Population

Population

1. Demography = study of people

2. Malthus

   • Population growth always exceeds the growth of means of subsistence
   • Limit on food supply would lead to natural checks on population, such as famine and malnutrition (war if people fight over resources)
     • These checks limit population because they increase death rates
   • Also argued that we should attempt to avoid overpopulation by delaying marriage and abstaining from sex
   • Because of this, any attempt to improve the conditions of the lower classes by increasing their incomes or agricultural productivity would be fruitless, as the extra means of subsistence would result in an increase in population.
   • Criticisms of Malthus
     • Data is incorrect, only rich tend to register births in LEDCs
     • People do change their conduct as warnings become plausible
     • Technology – Ehrlich said that food and water production were at their limit

3. Eberstart

   • ‘It is not so much that we have started breeding like rabbits but more that we have stopped dropping like flies’
     • There hasn’t been an increase in births - More medicine and food has lifted the population ceiling, allowing for an increase in population

4. People in LEDC’s have more children

   • Poorer education about contraception
   • Poor access to education
   • Infant mortality (under 1) + child mortality (under 5) rates are higher
   • Children to look after elderly as there are no pensions
   • Children are labour in rural countries - Lower status of women (not working)

5. Ehrlich (Neo-Malthusians) (1968)

   • ‘A cancer is an uncontrolled multiplication of cells; the population explosion is an uncontrolled multiplication of people.’
   • We need compulsory birth regulation… through the addition of temporary sterilants to water supplies or staple food
     • Doses of the antidote would be carefully rationed by the government to produce the desired family size

6. Modernisation

   • Higher birth rates are the result of patriarchal societies such as Gambia
     • Muslim society, men have more than one wife, disproves of contraception as children are a gift from god, scheme organised to hand out free contraception and encourage spacing out of children, fertility rate has fallen to 3.8%
   • Fewer kids, more resources to go around, more educated becoming skilled labour
   • Suggests intervention through education especially of women, e.g. Kerala (South) India
     • Huge difference in birth rate between north and south (South lower), because different states have different laws
       • In Kerala communist/socialist governments, inheritance down female and male generations, equal amount of boys and girls in schools – higher GDP + lower birth rate
       • In Beha (North) strict class system, expected to marry of daughter

7. The Optimists

   • Durkheim
     • Division of labour, human skill base e.g. Japan (on an individual country basis) people are not necessarily a problem
   • Boserup (1965)
     • Population pressures lead to new methods of production, necessity is the mother of invention
   • Simon – The ultimate resource
     • The main fuel to speed the world’s progress is the stock of human knowledge, and the ultimate resource is skilled, spirited, hopeful people exerting their wills and imaginations to provide for themselves and their families, thereby contributing to the benefit of everyone
       • The supply of natural resources is infinite. As resources appear to be running low, its price will rise, so it will be worth investing time and money in production technology that will find more of that resource.
   • Hayter
     • Unequal distribution of food resources (Dependency)
     • Globally there is enough food to support everyone, but the minority world (MEDC’s) consume a huge proportion of these resources.
       • While Nigeria is in the grips of famine we worry about the growing obesity problem which may shorten people’s lives in MEDC.

8. Demographic Transition Model: Frank Notestein 1945

   • Changes in population are a symptom of changing development rather than a cause
     • Stage 2 - decline in death due to medicine (not available to UK at this time so had to make it themselves)
       • Developing countries today – available due to new technology
     • Stage 3: birth rate falls
       • Access to contraception, move to cities, changing status of women