Sustainable Development: Why the Focus on Population?
Maria Sophia Aguirre
Associate Professor
Department of Economics
The Catholic University of America
Washington, DC 20064
Presented at the 2000 Harvard-MIT Conference on International Health
Harvard, March 10-12
I. Introduction
The theme of population, and more specifically, overpopulation has been in the popular mind for
the last thirty years or more. At the heart of the population-resources-environment debate lies the
question: can the earth sustain more people? How you answer this question depends greatly on whether
or not one sees population as a problem. Is population a problem? Some would argue that yes,
population is a problem in that earth is limited, that it can only sustain a certain number of people
(although no one knows what that particular number may be), that the more numerous we become, the
poorer we will become. Others argue no, population is not a problem. Some contend that numbers in
themselves do not equal poverty; rather, poorly structured societies and economies foster poverty. How
people perceive the issue of population is critical, for it is by these perceptions that international
legislative policies are formulated, and local medical plans and sex education classes are designed. Thus,
it is equally critical that people ensure that their perceptions are grounded, not in rhetoric and emotions,
but in established scientific and empirical data.
“Sustainable development” is a policy approach that has gained quite a lot of popularity in recent
years, especially in international circles. The UN and other organizations such as Bretton Woods have
taken an active role in defining “sustainable development.” By attaching a specific interpretation, they
have made population control the overriding approach to development. An illustration of such policymaking is the recent Five-Year Review and Appraisal of Implementation of the International Conference
on Population and Development (ICPD) Programme of Action (ICPD+5). As will be seen, such
population policies have become the primary tool used to ‘promote’ economic development in developing
countries and to protect the environment. However, these policies have failed to achieve either goal.
1
Furthermore, I would like to argue, that the focus on population is not necessarily incorrect, but that the
policies used are mistaken ever since it aims at hampering the growth of a key element of economic
development: human capital, and thus renders it unsustainable. In order to obtain a clear analysis of the
situation, it is necessary to address the theories upon which population control policies rest. Economics
and environmental science are often used as supports for such policies in an attempt to establish a
relationship between population, resources, environment, and economic development. However,
literature from both disciplines suggests opposite conclusions. Thus, it is critical to hold up such policies
to the light, as it were, of scientific research. To date, the research finds inconclusive support for such a
relationship; this suggests motives other than economic or scientific ones behind population control
policies.
II.
Economic Theories
The steps in the argument used to support the propagation of population control policies can be
reduced to mainly three. First, rapid growth on population means the spread of poverty, and it is a main
obstacle to economic growth in poor countries, reducing or canceling potential improvements in living
standards, and aggravating such conditions as poor health, malnutrition, illiteracy, and unemployment.
Second, the political implications of such trends threaten government stability in developing countries,
and encourage the confrontation between developed and developing countries. Finally, it pushes future
generations to scarcity, and an unsustainable environment carrying capacity.
1. Classical Economic Growth: Malthusian Theory
Historically, classical economists founded the relationship between population growth and
real growth on Malthus' Theory of Population and Income. Thomas Robert Malthus introduced in
his 1798 Essay in the Principle of Population a relationship between population growth and what he
termed subsistence. The first grew geometrically while the second increased only at an arithmetic
ratio. Thus, he proposed the existence of an inverse relationship between population growth and
development derived from the law of diminishing returns. This law is the belief that more people
mean fewer goods for each person; thus, as population grows, poverty inevitably increases. He
believed that mans ability to increase his food supply was constrained in three particular ways:
through land scarcity, limit productive capacity of cultivated land, and the law of diminishing
2
returns.
Although he believed his predictions were inevitable, his intent was not to promote
government-implemented population control policies. Instead, Malthus upheld the idea of a
population optimum where human numbers would be held in balance with supply. This optimum
was not to be achieved by promoting contraception but through preventive as well as what he called
positive checks, particularly amongst the working classes. The first one was to be achieved through
moral restraint'. The second one was to operate in tandem with the preventive checks which he
described as all the causes which tend in any way prematurely to shorten the duration of human
life, such as unwholesome occupations, severe labour and exposure to the seasons, bad and
insufficient clothing arising from poverty (...) the whole train of human diseases and epidemics,
wars, infanticide, palgue, and famine.1
Malthus' problem was that he failed to explore his theory against historical experience; no
theory can said to be scientifically proven if that theory can not be verified by empirical evidence.
Following Malthus' inverse relationship between population and growth, Classical Economic
Theory is founded on the following arguments2:
a. The consumption effect: For a given amount of resources, population growth affects consumption
directly.
b. The production effect on private and public goods: Population growth affects consumption
indirectly through the effect on production per worker. With a fixed capital, average production per
worker will be lower with a larger labor force (the classical argument of diminishing returns). Along
the same lines, with a fixed level of revenue, a larger population will increase the demand for public
services, especially education and health care, thus reducing the quality of these services and
indirectly hindering development through the reduction of funds allocated to infrastructure.
c. Age-Distribution effect: A faster-growing population implies a larger proportion of children and,
given the amount of resources, a smaller output per capita. The effect on women has been added to
this argument: the more children born per woman, the less chance she has to work outside the home;
this hinders her personal development.
1
2
. Malthus (1824), p. 39.
. This particular interpretation of Malthusian theory explanation relies heavily on Simon (1996a).
3
d. Dilution of Capital: With a fixed income, population growth reduces savings and human capital
(education per person) and therefore reduces physical and human investment.
In summary, the classical theory of population growth, assuming a fixed level of resources,
predicts a decrease in per capita income in two ways: more consumers divide any given amount of
goods, and each worker produces less because there is less capital, private and public, per worker. In
addition, the growing number of young children poses an additional burden in the reduction of
consumption because they consume but they do not produce; it also hinders women's development as
they may not be able to work outside the home. Finally, population growth hinders economic growth
because, by reducing savings and education, it reduces investment. The key made in this theory is
the ceteris paribus condition (other things being equal) where resources are given and therefore
constant.
However, when challenged, this theory fails both theoretically and empirically. Analysis at
both levels suggest that there is no statistically proven simple relationship between population
growth and economic growth, population size and economic growth, population size and resources,
or population growth and environment3. The absence of a correlation contradicts the conventional
Malthusian deductive conclusion. The only persuasive argument in the face of this absence of
correlation, as Simon (1996b) points, is a plausible scenario in which one or more specified variables
that have been omitted from the analysis would, in fact, lead to a negative relationship between
population growth and economic growth. Thus, results suggest that population growth is not the
only relevant variable for development and thus, empirical evidence suggests that Malthus' dynamic
growth theory has failed.
From the point of view of the population growth-development trade off argument, evidence
shows that most underdeveloped countries that have implemented population control policies,
however, have not shown definite signs of success in overcoming the problems of development,
problems that are often attributed to the "population trap". In fact, since the seminal work of CoalsHoover (1958), several studies have followed supporting or contradicting population control policies.
In 1986, the National Academy of Science published a study entitled "Population, Growth and
Economic Development", in which they studied the effect of slower population growth achieved by
3
. These works include Denison (1985), Rosenberg and Birdzell (1986), Scully (1988), Barro (1989), Simon
4
the reduction of fertility through national family planning programs. The results were ambiguous.4
On the other hand, developed countries, such as those in Europe, are facing the threat of an aging
population and the consequent problems for public finance and productivity, a situation that I call the
"aging trap." On the other hand, no clear causalities were found, as was previously mentioned
between population and growth, population and poverty, population and resources, or population and
environment. Some countries show some correlation between these variables, other do not and in all
cases there is not possibility to prove is the population size what facilitated or hampered economic
development. The same does not hold, however, when human capital is taken into consideration.
2. Neo-Classical Theory
In contrast to Malthusian theory, the neoclassical model of growth as presented by Solow
(1956) as well as some models of technological diffusion, focus on economic growth through
investment, ignoring any link between population and the economy. That is, adjustments in growth
take place due to the behavior of investment in physical capital. In these models, growth is a
worldwide process and country characteristics determine the relative level of income. Thus, low
persistence is consistent with shocks of any size. Shocks may only play a minor role in determining
the long-run path of output, despite being an important determinant of variance in decade-long
growth rates. Although in certain cases, these models have been able to explain the experience of
developed countries, they have failed to explain worldwide experience. Dowrick and Nguyen (1989)
present results for OECD countries that support Neo-Classical theory. One may be tempted to think
of the Newly Industrialized Countries (NIC) as examples as well. Yet, in these cases, human as well
as physical capital investment took place as Blackburn and Ravn (1995) suggest. All NIC show
large direct investments in the last decade, and American universities have experienced large inflows
of NIC's citizen students. Also a significant improvement has been seen in Asian systems of
education.
(1992,1996), Birdsall (1995), Eberstadt (1995), and Agenor and Montiel (1996).
4
. Mencken (1986) and Simon (1992, 1996) provide a good review of the theories, the empirical evidence, the debates
that followed, and the effects of the policies implemented.
5
3. Human Capital Theory
Nobel Prize winner Gary Becker advanced a model that relates the concept of human capital
to the family and growth. In it, he proposes an alternative to Malthusian models of economic
growth. Becker introduces human capital as an important source of economic development that
depends on advances in technological and scientific knowledge. A key assumption of this model is
that the rate of return on investments in human capital rises rather than declines as the stock of
human capital increases; man is creative and therefore the education of today implies more
production in the future. For this reason, resources are not necessarily fixed and may increase as
population increases.
In a 1993 paper Becker found that population growth, when studied in the light of human
capital theory, leads to multiple equilibrium points: an underdeveloped steady state with high birth
rates and low levels of human capital, and a developed steady state with low fertility and high stocks
of human and physical capital. He concluded that this means that history and luck are critical
determinants of a country's growth experience5. Thus, population growth is not the only determining
factor in economic development as the Malthusian theory has predicted. Furthermore, he stated that
training and educational programs together with physical capital investment are the important
factors. He then concluded those developed countries with negative fertility rates and undeveloped
countries would benefit from an expansion of both the pool of human capital and strengthening of
the family as the principle promoter of education and quality of life. But what about diminishing
returns? Becker found the answer to this issue in the increase of labor productivity due to education
and consequently rejects the Malthusian assumption of fixed resources. Since the publication of
Gary Beckers work in Human Capital, a large body of literature has developed over the past twentyfive years surrounding this topic. Interest has grown in the importance of the economic agent as an
investment rather than solely as an actor in the economy. Following the concept of human capital,
recent works have proposed models that relate population to growth6. They set forth an alternative to
5
. Concerning the issue of luck, history and growth see Easterly, et al (1993), Barro and Lee (1993), and Long and
Summers (1993).
6
. Some of these works are analyzed within an overlapping generation model. See Barro (1974), Razin and Zion
(1975), Becker (1974, 1988, 1991, and 1993), Willis (1985). The Journal of Monetary Economics vol. 32, 1993
includes the proceedings of a conference on population and economic growth sponsored by the World Bank.
6
the Malthusian and Neo-Classical models of economic growth by introducing human capital as an
important source of economic development, a source that depends on both technological and
scientific knowledge. Such findings have been long sustained by Julian Simon, Norman Macrae,
Aaron Wildavsky, Ben Wattenberg, Karl Zinsmeister, and others.
Economic development has not been solely explained by the expansion of physical capital per
worker as the Neo-Classical school has proposed or by the decrease in population as Malthus
suggests. Other issues, such as terms of trade, service of the debt, the cost of intermediate goods,
and institutional features of each country, including political stability, are all important for
developing economies. Yet, it has been the introduction of human capital that has shed new light on
the understanding of the development process.
4. Neo-Malthusian Theory:
It has been only in the last thirty years that Malthusian theory has once more gained an
audience in the population debate. The oil crisis of the 1970s and the famine in parts of the Sahel in
Africa in the 1980s all seemed to vindicate Malthus. At the time, it seemed that he had been right,
that human numbers had outstripped the ability to sustain them, not only with regard to food, but also
with regard to resources such as oil, minerals, land, and water. In 1968, two influential ‘neoMalthusian’ works were published, reintroducing the language of limits into the population debate
with a new twist and vigor. Ever since Paul Ehrlich’s Population Bomb (1968) and Garrett Hardin’s
"Tragedy of the Commons" (1968), warnings about the limits of sustenance, of resources, food,
energy, land, the environment have flown fast and furious. Vociferous in their attacks on population
growth, neo-Malthusians have captured the attention of the popular media and politicians alike.
However, they are not without their flaws and their critics.
Within this theoretical framework, there are two main sub-categories: The Limited Resource
Perspective and the Socio-Biological Perspective. The former takes the classic Malthusian
argument and applies it to all natural resources, while the latter, almost acting as a sub-set of the
former, treats the environment as a limited resource and regards people as a threat to the biodiversity
7
and ecological balance of that resource.
The Socio-Biological Perspective has failed to produce sound projections because it lacks
sound data and sound logic. With complete but unfounded confidence, Paul Ehrlich claimed in 1968
that ‘hundreds of millions’ of people would die of starvation by the 1970s, that 65 million Americans
would starve, that the population of the U.S. would decline by 22.6 million persons, and that England
would cease to exist by 20007. More recently, Mr. Ehrlich, writing with Anne Ehrlich, renewed his
prediction in The Population Explosion (1990), although with more caveats, since his original
predictions failed to materialize.
The population connection must be made in the public mind. Action to end
the population explosion humanely and start a gradual population decline
must become a top item on the human agenda: the human birthrate must be
lowered to slightly below the human death rate as soon as possible. There still
may be time to limit the scope of impending catastrophe, but not much time.
… More frequent droughts, more damaged crops and famines, more dying
forests, more smog, more international conflicts, more epidemics, more
gridlock, more crime, more sewage swimming, and other extreme
unpleasantness will mark our course.8
And so, despite the earlier failure of Thomas Malthus’ predictions and his own 1968 forecast, Ehrlich and
other neo-Malthusians persist in calling for a future of doom. Lester Brown, of the Worldwatch Institute,
has for years foretold famine. As recently as September 1998, he argued that the ‘frontiers of agricultural
settlement have disappeared [and] future growth in grain production must come almost entirely from
raising land productivity. Unfortunately this is becoming more difficult." He bases this prediction on the
following data:
From 1950 to 1984, growth in the grain harvest easily exceeded that of
population, raising the harvest per person from 247 kilograms to 342, a gain
of 38 percent. During the 14 years since then, growth in the grain harvest has
fallen behind that of population, dropping output per person from its historic
high in 1984 to an estimated 317 kilograms in 1998—a decline of 7 percent,
or 0.5 percent a year.9
These data do not correspond, however, to statistical data regarding crop yields produced by
7
. Ehrlich (1968).
. Ehrlich and Ehrlich (1990).
9
. Brown et al (1998) pp. 13-15.
8
8
international bodies such as the United Nations and the World Bank. Both released reports that point
out that the world is no where near the mass starvation predicted by Ehrlich or Brown. For instance,
the 1999 Human Development Report, published by the United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP) pointed out that "despite rapid population growth, food production per capita increased by
nearly 25% during 1990-1997. The per capita daily supply of calories rose from less than 2,500 to
2,750 and that of protein from 71 grams to 76."10 In a similar fashion, the World Bank devoted a
segment of its Development Report to refer to the Green Revolution as a ‘paradigm’ for development
and knowledge sharing. It is through human ingenuity, the World Bank argues, that food production
has stayed ahead of population growth; indeed, productivity gains in cereals such as rice, maize and
wheat have been dramatic.11
In like manner, the neo-Malthusian perspective encounters the same difficulties when grappling
with the aspect of resources and environment in the population debate. Jeffrey Krautkraemer (1998)
presented an insightful and complete review of the empirical evidence currently available on
nonrenewable resources. The long-term availability of fossil fuels, particularly petroleum, was the focus
of concern about nonrenewable resource scarcity in the 1970s. In more recent years, however, this
concern has shifted to an emphasis on the environmental impacts of nonrenewable resource consumption.
A common tool used in these studies has been Hottelling's formal analysis of nonrenewable
resource depletion. This model provides some basic implications for how the finite availability of
nonrenewable resource affects their price and extraction paths. The economic intuition behind these
implications is as follows: A stock of nonrenewable resources can be viewed as an asset that
generates returns over time. The opportunity cost of extracting and consuming is that there is less to
extract and consume in the future. A firm that seeks to maximize the present value of profit takes
this cost into account when deciding how much to extract. At the margin, the value of extraction
should equal the value of not extracting (which is the value of the marginal opportunity cost of
depletion or user cost.)
Asset market equilibrium requires the rate of return to hold the
nonrenewable resource stock at equal the rate of return to other assets. The basic form of this model
assumes a known finite quantity of homogeneous resource, and the extraction cost is independent of
the remaining stock. It follows that, in this case, the return to a nonrenewable resource asset consists
10
11
. UNFPA(1999), p.9.
. World Bank (1998), pp. 4-6.
9
entirely of the appreciation of its in situ value and market equilibrium requires that the in situ value
increase at the rate of interest.
For the most part, the implications of the Hotteling model have not been consistent with
empirical studies of nonrenewable resource prices and in situ values. There has not been a consistent
increase over the last 125 years, but rather fluctuations around time trends, whose direction can
depend upon the time period selected. This shows that finite availability is not the only factor that
significantly affects these types of resources. Elements such as extraction technology, technological
changes, the existence of non-homogeneous qualities of resources, the fact that resource quantity is
not known with certainty, as well as the frequent further developments of existing deposits, are all
important features in minerals industries. In addition, since the cost of extractive capital increases
with an increase in the rate of interest, it is no longer necessary to assume that an increase in the rate
of interest implies more rapid depletion. Empirical evidence also indicates that the discovery of new
deposits and technological progress has significantly mitigated the impact of the finite availability of
the relative scarcity on nonrenewable resources used in commodity production. In addition, the finite
availability of nonrenewable resources at a particular point in time has not yet led to increasing
economic scarcity of nonrenewable resources for production and consumption activities. The
development of new materials that substitute for nonrenewable resources, improvements in
extraction and processing technologies that allow for economical use of low grade ores, and the
greater efficiency in the use of nonrenewable resources are all likely to continue. It remains to be
seen whether population growth and economic development have an effect. The evidence thus far
does not provide any indication of such problems.
The same difficulty is found with the Neo-Malthusian theory with regard to the environment.
The Neo-Malthusian approach has received several critiques. Some such as Avry (1998), Cao et al
(1998) Cowen (1999) FAO (1997 and 1999), Sarmiento (1998) among others have challenged the
statistical and scientific integrity of these studies by pointing out to dubious data or to
misinterpretations of data. Supporters of market forces such as Fullerton (1998), Satvins (1989), and
Kasun (1991) among others argue that the market will correct for inefficiencies, and that carefully
constructed initiatives can help to guide the market, particularly in the area of environmental
protection. There are also those who disagree with this perspective because they attribute the present
10
problems not to population but to the distribution of resources given the present structures. Some of
these authors include Dobson (1997), Kiester (1999), Matson (1997), and Rabkin (1997). Finally,
the human capital approach criticizes this perspective because it underestimates the human dignity
and creativity thereby failing to acknowledge that the economic agent is the ultimate resource.
What we know is that among poor countries there are some that have a high rate of population
growth and others have too little population and, that the overall decrease in population growth (the
number of women per children worldwide has decreased from 3.6 in 1980-1985 to 2.7 in the present)
has not helped some countries to overcome poverty. However, population has not become poorer in
spite of having increased but it has produced beyond the subsistence level. The productivity of the
earth's land has grown more quickly than the world's population, a trend which is expected to
continue and grain per person has increased by 34%12. In July 1994, the Consultative Group on
International Agricultural Research announced the finding of a new breed of drought-resistant corn
that could boost crop yield by 30% in some developing countries. Later the same year, the
International Rice Research Institute announced the development of a new strain of rice that yields
25% more food per acre than the best variety used up until now and that requires the use of fewer
fertilizers. No country has a population growth rate of these orders.
In addition, the quality of life has increased also in less developed countries as it is reported
by the 1998 Human Development Report. Today a child in this country can live 17 years more than
35 years ago. Infant mortality has decreased more than 50% since 1960, malnutrition has been
reduced by more than 25%, and the number of children receiving vaccination has increased by 80%.
The increased access to health services and clean water have allowed for these improvements.
Alphabetization among adults has increased from 48% to 70% between 1970 and 1995. Primary
education has increased from 48% to 77% while secondary education has moved from 35% to 47%
during the same period. All these data corroborate that in economic development, the ceteris paribus
condition is violated.
From an economic development perspective, then, it can be said that the economic theories
used to support population control polices are unfounded and do not do much for the development of
less developed countries. On the contrary, empirical results suggest that it hampers their most
12
.
Data from the International Food Policy Research Institute.
11
important resource: population. Malthusian considerations of the relationship between population
and growth assume that this relationship is negative. However, this negative correlation has not been
proven empirically. In addition, theoretical work has been developed where results a rejection of the
Malthusian correlation, leaving it as a possible outcome; even then, it is not necessarily caused by
population growth but by other external shocks to the economy. Thus, Malthus and his followers are
mistaken on both the demand and the supply side. They are mistaken on the demand side because
population does not follow a geometric growth as Malthus predicted. They are equally mistaken on
the supply side because the resources are not easily extinguished; rather, they are created and
expanded by the people who are born, live and work. Empirical results show that there is no clear
connection between them, or that if there is any, population control is not a determinant variable for
achieving and much less the solution for global pollution reduction. This is an important condition
in order to understand one of the major shortcomings of Malthus' prediction and its variations.
Neo-Malthusian population control programs such as the ones adopted in European countries
do not fall short in their failure of predictions. They also have proven to hamper economic
development and have led to an "aging population trap" rather than the "underdeveloped trap"
predicted by Malthus. Today, several EU countries are reversing such policies because they can not
support the aging population. On the other hand, developing countries are aware that population is
an important resource. They also realize that its reduction will not produce sustainable development.
Examples of population control policy failures in developing countries are numerous; some
examples are Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, Mexico, Brazil, Singapore, Korea, and Taiwan before the
mid-80s.
Aging Population
A growing proportion of the retired population to the active working population characterizes an
aging society. The reversal of the age pyramid affects virtually all societies today, but more so the
industrial countries. For some twenty years, decreasing fertility has affected developed countries such as
Northern and Western Europe, Canada, US, Japan, Australia, New Zealand. It is now extending to
several developing countries in Southern and Eastern Europe, Asia, and the Caribbean. As reported by
UNFPA (1996), in 51 of 185 countries, or 44% of the population of the world, fertility is already below
12
replacement level. The number of deaths per year is even higher than the number of births in 15 of these
countries.
The causes of the present aging population are complex. Some sources have been found in the
living conditions and socio-cultural changes that countries have faced in the past 30 years. Among these
are:

Decreased infant mortality.

The marriage rate has declined in an environment that is hostile to matrimony.

The mean age at which women first give birth has sharply increased.

Labor codes do not facilitate women’s desire to harmoniously integrate their family life and
professional activity.

A lack of true family policies does not allow families to have the number of children that they
would like.

In developed countries, there is a widespread attitude that keeping a certain quality of life is more
important than having children. This poses a paradox that Wattenberg describes in The Birth
Dearth: “In the wealthier age of history many youth say that they can not afford to have more
than two children.”

There is a divergence between pessimism and hope experienced by the population.
Over the last thirty years, the UN and its agencies have invested, and continue to invest, large
financial resources in order to compel many countries to institute Malthusian polices. In addition, it has
encouraged compulsory population control programs as a condition for international aid both, through
their own institution or through other international organizations. As a consequence, local governments
have also adopted such Malthusian policies and non-governmental organizations have actively fostered
these policies. In some countries, regulation of fertility includes compulsory measures such as forced
sterilization or sterilization performed without proper informed consent, contraception, and abortion.
Introduction of chemical contraception techniques and frequent legalization of abortion have been
widespread while policies in favor of welcoming new lives have been weakened.
In recent years, Mexico, Peru, Brazil, Guatemala, India, Pakistan, Uganda, Zambia, and several
other developing countries have made denunciations of forced sterilization. However, such measures have
not been limited to less developed countries; cases have been found in Sweden among handicapped
women as well as in several refugee camps. Based on the information available, the first victims of these
13
programs seem to be innocent and helpless populations.13 They are systematically deceived and driven to
consent to their mutilation by false argument, if not by direct extortion, which puts birth control as a
condition to the access of credit and food aid. This has been reported in the procedure used by the
Grameen Bank in India and Pakistan and in certain African countries. 14 Again, the critical assumption
underlining these actions is that population control is a necessary antecedent to development.
Implosion and the consequent aging in population bring with them serious problems for both
developed and even more so for less-developed and developing countries. Some of these problems
include:

A smaller population needs to support an aging population that is less active and has a greater
need of healthcare and medical services. If one adds to this the fact that most social security
systems are predominantly of the pay-as-you-go type, the absence of younger generations
endangers the possibility of supporting the elder population. 15

Solutions proposed to alleviate the situation include resorting to euthanasia. In fact, some EU
countries have already legalized it.

Within the active population there is a tension between the young and the somewhat older people,
as the latter try to protect their jobs while younger generations enter into reduced job markets.

An impact on education: in order to provide for the economic burden of the elderly, there is a
great temptation to cut down on the money allocated for the training of new generations.
Consequently, the transmission of cultural, scientific, technical, artistic, moral and religious
common goods is thereby endangered.

Danger of ‘moroseness,’ or a lack of intellectual, economic, scientific, and social dynamism and
reduced creativity, resulting in systemic stagnation.

Population growth expands the market and facilitates creativity and dynamism. An important
question arises regarding whether it is possible to maintain economic growth with population
implosion.
13. Some of these matters have been dealt in Sen (1996), CLADEM (1998). The summary of this report was also
printed by the El Pais, Madrid, 12-20-98, and in Price (1997).
14. See the Grameen Bank web-page for some examples: http://www.grameen.com/bank/the16.html.
15. An extensive study of the effects of aging population on public pensions can be found in Chand and Jaeger (1996.)
Also see UNFPA (1998b) which is dedicated to this topic, and Longman (1999).
14

The problem of increasing illegal immigration into population imploding countries.

Increasing loneliness among the population because of small families and reduction of extended
family (Eberstadt, 1995).
The Problem of Health
To the implosion and aging population problem, another important concern has been added.
This is the large number of deaths that infectious diseases are causing in developing countries as well
as developed countries.
These diseases put further pressure on population reduction and the
reallocation of already very scarce funds in developing countries. The three leading causes of death
in developing countries are Malaria, Tuberculosis, and diarrhea. This last one mentioned is for
children only. While malaria produces 300-500 million new cases per year and kills 2.5 million,
tuberculosis produces 8 million new cases per year and kills 3 million people per year16. As you are
well aware, these diseases are rare and treatment is accessible in developed countries and their cost is
remarkably low.
Yet, although they are the leading killers in less developed countries, these
diseases are systematically ignored by UN documents and very little funds comparably, are allocated
towards them by other international organizations in these countries.
AIDS, another leading disease that has captured the attention and the funds of almost the
whole world, produces 5.8 million new cases per year and 2.5 million deaths worldwide. The total
estimated to be living with HIV/AIDS as of the end of 1998 according to the World Health
Organization is 33.4 million people of whom 22.5 million live in sub-Saharan Africa17. These
figures although very high are significantly lower than the two above mentioned major leading
causes of death in developing countries. The cost of treatment is very high, billions of dollars are
allocated towards its prevention and cure, and, today, there is no cure for this disease. For example,
the US spends $74 million a year in AIDS programs and the President's budget requested for the
AIDS research program of the National Institutes of Health for the fiscal year 2000 is $1.83 billion,
this is a 10% increase over the past five years18. No developing country can afford such expenditures
for any treatment. For example, a worker with AIDS costs business in sub-Saharan Africa around
16
.WHO, Malaria Prevention and Control, Division of Control of Tropical Diseases, (2000)
. http://www.unaids.org/publications/documents/epidemiology/determinants/saepsp98.html.
18
. http://www.nih.gov/od/oar/public/testimo.htm.
17
15
$200 a year in lost productivity, treatment, benefits and replacement training, i.e., about a year’s
salary19. For Ghana, the treatment of 80% of their AIDS patients would cost them $3.8 billion
dollars or 69.1% of their foreign debt20. We are all aware of the serious restrictions that the foreign
debts put in the development of these countries because either they can not afford to pay it back or
majority of their resources need to be allocated towards the debt payment thus impeding real
investment.
The approach that international organizations have taken towards dealing with this problem
has been the spread of the use of condoms as a means of managing the crisis because it is believed
that this leads to "save sex". Although condoms give the best protection against HIV, the risk of
infection is reduced to 87% for men, the risk reduction for women is not as high because of physical
differences and because they are the recipient during the sexual intercourse21. The main modes of
the transmission of this disease according to the 1999 UNAIDS report, vary across regions. While in
developed countries and Central Europe and Asia is due to homosexual activity and injecting-drugused transmission, in the other regions is due mainly to heterosexual transmission. In all cases, it is a
matter of behavior and, thus, it can be corrected. Furthermore, without addressing that behavior the
response to prevention strategies will always be limited and the funds will continue being allocated
to AIDS rather than to its more appropriate use, namely, the development of these countries.
The statistics indicate what few officials are willing to admit, that the AIDS epidemic is a crisis
of shattered mores, where sexuality is no longer guided by traditional norms but promiscuity. The
"safe sex" message does not solve the problem but it increases it since it encourages more
promiscuity. The message is clear, the only way to avoid acquiring HIV through sexual contact is
abstinence from sexual involvement or restricting sexual activity to a mutually faithful,
monogamous, life-long relationship with a similarly uninfected heterosexual partner. In most
cultures and for all recorded history, this relationship is known as marriage. This simple change
would save billions of dollars in countries across the world that can be allocated, instead, towards the
increase of human capital (education), basic infrastructure and health services, among others.
19
. http://www.unaids.org/publications/documents/epidemiology/determinants/saepsp98.html.
. http://www.africanews.org/pana/news/20000207/feat23.html.
21
. In addition, because a woman is the recipient of a significant amount of bodily fluids during intercourse, women still
have a very high risk of contiguousness. (Davis and Weller (1999))
20
16
III.
Empirical Evidence
As it was mentioned, Neo-Malthusians consistently argue that natural resources are
absolutely limited and finite. Again, such an argument rests heavily on the ceteris paribus
assumption—that all things in the population-resource equation remain equal. Many commonly refer
to this limited state as the earth’s ‘carrying capacity.’ But does this correlate with scientific findings?
Are we really running out of land and other resources? Can the ‘carrying capacity’ for a given area
grow? To answer these questions, it is necessary to look at particular natural resources and assess
whether or not they are limited in the strict sense for which neo-Malthusians argue. What follows is
a brief summary of the empirical findings22.
Tables 1 through 3 summarize the basic information on resources and environment. in all
cases, whether we look at water, food, land, minerals and people, all the predictions proposed by the
Neo-Malthuseans are rejected. The same can be said on the environmental front whether we look at
global warming, pollution or deforestation and desertification.
IV.
CONCLUSION
The population-resources-environment question is a complex debate that has thousands of
pages documenting the arguments from all sides. This paper has attempted to offer an overview of
the major players in the current debate, as well as a working knowledge of the logic underlying their
arguments. It is clear that the neo-Malthusian perspective has become the most popularized and
widespread vision of the population-resources-environment debate, especially in media and
policymaking circles. Thus, this paper is an attempt to critique the status quo, as it were, and to
question the arguments and their underlying assumptions that have been so readily accepted by so
many. It has been shown that the neo-Malthusian perspective is seriously flawed on many levels and
that policy actions based on such assumptions will be equally compromised and potentially
damaging for real sustainable development. It has also been shown that there are many and varied
critiques of this popular vision of the population-resources-environment debate. Most potent among
these critiques for the rational observer is the scientific data, which holds neo-Malthusian claims up
22
. A more detail study can be found in Aguirre and Wolfgram (1999).
17
to the light of reality. Let the data speak for itself.
In addition, these policies coerce less developed countries to make population control the
overriding investment. Thus, women are involuntarily reduced to vehicles for carrying out government
policy. Women are provided with services and benefits only to the extent that these services and benefits
are related to population control. A woman's autonomy over her own reproductive system is not
supported but violated. If we can learn anything from studies such as those produced by UNFPA it is
clear that rigid and deterministic projections are not trustworthy and that they result in policies that are
harmful. They tend to predict a crisis without taking into account the reality that technological advances
bring. It is time to acknowledge that the problem with development, poverty, and pollution is a
consequence of political and economic factors, not of population. These policies have contributed
problems of distorted prices, mistaken economic stability plans and economic development plans that
have benefited the development of cities at the cost of agricultural areas, protectionism, large foreign
debts, wars, etc. One thing is clear: there is no empirical evidence that population control policies would
solve any of the above problems; rather, evidence suggests the contrary. This is witnessed to by the aging
population trap, which is already causing serious public financial problems and the epidemics of serious
diseases such as AIDS.
18
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22
TABLE 1
Resources At A Glance
Water
Mineral

Between 1990 and 1997 the share of the
population with access to safe water nearly
doubled, from 40% to 72%. (UNDP 1999 Human
Development Report)

The natural resource base upon which humanity
depends is constantly shifting: a new oil reserve
was found in the Yellow Sea, adding
substantially to the size of already-known
reserves. (Wall Street Journal, 6 July 1999)

Water: a problem of distribution
Consumption rates:
US 600 liters/day per person
EU 200 liters/ day per person
Africa 30 liters/day per person

In 1995, the Dept. of Interior’s estimate for
undiscovered recoverable oil plus inferred
resources of domestic crude oil was 132 billion
barrels, six times larger than the 1995 proven
reserves. (Dept. of Energy, Petroleum 1996:
Issues and Trends)

“Scarcity is a relative concept and can occur at
any level of supply, depending upon demand and
other circumstances. …A society confronting
water scarcity usually has options. Scarcity is not
necessarily inevitable or immutable” (J.T.
Winpenny, FAO)
People

In 1997, 84 countries enjoyed a life expectancy at
birth of more than 70 years, up from 55 countries
in 1990. The number of developing countries in
the group has more than doubled, from 22 to 49.
(UNDP 1999 Human Development Report)

As of August 11, 1999, the U.S. Census Bureau
estimated the world population to be
6,004,955,370. In contrast, the United Nations
Fund for Population Activities estimated the
world population to be 5,986,627,870, which
varies from the U.S. estimate by 18,327,500.

Decreasing rate of growth: the UN estimates
that the world population will be 8.9 billion in
2050; earlier estimates were 9.4 billion by 2035
and 10 billion by 2050. (UN 1998 Revision of
the World Population Estimates and
Projections)
Food


Despite rapid population growth, food production
per capita increased by nearly 25% during 199097. The per capita daily supply of calories rose
from less than 2,500 to 2,750, and that of protein
from 71 grams to 76. (UNDP 1999 Human
Development Report)
Room for Development in Grain Production:
researchers point to the need to develop hardier,
drought-resistant native grains in areas such as
Africa.
Land

Cropland, which includes land devoted to
temporary and permanent crops, temporary
meadows, market and kitchen gardens, and land
temporarily fallow, consumes 11% of the total
land area in the world. (World Bank, 1998/99
World Development Report)
 Decreasing fertility on a global scale:
1950 5 children/woman
1990
2.9 children/ woman
1996
2.8 children/ woman
1998
2.7 children/ woman
1.7 or less children/ woman
TABLE 2
23
Environment At a Glance
Global Warming?


Pollution
Climatology is a new and emerging  Between 1990 and 1997 the share of
science that is still developing in its
heavily polluting traditional fuels in the
understanding of climate dynamics.
energy used was reduced by more than
“Our understanding of…greenhouse
two-fifths. (UNDP 1999 Human
gases is not all that good. We really have
Development Report)
to understand the cycles of these
greenhouse gases if we’re going to  Decreases in Pollution:
reliably forecast what’s going to happen
Change in CO2 emissions from
in the next century.” (Dr. James Hansen,
1997(Worldwatch Institute)
NASA)
U.S. +0.4%
China -3.7
The IPCC has revised its initial findings
E.U.
-0.9
on the effects of global warming for the
India +1.8
year 2030.
World -0.5
Rise in sea level
1992 5 ft.
1997 1.25 or less feet
Deforestation & Desertification

Rise in temperature
19926 degrees
19931-3.5 degrees

The growth rate of the greenhouse effect
has decreased about 25% since 1980.
(Christian Science Monitor, 15 July
1999)

Disparity in development: the issue of
deforestation.
Square km annually, 1990-95 (World
Bank 1998/99 Development Report)
US
-5,886
France
-1,608
Indonesia 10,844
Brazil
25,544
World total 101,724
Desertification: a problem of too much
water as of too little water. Waterlogged
land can develop salt deposits, rendering
the land unusable. Both are a result of
poor management (FAO, Land and
Water Development)
24
TABLE 3
Carbon Trends by Country
Country
1998 Carbon
Intensity
(tons/mill $
GDP)
181
Change in
Emissions since
1997 (percent)
Change in
Emissions since
1990 (percent)
U. S.
1998 Carbon
Emissions
(million metric
tons)
1,460
+0.4
+10.3
China
803
194
-3.7
+28.0
E.U.
548
10
-0.9
+0.7*
Russia
400
652
-1.3
-23.9**
Japan
297
101
-2.5
+5.6
India
276
162
+1.8
+55.2
6,318
153
-0.5
+6.3
WORLD
*Change from 1991; **Change from 1992.
Source: Worldwatch Institute, 1999
25