population problems?

Is there a Population Problem? There are definitely a lot of people on the planet. And the numbers are rising all the time. But is this too many? One claim, by those who think it is, is that population in Asia and Africa is proportionately way too high. This we can easily calculate. The fact is, in 1650 the share of Asia and Africa in the world population is estimated to have been 78.4 percent, and it stayed around there even in 1750. With the industrial revolution, the share of Asia and Africa diminished because of the rapid rise of population in Europe and North America; for example, during the nineteenth century while the people of Asia and Africa grew by about 4 percent per ten years or less, the population of the European settlement grew by around 10 percent every ten years. The key factor in this growth was that people began living longer. In fact, the combined share of Asia and Africa (now 71.2 percent) has yet to get back to what we might call its natural proportionate level. And, more to the point, even if UN predictions about future growth are right, and they do not assume significant social advances throughout the region, the Asia/Africa share will rise to 78.5 percent, or roughly what it was before the European Industrial revolution, by 2050, a reflection of Asia/Africa now enjoying entry into the developed world. Thus, there is no disproportion.

Moreover, the rate of world population growth is currently declining, rather than becoming a steadily worse problem, "and over the last two decades it has fallen from 2.2 percent per year between 1970 and 1980, to 1.7 percent between 1980 and 1992." But, we may well ask, is the decline sufficient? Is growth of population, despite the slow decline of growth rates, outstripping productivity growth, thus reducing the possible standard of living? Perhaps surprisingly, the answer is no. "Instead, the average population of `low-income' countries (as defined by the World Bank) has been not only enjoying a rising gross national product (GNP) per head, but a growth rate of GNP per capita (3.9 percent per year for 1980-1992) that is much faster than those for the `high income' countries (2.4 percent) and for the `middle income' ones (0 percent)."

And even this picture would be considerably rosier were it not for some countries in sub Saharan Africa which are and have been for some time now suffering economy-devastating war and drought brought on not by population, but by social structures and problems and causing negative changes in GNP.

But what about food, the ecologist/demographer might reasonably reply? Surely population growth is now outstripping increases in food output. Well, no, in fact, it isn't. "Not only over the two centuries since Malthus's time, but also during recent decades, the rise in food output has been significantly and consistently outpacing the expansion of world population." But is this merely because of excess production in the less populated areas of Europe and the U.S.? No, just the opposite. The largest increases in the production of food--not just in the aggregate but also per person--are actually taking place in the third world, particularly in the region that is having the largest absolute increases in the world population, that is, in Asia.

http://www.zmag.org/ZMag/articles/albert3.htm