SUMMARY
The author of the article, Mukesh Eswaran, asserts that rapid population growth is a serious challenge, which affects not only society but also the economy. Mukesh has a view that current population growth, in developing countries, will slow down economic progress and it reduces the size of the middle class. According to the statistics presented in this paper, many developing countries’ population is growing at a 2 % rate per annum, and as projections, the size of their population will double in 35 years. He explains this dilemma with high fertility, high mortality and high population in the context of the economy.
As the family size increases, the per capita income, for a household decreases, it implies that a family has less income to access various resources, which include basic resources. Therefore, with the increase in the size of a family, opportunities also diminish. It increases poverty in an economy and reduces the size of the middle-class. The author has also suggested that transition, “from high fertility-high mortality-high population to low fertility-low mortality-low population”, has aided developed countries in pursuit of their political-economic objectives and this transition can also aid developing countries in realizing their political-economic objectives.
Also, the resources are fewer or limited, and as the population grows, these few resources are to be further divided to meet the needs of a growing population. Mukesh also claims, based on the scrutiny of evidence that a country progresses when its GDP growth is higher than its population growth. However, Mukesh admits that labor-intensive economies benefit from higher population growth at the cost of production, because of the high supply of labor, dwindles. Though, because of the other factors, such as income, the challenge of the population is seriously it is not an opportunity, but rather it is a challenge. In a nutshell, economic growth is adversely affected by rapid population growth and various studies have endorsed this assertion (Eswaran).
ANALYSIS
Different studies have suggested that rapid economic growth has an adverse impact on economic growth when economic growth is slower than population growth. It is essential to understand that population growth becomes a serious threat, only when economic growth is slower. However, it must also be acknowledged that high population growth has an adverse impact on the economy, even when economic growth is twice the size of population growth. It is because the economic resources are fewer and needs are many.
For instance, reservoirs, of fresh water, are not only declining dramatically but also polluting. The increase in population will further aggravate the situation, about the availability of usable fresh water reservoirs. Similarly, higher population means less agricultural land for cultivation per family/person .
However, the immediate effect, as per my understanding, is on per capita income of the household, which causes poverty and a reduction in the size of the middle class. However, because of population, labor cost decreases; however, the consumption also suffers because of low income. Therefore, an ideal size for the family should be propagated by a state and incentives should be part of a policy to reduce the population growth to that percentage, which facilitates economic growth.
We must also acknowledge that depopulation is a far severe issue for the economy than higher population. For instance, when depopulation occurs, consumption diminishes; the cost of labor increases both these factors directly affect economic growth. From this analysis, we can infer that there is an ideal growth size of the population and this magic number facilitates economic growth at various levels.
A government or state can use various methods, such as incentives, to regulate population growth, which will allow governments to control economic growth to a certain extent. With the time, governments will be able to develop potent instruments to regulate both economy and population size.
Work Cited
Eswaran, Mukesh. “Fertility In Developing Countries.” University of British Columbia (2002): 1-17.
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