6 - Population Growth and Economic Development

Population Growth
and Economic
Development: Causes,
Consequences, and
Controversies
GROUP 1
Population Growth
and Economic
Development
• Population growth and a society's

economic progress are closely related.
The size, composition, organization,
distribution, and movement of a
population can promote or retard the
pace of economic growth.
The basic Issue: Population
Growth and the Quality of life
Six major issues:
• Will developing countries be able to improve levels of living given anticipated population
growth?
• How will developing countries deal with the vast increases in their labor forces?
• How will higher population growth rates affect poverty?
• Will developing countries be able to extend the coverage and improve the quality of health
care and education in the face of rapid population growth?
• Is there a relationship between poverty and family size?
• How does affluence in the developed world affect the ability of developing countries to
provide for their people?
Population Growth: Past, Present, and Future
• WORLD POPULATION GROWTH THROUGHOUT HISTORY
STRUCTURE OF THE WORLD'S POPULATION
• The world’s population is very unevenly distributed by geographic region, by fertility and mortality
levels, and by age structures.
Fertility and mortality trends
• The rate of population increase is quantitatively measured as the percentage yearly net relative increase (or
decrease, in which case it is negative) in population size due to natural increase and net international migration.
• Population increases in developing countries therefore depend almost entirely on the difference between their
crude birth rates (or simply birth rates) and death rates.
Age structure and dependence burdens
• Population is relatively youthful in the developing world. In countries with such an age structure,
the youth dependency ratio—the proportion of youths (under age 15) to economically active adults
(ages 15 to 64)—is very high.
• This phenomenon of youth dependency also leads to an important concept, the hidden momentum
of population growth.
Hidden momentum of population growth
• The phenomenon whereby population continues to increase even after a fall in birth rates because
the large existing youthful population expands the population’s base of potential parents.
Population growth has a built-in tendency to continue, a powerful
momentum that, like a speeding automobile when the brakes are
applied, tends to keep going for some time before coming to a stop.
Why is that?
There are two basic reasons for this. First, high birth rates cannot be
altered substantially overnight. The second and less obvious reason for
the hidden momentum of population growth relates to the age structure
of many developing countries’ populations.
The Demographic
Transition
The process by which
fertility rates eventually
decline to low and stable
levels has been portrayed by
a famous concept in
economic demography.
The Demographic Transition
Three Stages of Demographic Transition
Stage1 - these countries for centuries had stable or very slow-growing populations as
a result of a combination of high birth rates and almost equally high death rates.
Stage 2 - began when modernization, associated with better public health methods,
healthier diets, higher incomes, and other improvements led to a marked reduction in
mortality that gradually raised life expectancy from under 40 years to over 60 years.
Stage 3 - was entered when the forces and influences of modernization and
development caused the beginning of a decline in fertility; eventually, falling birth
rates converged with lower death rates, leaving little or no population growth.
The Demographic Transition
Replacement Fertility - The number of births per woman that would result in
stable population levels.
The Causes of High Fertility in Developing Countries: The
Malthusian and Household Models
• The Malthusian Population Trap
• - The idea that rising population and diminishing returns to fixed factors result in a low
levels of living (population trap)
• The Microeconomic Household Theory of Fertility
• The Demand for Children in Developing Countries

• – First two or three as “consumer goods”
• – Additional children as “investment goods”:
• – Work on family farm, microenterprise
• – Old age security motivation
• Demand for Children Equation
• Where;
• Cd is the demand for surviving children
• Y is the level of household income
• Pc is the “net” price of children
• Px is price of all other goods
• tx is the tastes for goods relative to children
• The higher the household income, the greater the demand for children.
• The higher the net price of children, the lower the quantity demanded.
• The higher the prices of all other goods relative to children, the greater the
quantity of children demanded.
• The greater the strength of tastes for goods relative to children, the fewer children
demanded.
We can identify three general
lines of argument on the part
of people who assert that
population growth is not a
cause for concern:
The
Consequences
The problem is not population growth but
other issues.
of High
Fertility: Some
Population growth is a false issue
deliberately created by dominant rich Conflicting
country agencies and institutions to keep
developing countries in their dependent Perspectives
condition.
For many developing countries and regions,

population growth is in fact desirable.
Underdevelopment
• If correct strategies are pursued and lead to higher
levels of living, greater self-esteem, and expanded
freedom, population will take care of itself.
The Consequences World Resource Depletion and

Environmental Destruction
of High Fertility: • Population can only be an economic problem in
Some relation to the availability and utilization of scarce
natural and material resources.
Conflicting
Population Distribution
Perspectives • According to this third argument, it is not the number of people per
se that is causing population problems but their distribution in
space.
Subordination of Women
• Perhaps most important, as noted previously, women often bear the
disproportionate burdens of poverty, poor education, and limited social
mobility.
Other Empirical Arguments:
Seven Negative Consequences of
Population Growth
• Economic Growth
The Consequences
• Poverty and Inequality
of High Fertility:
Some • Education
Conflicting • Health
Perspectives • Food
• Environment
• International Migration
Some Policy Approaches
Three areas of policy can have important direct and indirect
influences on the well-being of present and future world populations:
General and specific policies that developing country governments can initiate to
influence and perhaps even control their population growth and distribution.
General and specific policies that developed-country governments can initiate in
their own countries to lessen their disproportionate consumption of limited world
resources and promote a more equitable distribution of the benefits of global
economic progress.
General and specific policies that developed-country governments and
international assistance agencies can initiate to help developing countries achieve
their population objectives.
What Developing Countries Can Do?
Persuade People
Enhance family-planning
programs
Manipulate economic incentives and
disincentives
Coerce people
Raise the social and economic status of

women
WHAT THE DEVELOPED COUNTRIES HOW DEVELOPED COUNTRIES CAN HELP DEVELOPING
COUNTRIES WITH THEIR POPULATION PROGRAMS
CAN DO
Not dealing only or even primarily with a problem of Genuine support would consist not only of
population numbers when it comes to environment and expanded public and private financial assistance
resources. but also improved trade relations, such as tariff
Must also be concerned with the impact of rising and quota-free access to developed-country
affluence and the very unequal worldwide distribution markets, more appropriate technology transfers,
of incomes on the depletion to many nonrenewable assistance in developing indigenous scientific
resources such as petroleum, certain basic materials, research capacities, better international
and other raw materials essential for economic growth. commodity-pricing policies, and more equitable
Could cite innumerable instances of the unnecessary sharing of the world's scarce natural resources.
and costly waste of many scarce and nonrenewable
resources by the affluent developed nations.
Two Other Activities
• Research into the technology of fertility control.

• Financial assistance from developed countries
Population Growth
and Economic
Development: Causes,
Consequences, and
Controversies
GROUP 1

6 - Population Growth and Economic Development

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6 - Population Growth and Economic Development

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Population Growth

• Population growth and a society's

Age structure and dependence burdens

Hidden momentum of population growth

• The Microeconomic Household Theory of Fertility

• The Demand for Children in Developing Countries

• Demand for Children Equation

For many developing countries and regions,

The Consequences World Resource Depletion and

Raise the social and economic status of

• Research into the technology of fertility control.

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