The document discusses theories related to population growth and its relationship to resources. It covers: 1. Malthus' theory that population grows geometrically while resources grow arithmetically, leading to population exceeding carrying capacity and being kept in check by preventative and positive factors. 2. The demographic transition theory showing changing birth and death rates over four stages as countries develop. 3. Boserup's theory critiquing Malthus by arguing that population pressure stimulates technological innovation to increase yields. 4. Continuing debates around whether Malthus was right about limits to growth or if technological progress can continually outpace population growth.

1. MALTHUS
Population grows
geometrically….
Population exceeds
carrying capacity…
Population is kept in
“check”– preventative
and/or positive checks

2. DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION THEORY
Stage I
Stage II
Stage III
Birth Rate
Demographic
Death Rate Growth
1700
1800
1900
Stage IV
Population
2000

3. STAGES IN DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION
Stage I
Stage II
Stage III
Stage IV
High birth rates
High birth rates
Falling birth rates
Low birth rates
Family Planning.
Lower infant mortality rates.
Industrialization means less
need for labor.
Increased desire for material
possessions and less desire
for large families.
Emancipation of women.
Children as liabilities instead
of assets (no economic
contribution as labor).
Low death rates
Low death rates
No or little Family Planning.
Parents have many children
because few survive.
Many children are needed to
work the land.
Children are a sign of virility.
Religious beliefs and cultural
traditions encourage large
families.
High death rates
Falling death rates
Disease and plague (e.g.
bubonic, cholera,
kwashiorkor).
Famine, uncertain food
supplies and poor diet.
Poor hygiene, no clean water
or sewage disposal.
Improved medicine.
Improved sanitation and
waters supply.
Improvements in food
production in terms of quality
and quantity.
Improved transport to move
food.
Decrease in child mortality.
Modern medicine.
Optimal life expectancy.

4. Context of the theory
Deficit
Demographic Resource
growth
growth
• Written during a period of
weak harvests.
• Took notice of famines in the
Middle Ages, especially in
the early 14th century (1316).
• From the data he gathered,
population was doubling
every 25 years.
• Over a century’s time,
population would rise by a
factor of 16 while food rose
by a factor of 4.

5. • The “Malthusian crisis” in context
• Available agricultural spaces are limited.
• Technical progresses (machinery, irrigation,
fertilizers, and new types of crops) are slow to
occur.
• Increasing incapability to support the population.
• If this persists, the population will eventually
surpass the available resources.
• The inevitable outcomes are “Malthusian crises”
where nature will bring about the check and
balance between population food supply:
• Food shortages.
• Famines.
• War and epidemics

6. Malthus has been criticized on several accounts
during the last 200 years.
• Problems:
• Model based upon the Western experience.
• The base population in the developing world is large.
• Low percentages of population increase will result in large
numbers of additional people.

7. What does this graph suggest?
t3
Quantity
Technological Innovation
t2
t1
Resources
Population
Overexploitation
Time

8. That…..
• The Malthusian Crisis has not occurred
• Did not foresee the demographic transition:
• Changes in the economy that changed the role of
children in the industrializing societies.
• Failed to account for improvements in
technology:
• Enabled food production to increase at rates greater
than arithmetic, often at rates exceeding those of
population growth.
• Enabled to access larger amounts of resources.
• Enabled forms of contraception.

9. ESTHER BOSERUP
“NECESSITY IS THE MOTHER OF ALL INVENTIONS”

10. ESTHER BOSERUP
THEORY OF POPULATION GROWTH
• In contrast to Malthus, instead of too many
mouths to feed, Boserup emphasized the
positive aspects of a large population;
• In simple terms, Boserup suggested that the
more people there are, the more hands
there are to work;
• She argued that as population increases,
more pressure is placed on the existing
agricultural system, which stimulates
invention;
• The changes in technology allow for
improved crop strains and increased yields.
(1910 – 1999)

11. 7
650
600
6
550
500
450
5
400
350
300
250
Wheat Production (tons)
Rice Production (tons)
Population
200
4
3
Billions
700
19
61
19
63
19
65
19
67
19
69
19
71
19
73
19
75
19
77
19
79
19
81
19
83
19
85
19
87
19
89
19
91
19
93
19
95
19
97
19
99
20
01
20
03
20
05
Millions
GLOBAL GROWTH IN POPULATION AND
GRAIN (WHEAT AND RICE) PRODUCTION,
1961-2005

12. CONTEMPORARY ISSUES
• The Malthusian crisis today
• Demographic growth:
• Between 1960 and 2000, three billion persons were added to
the global population.
• To sustain this growth, agricultural resources had to be doubled.
• Required housing space surpassed all that was constructed
since the beginning of mankind.
• Agricultural growth:
• Between 1960 and 1990, grain yields has increased by 92% while
cultivated surfaces have only increased by 8%.
• Foresee a limit to growth in agricultural production.
• Consumption growth.
• Environmental degradation.

13. CONTEMPORARY ISSUES
• Relevance of the Malthusian theory
• Was Malthus right or the trend in agricultural production will
again increase to surpass population growth?
• Are improvements in agricultural techniques enough to
answer demand?
• The next 25 years will be crucial and will bring forward
answers to these questions.
• The work of Malthus continues to be important to
demographers:
• Influence of many contemporary theorists from various
academic disciplines.
• Built upon Malthus’s ideas and linked them to modern sciences.

14. MEDC VS. LEDC
Note the quick transition to
Phase 3 from the explosion of
Phase 2
Note the longer time period as
LEDC’s are “trapped” in Phase 2

15. ANTI-POPULATIONISTS VS. PRONATALISTS
• Malthus– anti-populationist
• Echoed in recent debates by Paul Ehrlich, author
of The Population Bomb;
• Ehrlich believed that the earth’s carrying
capacity would quickly be exceeded, resulting in
widespread famine and population reductions;
• Boserup– pronatalist (cornucopian)
• Echoed in recent debates by Julian Simon, who
opposed Ehrlich by using economic theories; ie.
Resources needed to support populations are
becoming more abundant, not scarcer;

17. RELEVANCE OF THE THEORY?
• Types of innovations
• Discovery:
•
•
•
•
An entirely new class of resources is made available.
Often adds to existing resources.
Offers new economic opportunities.
E.g. the usage of oil as a source of energy.
• Productivity gains:
• Existing resources are used more effectively.
• Often implies using less of the same resource.
• Developing a more efficient engine.
• Substitution:
• An alternative resource is used.
• Often because the existing resource becomes too expensive /
scarce.
• Using ethanol.

18. RELEVANCE OF THE THEORY?
• Technological innovation and agriculture
•
•
•
•
•
Intensification of agriculture.
New methods of fertilization.
Pesticide use.
Irrigation.
Multi-cropping systems in which more than one crop would
be realized per year.
• Creative pressure and global population growth
• Would lead to new productivity gains.
• Humans don’t deplete resources but, through technology,
create them.
• Resources will become more abundant.
• Help overcome shortage in food production and
employment.

19. 2. LIMITS TO PRODUCTIVITY
• Existing store of Resources
• As a resource become scarcer frictions and competition for
access.
• Eventually, a group secure / capture the resource and
makes it unavailable to others.
• This capture either takes place through legislation and / or
force.
• Leads to marginalization and risks of conflicts.

20. 3. DOES TECHNOLOGY HAVE ALL THE
SOLUTIONS?
• Limits of food production by environmental factors
• Substitution is not possible for many resources.
• Soil exhaustion and erosion.
• Evolutionary factors such as the development of greater
resistance to pesticides.
• Climate change.
• Loss of productive soils due to land use conversion to other
purposes, such as urbanization.
• Water shortages and pollution.
• Limits by technology
• May be available but not shared.
• Maybe too expensive for some regions (e.g. desalination).