Population Growth in Developing Countries, Research Paper Example

The population growth problem today is among the top world environmental problems, some scientist even remark that most of the environmental problems are caused by the world population growth. Currently 6.8 billion people live in the world, and the population is rising with the growth rate of about 1.16 per cent a year, which is approximately 78 million people a year. The growth rate is viewed especially among the developing countries. However there are countries that have population growth problems and they try to control the rates by decreasing fertility, but not all governments implement these actions and the overall growth rate is still high. Back in 1798 Thomas Malthus, and English economist brought up the problem of intense world population growth, he said that the population is increasing in a geometric progression, while the world food output grows only in an arithmetic progression.

The decisions in how to deal with household and poverty problems in developing countries due to population growth are various. If subdividing existing farms and redistributing the land we may run into problems concerning protests of unfair division, where some people will be left of their old private property. When deciding whether to combine inefficient farms into cooperatives, I personally think this will be not the best decision. In the former Soviet Union, broadly used cooperatives proved to be inefficient because people did not put their best effort into work. A great way to deal with this problem would be to open new land to agriculture, providing families with the land they earlier lacked under the condition that they will work there. However the option of finding work in cities was always popular, most of the perspective agricultural population did so. This brought up the problem that countries lacked human resources producing food. The option considering immigration to perspective countries is not a decision because the problem with food supplies will not be solved, and many western countries are even against new immigrants. The solution would be for governments in these countries to restrain population growth, and to provide the opportunities for work in the agricultural sector.

References

Mahfuz R. Chowdhury, July 26, 2008. Population growth in developing countries. Retrieved Oct. 15, 2009, from http://nation.ittefaq.com/issues/2008/07/26/news0712.htm/

Dennis A. Ahlburg,Allen C. Kelley,Karen Oppenheim Mason, 1996. The Impact of Population Growth on Well-Being in Developing Countries. (1^st edition, pp. 4-6)Springer-Verlag Berlin.