Population can be a resource or curse. Discuss
According to World Bank Report (2012), the population of many countries particularly those in Africa and Asia, will increase greatly in the coming decades. And some of developing countries the population is expected to double at 2050. The population of the world grew to 1 billion over thousands of years. It reached 1 billion people in the early 1800s. Just over 100 years later, the world population climbed to 2 billion. It reached 3 billion in 1960, less than 50 years later. The population had grown to 5 billion by 1987, and to 6 billion in 1999. The population of the world doubled from 3 billion to 6 billion in just fewer than 40 years. That is a lot more people in a very short time. Human population is expected to exceed nine billion by 2050.
Resource is anything with social and economic value and utility considering the culture and technology of the society. Resource can be natural or artificial resource example forest, wildlife, minerals and water bodies. Human population can be a resource or curse in a way that it may have some benefits or negative impacts in particular area as follows;
National savings and income. Population with high income status, large number of employed people and large number of educated population will increase the national saving and income because this kind of population is a resource which contributes the growth of national saving and incomes through the payment of direct or indirect taxes. For example government taxes and license institutions can accumulate income and taxes from high wealth population in a country. Backer (1999)7 in European countries such as Germany, France, Belgium and Great Britain proved that, high income status population in these countries enabled the government revenue institutions to accumulate more than forty percent (40%) annual of internal revenues through direct or indirect taxes from rich and wealth population, hence this population act as a resource because it help to improve the national saving and income. While countries with large poor population and high rate of dependence ratio population their national saving and income are total falling because a large population depend on social services from the government, hence the government expend a millions of dollars from its saving and income to provide the social services to the poor population hence the government became no national saving to develop other economic development projects like industrial development (Robbert, 2006). For example, most of African countries have low national saving and incomes because a large number of people are dependence and unproductive, hence they have low contribution to improve national saving and incomes, this type of population is a curse in a country instead of resources because it create a big burden of services to the government.
Labor force; means actual number of people available for work, which includes both employed and unemployed. All this can be formal or informal, in formal labor means that any sort of employment that is structured and paid in formal way. In informal labor can be paid or unpaid and it is always unstructured and unregulated, this labor force depends on ages, sex and specialization. Population can be a resource when labor force is well equipped in high technology and strength where that technology can be used in production of goods and services in a specified time, also innovation of new ideas hence increasing income and profit to both individual and nation for example in China, her population is high but endowed with skills and high technology (Todaro and Smiths 2011). On the other side a population may be a curse when there is high dependent ratio, for example a population which is characterized with young people especially children it is very difficult to engage in production activities hence leads to poor production, also when population is endowed with many unskilled people, it is curse since there is no specialization and also innovation is very difficult due to lack of new and constructive ideas especially in most of developing countries (WB,2012).
Innovation; refers to the introduction of the new method, new ideas, products and practices or object across space through time. Growing population put pressure on the society to innovate in order to serve the mass. The presence of population with education, knowledge and skills facilitates more interaction between the communities something which influences innovation and adoption of the innovated technology, therefore the innovated technology becomes useful to such community. While a population with no skills and knowledge hinders interaction and hence become a curse as it limits the spread and adoption of the innovation. This is because more interaction between skilled people means, more great minds hence lead to innovation, also when there are many people there will be a need for the alternative means of resource because of the infiniteness of the resources which are provided by nature (Burns, 1961).
Environmental, A population can act as the resource for environmental conservation or curse for environmental degradation, if the population are healthily, well educated and invest more in education with jobs, high technology, capital and resource for conservation can play role in environmental conservation like land reclamation, application of friend farming method like terracing, a forestation, application of irrigation technology to irrigate the environment will ensure environmental conservation and boost living standards, as individual income , saving, and investments rise, more resources become available that can boost productivities. But if the population is low educated, low technology with scarcity of environmental conservation resource it can act as the curse to environment since the poverty can force them to apply negative activities like deforestation, land degradation through poor farming. This will led to environmental degradation like change of climate, ozone depletion, melting of ice, global warming, fall of agriculture production, food and water shortage, (DON, 2000).
Specialization of labour, according to Adam smith (1976) in his book of wealth nation’s show the economist views that categorized specialization of labour as division of labour whereby it refers to the practice of splitting job into discrete task and assigning each task to a specific worker. For example no worker in a modern car factory makes an entire car from start to finish. So in real situation a certain population will have a division of labour inside the different work zone like that of agriculture, industries, fishing and more other area but this will depend much on population. In case there is labour specialization a certain population is tend to be a resource because the rate of production will be indicated no matter how large or small population is. Example Israel population is small but all their population is resource because of labour specialization. Population is curse if there is no specialization of labour, due to the fact that specialization tends to make the increase of production hence development of individual and the state in general. So if there is no specialization of labour either the population is large or small, the opposite of specialization of labour tend to make the population to be a curse when low productivity is indicated at a particular area. Example Tanzania population is high but because of less specialization of labour hence poor production is observed hence the situation of population to be a curse is indicated (Adam, 1976).
Population can be a source of market to the products produced in a specific place or country, if people in such area have enough income to purchase such goods. Poterba, (2004) says; because the produced products are used up by the individuals within the specified area this helps to raise the living standard of the people who engage in business and the rise of economy of the specific country as well. But in turn this can be a curse to a society if the products produced have no consumers to them hence producers of such goods find external market. This aspect can be evidenced between China and Tanzania, as most products in China are consumed by themselves because they have enough money to afford such products but in Tanzania a lot of standardized products like fish are exported to other countries because Tanzanians have no large income as their income is less than one dollar hence manufacturers or producers find external market.
Productivity, Population growth has linked to increasing labour productivity and economic growth, when population grow people are challenged to respond to the increasing population by increasing effort in production activities (Boserup, 1995) As a number of people increase in a certain area also productivity increase since because labor power increase so labor conduct different activities in different sectors like industrial activities and other activities which help to increase the productivity and economy of the country or individual economy. On the other hands when the population of certain area contain people of low knowledge and low technology the productivity will be low, and this is due to the absence of new and advanced technology in a such area especially when the area contain poor people and uneducated people since poor people lack financial to adapt the new technology.
Recommendation
In order for the country to achieves an optimum development population should be controlled through the applications of the following methods, use of contraceptives, family planning and the use condoms, therefore through the emphasis and provision of education about the application of these methods the population will be controlled in the manner that it won’t compromise the exist resources and this may lead to sustainable development.
Generally population can be a resource in those countries which have high innovative people and educated people because these people will contribute much on economic growth through their innovativeness and skills they have. Also population variables influence the development and the welfare of individuals, families and communities at the micro level, and the district, region and nation as a whole at the macro level. The effects and responses to population pressure interact at all these levels. But on the other side population can be a course when there is high population in the situation that there is low economic growth, this will result on high dependent ration which will result on poor social services, poor infrastructures, and high burdened to the government.
REFERENCES
Backer, N. (1999) "Demographic Development and Impacts Associated with Huge Population”, 2nd edition, Journal of Social Sciences, New Delhi, India.
Barro, R. (1991). Economic Growth in a Cross Section of Countries. Quarterly Journal of Economics.
Boserup, E (1995) Population Growth and Economic Growth: New York, U.S.A.
Burns T, Stalker GM. (1961). The Management of Innovation. London, Tavistock
Hodgson, Dennis. 1983. “Demography as Social Science and Policy Science.” Population and Development Review 9(1):1–34.
Poterba, J. (2004). Impact of Economy on Financial Markets in Developed Countries and developed countries. University of Chicago Press: Chicago, London.
References; World Bank Report,(2012) Global Movement United Nations. New York
Robert, H. (1996).”World population and International Economic Demands”, A case Asian Atlantic Zone, Towase Printed Ltd, Malaysia.
Todaro and Smiths (2011) Economic development,11thed, new York, London
Adam, S. (1976). An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of Wealth Nations. Ed R.H. Campbell & A. Skinner 2 Vol Oxford Press.
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