MODULE 5- HUMAN POPULATION AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Population is defined as all the inhabitants of a particular town, area, or

country. While population growth rate is the average annual rate of change of
population size during a specified period. What is the significance of population in
the achievement of economic growth? Is the human population really detrimental to
economic growth?

Below we will look at four theories about population that inform sociological
thought: Malthusian, zero population growth, cornucopian,
and demographic transition theories.

Theories on Population

1. Malthusian Theory of Population

2. Zero Population Growth
3. Cornucopian Theory
4. Demographic Transition
Malthusian Theory

Thomas Malthus was an 18th-century British philosopher and economist noted

for the Malthusian growth model, an exponential formula used to
project population growth. The theory states that food production will not be able to
keep up with growth in the human population, resulting in disease, famine, war, and
calamity.

Zero Population Growth Theory

This theory refers to a population that is unchanging – it is neither growing, nor

declining; the growth rate is zero. This demographic balance could occur when the
birth rate and death rate are equal.
Zero population growth, sometimes abbreviated ZPG (also called
the replacement level of fertility), is a condition of demographic balance where the
number of people in a specified population neither grows nor declines, considered as a
social aim by some. According to some, zero population growth, perhaps after
stabilizing at some optimum population, is the ideal towards which countries and the
whole world should aspire in the interests of accomplishing long-term
environmental sustainability. What it means by the number of people neither grows nor
declines' is that births plus in-migrants equal deaths plus out-migrants.
Cornucopian theory of population growth

Cornucopians hold an anthropocentric view of the environment and reject the

ideas that population-growth projections are problematic and that Earth has finite
resources and carrying capacity (the number of individuals an environment can support
without detrimental impacts).

"When civilization [population] increases, the available labor again increases. In

turn, luxury again increases in correspondence with the increasing profit, and the
customs and needs of luxury increase. Crafts are created to obtain luxury products. The
value realized from them increases, and, as a result, profits are again multiplied in them.
Production there is thriving even more than before. And so it goes with the second and
third increase. All the additional labor serves luxury and wealth, in contrast to the
original labor that served the necessity of life."

A cornucopian is a futurist who believes that continued progress and provision

of material items for mankind can be met by similarly continued advances in technology.
Fundamentally they believe that there is enough matter and energy on the Earth to
provide for the population of the world.

Looking further into the future, they posit that the abundance of matter and
energy in space would appear to give humanity almost unlimited room for growth.

The term comes from the cornucopia, the "horn of plenty" of Greek mythology,
which magically supplied its owners with endless food and drink. Cornucopians are
sometimes known as "boomsters", and their philosophic opponents—Malthus and his
school—are called "doomsters" or "doomers.”

Watch the video in the given links below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXd3qFI_0rs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7F11k_bG13g
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPE62ICjn0g

Demographic Transition Theory of Economic Growth

In demography, demographic transition is a phenomenon and theory which

refers to the historical shift from high birth rates and high infant death rates in societies
with minimal technology, education (especially of women) and economic development,
to low birth rates and low death rates in societies with advanced technology, education
and economic development, as well as the stages between these two scenarios.
Although this shift has occurred in many industrialized countries, the theory and model
are frequently imprecise when applied to individual countries due to specific social,
political and economic factors affecting particular populations.

However, the existence of some kind of demographic transition is widely

accepted in the social sciences because of the well-established
historical correlation linking dropping fertility to social and economic
development. Scholars debate whether industrialization and higher incomes lead
to lower population, or whether lower populations lead to industrialization and higher
incomes. Scholars also debate to what extent various proposed and sometimes inter-
related factors such as higher per capita income, lower mortality, old-age security, and
rise of demand for human capital are involved.
First Stage:
In this stage, the country is backward and is characterized by high birth and
death rates with the result that the growth rate of the population is low. People mostly
live in rural areas and their main occupation is agriculture which is in a state of
backwardness. There are a few simple, light and small consumer goods industries.

The tertiary sector consisting of transport, commerce, banking and insurance is

underdeveloped. All these factors are responsible for low incomes and poverty of the
masses. Large family is regarded as a necessity to augment the low family income.
Children are an asset to society and parents.

There being mass illiteracy, the society is not expected to educate them and thus
burden itself. The existence of the joint family system provides employment to all
children in keeping with their ages. Thus a child becomes an earning member even at
the age 5 when he becomes a helping hand to his parents in domestic affairs. More
children in a family are also regarded as an insurance against old age by the parents.

People being illiterate, ignorant, and superstitious and fatalist are averse to any
methods of birth control. Children are regarded as God-given and preordained. Being
childless is regarded as a curse and the parents are looked down upon by society. All
these economic and social factors are responsible for a high birth rate in the country.

Along with high birth rate, the death rate is also high due to non-nutritional food
with a low caloric value, and lack of medical facilities and of any sense of cleanliness.
People live in dirty and unhealthy surroundings in ill-ventilated small houses. As a
result, they are disease-ridden and the absence of proper medical care results in large
deaths.

The mortality rate is the highest among the children and the next among women
of childbearing age. Thus unhygienic conditions, poor diet and the lack of medical
facilities are the reasons for a high mortality rate in this stage. This stage continued in
Western Europe approximately up to 1840.
Second Stage:
In the second stage, the economy enters the phase of economic growth.
Agricultural and industrial productivity increases and the means of transport develop.
There is greater mobility of labour. Education expands. Incomes increase. People get
more and better quality food products. Medical and health facilities are expanded.
Modern drugs are used by the people. All these factors bring down the death rate. But
the birth rate is almost stable.

People do not have any inclination to reduce the birth of children because with
economic growth employment opportunities increase and children are able to add more
to the family income. With improvements in the standard of living and the dietary habits
of the people, the life expectancy also increases.

People do not make any efforts to control the size of family because of the
presence of religious dogmas and social taboos towards family planning. Of all the
factors in economic growth, it is difficult to break with the past social institutions,
customs and beliefs. As a result of these factors, the birth rate remains at the previous
high level.

Third Stage:
In this stage, the fertility rate declines and tends to equal the death rate so that
the growth rate of population declines. As growth gains momentum and people cross
the subsistence level of income, their standard of living rises.

The leading growth sectors expand and lead to an expansion in output in other
sectors through technical transformations. Education expands and permeates the entire
society. Popular education leads to popular enlightenment and opens the way to
knowledge. It creates self-discipline, power to think rationally and to probe into the
future. People discard old customs, dogmas and beliefs and develop individualistic spirit
and break with the joint family.

Men and women prefer to marry late. The desire to have more children to
supplement parental income declines. People readily adopt family planning devices.
They prefer to go in for a baby car rather than a baby. Moreover, increased
specialisation following rising income levels and the consequent social and economic
mobility make it costly and inconvenient to rear a large number of children.

All this tends to reduce the birth rate which along with an already low death rate
brings a decline in the growth rate of population. The advanced countries of the world
are passing through this last stage and the population is increasing at a slow pace in
them.

Conclusion:
The theory of demographic transition is the most acceptable theory of population
growth. It neither lays emphasis on food supply like the Malthusian theory, nor does it
develop a pessimistic outlook towards population growth.

It is also superior to the optimum theory which lays an exclusive emphasis on the
increase in per capita income for the growth of population and neglects the other factors
which influence it. The demographic transition theory is superior to all the theories of
population because it is based on the actual population growth trends of the developed
countries of Europe.

Almost all the European countries of the world have passed through the first two
stages of this theory and are now in the final stage. Not only this, this theory is equally
applicable to the developing countries of the world.

Very backward countries in some of the African states are still in the first stage
whereas all the other developing countries of the world are in the transitional stage two
it is on the basis of this theory that economists have developed economic-demographic
models so that underdeveloped countries should enter the final stage and attain the
stage of self-sustained growth. Thus this theory has universal applicability.
Activity

1. Create a table showing the definition and differences of the 4 theories of

population discussed in Module 5.
2. Create a stage-chart of the Demographic Transition Theory of Economic Growth
and explain each stage briefly.

References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_population_growth

Jo Arney. "Cornucopian". Britannica. Retrieved from

https://www.britannica.com/topic/cornucopian

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornucopian

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_transition

https://www.economicsdiscussion.net/theory-of-population/top-3-theories-of-population-
with-diagram/18461