Explain the malthusian theory of population. Malthusian Theory of Population: Criticisms and Applicability 2019-01-05
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Malthusian Theory of Population: Explained with its Criticism
In 1798, Malthus proposes his own theory about population. He stated that if this growth rate is allowed to continue, it would lead to a food shortage. Pre-transition stage: High and fluctuating birth and death rates with little population growth. The only escape for civilisation from this vicious circle of poverty was through what Malthus referred to as moral restraint or preventive checks by which he meant late marriage and therefore fewer children — a solution which Malthus himself thought was unlikely. However, some key facts on the neo- malthusian perspective must be identified.
Theories of Population: Malthus Theory, Marx’s Theory and Theory of Demographic Transition
Malthusian Theory of Population Criticisms of the Malthusian Doctrine: The Malthusian theory of population has been widely discussed and criticised during the 19th and early 20th century. The theorizing about population population size and change have remained an important subject since time immemorial. Malthus lived quietly at Haileybury for the remainder of his life, except for a visit to Ireland in 1817 and a trip to the Continent in 1825. In the third stage beginning with the 20th century, birth rates began to decline from 20 per thousand and have continued for about a century now, nearing 15 per thousand. He generalized the relationship between population factors and social change. For this concern, the economic society develops ways and theoretical explanations that foresee, explain, and address the likely problems in the resource allocation paradigm such as scarcity and overpopulation.
The neo-Malthusian position found favour with the elite sentiments on the issue of overpopulation. However, Malthus did not support married couples using birth control. Explanation: Malthus' theory was based on the assumption that the power of population to multiply is much greater than the power of the earth to provide subsistence for man. The development of agricultural engineering has reduced the amount of land required to feed one person from 20,000 square metres to 2,000 square metres. Hope this helps In Nigeria the argument is relevant because is for reducing the family size.
Thomas Robert Malthus was a British economist and a demographer, whose famous Theory of Population highlighted the potential dangers of overpopulation. By the end of this stage, fertility has begun to decline as well. World history has shown that food production has evolved from the Neolithic to the neocaloric wherein from the basic means of foraging, hunting and planting, modern ways of production such as advanced agriculture and capitalism have been developed to optimize the use of the available resources 179-180. These checks are all resolvable into moral restraint, vice and misery. In other words size of population is determine by the availability of food. Because of higher capacity of reproduction, population would again increase very fast overtaking the food supply, and the country will again plunge into over-population. This means that each person will have less land to work and therefore per capita food production will decline.
Malthusian Theory of Population: Explained with its Criticism
The key theories have established the commonly accepted methods of explaining the relationships between the states, and the way in which nations conduct their businesses. In his 1798 work, An Essay on the Principle of Population, Malthus examined the relationship between population growth and resources. Cannan, on the other hand, had a much wider outlook. To avoid such a catastrophe, Malthus urged some controls on population growth before reaching the food shortage. Excessive emphasis on Law of Diminishing returns: Malthusian Theory of Population is based on the Law of Diminishing Returns.
If preventive checks were not effectively used, positive checks like diseases, wars and famines would come into operation. His predictions are thought to have not come true in more developed countries that have used technology to produce more food and that continue to increase in size. If a country experiences falling living standards, the theory tells that it is due to non-application of moral restraint. In the western European countries, the bogey and pessimism of Malthus has been overcome. The Malthusian Theory of Population is a theory of exponential population growth and arithmetic food supply growth. According to this theory there are two steps to control the population: preventative and positive checks. Scholars of such school of thought believed that, both man and society could be made perfect.
People have sexual desire but desire to have children depends on social, religious and cultural factors. The real aim of population policy is, however, not to avoid starvation but to eliminate poverty so as to raise output per head in an accelerated manner. The Chinese philosopher, Confucius argued that a numerical balance be maintained between population and environment. According to him, human populations grow exponentially while food production grows at an arithmetic rate. Malthus saw the tension between population and resources as a major cause of the misery of much of the humanity. Others noted that he didn't consider factors like immigration in areas like North America.
By 2050, human population levels are expected to exceed the number that Malthusian suspected would be dangerous. Exaggeration of facts regarding population and means of subsistence: Malthus exaggerate the facts regarding the increase in population and the corresponding decline in the means of subsistence. Disagreeing with such perspectives, Malthus maintained that the development of mankind was severely limited by the pressure that population growth exerted on the availability of food. In other words, according to Malthus, living standards of the people cannot rise in the long run above the level of minimum subsistence. Any further increase would lead to population crash caused by natural phenomena like famine or disease. However it is limited in its scope and explanations, due to the diversity of the individual Caribbean territories themselves. A graph illustrating the Malthusian theory of population growth Criticisms As the decades passed and technology improved to provide a better quality of life, people paid less attention to Malthus's ideas.
The last one is moral restraint which is refraining from marriage until the time when a person is capable of supporting a family. Furthermore, unitarism has a paternalistic approach where it demands loyalty of all employees, being predominantly managerial in its emphasis and application. In early society, diseases and climate changes kept death rates high and life expectancies were short Annenberg Learner, 2016. They are the preventive and a positive check. He contended that without such restraints the world would face widespread hunger, poverty and misery. It had been believed that fertility itself added to national wealth; the perhaps encouraged large families with their doles.
