Chapter 9 Addressing Population Issues

1
Chapter 9Addressing Population Issues
2
Overview of Chapter 9

• Population and Quality of Life
• Population and Chronic Hunger
• Economic Effects of Population Growth
• Reducing the Total Fertility Rate
• Culture and Fertility
• Social and Economic Status of Women
• Family Planning Services
• Government Policies and Fertility
• China, India, Mexico, Nigeria, Europe
• Achieving Population Stabilization

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Population and Quality of Life

• Difficult to meet basic needs in developing
  countries (about 81 of the world population
  lives in LDCs)
• Problems associated with overpopulation
• Environmental
• degradation
• Hunger
• Persistent poverty
• Economic stagnation
• Urban deterioration
• Health issues

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Carrying Capacity

• Carrying Capacity (K)
• The maximum number of individuals of a given
  species that a particular environment can support
  for an indefinite period, assuming no changes in
  the environment
• Overuse of land can cause a decrease in carrying
  capacity
• Uncertain what the carrying capacity of the earth
  is for humans

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Population and Chronic Hunger

• Food security
• Condition in which people live with chronic
  hunger and malnutrition
• Effects of Chronic Hunger

• Weakened immune system
• Illness and disease
• Malaria
• Measles
• Diarrhea
• Acute respiratory illness

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Population and Chronic Hunger

• Food insecurity
• Conditions under which people live with
  continuous threat of starvation
• Worldwide as many as 2 billion people face food
  insecurity intermittently as a result of poverty,
  drought, or civil strife

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Solving the Food Problem

• Control population growth
• Most economists and politicians believe that the
  best way to solve the food problem is to promote
  economic development in the developing countries
  that lack adequate food supplies
• Provide access to food and land resources to
  those who live in areas without them

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Food insecurity

• In shaded countries, more than 20 of population
  is undernourished

9
Economic Effects of Population Growth

• Two viewpoints from economists
• Population growth stimulates economic development
  and technological innovation
• Rapid population expansion hampers developmental
  efforts
• Most observations support the second viewpoint
• In order for a country to increase its standard
  of living, its economic growth must exceed its
  population growth

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Reducing the Total Fertility Rate

• The total fertility rate (TFR) is the average
  number of children born to each woman it
  declined to 3.1 in 2006, down from 7.0 in the
  1960s
• Three major influences on total fertility rate
• Cultural traditions
• Social economic status of women
• Family planning

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Cultural Traditions

• Culture influences and controls individuals
  behaviors
• Marriage age
• Due to high infant and child mortality rates,
  couple is expected to have large number of
  children
• Children often work in family business
• Religious values

12
Social Economic Status of Women

• Gender inequality is common worldwide
• Disparities
• Political participation
• Social status
• Economic status
• Health status
• Legal rights
• Education
• Employment and
• earnings

Illiteracy in 2002
Single most important factor affecting high total
fertility rates is low status of women
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Educational Opportunities and Fertility

• Women with more education
• Marry later
• Have fewer children

14
Family Planning Services

• Family planning services offer information to
  both men and women on sexuality, contraception,
  STDs, and parenting

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Contraceptive Use Among Married Women of
Reproductive Age

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Government Policies and Fertility - China

• Largest population in the world
• Controversial Family Planning Policy
• 1971 - Chinese Government actively pursued birth
  control
• 1979 - Incentives to promote later marriages and
  one-child families
• Medical care, schooling for child, preferential
  housing, retirement funds
• Brought about rapid and drastic decrease in
  fertility

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Government Policies and Fertility - China

• Law controversial and unpopular
• Social pressure to abort a second child
• Pressure to abort/kill female first child

• More boys than girls in China
• Law more relaxed in rural China
• 2008 TFR1.6

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Government Policy and Fertility- India

• Severe population pressure
• 1950 - first country with government-sponsored
  family planning
• Did not work due to language/cultural barriers
• 1976 - introduced incentives and compulsory
  sterilization
• Unpopular and failure
• Recently- government focused on education
• Effective, TFR dropped from 5.3 (1980) to 2.8
  (2008)

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Government Policy and Fertility- Mexico

• Young age structure
• Huge potential for population growth 32 of
  population is under age 15
• High Population Growth Momentum
• 1974 - government imparted educational reform,
  family planning, health care
• Very successful
• TFR dropped from 6.7 (1970) to 2.3 (2008)

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Government Policy and Fertility- Nigeria

• Population challenge
• Largest population of any African country
• Very high reproductive potential 43 of
  population is less than age 15
• TFR has barely decreased 6.0 (1980) to 5.9
  (2008)
• Current National Population Policy
• Improving health care
• Population education

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Government Policy and Fertility- Europe

• Population concern
• Proportion of elderly people in population is
  increasing
• Due to low TFR
• Decrease in population could cause decrease
  economic growth

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Two opposing viewpoints about future population
growth

• 1. Pronatalists think that declining birth rates
  threaten the vitality of their region
• They assert that women should marry young and
  have many children for the good of the society
• They favor government policies that provide
  incentives for larger families (paid
  maternity/paternity leave, easily available child
  care, baby bonuses, and penalties for smaller
  families)
• 2. Neo-Mathusian viewpoints maintain that rapidly
  expanding populations hamper economic growth
• Thomas Malthus was a British economist, who was
  one of the first to argue that the human
  population cannot continue to grow without
  leading to widespread famine, disease, and war!

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Achieving Population Stabilization

• How can developing country governments help?
• Increase allotted to pubic health and family
  planning services
• Education on methods of birth control
• Increase average level of education
• How can developed country governments help?
• Provide financial support
• Supporting research and development of new birth
  control methods