Theories on Population Growth and Decline

The rapid increase in the world’s population has created questions on the carry capacity of the earth to feed and sustain its growing population. How large can world population ultimately become? How many human beings can the planet feed and the environment sustain? What factors, events, processes or circumstances account for rapid population growth? How can rapid population growth be checked or averted?

The following theories are hereby presented as answers to the above-mentioned questions:

1. Malthusian Theory

The English scholar Thomas Malthus (1766-1834), whose theories appeared in 1798 in “An Essay on the Principle of Population”, theorized pessimistically that population was uncontrollable and that it would, at a future date, reach and then exceed a level at which the planet could sustain the incredible high population numbers. He argued that human populations are inescapably caught in a conflict between their “need for food” and the “passion between the sexes”. Population, he maintained, increases geometrically (2,4,8,16 …), while food supplies increase only arithmetically (2,3,4,5 ….) No population can continue to grow indefinitely, because people will increase their number to the limit of subsistence. There will be overpopulation and massive poverty. Overpopulation is defined as any population level that cannot be sustained by the geographic area in which it is located.

2. Marxian Theory

Karl Marx took exception to the Malthusian doctrine. Marx believed that the problem was not primarily one of population but one of the ownership of the means of production and the inequitable distribution of a society’s wealth. Marx depicted capitalism as creating a surplus population so as to drive down wages and maximize profits. Marx felt that population could ultimately be controlled by the complex workings of market economics and that the economic markets, as they expanded, would be able to sustain population at whatever level it had reached. He contended that the solution to population problems lay in the establishment of a new social order – the socialist order.

3. The Demographic Transition Theory

The concept demographic transition refers to the three characteristic stages of the population dynamics for societies undergoing industrialization. In the first stage, which is characteristic of preindustrial societies, both the birth rate and the death rate are high and relatively stable. The second stage is a transitional one; the birth rate remains high but the death rate declines as nutrition, health, and sanitation improve. In particular, as the infant mortality rate is lowered, the huger yearly crop of babies survives and become parents themselves. Hence, this stage has the potential for explosive population growth. Stage three, both the birth rate and the death rate are low and in balance again. People now bear fewer children because of the dramatic increase in the chances for infant survival.

Using this model, most African nations are in stage one, with high birth rate and death rates. Indeed, the Philippines and most Latin American countries are in stage two, with transitional high growth. The industrialized nations are in the third and final phase, with a low but fluctuating birth rate and low, steady death rate.

Consequences and Implications of Rapid Population Growth

The rapid population growth of the world, especially among developing and underdeveloped countries, accentuates many social and economic problems. As a consequence, they fall further behind the technologically advanced industrialized countries in their efforts to modernize and to improve the quality of life for their people.

The consequences of rapid population growth include the following:

  1. Nearly half the world population are undernourished to the point of low vitality and high vulnerability to starvation disease and death.
  2. Most people live in poverty, the resources needed for capital development are used up, and its unemployment is high.
  3. Overcrowding occurs, public services are strained, and the environment is polluted.
  4. Environmental destruction and degradation in order to produce food by any possible method, e.g., slash – and – burn agriculture
  5. Many children are pushed to work for the sustenance of their everyday life through child labor and prostitution, and mendicancy.
  6. The high ratio of children to the adults of working age who must provide for their education and welfare not only places a severe strain on the national budget, but tends to hamper improvements in the efficiency of education and health services to the nation’s children.
  7. Criminality and illegal activities like drug trafficking, robbery, car napping, white slavery due to poverty.
  8. Migration to urban centers has led to problems of congestion, slum and squatterism, urban poor, and other urban problems.
  9. Quality of education deteriorates, as there are not enough classrooms, teachers, books, and instructional materials.
  10. Moral and spiritual degradation (sex, “flesh trade”, immoral acts, growing materialism, lack of spirituality).

Morever, ecologists regard rapid population growth as a major straining factor that undermines the entire earth’s carrying capacity as supported by the following facts:

  • Continuous depletion of the earth’s renewable resources has been going on in a leaping rate;
  • Extinction of at least half a million of plant and animal species;
  • Worldwide deforestation and unstoppable loss of several inches of top soil from croplands;
  • Fossil fuels like petroleum will become a scarce commodity in the near future due to an excessive utilization of them at present;
  • Water supplies and per capita wood growing stock have been dramatically decreasing;
  • Environmental pollution has led to global warming and “greenhouse effect”.
Measures on Population Control

At present, the Philippines and the whole world as well, face the problems brought about by rapid population growth. Population explosion refers to the remarkable increase in population brought about by a stubbornly high birth rate and a declining death rate (Hauser, 1969). It follows that one way to resolve these problems is by reducing the annual rate of growth of the population. The most practical goal for the future is to reduce population growth and to help the developing nations become more self-reliant.

In the keynote speech of Mr. Robert McNamara, former president of the World Bank, before participants in the Global Industrial and Social Progress Research Institute Symposium 1992, McNamara (Population Headlines 1992) is this statement “A massive global effort will be required in the 1990’s to head off a population explosion that threatens to destroy the environment and take away the economic and social advances that have been made. The interests of both developing and developed countries – particularly the interests of women and children – demand immediate action to accelerate the reduction in population growth rates.”

The following measures and programs on population control in the international, national and local levels are hereby presented:

  1. A number of resolutions to come up with programs aimed at curbing population explosion have been adopted by United Nations Organization and its member countries in three previous conventions: the World Population Conference in Bucharest, Romania in 1974; the International Conference in Population in Mexico City, Mexico in 1984; and the International Conference in Population and Development in Cairo, Egypt in 1994.
  2. Adoption of planned parenthood or family planning as a national policy of many countries.
  3. Disseminating information on family planning through government agencies and even private institutions.
  4. Legalization of abortion as a means of deterring unwanted pregnancies in the United States and many European countries.
  5. Re-educating the people concerning their beliefs and practices which favour big family size.
  6. Softening of the Roman Catholic Church on the use of contraceptives or artificial birth control methods.
  7. Encouragement of delayed marriages and control of births within marriage. For instance, in China, every Chinese is required to raise one child only (one child policy)
  8. In the Philippines, the Population Commission was created to serve as a policy making, coordinating, and monitoring agency on matters pertaining to population.
  9. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) provides fund for contraceptive research and production. It also conducts information and educational activities in family planning.

Control of the population explosion must be a slow process. Three things are certain, however:

First, population can be reduced by conscious and deliberate control of reproduction by individuals, families, or societies.

Second, the more people earn and learn, the fewer children they want; and

Third, a truly determined, highly organized nation can check its population explosion relatively fast.

A check on the population increase can and must be achieved if the human race is not to outstrip its resources and find itself with living standards comparable to those of the Dark Ages.