0008 Bauer - The Population Explosion Myths and Realties

8/12/2019 0008 Bauer - The Population Explosion Myths and Realties

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PeterT. BauerThe Population Explosion: Myths and Realties

[From Bauer, EQualitY. he Third World and Economic Delusion,Harvard University Press, 1981, chapter 3)

T~~ simple' ana:sensational ansWersobtained may well be wrong andcould ca~e serious damag~ to civilization and mankind. We must

. have the courage to accept that population economics is a complexsubjeci. where one man's problem is ano-rher man's sdlution and'where nost people's long-run interests are likely to be best served byintellecru.al humility an.d uitdogmatic.policies,

Julian L, Simon

1.Rapi~ population growth in less developed countries (ldcs) is widely regardedas a major obstacle to their material progress and a major global economicand political problem', According to the Pearson Report: 'No otherI phenomenon asts a darke~ shadow over the prospectsof international

, '. developmentthe atter a synonym n the Report or the development fldcs]than the staggeri~g growth of population.' I Mr Robert McNamara, Presidentof the World Bank, s evenmore emph~tic:

To put it simply:'the greate.st ingleobsta.cleo the economicand social advancementof the majority. of peoples in the. underdevelopedworld is rampant populationgrowth,. . . The. threat of unmanagea.ble opulation pressures s very much like thethreat of nu~learwar. . .'. Bath threats can and will have catastrophic consequencesunless hey are.dealt with rapidly and rational1y.%

Such opinions' are surprising. The recent rapid increase in population in ldcsreflects a steep f~ll in mortality,' This development represents substantialimprovemen t. in conditions, since people value a longer life. Yet the fearsepitomized in 'these' passages h~ve been advanced in support of drasticmeasures. for reducing population growth, including even forciblesterilization.

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THE WEST AND THE THIRD WORLD .There are pronounced differences n economic performance betweenethnicand cultural groups in the same country. Examples include differences

between Chinese, Indians and Malays in Malaysia;3 between Chinese andothers elsewhere n South-East Asia; between Parsees, ains, Marwaris andthe rest of the population in India; between Greeks and Turks in Cyprus;between Armenians, Jews, Greeks and the rest of the population in theLevant; between Asians and Africans in East Africa and Central Africa;between bos and others n Nigeria; and betweenChinese,Lebaneseand WestIndians in the Caribbean.In some of these cases he more prosperous groups have been relativelyrecent immigrants, who mostly came in empty-handed but were ambitious,energetic, ndustrious and resourceful. The fact that emigrants are usually nota random selection of the population in the country of their origin does notaffect the present argument, which is concerned with the role in economicperformance of natural resources per head. Similarly, whether or notdifferences in performance persist is also irrelevant here.

In many of these instances the now more prosperous groups werediscriminated against in access o land, and often barred from owning land.This was true of the Chinese n South-East Asia and the Asians in Africa. Andin South-East Asia the Chinese, with higher incomes on average, ive in moredensely populated areas han the Thais, Burmese,Malays and Indonesians nthe various countries. There are similar examples n the West. The economicachievement and prosperity of the Huguenots, Jews and Nonconformistswere attained without owning land. Indeed in much of Western Europe Jewscould not own land until quite recently, by which time they neverthelesshadbecome relatively prosperous.In both the less developed world and in the West some of the mostprosperous countries and regions are extremely densely populated. HongKong and Singapore are probably the most denselypopulated countries in theworld, with originally very poor land. Hong Kong consists argely of erodedhill sites, and much of Singapore was empty marshland in the nineteenthcentury. In the advancedworld Japan, West Germany, Belgium and Hollandare examples of densely populated countries. Conversely, many millions ofextremely backward people live in sparsely populated regions amidstcultivable land. Examples nclude the backward peoples n Sumatra, Borneo,Central Africa and the interior of South America. They have ready acces~ovast areas of land - for them land is a free good. In South Asia, generallyregarded as a region suffering from over-population, there is muchuncultivated land, land which could be cultivated at the level of technologyprevailing in the region. In its first Five Year Plan the Government of India

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THE POPULATION EXPLOSIONclas.sified ne quarter of the land surface of the country as uncultivated butcultivable. In West Malaysia, a small and relatively densely populatedcountry, well over half the land is still uncultivated. Much of this uncultivatedland is of the same quality as that currently cultivated, and is virtually asreadily accessible.4Such contrasts are not new. The Indians in North America beforeColumbus had unlimited land and were wretchedly poor. The land was notinfertile, as European immigrants soon made clear. They came rom WesternEurope which had far less and per head and was already advancedand rich.Venicewas built on a few mud flats and becamea wealthajworld power. Muchof Holland was drained from the seaand it becamea prosperouscommercialcountr)' and a centre of culture and learning.Within the last hundred years or so, very large areas of the lessdeveloped~oorldwhich had been sparsely populated by poor people were effectivelytransformed. Examples include the establishment and development of the(:States nd smallholdings in South-East Asia, primarily in Malaysia andIndonesia, but also in Thailand and the former Indo-China, and estatesandfarms in much of Africa and Latin America. These instances oftransformation were effected very largely by people with meagrecapital and~oith only simple technology at their command, and who worked underdifficult conditions. Their progress eflected sustainedeffort, the adoption ofimproved methods and the reinvestment of income.

Altogether, it is clear that natural resourcesdo not explain differences ndc,oelopment nd living standards.There is also no substantial ground for thebclief that population growth in the Third World will be a major obstacle omaterial progress, much less that it will create critical shortages of naturalrc>ourccs. We shall revert to this in somewhatgreater detail in section4 belowin the context of food production and of the availability of land and mineralresources.)ndeed, over large parts of the Third World the extremesparsenessof the population presentsobstacles o the economic advanceof enterprisingpcople,obstacleswhich are more effective than those supposedlypresentedbypopulation pressure. A sparse population precludes the construction oftransport facilities and communications, and thus retards the spread of newideas and methods. In this way it circumscribes the scope for enterprise.Of course,by extrapolating any increase n population sufficiently far aheadil is always possible to conclude that eventually there will be standing roomonly left on earth. Given enough time, this would be true even f populationincreasedby only one person every century. But such extrapolations are notinformative or sensible. No one can predict social and technological changebeyond a decadeor two. Nevertheless,one particular prediction can be made


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THE WEST AND THE THIRD WORLDconfidently. If rapid population growth should substantially threaten livingstandards, this would induce people to modify their reproductive behaviour.

The predictions of doom through population growth rest on the idea thateconomic achievement, progress and welfare all depend primarily on naturalresources, supplemented by physical capital. There is a vaguelycommonsensical appeal about the neo-Malthusian notion that prosperitydepends on ample land and rich mineral resources. This neo-Malthusiannotion is then supplemented by the very non-Malthusian idea that people inldcs have no will of their own and are simply passive victims of external forces:in the absence of Western-directed pressures, people in the less developedworld would procreate heedless of consequences. This reasoning is invalid.People in the less developed world do adapt their conduct to circumstances,and do not procreate without thought for the morrow.

It may be convenient to forestall three lines of objection to the proposition,emphasized in the preceding discussion, that natural resources and physicalcapital are relatively insignificant as pre-requisites of economic achievement.

The gold and silver flowing into Spain after the Spanish conquest of LatinAmerica, and the riches of contemporary oil producing countries, are ofteninstanced as evidence of the value of natural resources in conferring prosperityon their owners. But the precious metals of the Americas did not promoteeconomic progress in pre-Columbian America, and their capture did not serveto ensure substantial development in Spain. The oil resources of the MiddleEast and elsewhere were valueless until found and developed by the West; itmust be conjectural how far they will lead to sustained economic advance. It istrue, however, that the interplay of political and ideological forces determinelargely who benefits primarily from such geographical 'windfalls', windfallsactivated by Western enterprise and technology.

Second, rapid population growth is often said to inhibit development inthat it absorbs investible funds which could otherwise have been available tosupport economic development. A typical formulation is by Mr McNamara:

The irrefutable reason s that thesegovernmentsmust divert an inordinately highproportion of their limited national savings away from productive effort simply inorder to maintain the current low level of existence or the expanding population. . . .Capital that ought to have been nvestedwas not available. It had beendissipatedbythe ever-rising tide of children.S

This contention is seriously defective. To begin with, it assumes that theincreasing numbers of children are looked upon by their parents as a burden,not as a boon. Further, it ignores the direct economic contribution made bythe very young in many ldcs. It also exaggerates the expenditures in ldcs called


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THE POPULATION EXPLOSION .." forth by high fertility rates.For instance,primary educationevenon a large~31c need not be costly, because or both climatic and social reasonsschoolbuildings can be simple nexpensivestructures. The volume of investible fundsin any case is a minor factor in economic development. Much capitalformation takes forms more closely analogous to consumer durables than toIn)truments for increasing production and promoting further economicgro""th.6 It is unwarranted, further, to assume hat the governments of the'IJ.:s n question would use the investible funds more productively if they didnot ha\'e to use them to provide for expanding population. The investmentfccord of many Third World governments has been deplorable.

Third, it is argued that population growth must be detrimental to overallproductivity by reducing land and capital per head. As we haveseen, and is inabundant supply in large areasof the lessdevelopedworld. And the fertility ofth~ land is largely the result of human activity, notably effort, scienceandtcchnology. Moreover, the factor price of land as such is a small part of thenational income n most countries. Where rents are high relative to the incomeoffarm tenants and agricultural labourers, this clearly reflects he low value ofun)killed labour, itselflhe reflection of lack of skill, enterprise or ambitionrather than of population pressur~. Of course, population increase cansubstantially reduce the marginal productivity of labour in the short period;but this phenomenon has ittle to do with long term development. It can alsorcduce productivity per head by increasing the proportion of the young andthe old in a population. But to regard this as a reduction in welfare s to acceptthe unstated and, as we shall see,unwarranted assumption that children andold people are unwanted burdens whose life is of no value.

3~ational income per head s usedextensivelyas an index of economic welfare,3.)a measureof goods and servicesyielding economic satisfaction or benefit.The psychic ncome derived from health, prolongation of life and possessionof children is a major component of satisfaction. That this is so is evident inthe readinessof people to pay for services o have their health improved andtheir own lives and those of their children and parentsprolonged. These ormsof ps)'chic income are disregarded in national income statistics.Disregard of these orms of benefit brings about anomalies. The birth of achild immediately reduces ncome per head within the family, and also that inthe country as a whole. But do the parents feel worse ofT?Would they feelbctter off if they could have no children or if some of them died?

The familiar referencesn the development iterature to the so-calledburden


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THE WEST AND THE THIRD WORLDof dependency, representedby a relatively large proportion of children andold people n the population, imply that children are only a cost or a burden,not a blessing; and that the survival of people into old age s of no benefit toanybody, not even to the survivors themselves.These referencesalso ignoreboth the current and prospective economic contribution of children to theincomes of their parents.It is sometimessuggested hat high birth rates n ldcs, especiallyamong thepoorest, result in life so wretched as not to be worth living: over a person's ifesuffering or disutility exceedsutility. If this were so, fewer such lives wouldincrease the sum total of human happiness. This type of reasoning, whichimplies that external observers are the appropriate judges of the moral andemotional status of others, was often heard in the late nineteenth century andearly twentieth century in discussionsof the conditions of the poor in Britain.It is inconsistent both with simple observation and with widely acceptedethical notions. Even when people are poor they prefer to live rather than not.to live, as is indeed shown by their decision to strive to remain among theliving.7 This is not to say that their lives may not be unhappy, but merely thatit is not legitimate to suppose hat their lives are not worth living.The rapid population growth in the lessdevelopedworld in recentyears hasserved o widen differences n recorded per capita income betweenadvancedcountries and ldcs compared to what these would have been otherwise.Somewhat similar changes have taken place within individual countriesbetween richer and poorer groups. The results of such developments are alltoo often deplored as representinga greater nequality of income- a so-called.worsening of income distribution. Yet since he poor also ike to havechildrenand to live longer, this so-called worsening of income distribution reflects animprovement in their condition.The concept of optimum population (whether the population size whichmaximizes real income per head or that which maximizes eal income per headmultiplied by the sizeof the population) occasionallysurfaces n discussionsofpopulation growth in ldcs. This concept is of little intellectual or practicalsignificance. It again ignores any psychic income from children and fromlonger life. Its proponents usually also fail to specify such critical magnitudesas the period over which averageor total income is to be maximized and therate at which expected future income is to be discounted.

4If population pressure and population growth do not jeopardize economicperformance and progress significantly, they should not bring about

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THE POPULA TIOf\." EXPLOSIONpersistent specific adverse results either. However, certain specific untowardresults are often atlributed lo population growth. These esults are hought lObring aboul quite special problems and also by themselves lo obstructmaterial progress.The most significant of lhese are lhought to be a threat tofood supplies through lack of land, and to other components of livingstandards through the exhaustion of mineral resources.The emergenceoflarge-scale unemployment is said to be anolher major threat.Food supplies and exhaustible resource.\". opulalion growth is often said toundermine living standards in the lessdeveloped world, or even world wide,through increasing the demands made on land and exhaustible minerals. Inthis particular conlext population growlh in advancedcountries is supposedto be especiallyharmful becausepeople there usemore of these esourcesperhead.People n the West do indeed consume much more food and minerals perhead than do people n ldcs. But the difference n production between he twocategories is even greater. Not only does the production of developedcountries pay for all the consumption there, bul in addilion it finances heexport both of commercial capital and of subsidized capital lo the lessdeveloped world.8There is no danger of worldwide malnutrition or starvation throughshortage of land resulting from population growth. Contemporary faminesand food shortagesoccur moslly in sparselypopulaled subsistence conomieswith abundant land. There is no shortage of land in areas such as Ethiopia,the Sahel, Tanzania, Uganda and Zaire. The recurrent famines in thesecountries and elsewhere n the lessdevelopedworld usually reflect conditionstypical of subsistence r near-subsistence conomies.They reflect n particularthe absence f reservestocks and lack of accesso external supplies, argely theresult of poor communications and ineffective storage acilities. The effectsofthese conditions are exacerbated by widespread official restriclions on theactivities of traders, by a lack of public security and sometimes by officialrestrictions on the movement of food. In some instances he shortages arebrought about by the maintenance of unproductive systemsof righls to land,such as tribal systems of land righls which inhibit improved productiveactivity. Thesevarious influenceshave nothing to do with population pressureon land. It is notable that no famines are reported from such denselypopulated regions of the less developed world as Taiwan, Hong Kong,Singapore, Malaysia and cash crop producing areas of West Africa.The small size of farms and the low level of agricultural productivity overmost of the lessdevelopedworld reflect lack of skills, ambition and energy,or

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THE WEST AND THE THIRD WORLDsocial beliefs and customs adverse to economic achievement- and not ashortage of land. In many of these regions additional land is freely available,and yet agricultural holdings are very small. And in much of the lessdevelopedworld, only a single annual crop is taken from the land where double or treblecropping is feasiblewith little or no increase n input other than more work bythe family in different seasons.In the developedworld the cost of land is a small proportion of the resourcecost of food. For instance, and rent as a proportion of the factor cost of foodwas estimated or the United Statesas representingno more than 5% n 1972.9Most of this modest proportion representsnot the original qualities of theland, but the enhancement of its value through human activity and theapplication of knowledge - processeswhich will continue pari passu withpopulation growth. The productivity of land in both the developed and lessdeveloped world depends very largely on human activity.

It should be clear that there is no unequivocal or even sensibleanswer o thefrequently asked question how many people a country, a region or the worldcan support. Those who ask such questions often fail to specify even thestandard of living they envisage.But even f this were specified,suchquestionswould not be sensible.The number of people who can live in any area at thespecified standard of living is not determined by the extent of land or of otherphysical resources available there. It depends very largely on the personalqualities, social institutions and mores and political arrangements of thepopulation, on the state of technology and on external market conditions forimports and exports.Except for fossil fuel, mineral deposits do not represent exhaustibleresources. They are concentrations of minerals. The extraction of thesedeposits and also of minerals in a more-dispersedorm dependson price, cost.technology and government policy. When minerals are used they do notdisappear. In large measure hey can be recoveredby processes overned bythe same actors as those governing their discovery and extraction. Fossil fuelis an exception becausewhen used as energy t disappears n the atmosphere.But there is no danger of population growth posing a threat to long termenergy supplies.A substantial and lasting increase n the real cost of fossil fuelswould encourage he useof other sourcesof energy and also various methodsfor saving energy. Moreover, fossil fuel is not usedextensively as a source ofenergy n Asia and Africa, the home of the great majority of the peoplesof thelessdevelopedworld. Thus population increase n theseareaswould not be amajor factor in raising the cost of fossil fuel.

Any substantial long term rise in the real cost of food and minerals wouldind uce technical change designed o mitigate their relative scarcity. It would50


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THE POPULATION EX PLOSIONalso affect people's reproductive behaviour. To ignore this amounts toassuming that in one of the most important aspects of people's lives theirconduct remains unaffected by changes n their circumstances.Thus population growth in the less developed world would not endangerlong term supplies of food and minerals. On the other hand, governments ofmany ldcs pursue policies which affect thesesuppliesadversely.Over much ofthe lessdevelopedworld both current agricultural output and the extensionofcapacity, and thus long term supply, are impaired by heavy taxation offarmers, forcible collectivization of agriculture and restrictions on theactivities of traders. In many ldcs there are also severe restrictions on theaccessof energetic and enterprising local groups to land, whether alreadycultivated or unused. (Examples include the Ibo in Nigeria, Asians in Africa,and Chinese in South-East Asia.) Further, farm production is inhibited byubiquitous restrictions on the import or useof tractors, harvesters, ntertillagemachines nd other mechanically-poweredarm implements.0

Supplies both of food and of minerals, including fossil fuels, are impairedalso by policies and measuressuch as expropriation of assetsand enterprises,unilateral alteration of terms of agreements and insistence of localparticipation in mining and plantation enterprises. Besides educing currentsupplies, hesewidespreadpolicies raise risks and costs and inhibit the now ofcapital into plantation agriculture, the exploration and production ofminerals and related activities, and thus reduce the long term supply offoodstuffsand minerals. IPopulation gro}vth and unemplo)'ment. t is widely believed that populationgrowth in the less developed world is responsible for heavy current andprospective unemployment. This opinion is the acknowledged basis for thelarge scaleWorld Employment Project sponsoredby the World Bank and theInternational labour Office.This opinion is superficially plausible but nevertheless nfounded. It clearlydoes not envisage unemployment as a consequence of lack of effectivedemand, that is unemployment of a Keynesian or cyclical character. Thelarger population meansmore consumersas well as more producers. There isno reason why an increase n numbers as such should causeunemployment.The large ncrease n population in the West over the last two centuries has notbrought about persistent mass unemployment. Substantial unemploymentemerged n the twentieth century when population growth was already muchslower than it had been n the nineteenth century. And when in the 1930sand1940san early decline in population was widely envisaged, his developmentwas thought to make for more unemployment. It is evident also from recent

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THE WEST AND THE THIRD WORLDand current experience n the lessdevelopedworld that even rapid increase npopulation does not result in persistent unemployment, and also that thisissue cannot be discussed sensibly on the basis of numbers and physicalresources. Rapid population growth in Hong Kong did not bring aboutunemploymenthere. 2 Again, Singapores extremelydensely opulatedandonly very recently experienced a rapid population growth. There is far lessland per head of population in Singapore than there is in neighbouringMalaysia. Yet many people move from Malaysia to Singapore as short termor long term migrants or as permanent settlers n search of employment andhigher wages. Their numbers represent an appreciable proportion of thelabour force of Singapore and are significant in relation also to the labourforce of Malaysia.The suggestion hat increasedpopulation results n unemployment impliesthat labour cannot be substituted for land or capital in particular activities,and also that the pattern of production cannot be altered in the direction ofmore labour intensive activities. In technical language the suggestion mpliesthat the elasticity of substitution between abour and other resourcess zero inboth production and consumption. These conditions are not present in theless developed world. This is shown by the development of more intensiveforms of agriculture in many ldcs and the frequent changes n the compositionof their national output. Obvious examples nclude the developmentof doubleand treble cropping or the shift from pastoral activity to arable farming. Thesuggestion that population growth causes large scale and persistentunemployment in the less developed world involves other unrealistic andinadmissable assumptions such as absence of foreign trade, unchangingtechnology and reproductive behaviour uninfluenced by economic conditionsand prospects.

There are, however, certain characteristics of labour markets in some dcswhich do lead to unemployment, but they have nothing to do with populationpressure. An important instance is the operation of formal or informalminimum wage controls above the equilibrium level for the type of labourinvolved. This need not in itself causeunemployment but merely a reductionin the numbers employed in theseactivities. However, the attraction of beingemployed at these wages, together with the need to be available foremployment when required, results n the formation of pools of unemployedor intermittently employed labour. This situation, which is unrelated topopulation pressureor growth, is observable n the urban labour markets ofmanydcs. .

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THE POPULATION EXPLOSION

5The foregoing discussion of the implications of population growth anddensity can now be linked to recent demographic experienceand prospects nthe less developed world.Treatment in largely broad brush terms is appropriate for the presentpurpose on severalgrounds. The first is the ethnic and cultural diversity of theless developed world and even of individual ldcs. Specific treatment ofdemographic experiencewould require separatediscussionof the conduct andexperienceof t~e main ethnic and cultural groups in particular regions andcountries. This is not feasible here. Moreover, demographic statistics of mostldcs, notably in Africa and South Asia, are often no more than roughestimates with wide margins of error. Registration of births is seriouslyincomplete in most ldcs. Statistics are sometimes manipulated for politicalpurposes. On the other hand, incomplete censuses may result inunderestimatednumbers. The appropriate procedure for the presentpurposeis therefore to rely on broad information or reasonableestimates. n certaincontexts this information can, however, be supplementedby detailed specificstudies carried out by observers with no specific axe to grind.

The population explosion is simply a shorthand expression for a rapidsharp decline in mortality over a period during which birth rates haveremainedhigh. Although statisticsare patchy, he overall picture s clear. JBetween the 1920sand the 1960smortality in the less developed world

approximately halved. It declined from about thirty-one per thousand in the1920s o about seventeenper thousand in the 1960s.14Life expectation atbirth in the lessdevelopedworld as a whole is estimated o have ncreased romabout thirty-five years n 1950 o about fifty-three yearsby 1972, hat is by onehalfin the life span of one generation. The decline n mortality and the ncreasein life expectation have occurred far more rapidly than they did in moredeveloped countries with initially similar levels of mortality. In Westerncountries for which comparable information is available such an increase nlife expectancy ook place over severalgenerations.The decline n infant andchild mortality in the less developed world has been particularly rapid, butmortality seems o have declined substantially in all agegroups. S The generaland sharp decline in mortality and the consequent rise in life expectation inldcs have not beenaccompaniedor as yet been ollowed by a correspondinglysubstantial or widespread decline in fertility.The demographic picture of the contemporary world can be presented nthe following general terms. In most of the lessdeveloped world fertility hasremained high but mortality has fallen sharply. In the developed world, in

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THE WEST AND THE THIRD WORLDcontrast, both fertility and mortality have been at much lower levels forseveral decades,even allowing for somewhat higher fertility rates in the firsttwo decadesor so after the Second World War. Thus there is one large groupof societieswith crude birth rates of about thirty-five to forty per thousand ormore, a population increase n the region of about 2% per annum or more, anda gross reproduction rate of over 2.5%; and there is another large group withcrude birth rates of about eighteen to twenty per thousand, a populationincreaseof under 1% per annum, and a grossreproduction rate of about 1.2%.There are some societieswith intermediate levels of fertility at around thirtyper thousand, with population increasing at around I%per annum. These remainly in certain Far Eastern countries with appreciableChinesepopulations,ti few island countries elsewhere for example, Sri Lanka, Mauritius and theCaribbean) and some South American countries in the temperate zone withsubstantial populations of European origin. But this intermediate group isrelatively small.Thus there is a distinct dichotomy in recent demographic experienceandcurrent demographic patterns between he West (including Eastern Europe),Japan and Australasia on the one hand, and most of Asia, Africa and LatinAmerica on the other hand. The distinction between hese wo groups is muchclearer and much more pronounced in terms of demographic statistics than itis in terms of statistics of national income per head, for which there is no cleardiscontinuity in the international range of incomes.There are many relativelyprosperous countries, especially n the Middle East and Latin America, wherefertility has remained at levels much higher than those in some Europeancountries with comparable or even lower per capita incomes.

The high grossreproduction rates and the large proportion of young peoplewill ensure significant population increases n the principal regions of the lessdeveloped world over the next few decades.These ncreaseswould occur evenif age-specific ertility were to decline appreciably. As we shall see n the nextsection, ambitious population projects have often been wide of the mark. Butthe unambitious prediction can be made with some confidence that over thenext decadeor two the rate of population growth of the" essdevelopedworldas a whole is unlikely to fall significantly below 2%, anq may for some yearscontinue in the region of 21%. The only circumst~nces ikely to upset roughestimates would be a huge increase in mortality as a result of a series ofcatastrophes,or a dramatic reduction of fertility as a result of a sudden,rapidand pervasive Westernization of much of the less developed world. Theoccurrence of either development is exceedingly improbable, and the firstwould in any case be accompanied by other cataclysmic changes.

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THE POPULATION EXPLOSION

6Current levels of fertility in the less developed world have greatly exceededexpectations. t used o be widely believed hat the precipitate fall in mortalityin Idcs would be followed by an early and substantial fall in fertility. This wasthought especially likely if the decline in mortality were accompanied by asignificant rise in incomes and in the extent of urbanization. It was alsothought likely that a decline n infant and child mortality would bring about areduction in the birth rate, becausea wish to replace children who had diedyoung was regarded as a major reason for large families.In the West the rising incomesand general iving standards n the nineteenthcentury were accompanied first by a widespread decline in mortality whichwas then followed relatively soon by a decline n the birth rate. This sequenceresulted n a slow rate of population growth in the late nineteenthcentury andin the twentieth century, with much reduced mortality and fertility ratescompared with the early stagesof this period of transition in the eighteenthcentury and early nineteenth century. This Western experiencecame to beregarded as a norm. It served as the basis for the theory of demographictransition, from which its exponentspredicted in the early post war years hatsimilar sequenceswere about to take place in the less developed world.16Throughout the 1960s and 1970s ertility in most of the less developedworld remained much higher than had beenexpected. n particular, fertility insome of the poorer countries of Europe in the inter-war yearswas much lowerthan it has been n recent years n many ldcs, including countries with higherincomes han theseEuropean countries had before the SecondWorld War.11

For at least two reasons he confident predictions based on the theory ofdemographic transition derived from Western experienceshould have beensuspect at the time.The first reason was the notable failure of predictions of an early decline npopulation widely canvassed n the 1930sand 1940s.Substantial early declinein population, primarily in the West but to some extent worldwide, was thengenerally predicted. Confidence was buoyed up by belief in improvements ndemographic forecasting techniques,notably the development and useof theconcepts of gross and net reproduction rates. Economists, sociologists anddemographers also predicted that the decline in population would entailunfortunate or even disastrous results. These were thought to includewidespread unhappiness in a world populated largely by old people; anincreased burden of dependency on income earners because the greaterproportion of old people n the population would more than offset the smallerproportion of children; a lack of adaptability of the economy; ditllculties of

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THE WEST AND THE THIRD WORLDmaintaining full employment because the incentive to invest would bereduced; and widespread social pessimism and dejection accompanying thesechanges. Even the extinction of the species was seriously envisaged in somewritings of prominent academics under such headings as 'The End of theHuman Experiment' or 'The Suicide of the Race'.In less than the span of one human generation the population problem hascome to mean the exact opposite of what it had been held to be. The earlierscare of a decline in numbers has come to be replaced by the scare of anincrease in numbers, in both the developed and less developed worlds. Thescare has remained but the sign has been reversed. In ,view of this startlingchange one wonders what would have happened if proposals for increasingfertility had been adopted in the 1930s and 1940s and had successfullyincreased the number of people in the reproductive age groups. But before themore drastic proposals could be introduced, the predictions on which theywere based were already discomfited by population growth. '

Population forecasts have often proved wildly inaccurate. It is, never-theless, hard to think ofa precedent for an error in direction such as that of theforecasts of the 1930s and I 940s. The belief of the practitioners in theirpredictions and their readiness to base far-reaching policies on them were alsonew. Much the same confidence is evident in current population discussions,and they again serve as bases for policy.

Faith in the extension of the conventional theory of demographic transitionto the less developed world was misplaced also. The initial conditions fromwhich the demographic transition in the West occurred were in criticalrespects radically different from those in the contemporary less developedworld. The level of material culture in many Western countries was thenhigher than that in most of the Third World. Moreover, marriage patterns inEurope in the eighteenth century also may have been exceptional, possiblyunique. This is the theme of a justly celebrated and often quoted article byProfessor ohn Hajnal.18According o. Hajnal:

The marriage pattern of most of Europe as t existed or at least two centuriesup to1940was,so far as we can tell, unique or almost unique n the world. There s no knownexampleofa population of non-Europeancivilisation which had had a similar pattern.The distinctive marks of the 'European' pattern are (I) a high ageat marriageand (2) ahigh proportion of people who never marry at all. The 'European' pattern pervadedthe whole of Europe except for the easternand south-easternportion.This pattern contributed to a fertility appreciably lower than the norm inother societies, including most present day Idcs. Hajnal's findings have beenacclaimed widely. Hajnal suggests that the distinctive marriage pattern

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THE POPULATION EXPLOSIONemerged around the middle of the seventeenthcentury (although there aremore recentsuggestions f an earlier origin). That its emergence as soon \followed by a substantial acceleration of material progress bears out thesignificance of attitudes and mores on economic performance.

7In the contemporary less developed world economic improvement has attimes beenaccompaniedby an increase n birth rate and an evengreater rate ofincrease n population becauseof increasedsurvival rates (including those ofwomen of childbearing age and of their young children). Statisticalassociation betweeneconomic mprovement and increasesn the birth rate hasbeen observed in the inter-war period and in the 1950s n a number ofcountries including Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia and Mauritius. (This wasfound in conditions in which the rise n the birth rate could not be attributed tothe correction of previous under-reporting.) 19 In particular, n manypartsofAfrica fertility has increased n the course of progress rom a nomadic life tosedentaryagriculture, and from the first to the secondgeneration of sedentaryagriculture. In theseearly stagesof economic advance he improvement leadsto increased ertility and survival at a time when parentsdo not wish to restrictthe number of their children. Dr JamesKocher found that in rural Tanzaniaparents generally would have iked to have more children than the number oftheir children surviving over their reproductive life. He argues hat his findingsapply widely in sub-Saharan Africa and that they are confirmed by otherstudies.2OVarious demographic inquiries in West Africa, notably those of ProfessorCaldwell and of his associates, ound that fertility may have increased nrecent times, and that there was no significant difference between ertility inthe towns and in the countryside, notably in the Yoruba society of WesternNigeria.21Professor Petersen hows hat a number of inquiries into urban andrural fertility revealwide differences n experience n the lessdevelopedworld.In many Idcs, for example Malaysia, India, Pakistan and Algeria, urbanfertility is not lower than in the countryside; urban fertility relative to ruralfertility appears to be highest in Nigeria and lowest in some Latin Americanand Caribbean countries. In the West, on the other hand, low urban fertilityhas been routine for a long time.The relationship between ertility, social classand occupational statistics salso much more varied in the less developed world than in the West. Somestudies of fertility in Egypt have suggested hat fertility on the one hand, andeducation and occupation on the other, are positively correlated in rural areas

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THE WEST AND THE THIRD WORLDbut negatively in urban areas. Practically throughout the less developedworld, however, the Westernized strata in business,politics, administrationand the professions tend to have smaller families. These groups are a smallfraction of the total population in South Asia, Africa and much of LatinAmerica.2 2

Altogether, fertility in the lessdevelopedworld doesnot dependsimplyeither on the level of incomeor on the degree f urbanization.Adoption ofWesternattitudeswill inducepeople o restrict he numberof their children;but neither higher incomesnor increasedurbanization by themselveswillbring this about.

8The number of children people desire depends on personal attitudes andpreferences. These in turn are much affected by social beliefs, values andinstitutions. The economic costs and benefits also affect the number ofchildren people wish to have.Social values, beliefs and institutions differ widely among and often within

. societies. The more narrowly economic costs and benefits of children againdiffer greatly with the economic opportunities open to parents and childrenboth as producers and as consumers. These opportunities in turn areinfluenced by social and religious values, institutions and arrangements.23Thus one would expect substantial differences n fertility and family sizebothamong societies and among groups within societies. Various influencesinteract with one another, and their impact may change. Fertility and familysize n a given society may therefore be expected o changeover time. Both thenature and speedof demographic response o a particular economic change,such as an increase n income, may differ greatly in different societies andgroups and may vary through time.

Diversity and complexity of social and economic phenomena hemselves onot preclude valid generalization. Indeed, they present a challenge totheorists. We now note two bold attempts at a theory of the determination offamily size. One is in terms of modern microeconomic theory; the other isbased on inter-genera~ional lows of wealth.

The microeconomic th"eoryof fertility applies modern economic analysis othe determination of fertility and family size. t proposes o explain family sizein terms of various factors susceptible o economic analysis; hese nclude thepleasure (i.e. utility) derived from children, the costs of raising them, thecurrent and expected ncome accruing from children to parents, and the prices


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THE POPULATION EXPLOSIONThe theory is valuable for imposing a pattern on disjointed phenomena,and

for reconciling the results of cross-sectionstudiesof fertility with the resultsofthe analysis of time series.24 t may well provide successfulpredictions offertility over relatively short periods or in stable conditions, especially inindustrial societies.But its usefulness or predicting longer-term demographicchange n ldcs is likely to be limited. This is so chiefly for two reasons.First,the theory addressestself only to someof the determinants of the decisionsonfertility (unless he utility derived from children and the costs of raising themare defined so widely as to be tautological); and theseare not always the mostimportant. Second, the parameters and their modes of interaction with thevariables used n the analysis are apt to differ considerably among the diversesocietiesof the lessdeveloped world, and are apt to change n the changingconditions of that world. This applies, or example, o the cost of children andto their likely contribution to family income and to the support of parents ntheir old age.Thus even if the demographic experienceof the West could be explainedlargely in terms of the modern economic theory of fertility, it is unlikely toprovide a sound basis or predicting prospective ertility in ldcs over the nextfew decades.The theory that the direction of the inter-generational flow of wealthdetermines fertility was developed by Professor Caldwell. His investigationsand inferencesare among the most informative on this subject. His enquirieswere conducted mostly in West Africa, and his findings are summarized n themajor article already mentioned. Their significance and novelty warrantextended discussion.For the purpose of demographic analysisCaldwell classifies he societiesofthe lessdevelopedworld into primitive, traditional and transitional societies.The first two types of society reward a high fertility, which is advantageous othe society and may even be necessaryo maintain it. The primitive societyhasbarely emerged rom subsistenceproduction. Mortality is very high and thereis scant protection from internal and external enemies.Traditional society smuch more orderly as well as significantly lesspoor. Settled agriculture, cashcrops, trade and crafts emerge. n both primitive and traditional societies heextended amily prevails. Caldwell recognizesand lists the familiar advantagesof the extended amily in the early stagesof development.But he also observesand emphasizes ertain other characteristics arely noticed in discussionof thenuclear family and the extended amily which bear on demographic prospects.The most important of these characteristics is that in primitive andtraditional societies he inter-generational flow of wealth is overwhelminglyfrom the children to the parents, and more generally from the younger to the

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THE WEST AND THE THIRD WORLDolder generation. The contribution of children who work in the field or in thehousehold exceeds he cost of maintaining them. The young continue to be netcontributors to their elders until they set up on their own. Indeed, they oftencontribute even after leaving the household or compound, especially bysupporting their relations. The young do not resent the system, because heyknow that they in turn will be supported when they grow old. The participantsadopt and accept a long-term horizon; for instance,young women frequentlyrefer to the need to have many children and even grandchildren to supportthem when they grow 01d.2S .

When the inter-generational flow of wealth is from the young to the old it isan economic advantage to have many descendantsand young collateralrelatives. Thus the systemconduces o high fertility. Higher incomesand moreurbanization will not by themselves reverse the inter-generational flow ofwealth and bring about demographic transition. Thus in Nigeria many of thesocial, political and economic advantagesof having many children continue inurban conditions. Indeed, it is more likely in the towns than in the country thatthe political and material benefits of having one really successfulrelativeshould outweigh the cost of bringing up a number of unsuccessfulones.It is in the transitional society which follows a traditional society that theint~r-generational flow of wealth is reversed. The transitional society issignificantly more modernized than the traditional society. Many people n ithave adopted Western attitudes to a considerable extent. Caldwell rightlyinsists that modernization is only a euphemism or Westernization. Adoptionof Western attitudes conduces to a reversal of the direction of theinter-generational flow of wealth. Peoplecome to subsidize heir children andyoung relatives generally, instead of being subsidized by them. This changethen promotes family limitation.Caldwell supports his contentions with the results of close study of theavailability and use of contraception in Nigeria, notably Ibadan and Lagos.He confirms other evidence hat both traditional and modern contraceptivemethods are wid~ly known and readily accessible n Southern Nigeria.However, only a minority practise contraception to restrict family size. Evenwhen contraception is practised, this is not primarily in order to limit familysize,but rather for various other reasonssuch as avoidanceof detection of pre-marital or other extra-marital sexual activity. The demographic innovators,those women who regularly practise contraception in order to restrict familysize, are a small minority - a small minority even of educated women, and alsoof those who use contraceptives. They are women who deliberately acceptWestern attitudes towards child-bearing and child-rearing, almost certainly as

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THE POPULATION EXPLOSIONa result of exposure o Western education, contacts and media. They are as yetonly a very small fraction of women of child-bearing age.

Caldwell's conclusions are original, imaginative and suggestive. Hisfindings may explain the sustainedhigh fertility in most ldcs, n circumstanceswhen a substantial decline could have beenexpectedon the basisof the theoryof demographic transition. Nevertheless,even f Caldwell's conclusions werevalid and capable of generalization to other parts of the lessdevelopedworld,they still could not serve as a secure basis for forecasting long-term fertilitytrends. It is impossible to predict how far and how fast the different societieswill accept Westernization and Western patterns of inter-generational flow ofwealth. Westernization has made headway n the lessdevelopedworld. It maybe expected o make further headway, and ifso, it would bring about smallerfamilies. But there hasalso been esistance o Westernization, evensubstantialmovement in the opposite direction. Examples nclude the resistance n ruralIndia both to birth control and to the slaughter of cattle, and the revival ofMuslim orthodoxy in parts of the Middle East.

The microeconomic theory of fertility and the Caldwell theory basedon thedirection of the inter-generational flow of wealth are complementary. Thelatter relies more explicitly and extensively on the effects of cultural change.Together the two theories help considerably with an understanding of thedeterminants of family size. But for the reasons indicated, notably theimpossibility of forecasting he extent and speedof Westernization, predictionof long term fertility trends n the lessdevelopedworld as a whole must involvemuch conjecture. It is unwarranted to go beyond saying that it is virtuallycertain that for the rest of the century the population of the less developedworld will increase appreciably, even though it is likely that age-specificfertility and the rate of population growth will diminish.

9The preceding discussion has assumed that parents plan the size of theirfamilies and tend to have he number of children they wish to have.The typicalfamily size, n turn, dependson various cultural, social and economic factors.The comparatively high fertility and large families in many ldcs should notbe regarded as irrational, abnormal, incomprehensibleor unexpected.Theyaccord with the tradition of most cultures and with the preceptsof religiousand political leaders.These precepts have been expressedby leadersof non-proselytizing cultures, such as Hinduism, which suggests hat they do notreflect merely a desire or the power or prestigeconferred by large numbers of

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THE WEST AND THE THIRD WORLDfollowers or subjects. It is highly plausible that the desire for self-fulfilmentand for the perpetuation of one's family or one's society or culture has beenimportant in traditional insistenceon the value of large fa~ilies. The larger thenumber of children, the more likely are these objectives to be attained,especially or people ooking beyond their immediate descendants.A senseofcontinuity in the society is likely to encouragepeople to have arge families.26Notwithstanding certain clearly definable exceptions, he wish of the greatmajority of mankind to have at least some children' has extended across heages, across cultures and across social classes. This is evident from themultiplication of the human race as well as rom widely-held ideasand widely..practised behaviour.27The Biblical injunction to be fruitful and to multiply isfamiliar. Less well known in the West is the traditional greeting adressed obrides in India: 'May you be the mother of eight sons'. By contrast, thediscontent or unhappiness of people, especially of women, with no children,and the happinessof the fertile are common themesof both the sacredand theprofane literature of diverse cultures; it is reflected also in the uniformlyun avourable connotation of the term barren.28The widespread practice ofadoption and the growing demand for artificial insemination in somecountries also reflect the desire for children and a family.

Altogether, in the less developed world as elsewhere he great majority ofpeople want the children they have. Children give satisfaction; they are outletsfor affection; and they enable people to project themselves nto the future.They also yield economic benefits: they often contribute significantly to thefamily income; they serve asa ourceof securityor form of insuranceor oldage; and they sometimesbring prestige and influence. In all thesecontexts thebenefits from one highly successfulchild exceed he cost of the others.It is often thought that people in ldcs have many children because hey donot know about birth control or have no access o cheap contraceptives. Butthis is wrong. Fertility is well below fecundity in most societies.Traditionalmethods of fertility control such as coitus interruptus were widely known andpractised in societies technically and culturally much poorer and moreprimitive than populations with high fertility in the contemporary lessdeveloped world. Moreover, people in high fertility areas do have access ocheap Western-type goods and simple equipment of all sorts. Mass demandfor such cheap Western-type consumer goods as soft drinks, hardware,watches and camerashas been conspicuous or many decades n South Asia,the Middle East, Southern Ghana, Southern Nigeria, Latin America andelsewhere.The transistor radio was ubiquitous in South Asia, the Middle Eastand Latin America a few years after it becameavailable in the West. Contrastthis with the relatively slow spread of condoms, inter-uterine devicesand the

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THE POPULATION EXPLOSIONpill, long after their extensiveuse n the West, and also ong after the decline of

. mortality in the less developed world. The ready availability of cheapconsumer goods and the relatively limited use of cheap contraceptives,whichmoreover are often subsidized, suggest strongly that there is only limiteddemand for them.Much of the discussionof population in the development iterature assumesor implies that in the high-fertility ldcs children are somehow uncontrollablyvisited on their parents, and that they are to a large extent unwanted burdensboth on the parents and on society at large. On the contrary, however, thechildren who are born are generally desired. Children at any rate areavoidable. To deny this is to suggest hat parents n ldcs procreate without anunderstanding of the consequences or without the will or sense ofresponsibility to prevent them. This view treats people of the lessdevelopedworld with altogether unwarranted condescensionor contempt.29

10Western observersoften chide parents in ldcs for allegedexploitation of theirchildren and of the young generally. Suchcomplaints are nconsistentwith thefrequent assertions hat the large proportion of children in their populationsrepresents a heavy burden of dependency. Neither of these inconsistentnotions is valid.In ldcs quite young children often participate in economic activity. Theycontribute to the family income through agricultural activity and byundertaking household chores, thereby freeing parents for other activities. Inrural Uganda even ive and six year old children regularly participate in simpleagricultural and pastoral work.3O A detailed survey of a large area ofBangladesh ound that children contributed substantially to family income byworking in the field and in the home. I Even n towns young children are oftenactive in various forms of trade. This is a well known feature of economic ifein West Africa.32The contribution of children to family income, and thus to the nationalincome, is considerable in the aggregate.33.The contribution of youngchildren may well exceed he cost of maintaining them. But this doesnot meanthat parents exploit their children. As already noted, the children can expectsimilar support when they grow up.In ldcs as elsewherepeople take note of surrounding social and economicconditions in their procreative habits. And if they find that they have as manychildren as they can support, they will either stop having more or adjust theireconomic circumstances. People in ldcs as elsewhere who are materially


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THE WEST AND THE THIRD WORLDambitious for themselvesor for their children will adopt one or other or bothof these courses. The adoption of more intensive forms of agriculture, thedevelopment of cash crops and the readiness of people to move betweenactivities and places are familiar examples of such responses.

It is argued at times that even f parents argely have he families they desire,they may have larger families than is socially desirable because hey do notbear the full costs of having and raising children. According to this argumentthere is an externality in that some of these costs are met by publicexpenditure, as on hospitals, schools and family allowances. Taxpayerssubsidizeparents. Consequently the total number of children is greater than ifparents themselveshad to bear all or a larger part of the costs.

These effects are likely to be more material in developed than in lessdeveloped countries because the public expenditures involved are lesssignificant in the latter. However, the remedy lies in the reduction of theseexpenditures, or a modification of their incidenceso that the parents of largerfamilies are not so heavily subsidized. Further, the presenceof some of theseexternalities does not dependon family size.For instance,while a small familymay be subsidized by the taxpayers if the children receivepublicly financeduniversity education, a much larger family may not be so subsidized f theparents bear the cost of their school education.Western observers often press governments of ldcs to restrict family sizebecause of the adverse consequences of larger families, including theconsequences f externalities. At the same ime theseobserversoften also urgemore government help for the poor, including those with large families.Advocacy of fertility control will not be effective f parenthood is subsidizedatthe same ime. Even if the incomes of the poor were ncreasedby subsidiesnotgeared o family size, this is still more likely to lead to larger families than tosmaller ones because hesehigher incomes would not result from a change nattitudes.

11Allegations or apprehensions of adverse or even disastrous results ofpopulation growth are unfounded. They rest on seriouslydefectiveanalysisofthe determinants of economic performance; they misconceive he conduct ofthe peoples of ldcs; and they employ criteria of welfare so inappropriate thatthey register as deterioration changeswhich are in fact improvements in theconditions of people.

Misconceptions and defective reasoning have promoted policies designedto reduce fertility and family size. Where thesepolicies involve no more than64


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THE POPULATION EXPLOSIONdissemination of information about birth control techniques, or even the

. subsidized istribution of contraceptives,heymaydo little harm,andmayatsome cost improve the range of alternatives open to people. Even then,however, the policy may set up tensionsand provoke feelingsof insecurity andvulnerability if its announcement and implementation are accompanied byofficial propaganda insistently deprecating prevailing attitudes andbehaviour. Moreover, people n many ldcs, especially n rural areas,are oftendependenton officials for favours, for example n the allocation of subsidizedcredit or subsidized goods. Education and persuasion n favour of reducedfertility may in practice shade into coercion.34Pressures for population control in the less developed world largelyemanate rom the West. The pressuresand their sourceswereevident in India,where a sustainedand mounting pressure or birth control reached ts peak nthe compulsory masssterilization campaign 1975-77 n which the number ofpeople sterilized against their will, often brutally and in insanitary conditions,is reported to have run into several hundred thousand.3 Substantial sumshave later been spent in trying to rehabilitate some of the victims of thiscoercive population policy.Even drastic policies of population control will not be able to achieve hefavourable effectsclaimed for them within the foreseeableuture, certainly notwithin the time horizon of interest to national and international politiciansand administrators. On the other hand, population policies which involveopen or disguisedcoercion, or which in other ways are repugnant to the peopleconcerned, will rapidly produce anguish, anxiety, tension and conflict, with adamaging effect on personal and social well-being and on economicperformance. Such coercion is objectionable on moral grounds as well as forits economic results. Those who seek urgent and dramatic solutions to aproblem they claim to have discoveredare apt to propose or prescribepolicieswhich generatedifficulties and problems for the people directly affected farmore acute than those they would otherwise experience.

0008 Bauer - The Population Explosion Myths and Realties

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Transcript of 0008 Bauer - The Population Explosion Myths and Realties