LESSON 9 GLOBAL DEMOGRAPHY

RURAL COMMUNITIES
Often welcome an extra hand to help in crop cultivation, particularly during and harvesting

URBAN COMMUNITIES
Poorer districts Educated and professional families
More children are welcomed because the One or two children only since each partner tied
success of their “small Business” (ex. Sari-sari down, or committed to his/her respective professions
store, mechanic shop) depends on how many of neither has the time to devote to having a kid, much
their members can be hawking their wares on the more to parenting.
street

Rural Families Urban Families

- View multiple children and large kinship
networks as critical investments
 Take over agricultural work
 Children’s houses can serve as
retirement homes for parents and then
take care of grandchildren
- No large kinship
 Couples live on their own
 Only the Basic Family unit (Mother,
Father, Children) that is left

- Urban populations have grown not necessarily because of families having more children but of the
outcome of significant migration to the cities by people seeking work.
- International Migration

Perils of Overpopulation

Thomas Malthus

Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne Ehrlich – Their recommendations for population control ranged from;
- Bizarre (Chemical Castration)
- Policy-oriented (taxing and additional child and luxury taxes on child-related products)
- Monetary incentives (paying off men who would agree to be sterilized after two children)
- Institution-building (a Powerful department of Population and Environment)

1. Limiting the population, vital resources could be used for economic progress and not be “Diverted” and
“wasted” to feeding more mouths – this argument became the basis for government “population control”
programs worldwide
2. Economist argument for the promotion of reproductive health. Advocates of population control contend for
universal access to reproductive technologies and, more importantly, giving women the right to choose whether
to have children or not
3. Politics determined these “birth control” programs. Developed countries justify their support for population
control in developing countries by depicting the latter as conservatives
It’s the Economy, Not the Babies!

- Betsy Hartmann – Using population control as a “substitute for social justice and much-needed reforms –
such land distribution, employment creation, provision of mass education and health care, and emancipation
- Population growth has, in fact, spurred “technological and institutional innovation” and increased “the
supply of human ingenuity”
- “Green revolution”

Women and Reproductive Rights

- Women must have control over whether they will have children or not and when they will have their
children, if any
- By giving women this power, they will be able to pursue their vocations – be they economic, social, or
political – and contribute to economic growth
- Power of choice and easy access to reproductive technologies
- The more educated a women is, the better are her prospects of improving her economic position – women
can spend most of the time pursuing either their higher education or their careers, instead of forcibly
reducing this time to take care of their children
- Most countries implement reproductive health laws because they worry about the health of the mother
 Bolivia
 Ghana
- Opponents regard reproductive rights as nothing but a false front for abortion
- While pro-choice advocates argue that abortion is necessary to protect the health of the mother, their
conservative rivals shift the focus on the death of the fetus in the mother’s womb as the reason for reversing
the law. This battle continues to be played out in all the political arenas in the US

The Feminist Perspective

- They believe that the Government assumptions that poverty and environmental degradation are caused by
overpopulation are wrong
- These factors ignore other equally important causes like the;
1. Unequal distribution of wealth
2. Lack of public safety nets like universal health care
3. Education
4. And gender equality

FOOD SECURITY

- FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) recommends that countries increase their investments in
agriculture, craft long-term policies aimed at fighting poverty, and invest in research development
- Move towards a global trading system that is fair and competitive, and that contributes to a dependable
market of food

CONLCUSION

“No interdisciplinary account of globalization is complete without an accounting of people”