Population Explosion And Social Problems Economics Essay

The geometric extension of a organic population, especially the unrestricted growth in human population resulting from a decrease in newborn mortality and an increase in prolonged existence.

(Sociology) a fast increase in the size of a population caused by such factors as a unexpected decline in infant mortality or an increase in life expectancy

A population bang occurs when a species has a birth (or hatching) rate that is significantly larger than its fatality rate. 

This can occur with nonhuman animals, generally as a result of a phase of weather conducive to development of food and to reproduction. 

Among people, the population bang of the last hundred years or so has been the result of improved sanitation and medical care, improvements in food production, storage and supply and reductions in the rate of food. The improvement of antibiotics, pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, and the application of mechanization to the farm have all contributed to this.

POPULATION EXPLOSION AND SOCIAL PROBLEMS:

Population explosion is also known as over population. Overpopulation is a usually unwanted condition where an organism’s numbers surpass the carrying capacity of its habitat. The term often refers to the relationship between the human population and its environment, the Earth, or smaller geographical areas such as countries. Overpopulation can outcome from an increase in births, a decline in mortality rates, an increase in immigration, or an unsustainable biome and depletion of resources. It is likely for very meagerly populated areas to be overpopulated if the area has a meager or non-existent potential to maintain life.

The population has been rising constantly since the end of the Black Death, around the year 1400, although the most considerable increase has been in the last 50 years, mainly due to medical advancements and increases in agricultural yield. Although the rate of population expansion has been declining since the 1980s, the United Nations has uttered alarm on continued excessive population growth in sub-Saharan Africa. As of December 12, 2012 the world human population is projected to be 7.058 billion by the United States Census Bureau, and over 7 billion by the United Nations. Most estimates for the carrying power of the Earth are between 4 billion and 16 billion. Depending on which guesstimate is used, human overpopulation may or may not have before now occurred. Nevertheless, the fast recent increase in human population is causing some concern. The population is expected to attain between 8 and 10.5 billion between the year 2040 and 2050. In May 2011, the United Nations increased the average variant projections to 9.3 billion for 2050 and 10.1 billion for 2100.

Restrictive birth rates through legal system, educating people about family planning, increasing right of entry to birth control and contraception, and extraterrestrial conclusion have been recommended as ways to mitigate overpopulation in the future. China and other nations already have regulations limiting the birth rate, with China using a “one child per family” policy. Contraception is a reaction to the fact that nearly 40% of pregnancies are unintended and that in the poorest regions mothers often lack information and the means to control the size of their families.

History:

Concern about overpopulation is very old.Throughout history, populations have developed slowly in spite of high birth rates, due to the population-reducing effects of war, plagues and high infant mortality. Throughout the 750 years before the Industrial Revolution, the world’s population enlarged very slowly, remaining under 250 million. By the start of the 19th century, the world population had developed to a billion individuals, and intellectuals such as Thomas Malthus and physiocratic economists predicted that mankind would outgrow its available resources, since a finite amount of land was incapable of supporting an continuously increasing population. Mercantillists argued that a large population was a form of assets, which made it possible to create bigger markets and armies.

During the 19th century, Malthus’s work was often interpreted in a way that responsible the poor alone for their condition, and serving them was regarded to worsen situation in the long run. This resulted, for example, in the English poor laws of 1834 and in a hesitating response to the Irish Great Famine of 1845-52.

A figure of eminent scientists contend that overpopulation is not a concern for the Earth. The UN Population Assessment Report of 2003 states that the world population will plateau by 2050 and will hang about that way until 2300. Dr Alex Berezow states that overpopulation is not a Western world trouble and people often cite China and India as main population contributors; however he observe that with rising wealth in those countries, population will start to slow, as population growth is sturdily linked to the economic permanence of a country.

Projections of population growth:

According to projections, the world population will keep on to grow until at least 2050, with the population reaching 9 billion in 2040, and some predictions putting the population in 2050 as high as 11 billion

According to the United Nations’ World Population Prospects report:

The world population is currently growing by approximately 74 million people per year. Current United Nations predictions estimate that the world population will reach 9.0 billion around 2050, assuming a decrease in average fertility rate from 2.5 down to 2.0.

Almost all growth will take place in the less developed regions, where today’s 5.3 billion population of underdeveloped countries is expected to increase to 7.8 billion in 2050. By contrast, the population of the more developed regions will remain mostly unchanged, at 1.2 billion. An exception is the United States population, which is expected to increase by 44% from 2008 to 2050.

In 2000-2005, the average world fertility was 2.65 children per woman, about half the level in 1950-1955 (5 children per woman). In the average variant, global productiveness is projected to decline further to 2.05 children per woman.

During 2005-2050, nine countries are expected to account for half of the world’s projected population increase: India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Bangladesh, Uganda, United States, Ethiopia, and China, listed according to the size of their contribution to population enlargement. China would be top still in this list were it not for its one-child policy.

Global life expectancy at birth is expected to prolong rising from 65 years in 2000-2005 to 75 years in 2045-2050. In the more urbanized regions, the outcrop is to 82 years by 2050. Among the least developed countries, where life expectancy today is just under 50 years, it is predictable to increase to 66 years by 2045-2050.

The population of 51 countries or areas is likely to be lower in 2050 than in 2005.

During 2005-2050, the net figure of international migrants to extra developed regions is projected to be 98 million. Because deaths are projected to exceed births in the more developed regions by 73 million during 2005-2050, population increase in those regions will mainly be due to international migration.

In 2000-2005, net migration in 28 countries either banned population decline or doubled at least the contribution of usual increase (births minus deaths) to population growth.

Birth rates are now declining in a small proportion of developing countries, while the real populations in many developed countries would drop without immigration.

Urban growth:

In 1800 only 3% of the world’s population lived in cities. By the 20th century’s close, 47% did so. In 1950, there were 83 cities with populations above one million; but by 2007, this had risen to 468 agglomerations of more than one million. If the development continues, the world’s urban population will twice every 38 years, according to researchers. The UN forecasts that today’s urban inhabitants of 3.2 billion will rise to nearly 5 billion by 2030, when three out of five people will breathe in cities.

The raise will be most dramatic in the poorest and least-urbanised continents, Asia and Africa. Projections point out that most urban growth over the next 25 years will be in developing countries. One billion people, one-sixth of the world’s population, or one-third of city population, now live in shanty towns, which are seen as “reproduction grounds” for social troubles such as crime, drug addiction, alcoholism, poverty and joblessness. In many poor countries, slums demonstrate high rates of disease due to unsanitary conditions, malnutrition, and lack of fundamental health care.

In 2000, there were 18 megacities-conurbations such as Tokyo, Seoul, Mexico City, Mumbai, São Paulo and New York City – that have populations in excess of 10 million inhabitants. Greater Tokyo before now has 35 million, more than the whole population of Canada (at 34.1 million).

By 2025, according to the Far Eastern Economic Review, Asia alone will have at least 10 hypercities, those with more than 19 million, together with Jakarta (24.9 million people), Dhaka (25 million),Karachi (26.5 million), Shanghai (27 million) and Mumbai (33 million). Lagos has developed from 300,000 in 1950 to an estimated 15 million today, and the Nigerian government estimates that city will have prolonged to 25 million residents by 2015. Chinese experts predict that Chinese cities will contain 800 million people by 2020.

Causes:

This unstable growth came about because death rate fell quicker than birth rate. The avability of antibiotics, immunization, clean water, increased rate of food production yielded tremendous improvements in newborn and child ethics. A rise in normal life expectancy has also contributed to the surge in the human numbers.

Some problems associated with or exacerbated by human overpopulation are:

Reduction of natural resources, mainly fossil fuels.

Improved levels of air pollution, water pollution, soil contamination and noise pollution. Once a country has industrialized and become wealthy, a mishmash of government regulation and technological improvement causes pollution to turn down substantially, even as the population continues to raise.

Deforestation and failure of ecosystems that sustain global atmospheric oxygen and carbon dioxide equilibrium; about eight million hectares of forest are lost each year.

Changes in atmospheric composition and consequent global warming.

Insufficient fresh water for drinking as well as sewage treatment and effluent ejection. Some countries, like Saudi Arabia, use energy-expensive desalination to resolve the problem of water shortages.

Irreversible loss of arable land and increases in desertification. Deforestation and desertification can be overturned by adopting assets rights, and this strategy is successful even while the human population continues to raise.

High newborn and child humanity. High rates of newborn mortality are related with poverty. Rich countries with high population densities have small rates of newborn mortality.

Intensive factory farming to hold large populations. It results in human pressure including the evolution and extend of antibiotic resistant bacteria diseases, extreme air and water pollution, and new viruses that contaminate humans.

Increased possibility of the emergence of new epidemics and pandemics. For many environmental and social reasons, plus overloaded living situation, malnutrition and inadequate, inaccessible, or non-existent health care, the poor are more likely to be uncovered to infectious diseases.

Starvation, malnutrition or poor diet with ill health and diet-deficiency diseases (e.g. rickets). However, rich countries with sky-scraping population densities do not have starvation.

Poverty coupled with inflation in some regions and a resulting low level of capital formation. Poverty and inflations are aggravated by terrible government and bad economic policies. Many countries with high population densities have eliminated total poverty and keep their inflation charge very low.

Mass species extinctions from reduced habitat in tropical forests due to slash-and-burn techniques that occasionally are experienced by shifting cultivators, especially in countries with speedily expanding rural populations; current extinction rates may be as high as 140,000 species lost per year. As of February 2011, the IUCN Red List lists a total of 801 animal species having gone extinct during recorded human documentation.

Small life expectancy in countries with highest growing populations.

Unsanitary living circumstances for many based upon water reserve depletion, release of raw droppings and solid waste dumping. However, this problem can be reduced with the approval of sewers. For example, after Karachi, Pakistan installed sewers, its newborn mortality rate drop substantially.

High crime rate due to drug cartels and enlarged theft by people robbery resources to stay alive.

Disagreement over scarce assets and crowding, leading to increased levels of warfare.

Less personal liberty and more limiting laws. Laws control interactions between humans. Law “serves as a primary social mediator of relations between people”. The higher the population concentration, the more frequent such connections become, and thus there develops a require for more laws and/or more preventive laws to regulate these communications. It was even speculated by Aldous Huxley in 1958 that democracy is in danger due to overpopulation, and could give rise to totalitarian style governments.

ENVOIRNMENT:

Overpopulation has considerably negatively impacted the environment of Earth starting at least as early as the 20th century. There are also economic consequences of this environmental degradation in the form of ecosystem services attrition. Afar the scientifically verifiable damage to the environment, some assert the moral right of other species to simply exist rather than become wiped out.

Environmental author Jeremy Rifkin has said that “our burgeoning population and city way of life have been purchased at the cost of huge ecosystems and habitats. … It’s no accident that as we celebrate the urbanization of the world, we are rapidly forthcoming another historic watershed: the vanishing of the wild. Further, even in countries which have both huge population growth and main ecological problems, it is not necessarily true that curbing the population expansion will make a major contribution towards resolving all environmental problems. However, as developing countries with sky-scraping populations become more industrzed, pollution and consumption will invariably raise.The Worldwatch Institute said the flourishing economies of China and India are terrestrial powers that are influential the global biosphere.

MITIGATION MEASURES:

There are some mitigation actions that have been or can be practice to shrink the poor impacts of overpopulation. All of these mitigations are ways to apply social norms. Overpopulation is an subject that threatens the condition of the environment in the above-mentioned ways and therefore societies must make a change in order to reverse some of the environmental effects brought on by present social norms. In societies like China, the government has put policies in place that control the number of children allowed to a couple. Other societies have already begun to apply social marketing strategies in order to teach the public on overpopulation effects. “The intervention can be extensive and done at a low rate. A range of print materials (flyers, brochures, fact sheets, stickers) needs to be produced and distributed all over the communities such as at local places of worships, sporting events, local food markets, schools and at car parks (taxis / bus stands).” Such prompts work to bring in the problem so that social norms are easier to apply. Certain government policies are making it easier and more socially satisfactory to use contraception and abortion methods.

Birth regulation:

Overpopulation is linked to the subject matter of birth control; some nations, like the People’s Republic of China, use authoritarian measures to shrink birth rates. Religious and ideological hostility to birth control has been cited as a factor contributing to overpopulation and poverty. Some leaders and environmentalists (such as Ted Turner) have recommended that there is an critical need to firmly implement a China-like one-child policy globally by the United Nations, because this would help control and cut population slowly.

Indira Gandhi, late Prime Minister of India, implemented a strained sterilization programme in the 1970s. Formally, men with two children or more had to suggest to sterilization, but many unmarried young men, political opponents and bad-mannered men were also believed to have been sterilized. This program is still remembered and criticized in India, and is responsible for creating a public dislike to family planning, which hampered Government programmes for decades.

Urban designer Michael E. Arth has proposed a “choice-based, profitable birth license plan” he calls “birth credits.” Birth credits would permit any woman to have as many children as she wants, as long as she buys a license for any children further than an average allotment that would result in zero population growth (ZPG). If that allowance was firm to be one child, for example, then the first child would be free, and the market would conclude what the license fee for each added child would cost. Extra credits would run out after a certain time, so these credits could not be hoarded by speculators. The real cost of the credits would only be a portion of the real cost of having and raising a child, so the credits would serve more as a wake-up call to women who might otherwise generate children without seriously considering the long term consequences to themselves or society.

ISLAMIC VIEW ABOUT BIRTH:

The Qur’an does not make any open statements about the ethics of contraception(the use of) any of various methods intended to stop a woman becoming pregnant ), but contains statements encourage procreation. The prophet Muhammad also is reported to have said “get married and produce offspring”.

Coitus interruptus, a primitive form of birth control, was a known perform at the time of Muhammad, and his companions occupied in it. Muhammad knew about this, but did not forbid it. Umarand Ali, the second and fourth of the Rashidun caliphs, respectively, protected the practice. Muslims scholars have extand the example of coitus interruptus, by analogy, to declaring allowable other forms of contraception, subject to three situations:

As children are the right of equally the husband and the wife, the birth control technique should be used with both parties’ consent.

The process should not source everlasting sterility.

The process should not otherwise hurt the body.

Education and empowerment:

One alternative is to focal point on education about overpopulation, family planning, and birth control methods, and to make birth-control plans like male/female condoms, pills and intrauterine devices easily available. Worldwide, nearly 40% of pregnancies are unintended (some 80 million unintended pregnancies each year). An estimated 350 million women in the poorest countries of the world moreover did not want their last child, do not want another child or want to gap their pregnancies, but they lack of information, reasonable means and services to conclude the size and spacing of their families. In the developing world, some 514,000 women die yearly of complications from pregnancy and abortion, with 86% of these deaths happening in the sub-Saharan Africa region and South Asia. Additionally, 8 million new-born die, many for the reason that of malnutrition or preventable diseases, particularly from lack of access to clean drinking water. In the United States, in 2001, almost half of pregnancies were unintended.

Egypt announced a plan to shrink its overpopulation by family planning education and putting women in the workforce. It was announced in June 2008 by the Minister of Health and PopulationHatem el-Gabali. The government has set sideways 480 million Egyptian pounds (about 90 million U.S. dollars) for the plan.

CONCLUSION:

“Do not forget birthdays. This is no way a propaganda for a larger population.”