There are many people who argue that the biggest problem in South Asia is overpopulation. This assertion has been repeated so often over the years that it has almost become common wisdom. Its adherents include a lot of well-educated individuals and one often hears the argument from government officials as an explanation for the inability to reduce poverty.
There are a number of problems with this simple proposition. First of all, population is not a very useful measure by itself simply because it fails to account for the size of the land in which the population resides. Some countries like Russia have a very large area while others like Singapore have a very small one. Therefore the appropriate indicator to use in order to make valid comparisons is population density (i.e., population per unit of land area).
Using this indicator one would find, for example, that Belgium has a very high population density, Pakistan is in the middle, and Somalia ranks very low. Of these countries, Belgium is not the one with the most difficulties. Nor does Somalia have the fewest. Just looking at population or population density tells us very little about a society’s problems.
Within individual countries we can find similar situations. Take Pakistan, for example. Balochistan has the lowest population density amongst the provinces. But Balochistan is by no means better off than the other provinces because of its low population and population density.
This raises an interesting issue for those who subscribe to the overpopulation hypothesis. Would Balochistan, with all its natural resources and its small population, be much better off if it were a sovereign country by itself? I am sure the believers of the hypothesis would quickly find many arguments to refute the implication of their own assertion. The question would force them to abandon the simple answer and start thinking of the many other factors that actually influence economic and social development.
Consider another interesting situation. When Bangladesh became independent, what remained of Pakistan lost more than half its population and the small part of its land area that was widely believed to have been a drain on the resources of West Pakistan. Did the significant reduction in population and the removal of the resource drain trigger an immediate economic boom in Pakistan? And if not, why not? The simple relationship of population and development fails to provide an answer to the question.
The second point to consider is that even population density is an incomplete measure because all the land in a country is not equally valuable when it comes to supporting its population. Deserts and mountains are of little value in this regard. It is the habitable and cultivable land that matters.
Japan and China both have relatively small endowments of such land while the latter has the largest population in the world. Yet Japan, despite its relative lack of natural resources, is amongst the richest countries in the world. And China has been recording very high economic growth rates for many years lifting millions of its people out of poverty. The simple proposition fails to explain much of what has been going on in these two countries either.
As a matter of fact, one could quite plausibly argue that poverty is not due to overpopulation. Rather, overpopulation could well be a result of poverty. Empirical evidence shows clearly that as households become economically better off the average family size tends to decrease.
In fact, a larger population can even be considered an advantage. Many European countries are actively encouraging their citizens to increase the size of their families. So is Singapore — a very small and densely populated island. Global firms are keen to invest in highly populated countries like India and China because of their large consumer markets.
The issue is obviously not as simple as it seems. The point of these stark and somewhat extreme examples is to stress the need to abandon the simple explanation for the problem of poverty in South Asia. Only then would we be able to debate the real causes and reasons for the slow pace of development.
The belief in overpopulation as the cause of poverty encourages a sense of helplessness because there is no obvious solution. Even if we accept that South Asia is overpopulated what are we going to do with all the people who are already here? We need to think of people as a source of strength and not as a problem. The sensible strategy would be to invest in people to make then as productive as possible in order to promote economic development and reduce poverty.
Population densities in 1999 (in persons per square kilometer) for the countries mentioned in the article were as follows: Singapore 5,500, Bangladesh 950, Belgium 340, Japan 340, India 340, Pakistan 180, China 135, Somalia 12, Russia 9. Data for all countries is available at: www.photius.com/wfb1999/rankings/population_density_2.htm
Tags: Development, Population, Poverty, South Asia
February 1, 2009 at 8:07 pm |
I think the overpopulation-is-bad argument can be encapsulated in one simple statement: increasing aggregate demand is not a great idea for deficit economies.
As you say, a large population is a potential goldmine of human capital. All it needs is training and leadership.
Good read.
March 23, 2009 at 2:49 am |
I think the trick is whether the country can make a smooth and successful transition to an economy based on services.
For example, the US has only about 23 % of its working population employed in the primary and secondary sectors. 77 % are in the service sector. By contrast India has only 28 % of the population in the service sector, China 32 % and Pakistan 36.6 %. It is when you rely on people’s services that their own skills become an economic asset. In the other two sectors, especially in agriculture a large population is a liability. Especially since agriculture is inherently a very risky occupation with relatively low economic returns.
March 24, 2009 at 2:28 am |
Vikram, It is true that population has to move out of agriculture into higher productivity employment. There are some issues with moving directly to services. First, from the data you cite, Pakistan might seem the most advanced service economy. However, the bulk of this is the informal economy, i.e., very low value-added services often just disguised underemployment. Second, even high tech services, as in India, cannot employ a very large number of people, specially those without education. So, the industry phase cannot be skipped. The problem now is that in a globally competitive economy with WTO rules, it is very hard to compete in industry with the kind of labor force (and infrastructure) that exists in India and Pakistan. Major investments in people and infrastructure are needed which is where the financing becomes a constraint.
China has avoided these issues by concentrating on low-tech manufacturing as the backbone of the economy and investing in both people and infrastructure. The focus now is to graduate regions like Shanghai and Beijing into the post-industrial economy concentrating on the advanced service sector.
March 24, 2009 at 3:13 am |
I agree with you on almost everything, the main purpose of quoting the Pakistan, India, China data was to compare it with the US.
Can you please elaborate on what you mean by an industry phase ? It seems that a lot of the population can move to clerical/office/sales kind of work with the right training. Not that industry isnt required, only that it can come along in parallel with a service economy (which can finance it).
March 24, 2009 at 5:02 pm |
Vikram, I was thinking along the following lines:
Clerical/office/sales work requires some education and a familiarity with ‘office culture.’ What are we going to do with the large pools of underutilized rural labor in India and Pakistan that are illiterate (40 to 50 percent of the populations)? And how is rural labor going to make the social and cultural transition to urban living?
In the short run we need to create jobs for this labor and also help it urbanize. These can only be unskilled jobs in manufacturing. In the West, this was a part of the Industrial Revolution with its huge demand for unskilled industrial jobs in cities (where living conditions were abominable). To some extent, China managed the transition better with its phase of rural industrialization and Town and Village Enterprises accompanied by universal education before allowing migrants to move to the major cities.
Some countries in East Asia (e.g., Korea, Taiwan) skipped a part of this transition by investing in education ahead of time and thus moving to somewhat more sophisticated manufacturing based on outsourcing from the West.
In the subcontinent, the process started with industries like textiles which were a major absorber of unskilled labor. But with global competition and the loss of market protections, most industries in Indian and Pakistan are not competitive due to relatively unproductive labor and poor infrastructure. High-end services (such as IT in India) need advanced skills and in any case are not employment intensive. Low-end services cannot exist in a vacuum; they have to serve some growth centers which can only be centered on manufacturing.
So, we are back to the question: what are we going to do with the large pools of illiterate and untrained labor in the short run? Given the lack of global competitiveness, we could turn inwards and manufacture the simple commodities which the bulk of our population needs. We have to give more importance to our citizens and increase their purchasing power so that they can effectively demand the type of goods that a domestically-oriented industry can produce while employing the type of labor we have at the moment. At the same time we have to invest in human capital and in infrastructure so that we can move out of the low-end as early as possible.
It is interesting that in the global recession with its shrinking of global demand, China is following the same strategy. The major difference is that China has huge financial reserves to implement the strategy and hardly any opposition that might stand in the way.
If you are interested you can read the article Textiles: Can Pakistan Compete? on this blog.
May 10, 2009 at 12:33 pm |
The population issue is a red herring developed in the late years of imperialism in order to explain away the monumental poverty in the colonies, which was the result of the draining of their resources to the imperialist power.
It is amusing that it is still being used in the 21st century despite the gross failure of its proponents. The green revolution has successfully demonstrated that poor countries can achieve self sufficiency in food. The rapid growth of huge countries such as China and India has proved that even industrialization is possible. The only argument left is environmental destruction : which is being exploited today by neo-imperialist powers for whatever it offers.
The real limits of human population size are set by a delicate interplay of natural resources and the level of technology that is in vogue. The earth can only support about 40,000 hunter gatherers, about a few million people in primitive agricultural societies (such as the ancient river valley civilizations), about several million in well irrigated agricultural societies (classical age of Roman, Persian, Chinese and Indian civilizations) and about a few billions in industrialized societies. The fact that the third world is getting industrialized means that it can support more people than it used to.
However, the increase of population should follow the economic and technological development. Not the other way around. The third world countries had to grossly suffer when this equation turned topsy-turvy during the phase of colonization. It is only now that these countries are catching up on technological and human resource development.
About what share of people work in services vs agriculture vs manufacturing, it doesn’t matter. It is a consequence, not a cause. The real cause of elimination of poverty is industrialization / automation of manual labor. With the level of technology that is available to us today, most forms of labor can be automated. We should see a reduction of working hours everywhere in the world. If this is not happening, it is because our economic systems are screwed up, nothing else. Ultimately, in a matter of a century (or even shorter, a few decades), robots will takeover all forms of human labor. Humans will become dispensable. The ultimate future of humanity hinges on who is in control at that time : whether it is the humans or certain social and economic systems that just want to preserve their existence.