Continued Global Population Growth Seriously Limits the Prospects for Development - Essay Example

Continued Global Population Growth Seriously Limits the Prospects for Development Analysis: Population growth is one of the biggest problems of the contemporary world. World Bank estimates that the total population of 18 countries in Asia will increase by 60 per cent in 2030 of what it was in 1990 (Sanderson and Tan, 1995, p. 5). The cause and effect relationship between population growth and development is among the most studied themes of economics since the late 1700s. Many economists have conventionally tried to explore this relationship, and have found alarming consequences of population growth on development, though some economists tend to adopt a more optimistic view about the benefits of increased workforce resulting from the population growth considering the “economies of scale and specialization, the possible spur to favorable motivation caused by increased dependency, and the more favorable attitudes, capacities, and motivations of younger populations compared with older ones” (Easterlin, 1967). Analysis of the long cultivated debate about the consequences of population growth, the central question that appears in the limelight is; do the positive effects of population growth on the economic development of a nation outweigh the consequential negativities? This paper tends to evaluate the effect of population growth on the development by comparing the merits and demerits of increase in population. The first English economist who estimated the effects of population growth upon economy was Thomas Robert Malthus In 1798, Malthus presented a theory stating that rate of increase of population causes underdevelopment (Cobridge, 1986, p. 82). In the long run, this trend can cause such problems as starvation, famine and wars over possession of water, land and natural resources. It was because of the very gloomy forecast of the effects of population growth on development made by Malthus that people began to refer to Economics as “the dismal science” (Hall, 2011). It can be observed in general that a vast majority of industrialized nations have extremely low birth rates whereas a lot of developing and underdeveloped countries have very high birth rates. Birth rate is one potential factor that tells an underdeveloped country from an advanced country since many, if not all advanced countries have very low birth rates and the trend is on the other pole of the scale for the underdeveloped countries generally. This was also confirmed in 1958 by the findings of the research conducted by Edgar Hoover and Ansley Coale (Hall, 2011). These researchers found an inverse relationship between economic and population growth. The reasons suggested by them included reduction of savings, and a need for the government to invest in improving the living standard of people instead of making economic investment. Obviously, schools, hospitals, cinemas and theatres all have limited capacity and have to be expanded or created to accommodate a larger volume of people. Results derived by Hoover and Coale were later validated by the similar findings of the United Nations (US) and the National Academies of Science in 1970 (Hall, 2011). Economist Julian Simon made an attempt to contradict the conventionally perceived negative impact of population growth on the economic progress of a country in 1981. His research brought results in conflict with those of past researches. Simon found that increase of population can have positive consequences particularly for a developing country. Simon referred to technological change as the basis of economic development of a nation and emphasized that the growth of population generally facilitates the change of technology. However, many other researchers in 1980s found mixed effects of population growth on the development and not many fully rely on the positive side of the story. Klasen and Lawson (2007) conducted a research to find out the effect of population growth on the poverty and the per capita economic development in Uganda; a country that has shown a significant reduction in poverty in the recent years along with marvelous growth of economy despite having an exceptionally high rate of population increase. Its inherent demographic statistics make Uganda’s rate of population growth one of the highest in the contemporary world and the trend is expected to sustain for at least some years. Klasen and Lawson (2007) used panel data and made a combined micro- and macro-economic method of study to find out that the high rate of population growth in Uganda tends to distort the prospects of per capita growth. In addition to that, growth of population in Uganda was found as the main hindering factor in the reduction of poverty. According to Zhenghua, Luyguang, and Feldman (2000, p. 7), humans live in about 136 million sq. km of the total mass of land on Earth, of which China covers almost 9.6 million sq. km which makes up to 7 per cent of the total area of the globe. In the same report, it is mentioned that the total cultivated land on Earth is near 1.37 billion hectares, of which 0.13 billion hectares makes part of China. In this way, China’s cultivated land makes 9.5 per cent of the total cultivated land on Earth. As far as the density of population is concerned, 44 people live in every sq. km of Earth on average, whereas in China, as many as 132 people live per sq. km, which is thrice as much as the average population density of the whole world. Thus, number of people for the amount of land in China is too much. In order to make room to accommodate the ever increasing population, too many forests in China have been cut down in the past. As a result of this practice, no more than 3 per cent of the total number of forests in the world can be found in China today. In China, the area reserved for forest per capita is as small as 0.11 hectare, which makes up to 17.2 per cent of the average forest area per capita in the world (Zhenghua, Luyguang, and Feldman, 2000, p. 7). Because of lack of sufficient forest area in China, it ranks 119th in the whole world in the measurement of area of forest per capita. Not only does the increasing population in China need the land to live in, but also, people daily consume herbs and vegetables as part of their food. The overgrazing has caused as much as 90 per cent of the grassland in China to vanish over the years. Two of the most fundamental measures of the industrial development of a nation are the amount of energy that is consumed per capita and the standard of living of the nation. In early 1990s, the amount of energy per capita consumed in China was almost 0.7 tons of the coal equivalent (CE). It was a time when the per capita energy consumption in Japan and United States used to be 3.5 tons and 9.4 tons of coal equivalent (CE) respectively (Zhenghua, Luyguang, and Feldman, 2000, p. 8). Despite the fact that energy consumption in China has historically remained much lower than many advanced countries of the world, supply of energy in China has never been enough. China mainly relies upon coal for the production of chemical fertilizers, chemicals, electricity, transportation, and metallurgy. In the coming years, it is anticipated that the coal would rise in demand by almost 60 million tons annually, whereas estimates of increase in production are no more than 40 million tons per annum. In 1990, as China ran short of coal and could not produce sufficient electricity, these conditions caused 25 per cent of the total production capacity in China to be shut down. In those years, many factories in China would remain shut for two to three days per week. In many areas, coal mines could not work up to their maximum tendency because of the lack of electricity. These circumstances are extremely unfavorable for the industrial growth and economic prosperity of a nation. In order to cope with the shortage of electricity, investment in energy has grown at an annual rate of a minimum of 20 per cent in the national budget of China. This did reduce the severity problem in part, but did not solve it altogether. In the years 1998 and 1999, the amount of energy produced in China sufficiently kept its industries working, but the declining resources would soon be insufficient. One of the main pillars which take the load of China’s economic prosperity is the agriculture. With an increase in population in China, the demand for food has increased manifolds in the recent years. According to an estimate, the consumption of pork per capita in China has increased threefold since 1978, along with a twofold increase in the consumption of sugar. With the rise in consumption of meat, fodder grains have increased in demand. Consequences of the risen standard of living also apply here. The increase of per capita income has grown the demand of grain for making beverages. In the past few years, 15 million people have been adding to the total population of China on a yearly basis. It has been estimated that the yearly increase in population in China has been consuming up to half of the increased production in meat and grain. 20 percent of the half of production has been consumed directly whereas its 30 per cent has been used for producing the meat. The consumption of meat is expected to rise in future with the growth of population. In the past, China has made a lot of money from the export of grains. In 1953, there were 21 provinces that exported grain. In 1988, the number of provinces exporting grain reduced to only 5. This can be fundamentally attributed to the growth of population. Land that was previously used for cultivation is now being used to accommodate the growing population. On a yearly basis, China is losing about 330,000 to 460,000 hectares of the land that is most suitable for cultivation because of its exceptional fertility (Zhenghua, Luyguang, and Feldman, 2000, p. 9). This has greatly endangered sustainable development in China. Many countries like China are presently facing the consequences of overpopulation. In 1999, the global population had increased above 6 billions (Kothare, 1999, p. 2). This has had huge impacts on the economies of many nations. Economists have generally cultivated two types of views regarding this matter. One of the theories considers the increase of population helpful for the economy of a nation as it stimulates development. The second theory considers the growth of population detrimental for the economy of a nation because of the consequential problems associated with it. For instance, in order to accommodate the growing needs of the increasing population, more natural and water resources are required (The World Bank, 2000). The resulting demand far exceeds the supply as natural resources are limited. It is quite reasonable to argue, particularly on a macroeconomic level that increase in population weakens a nation’s economy because more people need to be fed with the same or even lesser agricultural land for cultivation (James, Naya, and Meier, 1989, p. 180). Overpopulation causes famine, disease and decline of income. One of the countries that are currently suffering from the consequences of overpopulation is India. Despite having shown massive economic growth in the recent years, India is generally thought of as one of the developing countries of the world. Government reforms that have shown up in the past few years improved the country’s economic performance in general. Between 1992 and 1993, India’s economy grew by 5 per cent. In the one year between 1993 and 1994, India’s economy grew by 6 per cent, and a 1 per cent increase was noticed in the year 1997 (Kothare, 1999, p. 8). Despite the economic growth, the growing population is the biggest challenge that the government has to encounter. A number of fortunate results have been derived from the increase of population in India that have become the basis of survival of the proponents of population increase. Some of them are discussed below. As the skilled work force has increased, there has occurred an enormous growth in the industry despite the fact that salaries have been quite low. It can not be said that the effects of population growth in India on the growth of economy have been extremely positive, yet the resulting profitability needs to be taken into consideration. India has followed the neo-classical growth model in its population increase. India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has increased steadily over the past few years. The output generated from business has been enormous with the increase in population. The growth of economy can fundamentally be attributed to the growth of population. With the development and implementation of fiscal policies, India managed to improve its education and make the youth play a constructive role in strengthening its economy. However, one should not underestimate the fact that overpopulation is the fundamental cause of poverty that has plagued India. According to the statistics recorded by Kothare (1999, p. 2), number of people that lived in India in 1999 was more than 900 billion, of which over 300 million are below the poverty line. A vast majority of these people are unemployed. Many of them can be seen begging on the roads in India and some are starved to death. The optimistic view that considers growth of population a means of development is far from reality because the rate of growth of employment opportunities far lags behind that of population in many countries including India. The process of supply of goods, facilities, education, medical and health facilities and maintenance of infrastructure becomes more and more complicated and difficult to achieve with the growth of population. A lot of research has explored the relationship between population growth and development. Analysis of the research done so far suggests that the impact of the former on the latter is not very simple to understand because there are many external factors which influence the relationship like the government policies and national and global political scenario. Nonetheless, it is an obvious fact that natural resources have been depleting readily ever since the evolution of industrialization. Decline of natural resources is one of the world’s biggest problems of the contemporary age, and population growth only aggravates the problem. Therefore, answer to the question stated in the introduction is obviously no! Neo-Malthusians rightly believe that “poor nations will never be able to rise much above their subsistence levels of per capita income unless they initiate preventive checks (birth control) on their population growth” (Todaro and Smith, 2003, p. 311). If at all some benefits result from the growth population, they largely address the concerns of the very nation in which population grows, but the consumption of natural resources is a problem of universal significance and the whole world is disturbed by the depletion of natural resources. Because of time constraints, this research was limited to the analysis of effects of population growth on the economic development. Research in this subject may be furthered by analysis of the effects of population growth on the health of a nation. Some questions for the future researchers are, is the increased workforce resulting from increased population a burden or an asset for a nation given the lack of training and education? And, does the population increase in underdeveloped countries affect the economies of developed countries? References: Cobridge, S 1986, Capitalist world development: a critique of radical development geography, USA: Rowman & Littlefield. Easterlin, RA 1967, Effects of Population Growth on the Economic Development of Developing Countries, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 369, pp. 98-108. Hall, S 2011, The Effect of Population Growth on Economic Development, viewed, 25 April, 2011, . James, WE, Naya, S, and Meier, GM 1989, Asian development: economic success and policy lessons, UK: University of Wisconsin Press. Klasen, S, and Lawson, D 2007, The Impact of Population Growth on Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction in Uganda, viewed, 25 April, 2011, . Kothare, R 1999, Does India’s Population Growth Has A Positive Effect on Economic Growth? viewed, 25 April, 2011, . Sanderson, WC, and Tan, JP 1995, Population in Asia, USA: The World Bank. The World Bank 2000, Population and the World Bank: adapting to change, Revised Ed., USA: The World Bank. Todaro, MP, and Smith, SC 2003, Economic Development, 8th Ed., India: Dorling Kindersley. Zhenghua, J, Luyguang, Z, and Feldman, MW 2000, Population and sustainable development: Dilemmas for China in the new century, viewed, 25 April, 2011, . Read More