Links between
population growth and economic development in a country
A growing population can either be good or bad for an economy. It
can be negative for the economic development of a country, because it will mean
a pressure on services & resources and a large youthful population will
become an economic burden. It can also be beneficial to a country, as it will
mean a larger consumer market and more taxes for the government to spend on
services.
Changes in
demographic indices over time
Indices: Birth Rate, Death Rate, Infant Mortality Rate, Fertility Rates,
Dependency Ratios, Doctors per 1000, Life expectancy, Hospital beds per 1000,
Obesity rates, spending per person and GDP.
USA Indices: Obesity rate (30.6%), Hospital beds per 1000 (3.3 per
1000), Drug access (95%), Plastic surgery procedures (90992) and spending per
person on health ($4271).
Population
and the resource relationship
·
This relates to the carrying
capacity of a country
·
The roles of constraints: War
and climatic hazards
·
It’s in relation to sustaining
population change
Malthusian
theory to population change
Thomas Malthus published the Malthusian theory of
population growth in 1798. It predicted that population growth would be are
doom in comparison to the number of resources available. He said that
population would grow until it reached the limit of food supply after which
there would be poverty and widespread famine. He believed that population
increase by multiplication, whereas food production increased arithmetically.
He believed ‘checks’ helped us to understand the population-resource
relationship.
Positive checks
(would balance out this population growth (increased death rate)): Inadequate food, famine, disease and war.
Negative Checks
(Prevented the birth rate from increasing): delayed
marriages, abstaining from sex and a reduced fertility rate.
There is much
evidence to support his theory including: The
Rwanda genocide if 1994 which claims a high population density and lack of
arable land led to the massacres, The collapse of society of Easter Island
which was due to the overuse of resources which created tribal wars, the
creation of government constraints to prevent overuse of resources, natural
hazards such as flooding in Thailand in 2011 and Famine on the Horn of Africa.
Though Malthus
did not account for: New technology such as the
Green Revolution, the opening up of new land such as Australia and NZ (which
were not properly explored by European societies), Irrigation techniques and
the reduction of population growth in MEDC’s.
