  In this case, for me, part of any population exists either in a nomadic fashion and will settle where they can once there is living room.  Or perhaps they are coming from all your worlds combined and the population on those worlds IS offset by new births.  or perhaps first one, then the other.  Dealer's choice, but point is, game is as feasible as you want it to be.

Interesting that it was originally a month.  I wonder why they changed it.

I declare this not a real issue. Thank you that is all.

While I respect your opinion compares to the other issues of substance in this game this is peanuts. 

In the distant future, the galactic "week" is equivalent to [insert your preferred time increment here].

There, fixed that for you. And you don't even need to download an update from Steam.

That doesn't work.  The game also unhelpfully lists the year.

Well, all the spacefolk are hoors (as Ralphie from the Sopranos would say), which explains the population growth. But SD could mix things up and make things interesting by making a mass outbreak of STDs in your galaxy because of the hoorishness. Make it a Galactic Event: "Your women and men are too loose with their morals. As a result, STD cases have skyrocketed across your galaxy. Population growth will half for the next x turns as this dealt with. Also, productivity will drop as your worker are too...ah, shall we say tender?...to work for you. And those little crabs are no good at making or discovering stuff either - but you could try.....:

Benevolent: Cream and medication for all. 10% approval, -20% productivity

Pragmatic: If you can walk, you can work. Get the cream later. 5% approval, -5% influence, -10% productivity, -5% population growth.

Malevolent: Shaddup and work you hoors!! Plus extra hours for breaking our moral code . -15% approval, 5% productivity, -20% population growth."

 As for how those cute little babies grow up so fast...Um, genetics, GM....I dunno...

I think civs approach to it is pretty neat, with turns early in the game representing years, even decades, and turns later in the game representing just months.

Of course that doesn't really work in a sci-fi setting.

Now to poke some holes for funsies:

-The idea behind the game is that you are just starting out exploring space and that no intergalactic law exist (see various frogboy posts), therefore a "galactic week" does not exist.

-why do races other then Terrans use 52 weeks in a year format for their calendar? They would have their own vastly different calendars.

I want Imperial Time Span 535C7: Imperial Time Unit F9: Imperial Short Span 24. 

If you are going to go for meaningless Sci Fi terms, why not go all the way?