POPULATION

GROWTH
AND
ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT
GROUP 2
Abante, Kimberly T.
Ferrer, Alexa B.
Viana, Althea Marie A.
Manibo, Lebron James

1
In 2017, the world’s population reached 7.6 billion.

United Nations Population Division World

Population Projections

2030: 8.6 billion

2050: 9.8 billion
2100: 11.2 billion

Most growth will occur in the developing world.

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IMPACT OF POPULATION GROWTH

Not just in numbers but also the human welfare and development.
Rapid growth can harm:
Living Standards: Incomes, health, and education
Well-Being: Capabilities, self-esteem, respect, and dignity
Freedom: Choice and opportunities for individuals

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Population Trends Overview Historical Growth Rates
1950: 1.7 billion in developing countries (~66% of global population) Pre-300 Years Ago: ~0.002% annual growth
2050 Projection: 1750: Growth rate increased to 0.3%
Developing countries: >8 billion (~88% of global population) 1950s: Accelerated to ~1%
Least-developed countries: 200 million to 2 billion (10x increase) 1970 Peak: ~2.35%
Current Rate: ~1.2% globally; Africa: 2.3%
Developed Countries: Minimal growth expected by 2050, even with immigration. 4
THE REASON FOR THE SUDDEN CHANGE IN OVERALL
POPULATION TRENDS
Historical Influences: Population change was historically affected by famine, disease, and
war, leading to high death rates.
20th Century Changes: Advances in:
Medicine
Nutrition
Sanitation
- resulted in significantly lower death rates.
Current Trends:
High Population Growth: Driven by rapid decline in mortality, especially in developing
countries.
Birth Rates: Remain high in the least-developed countries, slowing the transition to
lower rates. 5
 More than
3/4 of the
world’s people
live in
developing
countries;
fewer than
1/4 lives in an
economically
developed
nation.
6
Rate of population increase
The growth rate of a population, calculated as the natural increase after
adjusting for immigration and emigration.
Natural increase
The difference between the birth rate and the death rate of a given population.

Net international migration

The excess of persons migrating into a country over those who emigrate from
that country.

Crude birth rate

The number of children born alive each year per 1,000 population (often
shortened to birth rate).

Death rate
The number of deaths each year per 1,000 population
7
 TOTAL
FERTILITY RATE DECLINE IN FERTILITY RATES
(TFR) Fertility began to fall around 1970, coinciding with peak world
The number of population growth.
children that would Examples of Decline (1970-2017):
be born to a woman Bangladesh: 7 to 2.1 births/woman
if she were to live to Jamaica: 5.3 to 2
the end of her Colombia: 5.3 to 1.8
childbearing years Mexico: 4.9 to 2.2
and bear children in
Current Status: Births per woman has been falling less
accordance with the
rapidly in Africa than once expected in Africa due to educational
prevailing age-
disruptions and conflict.
specific fertility
rates. 8
 IMPROVEMENTS IN HEALTH AND LIFE EXPECTANCY
LIFE Health Advances:
EXPECTANCY Vaccination campaigns for malaria, smallpox, yellow fever,
AT BIRTH cholera.
The number of Improved public health facilities, clean water, nutrition, and
years a newborn education.
child would live if Impact on Death Rates:
subjected to the Decreased by up to 50% in parts of Asia and Latin America.
mortality risks Over 30% reduction in Africa and the Middle East.
prevailing for the Life Expectancy (2017):
population at the Sub-Saharan Africa: 61 years
time of the child’s
High-Income Countries: Nearly 81 years
birth.
East Asia: 76 years, Latin America: 75 years
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 UNDER-5 UNDER-5 MORTALITY RATE REDUCTION
MORTALITY
Significant Reductions (1990-2018):
RATE
South Asia: 130 to 42 per 1,000
Deaths among
East Asia & Pacific: 57 to 15 per 1,000
children
Latin America & Caribbean: 55 to 16 per 1,000
between birth
Sub-Saharan Africa: 180 to 78 per 1,000 (lagging
and 5 years of
age per 1,000 progress)
live births.
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YOUTH DEPENDENCY RATIO
The proportion of young people under age 15 to the working population aged
16 to 64 in a country

COMPARATIVE AGE STRUCTURES AGE STRUCTURE AND DEPENDENCY

Youthful Population in Developing RATIOS
Countries: Workforce Age Group (15-64):
Children under 15: U.S.: 65%, with 19% under 15, 16% over 65.
Low-income: 42% UK: Similar ratios.
Lower-middle income: 30% Euro Area: 20% over age 65; Japan: 28%.
High-income: 17% Sub-Saharan Africa (2018):
Youth Dependency Ratio: 54% workforce; only 3% over 65.
High in developing countries, requiring
more support from the workforce.
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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.
Youth Dependency Challenges:
Rapid population growth leads to higher dependency ratios.
Greater burden on the workforce to support dependents.

Reasons for Momentum:

a. Slow Change: High birth rates take time to decrease; societal influences are
not easily altered.
b. Age Structure: Many low- and middle-income countries have a large youth
population, leading to increased future births even with lower fertility rates.
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POPULATION PYRAMID Growth Dynamics: Even if new parents have fewer
A graphic depiction of the children, the larger number of couples will still lead to
age structure of the population, with population increases.
age cohorts plotted on the vertical
axis and either population shares or
Changes in Population Pyramids (1965 vs. 2016)
numbers of males and females in
Fertility Trends:
each cohort on the horizontal axis.
Low-income countries in 2016 resemble
Steep Pyramid: Indicates middle-income countries in 1965.
stable population. Middle-income countries in 2016 reflect high-
Wide Base: Suggests future income countries in 1965.
population growth as large Implications: Fertility declines in developing
young cohorts reach
regions lead to demographic transitions.
adulthood.

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DEMOGRAPHIC DIVIDEND:
Opportunity for economic growth with fewer dependents
and more working-age individuals.
Can lead to increased productivity and investment in
human capital.
Challenges:
High youth unemployment can lead to social unrest.
Aging populations in high-income countries increase
support needs for the elderly.

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6.3 Demographic Structure and the
Demographic Transition
Demographic Transition *The phasing-out process of population
growth rates from a virtually stagnant
growth stage, characterised by high
a famous concept in economic birth rates and death rates through a
rapid-growth stage with high birth rates
demography that portrayed the and low death rates to a stable, low-
process by which fertility rates growth stage in which both birth and
death rates are low.*
eventually decline to low and
stable levels
 Three Stages of Modern
Population History
Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3
the beginning of a decline
a marked reduction in
in fertility; eventually,
countries for centuries mortality that gradually
falling birth rates
had stable or very slow- raised life expectancy
converged with lower
growing populations from under 40 years to
death rates, leaving little
over 60 years
or no population growth.
 Replacement fertility
The number of births per woman that would result in stable
population levels.

The demographic transition involves a shift from high birth rates

to a replacement fertility level of about 2.05 to 2.1 births per
woman in developed countries, where most women survive to the
mean age of childbearing. In developing countries with lower
survival rates, replacement fertility can exceed 3 births per
woman.
6.4 THE CAUSES OF HIGH FERTILITY IN DEVELOPING
COUNTRIES: THE MALTHUSIAN AND HOUSEHOLD
MODELS

MALTHUSIAN POPULATION TRAP

The threshold population level anticipated by
Thomas Malthus (1766–1834) at which
population increase was bound to stop
because life-sustaining resources, which
increase at an arithmetic rate, would be
insufficient to support human population,
which would increase at a geometric rate.

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 6.4.2 CRITICISMS OF THE MALTHUSIAN MODEL
1. They do not take adequate account of the role and impact of technological progress.
2. They are based on a hypothesis about a macro relationship between population growth
and levels of per capita income that does not stand up to empirical testing of the modern
period.
3. They focus on the wrong variable, per capita income, as the principal determinant of
population growth rates. A much better and more valid approach to the question of
population and development centres on the microeconomics of family size decision
making in which individual, and not aggregate, levels of living become the principal
determinant of a family’s decision to have more or fewer children.
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WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM THE
MALTHUSIAN MODEL
• First, many people still believe the Malthus trap holds in poor
countries today, despite the recent evidence; and people working in
the development economics field should understand the model and the
elements of it that do not currently apply so that they can engage the
debate effectively.
• Second, the evidence indicates that such traps have occurred in the
historical past and may have been factors in population collapses,
including in the pre-Columbian Americas.
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WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM THE
MALTHUSIAN MODEL
• Third, appreciating that the Malthus model more generally prevailed
between the agricultural revolution until the industrial revolution
highlights the essential roles of scientific and technological progress in
modern economic growth, with its ongoing effects on raising
productivity.
• These include efforts to continue steady and sustainable rises in
agricultural productivity; and encompass social dimensions, including
increases in women’s empowerment and freedom to choose, along
with their incomes, reducing the old-age security motive while 21

increasing the opportunity costs of high fertility.

6.4.3 THE MICROECONOMIC HOUSEHOLD THEORY OF
FERTILITY

Cd = f1Y, Pc, Px, tx2, x = 1, g , n

1. Cd, the demand for surviving children (an important consideration in low-income societies
where infant mortality rates are high),
2. (Y), is a function of the given level of household income
3. Pc, the “net” price of children (the difference between anticipated costs, mostly the
opportunity cost of a mother’s time, and benefits, potential child income and old-age support
3. Px, the prices of all other goods ,
4. Tx, and the tastes for goods relative to children

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 6.4.3 THE MICROECONOMIC HOUSEHOLD THEORY OF
FERTILITY
0Cd>0Y > 0 The higher the household income, the
greater the demand for children.

0Cd>0Pc < 0 The higher the net price of children,

the lower the quantity demanded.

0Cd>0Px > 0 The higher the prices of all other

goods relative to children, the greater the
quantity of children demanded.

Cd>0tx < 0 The greater the strength of tastes for

goods relative to children,
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the fewer children demanded
 6.4.4 THE DEMAND FOR CHILDREN IN DEVELOPING
COUNTRIES

The economic theory of fertility assumes that

the household demand for children is 1. Son Preference . The preference for sons over
determined by family preferences for a daughters is particularly prevalent in South Asia
certain number of surviving (usually male) and East Asia
children (i.e., in regions of high mortality, 2. Some Empirical Evidence Statistical studies
parents may produce more children than they in a broad spectrum of developing countries have
actually desire in the expectation that some provided support for the economic theory of
will not survive), by the price or “opportunity fertility
cost” of rearing these children, and by
levels of family income.
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 6.4.5 IMPLICATIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT AND
FERTILITY
4. A reduction in infant mortality through
1. An increase in the education of women and
expanded public health programmes
a consequent improvement in
and better nutritional status for both mother and
their role and status.
child, and better medical
2. An increase in female nonagricultural
care.
wage employment opportunities,
5. The development of old-age and other social
which raises the price or cost of their
security systems outside the
traditional child-rearing activities.
extended family network to lessen the economic
3. A rise in family income levels through the
dependence of parents,
increased direct employment and
especially women, on their offspring.
earnings of a husband and wife or through
6. Expanded schooling opportunities so that
the redistribution of income and
parents can better substitute child
assets from rich to poor. 25
“quality” for large numbers of children.
 POPULATION GROWTH IS NOT A REAL PROBLEM
Population growth is not the problem but the other issues.
Population growth is a false issue deliberately created by dominant rich-country
agencies and institutions to keep developing countries in their dependent condition.
For many developing countries and regions, population growth is in fact
desirable.

SUPPORTING ARGUMENTS

1. UNDERDEVELOPMENT

If correct strategies are pursued population will take care of itself.

As long as people in developing countries remain impoverished, uneducated,
and unhealthy, the large family will constitute the only real source of social
26
security.
 2. WORLD RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENTAL DEPLETION

Population can only be an economic problem in relation to the availability

and utilization of scarce natural and material resources.
Developed nations should curtail their excessively high consumption
standards instead of asking less-developed nations to restrict their
population growth.

3. POPULATION DISTRIBUTION

It is not the number of people that is causing population problems but their distribution
in space.
Governments should therefore strive not to moderate the rate of population growth but
rather to bring about a more natural spatial distribution of the population in terms of
27
available land and other productive resources.
4. SUBORDINATION OF WOMEN

Perhaps most important, women often bear the disproportionate

burdens of poverty, poor education, and limited social mobility.
In many cases, their inferior roles, low status, and restricted
access to birth control are manifested in their high fertility.
According to this argument, population growth is a natural
outcome of women's lack of economic opportunity. If women's
health, education, and economic well-being are improved along
with their role and status in both the family and the community,
this will inevitably lead to smaller families and lower population
growth.
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 IT IS DELIBERATELY CONTRIVED FALSE ISSUE
Rich nations are pressuring poor nations to adopt aggressive population control
programmes, even though they themselves went through a period of sizeable
population increase that accelerated their own development processes.
They are doing this in order to maintain an international status quo that is
favorable to the rich nations' self-interests and advantages without considering
other states.
Worldwide birth control campaigns are seen as manifestations of the fears of the
developed world in the face of a possible radical challenge to the international
order by the people who are its first victims.
Larger populations provide the needed consumer demand to generate favourable
economies of scale in production, to lower production costs, and to provide a
sufficient and low-cost labour supply to achieve higher output levels. 29
 THREE OTHER NONECONOMIC ARGUMENTS

First, many countries claim a need for population growth to

protect currently underpopulated border regions against the
expansionist intentions of neighbouring nations.
Second, there are many ethnic, racial, and religious groups in
less-developed countries whose attitudes favouring large
family size have to be protected for both moral and political
reasons.
Finally, military and political power are often seen as
dependent on a large and youthful population.
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 COUNTER-ARGUMENTS OF POPULATION GROWTH AS A
“DESIRABLE IDEOLOGY”

EXTREMIST ARGUMENT THEORETICAL ARGUMENT EMPERICAL POINTS

Population and global The population-poverty composed of economic

crisis is regarded as the cycle theory yields negative growth, poverty and
inequality, education,
principal cause of economic consequences
health, food,
poverty. and should be a real
environment, and
It encouraged advocates concern for developing
international migration
to assert that "world" countries.
which negatively bounce
population stabilisation Family-planning
back to status quo of
or even decline is the programmes are needed to population growth and
most urgent avoid unwanted lower economic
contemporary task, pregnancies. progress. 31
 OTHER EMPERICAL ARGUMENTS : SEVEN NEGATIVE
CONSEQUENCES OF OVERPOPULATION

ECONOMIC GROWTH POVERTY AND INEQUALITY EDUCATION

Even in statistical Family size and low
Rapid population growth
lowers per capita correlations population incomes restrict the
income growth, growth is often opportunities of
inconclusive, at the parents to educate
especially those that are
household level the all their children
already poor, dependent
evidence is strong and
on agriculture, and wherein, stock of
compelling. Larger family
experiencing pressures size both exacerbate human capital is
on land and natural inequality and reduced by rapid
resources. perpetuate poverty. population growth.
 HEALTH FOOD ENVIRONMENT MIGRATION

High fertility harms the Feeding the world's Rapid population Migration,
health of mothers and population is made growth both legal
children. It increases more difficult by contributes to and illegal, to
the health risks of rapid population environmental be one of the
pregnancy, and closely growth in large degradation in major
spaced births have fraction of the form of forest consequences
been shown to reduce developing-country encroachment, of developing
birth weight and food requirements deforestation and countries`
increase child mortality are the result of population
other destructing
rates. population increases. growth
activities.
 The following are the propositions constitute the essential
components of the intermediate consensus opinion:

The population growth is not a fundamental and primary cause of

low levels of living, extreme inequalities, or the limited freedom of
choice that characterize much of the developing world.
The problem of population is not simply one of numbers but involves
the quality of life and material well-being.
Rapid population growth does serve to intensify problems of
underdevelopment and to make prospects for development that
much more remote.
 6.6 Some Policy Approaches
1. General and specific policies that developing-country governments can
initiate to influence and perhaps even control their population growth and
distribution.

2. 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.

3. General and specific policies that developed-country governments and

international assistance agencies can initiate to help developing countries
achieve their population objectives. 35
6.6.1 What Developing Countries Can Do
1. Eliminating Absolute Poverty: Reduces economic
incentives for large families.
2. Reducing Income Inequality: Promotes equitable access to
resources.
3. Expanding Educational Opportunities: Especially for
women to empower decision-making.
4. Improving Job Opportunities: For both men and women.
5. Enhancing Health Services: Access to clean water,
sanitation, and nutrition.
6.6.2 What the Developed Countries Can Do

Population and Resource Use

Disproportionate Resource Consumption:

The U.S. (4.5% of global population) accounts for nearly 20% of

world energy use.
Focus on affluent nations' consumption patterns rather than
just population size in developing countries.

37
 Environmental Impact
Nonrenewable Resource Depletion:

Rising affluence leads to increased depletion of resources

like petroleum and basic metals.
Fossil fuel consumption in developed countries
contributes significantly to carbon dioxide emissions and
global warming.

38
 Global Inequality in Resource Distribution

Inequitable Resource Use:

Wealthy nations waste resources, while developing

countries struggle to access essential materials.
Need for affluent countries to reduce consumption to
free up resources for poorer nations.

39
 The Role of Lifestyle Changes

Simplifying Consumption Habits:

Developed nations should adopt sustainable lifestyles

to alleviate resource pressures.
This would allow resources to be redirected towards
social and economic development in poorer countries.

40
 Immigration as a Solution

Liberalizing Immigration Policies:

Historical context: Migration helped alleviate population

pressure in Europe.
Current barriers prevent economic benefits from
international migration.
Legal migration could provide significant economic
advantages to developing countries, estimated at $250 billion
annually.

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6.6.3 How Developed Countries Can Help Developing
Countries with Their Population Programmes
Genuine Support for Development
Financial Assistance: Expand public and private funding for development
efforts, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.
Trade Relations: Establish tariff- and quota-free access to developed
markets.
Technology Transfers: Provide appropriate technologies and assist in
building indigenous scientific research capabilities.
Commodity Pricing: Implement fair international pricing policies for
commodities.
Resource Sharing: Promote equitable sharing of scarce natural resources. 42
 Areas for Direct Fertility Moderation Assistance
Research in Fertility Control Technologies:
Support for developing effective contraceptive methods, such as pills, IUDs,
and barrier contraception.
Encourage research aimed at improving low-cost contraceptive options while
minimizing health risks.

Financial Assistance for Family Planning Programs:

Provide funding for family-planning initiatives, public education, and national
population policy research in developing countries.
Focus on integrating these programs with efforts to improve living standards
for low-income populations.
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 Critical Considerations

Resource Allocation: Evaluate whether funding for family

planning might be more effective if redirected toward
improving living conditions.

Motivation for Family Size Reduction: Emphasize the need for

programs that address socio-economic factors influencing
family size decisions.

44
 6.6.4 Policy for Still-Developing Countries Facing
Population Declines
Encourage Immigration:
Attract skilled workers through paths to citizenship or guest worker systems.
Address political resistance to immigration related to economic insecurity.

Retraining Programs:
Provide generous retraining for older workers to adapt to evolving job markets.
Focus on developing advanced skills for modern economies.

Move Up the Value Chain:

Shift production processes to include more advanced, high-value activities
domestically.
Increase productivity to support a larger nonworking population. 45