Assignment

On
Optimism and overpopulation

Submitted to: Dr. Rezai Karim Khondker

Visiting Professor

Submitted by: Nusrat Pervin

Roll: 05
Batch: 06
Objective
Population growth without a parallel increase in capital impoverishes any society and tends to deepen
inequality. The system is dynamic because people who perceive or foresee contracting economic
opportunity usually restrict family size. Worsening poverty feeds back into the loop to slow, then stop
further population growth. Reproduction is a good sign. Therefore, it would be strange if natural
selection failed to act on reproductive patterns, even among humans where the most characteristic
adaptations are cognitive and culturally-mediated. In fact, the regularity of human fertility rate
responses to variation in the opportunity structure has been documented in many contexts. Humans
appear to be alert to environmental signs that indicate whether conditions for childbearing and nurture
are more or less optimal, given the possibilities. Specifically, a perception that economic opportunity is
expanding, so that relatively many children could probably be successfully raised to maturity, is
associated with early marriage and larger family size.

Major issues of the article

She has opposed programs that would spur economic development in less developed countries on
the grounds that they are self-defeating. she argued that "efforts to alleviate poverty often spur
population growth, as does leaving open the door to immigration. Subsidies, windfalls, and the
prospect of economic opportunity remove the immediacy of needing to conserve. The mantras of
democracy, redistribution, and economic development raise expectations and fertility rates, fostering
population growth and thereby steepening a downward environmental and economic spiral.

Validity of the author argument

The author argues that the key driver of population growth is the desired number of
children, rather than the lack of contraception. The desired number of children is linked to
local environmental factors, therefore, if resources and opportunities are perceived as being
abundant then the desired number of children and consequent fertility rate will be greater
than if resources and opportunities are scarce. One example she gives is that of the low
fertility rates during the great depression in the early 20th century, the baby boom after the
second world war and then the lowering of fertility rates during the oil crisis of the late
1970s and continuing economic uncertainty into the 1980s and 90s.

Reproductive restraint, the solution, is also primarily local; it grows out of a sense that resources are
shrinking. Under these circumstances individuals and couples often see limitation of family size as the
most likely path to success.”
Flaws of the article
There are those who believe that there is no population problem. These conclusions, however, are
flawed. Depletion of the environmental resource-base 7 upon which all production ultimately depends
does not factor into conventional indicators of the standard. of living. Past movements of gross income
and agricultural production do not reflect reductions of this natural capital, i.e. the resource base. For
example, increases in agricultural production do not reflect the mining of the soil. By focusing on such
indicators as Gross National Product ("GNP"), economists ignore ecologists' concerns about the links
between sustained population growth, increased output, and the state of the environment.8s
Consuming irreplaceable environmental capital, such as fertile soils, ice-age groundwater, and
biodiversity, is not growth. 9 Some economists argue that human ingenuity has and will continue to
overcome the stresses that growing populations impose on the environment.90 They argue that, for
every disappearing resource, human ingenuity will find or create substitutes. 91 A study of biodiversity,
however, suggests that this conclusion is incorrect. ural capital.96 Reducing population growth is also
desirable on economic grounds. Gross National Product per head rises as the fertility rate declines, thus,
the savings rate increases.97 In turn, "the productive value of the last million dollars of investment,
relative to the last 100 ... employees, shifts against capital and in favor of labor."98 Relative to capital,
labor becomes more scarce. Over time, if fertility stays low, the real earnings of a full-time employee
should be higher. There would be a tendency towards a more equal income distribution "[t]o the extent
that poorer families earn their incomes from work, and richer families from property."9 9 Given the
growing disparity between the rich and the poor,100 which commentators suggest is another
manifestation of overpopulation, this result itself is desirable result.

Evaluate the conclusions drawn by author

Cross-cultural and historical data suggest that people have usually limited their families to a
size consistent with living comfortably in stable communities. If left undisturbed, traditional
societies survive over long periods in balance with local resources. A society lasts in part
because it maintains itself within the carrying capacity of its environment.”

“In sum, it is true, if awkward, that efforts to alleviate poverty often spur population
growth, as does leaving open the door to immigration. Subsidies, windfalls, and the
prospect of economic opportunity remove the immediacy of needing to conserve. The
mantras of democracy, redistribution, and economic development raise expectations and
fertility rates, fostering population growth and thereby steepening a downward
environmental and economic spiral.”