GGR208 Lecture 05
GGR208 Lecture 4a 2026-2.pdf
- Views on Population Controls
- Population Growth - Doubling Time
- Economics
- Population growth is positive for economics. Increasing labour force, consumption and production.
- More chances for innovation.
- Countries with highest economic growth are those with a lot of population growth.
- Environment
- Limits to resources.
- Threats to our sustainability
- Malthus and Population.
- In the early century.
- He said population grows at a geometric rate.
- But food supply grows at an arithmetic rate.
- So our population will be limited by food supply
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- Checks:
- Destructive
- Private
- Moral Constraint
- Celibacy
- Example:
- Irish Potato Famine
- The basic access to food supply failed
- There were still exports of food during this famine.
- He saw people more like animals in this regards, because that's the baseline.
- Criticisms
- Are the growth rates for popl and food supply true?
- How does technology change the Carrying Capacity?
- Boserup and population
- Agricultural Economist.
- century.
- Population growth and agricultural relationship:
- Popl growth agricultural intensification
- Changes in tech increases in food output.
- Criticism:
- Is continued intensification possible?
- Will we have a constant rate of return forever?
- Eventually we will have a decreasing rate of returns market regarding inputs to outputs on agriculture.
- Moved away from natural agriculture areas, due to tech we can move to non-natural areas.
- Land contamination:
- We already had an issue of not enough nutrients before, then we had fertilizer.
- There are fortified cereals because the soil doesn't have enough nutrients for that food to be edible long term.
- Climate change
- New tech:
- Biotech developments
- Changing the environment, Biodiversity.
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- Marx and population.
- Not too many people, but too many poor people unequal distribution of wealth.
- Solution redistribute wealth: Communism?
- To achieve it, it means to change the Economic System.
- Neo-Malthusian
- Post 1960's popl explosion.
- Increasing the mal-dist of population.
- Population growth Strain on environment AND govnernment.
- Govt
- Unproductive spending
- Because of popl growth, money is spent just on supporting the population.
- If there's a low Life Expectancy, then you get no return from this either.
- Population Control is needed.
- Slows developments
- Lower living standards
- Prevents socio-cultural change.
- Can't change the attitudes towards fertility, role of family, etc.
- Focusing on the numbers, which regionalizes the popl. problem.
- Concern for the environment. Not discussing personal consumption.
GGR208 Lecture 4b 2026.pdf
- Family Planning Debate
- Planning through birth control.
- Influence of neo-malthusians
- Regionalizes population focus
- We see the population growth as a problem, we solve it through social policy (and its enforcement).
- Social Change
- Economic change first then social?
- In this case it's social then economic.
- Neo-malthusian
- Solution to control growth
- Family planning
- Cheap and effective
- Silver bullet to solve the above problems.
- Effectively overcomes cultural obstacles
- Improves living cond.
- Female empowerment
- MDGs
- Millenium development goals
- End hunger and poverty, inc education, empower women, improve infant and maternal health, decrease hiv/aids, save env, etc.
- Aspirational. But misleading, will it actually do this? Is there evidence it has?
- Logic Evidence and Utility
- Associations with:
- Decision on fertility
- Family size
- Maternal mortality
- of pregnancies
- Time between them.
- Linked to food supply and healthcare
- Correlation between contraceptive prevalence rate and maternal mortality rate?
- Creates a simple association.
- It's not the only thing. Healthcare policy, access to it, etc. Has more of an effect probably.
- Cultural issues, economic development, etc has more of an effect.
- Criticism:
- Focuses on numbers
- Oppressive
- Personal consumption has an effect.
- Focuses on social policy
- Superiority
- Why have children if you're poor?
- Family planning is rational, large families are irrational.
- Opponents to family planning:
- Imposing a world view on others
- Interfering with personal values
- We don't regulate family size in developed regions of the world.
- You don't say you have too many kids in these parts, in other parts you may?
- Religious conservatism
- Is popl growth bad?
- Stimulates economy, production, consumption
- Impact on women:
- Effects of birth control:
- s are harmful chemicals.
- Selective abortion
- Deliberately selecting for male or female children
- Infanticide
- A child who's born is left to die
- Are these the effects of family planning?
- Sex imbalance - social consequences
- If you have more males than females, there's a change in social balance
- Changes the social roles of males and females because of that
- That imbalance can impact the QOL of everyone
- Dependency Ratio change
- Decline in fertility means more dependents per independent
- It gets harder to correct if Rate of Natural Increase is less than target of
- Is there a universal right to procreate?
- Cultural Opps
- Male dominance
- Popl.s want the contraceptives, etc, but can't.
- Unmet need for family planning
- Popl. who wants family planning, then not providing the resources.
- Create a demand for smaller families
- Children are an economic asset
- Child labour laws
- Cocoa production has a lot of child labour
- Family labour
- Impact on families
- Change the cost of labour. Which is why they're using children rather than adults
- Labour laws only impact paid labour
- Is most labour in developing regions paid or unpaid?
- Family businesses, working with the family, etc.
- Value of small families
- Is family planning a result or precursor to economic development.
- Soap Operas were a way of influencing the popl.
- Other considerations
- Population Decline
- Why have children?
- Economic costs
- Cost of children
- Impact on career of parents
- Social costs
- Impact on lifestyle
- Might just be a child to a person, but huge consequences in terms of consumption globally.
- Moral responsibility
- Env costs
- Who's driving the agenda
- Challenges