Population Growth and Development - Essay Example

Population Growth and Development A critical look at the world population growth over the past two centuries certainly would astound anybody, and quite possibly alarm any mind. The global population reached one billion in 1804. In 1927, some 123 years later, it passed two billion. Sixty years later, in 1987, the world population was five billion, and 12 years later, in October 1999; it is estimated to have passed six billion (Cohen, 1995 p.10). This explains why many, worldwide are concerned about what this holds for economic growth, development and quality of life of the human race. Also of note is the fact that due to the momentum represented by steeply pyramidal age distributions, population growth most likely, will continue for another one to several generations to come. Most of that growth is believed to occur in developing nations. An eventual world population of 8-12 billion is expected by the end of the century, though estimates change frequently. Of the present 6 billion people worldwide, about half live in poverty and at least one fifth are severely undernourished. The rest live out their lives in comparative comfort and health (Kendall and Pimentel, 1994,p.200). Malthus presented his well-known theory of population in 1798, which stated that whereas population grew in geometrical progression, food resources increased in arithmetical progression. Because of this, Malthus said, it was necessary to control population growth through 'preventive checks', which included moral restraint, late marriages etc. Malthus warned that if this was not done, then nature would apply its own crude methods (called 'positive checks' by Malthus) to reduce population from its higher level. These positive checks included epidemics, floods, earthquakes, droughts and other natural calamities. The theory presented by Malthus had created an alarm during his own lifetime. But later day economists criticized him sharply and called him false prophet', arguing that food produce no longer increased in arithmetical progression, as Malthus had claimed, since agricultural output could now be increased to any level, with the help of scientific methods of cultivation and modern technology. These economists, also, said that the use of contraceptives in modern times had made it possible to check population growth effectively. The 'preventive checks' and 'positive checks' introduced by Malthus had, therefore, now become irrelevant and obsolete, these economists argue (Pimentel et al, 1996, p.1-10) A more modern and scientific theory of population, known as the optimum theory of population had received considerable appreciation from the present-day economists. It stated that, for every country, there was a certain optimum level of population, which, at a given point of time, was required to exploit and use its resources in the best possible manner. If the population were below the optimum level, the resources of the country would remain partly unexploited and unutilised. On the contrary, if the population was above the optimum level, a certain percentage, of the country's population was likely to remain unemployed. This theory was more realistic, since it took into consideration both the relevant factors namely a country's population and its resources. Moreover, it rightly acknowledged that neither a higher population was always a curse nor a lower population was always a blessing (Pimentel et al, 1994, p.350) However, almost two centuries after Malthus, we presently find ourselves in a demographically divided world, one where national projections of population growth vary more widely than at any time in history. In some countries, population has stabilized or is declining; but in others, population is projected to double or even triple before stabilizing. In 32 countries, containing 14 percent of world population, population growth has stopped. By contrast, Ethiopia's population of 62 million is projected to more than triple to 213 million in 2050. Pakistan will go from 148 million to 357 million, surpassing the U.S. population before 2050. Nigeria, meanwhile, is projected to go from 122 million today to 339 million, giving it more people in 2050 than there were in all of Africa in 1950. The largest absolute increase is anticipated for India, which is projected to add another 600 million by 2050, thus overtaking China as the most populous country (Demographic Fatigue, 1998) To understand these widely varying population growth rates among countries, demographers use a three-stage model of how these rates change over time as modernization proceeds. In the first stage, there are high birth and high death rates, resulting in little or no population growth. In the second stage, as modernization begins, death rates fall while birth rates remain high, leading to rapid growth. In the third stage, birth rates fall to a low level, balancing low death rates and again leading to population stability, offering greater possibilities for comfort and dignity than in stage one. It is assumed that countries will move gradually from stage one to stage three. Today there are no countries in stage one; all are either in stage two or stage three. However, this analysis concludes that instead of progressing to stage three as expected, some countries are in fact falling back into stage one as the historic fall in death rates is reversed, leading the world into a new demographic era (Nas, 1992,p. 375). Countries struggling with the simultaneous challenge of educating growing numbers of children, creating jobs for swelling ranks of young job seekers, and dealing with the environmental effects of population growth, such as deforestation, soil erosion, and falling water tables, are stretched to the limit. When a major new threat arises-such as AIDS governments often cannot cope. Problems routinely managed in industrial societies are becoming full-scale humanitarian crises in many developing ones. As a result, some developing countries with rapidly growing populations are headed for population stability in a matter of years, not because of falling birth rates, but because of rapidly rising death rates (Demographic Fatigue, 1998) The factors pushing global human population are very simple. They include fertility, mortality, initial population, and time. Fertility The current growth of population is driven by fertility. Fertility rate is a strong function of region. It can be readily seen that the more developed countries have lower fertility rates than the less developed countries. The fertility rates in the developed world are close to replacement levels (i.e., the population is roughly stable), while the rates in the developing world are much higher. Thus, population growth and level of development are clearly linked. Fertility is largely controlled by economics and by human aspirations. The high fertility of the developing world can be partially explained by the large number of hands needed to perform low-technology agricultural tasks. In these areas, families with large numbers of children realize an enhanced economic status. As technology improves, parents realize that having more children decreases rather than increases their standard of living. A dramatic example of this effect occurred in Thailand, where, as soon as parents realized that future economic status was linked to the secondary schooling (which is expensive in Thailand), the fertility rate dropped from about 6 to 2 in a decade. While fertility rates are obviously useful in analysing the impacts of population on development, the demographics of the existing population are also important and can provide key information to predict future growth rates and perhaps, impacts. For example, in the developing world, not only are there many females capable of reproduction, but also, there are many more young females who are of potential mothers. Thus, the shape of the population-age pyramid for the developing world indicates that the population will continue to grow aggressively for the near future as the cohort of fertile females gets larger each year, fed from the lower parts of the pyramid. Obviously, population control in such a state will be a very challenging task for which both persistence and patience will be of utmost necessity. Mortality Mortality, or the death rate per individual, is another determining factor of population growth. In the developed world, the death rate has dropped, more or less continuously, since the start of the industrial revolution. Personal hygiene and improved methods of sanitation have played a major role and preceded the impact of modern medicine and, in particular, the development of antibiotics capable of reducing death due to infection. The downward trend of the death rate is common to most countries, although there are some countries (for example, Russia) where the death rate remains high and refuses to move appreciably. The combination of decreasing death rate due to the march of progress in sanitation and medicine, coupled with the decrease in birth rate due to changes in the economies, has led to a profound change in the population growth curve in the developed world. This change is regarded in economic terms as the demographic transition (Allen, 1996,p.70). Appreciating these facts about the global increase in human population, one therefore wonders how exactly does this population growth impact economic development Or, to frame the question rightly, how does each aspect of the factors of population growth-fertility and family size, the proportion of children relative to working-age adults (expressed as the youth dependency ratio), human density and changes in aggregate economic demand-affect the economic development, quality of life and the prospects of any nation. Clearly, no single answer will do. At one time or another, economists have suspected that population dynamics influence economic growth, employment and poverty, and the management of assets. The three principal categories of a nation's economic structure are physical (human-built infrastructure related to economic activity), natural (natural resources and the services they provide, including waste material and energy cycling), and human (health, social status, quality of life and educational status of citizens). Recent research by economists Allen Kelley and Robert Schmidt indicates that during the 1980s population growth, on average, acted as a brake on economic growth as measured by the growth rate of per capita gross domestic product, or GDP.4 (This is a standard measure of a nations total output of goods and services by residents and domestic business, excluding net income from foreign assets and that paid to foreign creditors. Gross national product, or GNP, includes both these figures, which in many economies come close to cancelling each other out. This is why GDP and GNP are often roughly equal) (Allen and Schmidt, 1994). Results of this extensive analysis suggest that the relationship between population growth and depressed economic performance is strongest among the poorest nations of the developing world, and that the effect on this group extends back through the 1960s and 1970s. The growth of gross domestic product can be constrained by high dependency ratios, which result when rapid population growth produces large proportions of children and youth relative to the labour force. Because governments and families spend far more on children than the children can quickly repay in economic production, especially as modern schooling and health care replaces child labour, economists expect consumption related to children to retard household savings, increase government expenditure and ultimately cut into the growth of GDP (Schultz, 1985,p.413). In many countries experiencing rapidly growing population, and thus growing dependency ratios, the influx of young people into the job market exceeds the jobs created. According to the UN Development Programme, "in many cases [in the developing world] lots of employment was being created, but not fast enough to match the rapid growth in the labour force."(UNDP, 1996) Despite the logic of this relationship, signs of adverse effects on GDP from population growth did not emerge in multi-country comparisons of population and economic growth during the 1960s or 1970s, except in the poorest of the developing countries. Although with some notable exceptions, it is becoming convincingly clear, from several research studies over time, that there are established relationship between high fertility and the resulting population growth on the one hand, and the persistent poverty and wage stagnation in developing countries on the other. High fertility and population growth appear to promote the transmission of poverty across generations. Simultaneously, they widen the gaps in income and health status that separate the poor from the upper and middle classes (Ahlburg, 1996, p.220). Because of the disproportionately high levels of fertility among the lowest income groups in developing countries, population growth is likely to depress wages at the bottom end of the pay scale.10 A related concern, difficult to test, lies in the possibility that large numbers of low-skill, low-wage labourers in some developing countries can slow the adoption of more efficient, labour-saving technologies. Examples from the newly industrialising countries of Asia suggest that when wage growth and relative income equality combine with investments in education and technology, greater opportunities for sustained economic growth emerge (Allen, 1996,p.100). In Industrial economies, the savings that households deposit in banks are a source-often the most important one-of investments in the private sector. While the 1986 National Research Council review found little evidence to substantiate links between fertility and national savings rates, later studies document evidence that declining fertility does indeed stimulate savings (Wolfe and Behrman, 1982,p.163) Economists now credit a significant part of economic growth achieved among the newly industrialised economies of Asia to wise applications of domestic savings that were generated largely by households. Although the debate continues, the connections between fertility, the ability of families to save, and the investments that banks make in physical assets are-because of the East Asian examples-become more substantially documented and provable On natural resources and assets of a nation, economists acknowledge that population growth has impaired the productivity of renewable natural resources and their provision of environmental services. Renewable resources are those such as fresh water from rainfall, soil, and fisheries that can be harvested and used up to certain thresholds without impairing their long-term viability. Environmental services may include the pollination of crops by bees and other animals, pest control provided by species rich ecosystems, mineral nutrient absorption and cycling in healthy soils, water catchments and filtration, and flood prevention. Forces associated with population growth are most threatening to the environmental products and services that renewable natural resources provide when property rights are hard to assign or maintain. Fisheries, forest products, rangelands, freshwater resources, the atmosphere and genetic diversity are each renewable natural resources sensitive to human-induced pressures. By contrast, the economic impacts of population growth on non-renewable natural resources, such as petroleum and minerals, seem to be less strong than once assumed (Ahlburg, 1996, p.225). Another effect of increasing population is the rapid increase in the dependent school age children in the population. High proportions of school-age children, characteristic of countries experiencing rapid population growth, undoubtedly put pressure on existing school and health care facilities. When school enrolments and average educational attainment increase rapidly, governments can expect upward pressure on national education budgets. In the absence of even more rapid growth in government revenues or major shifts in government spending priorities, this tends to depress public education expenditures per student and perhaps lower the educational status of the population (Allen, 1996,p.90). Moreover, researchers have long maintained that rapid population growth and high fertility have had their greatest negative repercussions when national institutions have been ineffectual, particularly in the poorest countries of the developing world. Recent research provides deeper insight, suggesting that population growth tends to reinforce a downward economic spiral affecting national institutions and essential assets. In short, non-functioning institutions-poorly developed markets, ineffectual government programs and policies-fail to protect, manage and build basic assets in an environment of growing need. In turn, degradation of assets can, in some cases, cripple emerging institutions when market and policy solutions are needed most. For example, in many developing countries output growth and job formation lag seriously behind the growth rates of their poorly skilled labour forces. And it is often financially and politically difficult for governments to invest in human assets at the levels needed to build workable institutions and healthy, literate labour forces (Nas 1992,p.378). Finally, as the world enters the new millennium, it faces many challenges, but perhaps none appear so important-or so urgent-as the need to quickly slow population growth. References. Ahlburg, Dennis A. (1996) "Population Growth and Poverty," in The Impact of Population Growth on Well-Being in Developing Countries, ed. Dennis A. Ahlburg, Berlin: Springer. pp. 219-258. Allen C. Kelley (1996). "The Consequences of Rapid Population Growth on Human Resource Development: The Case of Education," in The Impact of Population Growth on Well-Being in Developing Countries, (ed) Ahlburg, Kelley, and Mason. pp.67-137. Allen C. Kelley and Robert M. Schmidt (1994). Population and Income Change: Recent Evidence, World Bank Discussion Paper, no. 249 Washington, DC: World Bank. Cohen, J. 1995. How many people can the earth support W. W. Norton & Co., New York Demographic Fatigue Overwhelming Third World Governments (1998). Worldwatch Publications 09:24. Available at Assessed Mar 19th 2006. Kendall, H.W., and D. Pimentel. (1994). "Constraints on the expansion of the global food supply." Ambio 23: 198-205. Nas (1992). "The Royal Society and the National Academy of Sciences on Population Growth and Sustainability." Population and Development Review 18 (2) : 375-378. Pimentel, D., R. Harman, M. Pacenza, J. Pecarsky, and M. Pimentel. 1994. "Natural resources and an optimum human population." Population and Environment 15 : 347-369. Pimentel, David, Xuewen Huang, Ana Cordova, and Marcia Pimentel (1996). Impact Of Population Growth On Food Supplies And Environment. Presented at AAAS Annual Meeting, Baltimore, Submitted for publication to Population and Development Review, New York, NY, USA Schultz, T. Paul (1985). "School Expenditures and Enrollments, 1960-1980: The Effects of Incomes, Prices and Population Growth," in Population Growth and Economic Development: Issues and Evidence, ed. D. Gale Johnson and Ronald D. Lee Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. pp. 413-436. United Nations Development Program UNDP (1996). Human Development Report (New York: UNDP, 1996), 89. Wolfe, Barbara and Jere Behrman (1982) "Determinants of Child Mortality, Health and Nutrition in a Developing Country," Journal of Development Economics 11 :163-193. Read More