CHAPTER 5
Population Growth and Economic Development: Causes, Consequences,
and Controversies
5.1 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?
5.2 Population Growth: Past, Present, and Future
• World population growth throughout history
• Structure of the world’s population
– Geographic region
– Fertility and Mortality Trends
– Rate of population increase
– Birth rates, death rates , Total fertility rates
– Age Structure and dependency burdens
• The Hidden Momentum of Population Growth
– High birth rates cannot be altered overnight
– Age structure of developing country populations
5.3 The Demographic Transition
• Stage I: High birthrates and death rates
• Stage II: Continued high birthrates, declining death rates
• Stage III: Falling birthrates and death rates, eventually stabilizing
5.4 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
• Some empirical evidence
• Implications. Fertility lower if:
– Raise women’s education, role, and status
– More female nonagricultural wage employment
– Rise in family income levels
– Reduction in infant mortality
– Development of old-age and social security
– Expanded schooling opportunities
5.5 The Consequences of High Fertility: Some Conflicting Perspectives
• Population growth: “It’s Not a Real Problem”:
– The real problem is not population growth but the following,
Underdevelopment
World resource depletion and environmental destruction
Population Distribution
Subordination of women
• Overpopulation is a Deliberately Contrived False Issue
• Population Growth is a Desirable Phenomenon
• “Population Growth Is a Real Problem”
– Extremist arguments
– Theoretical arguments
– Empirical arguments
Lower economic growth
Poverty and Inequality
Adverse impact on education
Adverse impact on health
Food issues
Impact on the environment
Frictions over international migration
• Goals and Objectives: Toward a Consensus
– Despite the conflicting opinions, there is some common ground on
the following:
Population is not the primary cause of lower living levels, but
may be one factor
Population growth is more a consequence than a cause of
underdevelopment
It’s not numbers but quality of life
Market failures: potential negative social externalities
Voluntary decreases in fertility is generally desirable for most
developing countries with still-expanding populations
– Some Policy Approaches
Attend to underlying socioeconomic conditions that impact
development
Family planning programs should provide education and
technological means to regulate fertility
Developed countries have responsibilities too
5.6 Some Policy Approaches
• What Developing Countries Can Do
– Persuasion through education
– Family planning programs
– Address incentives and disincentives for having children
through the principal variables influencing the demand for
children
– Coercion is not a good option
– Raise the socioeconomic status of women
– Increase employment opportunities for women (increases
opportunity cost of having more children, as in
microeconomic household theory)
• What the Developed Countries Can Do Generally
– Address resources use inequities
– More open migration policies
• How Developed Countries Can Help Developing Countries with Their
Population Programs
– Research into technology of fertility control
– Financial assistance for family planning programs
Submitted by: Group 1
Castillo
Pendejito
Banayag
Dango
Submitted to: Mr. Ismael O. Salih, Jr., FPM, MBA