First off, you have to understand that the growth that started in the early 20th century was unprecedented and unexpected by even accredited demographers in the 19th century. The world had never seen so many people added to world in such a small amount of time. As the majority of countries in the world began to transition from stage 1 to stage 2, the CDR plunged and the steady birth rate caused unforeseen growth to take place. This untamed growth has caused many demographers to take a pessimistic view of our current population growth. Birth rates began to decline in the 1990s and began to slow down the quick population growth and the fears it brought with it. While this overpopulation problem has slowed, many scientist still believe that overpopulation might be a problem and that the global NIR still needs to be reduced. By increasing populations and already populations put together, our world might face a population problem rather soon.
Thomas Malthus on Overpopulation
Thomas Malthus, a British economist in the late 1700s, lived during a very prosperous time in England's history. At this point, England has gone through industrialization and has seen its population grow rather rapidly from less than 6 million to more than 40 in a few years. Malthus, who saw this population bubble, had growing concerns about the population growth that was taking place. He wondered if this exponential curve of growth that went unchecked might lead to overpopulation by having only a linear food supply. In his 1798 essay, he claims humans have two postulates: people need food to live and people have a natural urge to reproduce. Because there would not be enough food, society will degenerate into civil war and famine by having "unchecked" population. Would his doom's day prediction be correct? He was right about our population but much too pessimistic about our ability to better utilize our technology to meet the demands of food supply.
Malthusian Perspective
Following Malthus's claims, Malthus came up with these proposed checks on population. There were positive checks, such as an increase in the CDR caused by war, disease, and famine. There were also preventative checks on population such as increase in the CBR. This could be done by delay of marriage, moral restraint before and during marriage, and just not having as many children as you would before. This perspective had problems in the respect it explicitly goes against his second postulate which claimed reproduction was simply human nature. Thus, it would be impossible to implement this course of action.
Malthus Theory
Malthus's claims, though hardly applicable because of incorrectness over-pessimism is still considered today because of the topics he brings up in his essay.
- Population growth is still growing at an exponential rate even though it has decreased slightly in recent years. Food production is still linear or arithmetic. Malthus was right about population but never envisioned that food production would still keep up with the majority of the population.
- Malthus wanted higher death rates that would act as a checks on the population. Today, we still have the need of population checks but are a lot less likely to go to war today because of the exact knowledge of how bad war really is. We also have better medicine to combat diseases.
- Malthus also wanted lower birth rates by moral restraint. Today in MDCs, we still have an emphasis placed on family planning and smaller families. Women are much more involved in the work force and have a greater amount of participation in the economy. Why would there be a problem in waiting to have kids or not even having them?
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| Malthus |
As a whole, the global impact of overpopulation or even the possibility is rather threatening. Today, countries are working toward lowering their NIR. They realize that large populations can be harmful to having a prosperous economy. They have come up with two strategies. One is to find economic alternatives and the other is to focus on distribution of contraception.
- Economic Development
- One approach to lowering the birth rate was to emphasize the importance of improving local economies and their local economic condition. It is a fact that wealthier communities have more money to spend on education ad would promote lower birth rates. This approach focuses on how educating women would cause them to be a part of a working society and be less likely to have a massive family in the long run. With better education, women would understand their reproductive rights and make more better decisions.
- Improved health care and lower IMRs would lower the need to have favorable odds to have living healthy children. (You don't need to have 40 kids to make sure 3 stay alive.) Improving the health amenities available will cause women to have less children as well.
- Distribution of Contraceptives
- The other approach to lower birth rates is to do a better job distributing contraceptives for people to use. Putting resources into such family planning methods will greatly help control population growth. In many LDCs, where contraceptives are less than the demand, there are not enough contraceptive devices. Therefore, the most logical way to control the CBR is to supply the necessary items.
- In countries like Morocco, where this plan was first implemented, there were instant results that correlated to having a slowed CBR. The plan is already proven to have results that are effective in both costs and effectiveness. Implementation is shown to work for countries and by giving them to LDCs in Africa, we can effectively lower the birth rate.
Faimly Planning in Parkland
The event above describes how the successful family planning program in Texas is lowering unwanted pregnancies and driving away larger families. It's a win-win situation for many people. They can plan out exactly what they want in their lives by the use of contraception. In this key issue, we focused on how overpopulation is starting to become a hot-button issue that has a little worried. Whether or not overpopulation will hurt us now or later is still an issue to be dealt with. As mentioned as one of the strategies to combat overpopulation, family planning seems to be doing a great job, even it is just in Parkland, Texas.
Overpopulation
In this video, a montage of speakers discuss the understanding of overpopulation and the possible effects it will eventually have if left unchecked. They do not offer solutions to the problem but rather magnify specific consequences of this overpopulation. This connects to the key issue by explaining things from a Malthusian perspective: we still have a growing population that can become too much. They believe population is good but overpopulation is negative and that if it is left alone, we will be the end of our fate.
"We have to respond to population growth before it really does affect us or else we will be sorry."
