Population Growth

POPULATION GROWTH, URBANIZATION, AND MIGRATION
"The whole of the global economy is based on satisfying the cravings of 2% of the world's population" (Bill Bryson)

A critical issue in global security studies is the problem of human overpopulation. The current population of the Earth is close to 7 billion, and growing at a rate of about 76 million people per year, which puts the planet on course for almost 10 billion people by the year 2050. Long ago, Ehrlich (1968) predicted that a number far less than that would result in millions of people starving to death, and although Ehrlich's doomsday scenario never happened, other experts (e.g., Diamond 2004) say there is still reason to worry. The problem today is not due to joblessness or hunger because world joblessness only runs at about 1.5 billion, and although scarcities exist, the food supply is mostly adequate given technological agriculture (the cornucopian thesis). Instead, the problem is just "too many people" for any known system of governance to govern effectively. Ironically, that's the same problem with underpopulation since the definition of an "underpopulated" area is one which doesn't have enough people to sustain an economic governance system. Overpopulation, by most definitions, occurs when an area or environment exceeds its carrying capacity (food, water, habitat, and other necessary infrastructure). Overpopulation is a recipe for war, conflict, failed states, and unsustainable development. The unsustainability problem is exacerbated by the fact that consumption levels are often distributed unevenly. Overpopulation affects different world regions differently. According to a concept called the "ecological footprint," the ecological pressure of a U.S. resident is 12 times that of a resident of India and 24 times that of a Somali resident. The overpopulation problem also puts pressures on arable land, water, food, energy, and biological resources as well as threatens viable ecosystems. Hence, resource wars as well as civil wars may or may not be expected, as it all depends on whether the situation remains a problem or becomes a threat.

If and when the time comes, efforts to control population growth may lead to human rights violations such as involuntary sterilization and the abandoning of infants to die. Some say China's one child per family policy signals the future in this regard. The issue of birth control (aka family planning) is as intimately tied up with the overpopulation problem as is the urbanization problem. Currently, half the world's population is found in urban cities or large metropolitan centers, and this is good news to some health officials who say it makes it easier to concentrate health programs in high-density areas, but bad news to others who foresee only slums, sanitation problems, and collapse of infrastructure. In terms of family planning, developed countries are experiencing an aging boom, and developing countries are experiencing a fertility boom. At current rates, by 2050, 98% of all new births will take place in poor, developing countries which are places least able to afford it. Pregnancy is, in fact, one of the leading killers of women in developing countries, many of them mere girls whose bodies are too immature to be giving birth. A "poverty-fertility trap" exists where high population growth leads to deeper poverty, and deeper poverty contributes to high fertility rates. Also, as countries pull themselves up out of poverty, one would think that increased prosperity might lead to lower fertility, but that is not the case. More education, especially of women, might lead to that, but a more significant curative would be some kind of global consensus on matters of birth control and/or family planning.

Population growth could inevitably reach some Malthusian limit (the point at which subsistence equals food supply -- see Malthusian catastrophe). Alternatively, some equilibrium point could be reached that demographers foresee using the Lotka-Volterra equation (aka the predator-prey equation, that predators thrive where there are plentiful prey, but ultimately outstrip their food supply and decline). Demographers, for their part, usually point to the phenomenon called "demographic transition" to say there is little to worry about. Understandably, what's not to like about demographic transition theory since it posits that with increased standard of living and life expectancy, people will get married later (if at all) and be too busy pursuing wealth and freedom to have children. There's also the societal collapse literature (e.g., Diamond 2004; Levitt & Dubner 2006) which explains that societal collapse might come about simply given present consumption levels with or without overpopulation, or via overpopulation alone. Little of the overpopulation literature is neatly organized for the kind of exposition that is intended here. Malthusian economics will be examined later in this essay. For now, an important concept called the limits of growth theorem is deserving of immediate attention:

The Limits of Growth

According to Meadows et. al. (2004), where the graphic at right comes from, the earth long ago (circa 1980) passed its carrying capacity to provide the resources necessary for humanity and absorb humanity's emissions. Growth in population and natural resource use interacts with a variety of limits, the most notable limit being the earth's ability to replenish renewable resources. Global "overshoot" is another word the authors use to describe resource use beyond the carrying capacity of the planet, and overshoot cannot be sustained without collapse. Measures can be taken to reduce inefficiency and waste, and slow the exponential growth of population, but it may also be necessary to radically restructure society to reduce reckless squandering of the Earth's resources. Ever since 1972, when The Limits of Growth was first published, the book has been cited frequently as an authoritative source on global collapse and the earth being doomed.

Another important concept which has some theoretical longevity is the notion of the "TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS" which means "that which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it." The notion presumes that since the planet belongs to everyone, continued exploitation of it can just go on and on forever, but the tragedy is that since nobody really "owns" the earth, nobody really cares or notices when the presumably endless supply of resources runs out. In other words, much of the world is treated as a "commons" wherein individuals have the right to freely consume its resources as much as they want. The concept became quite popular in the 1970s, and still is popular, finding expression in many areas of population studies and the environment. The article: The Concept of the Common Heritage of Mankind in International Law addresses modern applications of the concept, such as with law of the sea or outer space law. For instance, collective management approaches have been made by such organizations or entities as the International Seabed Authority and the Antarctic Treaty System, the purpose of which has been to prevent any "free-for-all" in robbing the ocean floors of minerals and prevent any war or militarization of Antarctica.

A short note is in order about the scientific disciplines which contribute to the topic here. It is difficult – and perhaps not even desirable -- to name all the contributing disciplines and subdisciplines. Demography and geography are, of course, major contributors, but the main fields lie at the intersections of other fields or don't even have a name yet, the more recognizable ones having to do with anthropology, criminology, development, disaster, migration, or refugees. One is most likely to encounter this topic of study in an academic department or institute of population or migration studies, but naming conventions vary, and part of the problem consists of the blurred distinctions between population geography, demography, and population ecology -- different fields that intersect upon study of the same things:

Over the past 30 years, urbanization has increased so much that by 2008, more than half the world's population will be living in cities. Cities can be good or bad -- good if they are rated as an alpha, beta, or gamma "global city" -- and bad if they are called "megacities" composed of at least 10 million people. Back in 1975, the world only had three (3) megacities, but today, there are many more, as follows, with a caveat that figures are constantly changing:

The World's Largest Cities (Megacities)

1. Tokyo (35 million)
2. Mexico City (26 million)
3. Seoul (23 million)
4. New York (22 million)
5. Bombay (21 million)
6. Delhi (21 million)
7. Sao Paulo (20 million)
8. Osaka (20 million)
9. Karachi (20 million)
10. Shanghai (19 million)
11. Los Angeles (18 million)
12. Beijing (17 million)
13. Cairo (16 million)
14. Calcutta (14 million)
15. Buenos Aires (12 million)
16. Dhaka, Bangladesh (11 million)
17. Istanbul (10 million)

Most of today's megacities are overcrowded, contain spreading slums, and suffer from problems of poverty and crime. Megacities are also especially vulnerable to terrorist attacks and other hazards. People living in megacities in lesser developed countries (where many are) often live in squalor, with diseases rampant because of poor sanitation and the ease in which diseases are transmitted under such conditions. Examples of common diseases found in megacites include dysentery and cholera, but entirely new diseases are emerging, such as zoonotic diseases, which result from cross-species transmission due to the fact that most spatial growth in the megacities comes from deforestation and encroachment upon rural environments. Some experts think that urban zoonotic diseases are the rural environment's way of fighting back (Hough 2004).

Megacities (particularly in the developing world) are usually the only places where there are any paid employment opportunities. Therefore, they continually attract large numbers of rural migrants, suffer from congestion, and are typically places where social unrest originates. Historians argue about this, but the French and Russian revolutions can be blamed, for example, on urbanization, in large part. The field of criminology also holds that rapid urbanization is associated with the creation of deeply embedded criminal subcultures. The phenomena of juvenile delinquency is primarily an urban phenomena. The political administration of megacities is often characterized by corruption and a number of other examples of "bad" public administration. Megacities cannot be designed. They occur spontaneously, and only weakly respond to urban planning, if it all. The literature on megacity issues is very large. The United Nations Human Settlements Program, World Bank Urban Development Projects, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development are among the major sources of information on the subject.

Over the last 35 years, the number of international migrants worldwide has more than doubled. And, at the start of the 21st century, one out of every 35 persons worldwide was an international migrant. The nations which tend to attract the most migrants are: Canada, Ireland, the United States, Netherlands, Costa Rica, and Botswana. With Costa Rica and Botswana, migrants tend to be refugees fleeing civil and economic strife. Otherwise, the general pattern is for migrants to come from underdeveloped nations to developed ones. If the point of reference is the migrant's country of origin, the proper term is emigration, but if the point of reference is the destination country, the proper term is immigration.

There are many reasons why people migrate, and in general, all the different reasons are either classified as "pull factors" (things which make the destination country attractive) or "push factors" (things which make the country of origin unattractive). Most, but not all, security issues are related to push factors, such as war, disease, or disaster in the country of origin. However, there is also a type of migration called "forced migration" which refers to the coerced movement of a person or persons away from their home or home region. If such people do not cross an international border, they are called "internally displaced persons" (IDPs). If an international border is crossed, they are called "refugees." There are some strong international laws dealing with refugees, but there are only weak international laws for IDPs. The largest source countries of refugees are the Palestinian Territories, Afghanistan, Iraq, Myanmar, and Sudan. The country with the largest number of IDPs is Sudan.

A refugee, by definition, is someone who has a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. Governments are obligated under international law to accept requests for refuge, but until any such request is accepted, the person is called an "asylum seeker." Exactly how refugee requests are accepted, how claims of fears are verified, and how the rights of refugee status are granted vary from country to country in accordance with their immigration policy. Failed asylum applicants are most often deported, sometimes after imprisonment or detention. Failed asylum applicants who cannot be returned home are most often warehoused in refugee camps funded by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Refugee programs are easily exploitable. Many terrorist groups have a long history of exploiting a nation’s refugee program, and in addition, refugee camps are typical breeding grounds for terrorism. Eller (1999) goes further and says that almost all ethnic conflict internationally has been in response to migration. However, with regard to refugee camps, it should be remembered that Afghanistan's Taliban movement was born in the refugee camps of Pakistan, and it is more technically correct with the Palestinian problem to say that Arab terrorists use Arab refugee camps as recruiting centers. Somehow, other refugee camps manage to remain relatively free from terrorism, such as in Zambia, Kenya, Angola, Chad, Myanmar, and Sudan.

Migration plays an important role in the overpopulation problem because, as King (1996) points out, something called "demographic entrapment" can occur when a country has a population larger than its carrying capacity, no possibility of migration, and exports too little to be able to import food. This will cause starvation. For example, many sub-Saharan African nations are or will become stuck in demographic entrapment, instead of having a demographic transition. The country of Malawi is frequently cited in this regard since Malawi cannot feed its present population of 13 million, it's population is expected to rise to 32 million by 2050, and (unless something is done) it will soon be completely and permanently dependent on international food aid to keep its people alive.

Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) was the original doomsayer and represents the opposite of the cornucopian school of thought. Mathusian economics is extensive, but one might rightly characterize it by saying that Malthus would applaud such things as war, plague, murder, and homosexuality because they keep the surplus population rate down. Mathus favored birth control for the poor, and in fact, another modern Malthusian author, Clark (2007), has said nothing less than all the world's problems are traceable to an Industrial Revolution date (circa 1800) when the world birth rate of the poor started exceeding the world birth rate of the rich. The perennial question asked by most experts today (e.g., Landes 1999; Diamond 2005) still involves the so-called "Malthusian trap" which refers to how some countries manage to remain poor while everyone else is getting exceedingly rich. The Malthusian trap of poverty occurs basically when there are too many mouths to feed, but there is more to it than that. England and other places which enjoyed the benefits of increased production from the Industrial Revolution escaped the Malthusian trap not just because of increased income, but via the spread of certain hard-working values, like developing a skill, becoming literate, establishing a disciplined lifestyle, learning to defer immediate gratification, etc. Not all parts of the world can escape the Malthusian trap until such values are in place.

The above all sounds rather conservative, and indeed is or can be, but others (Pomeranz 2001) have fairly pointed out that there is NO consensus about how Europe become uniquely wealthy by the mid-nineteenth century. China and Japan, for example, had plenty of chances to jump on the Industrial Revolution bandwagon, but never did. Only Western Europe and North America made the effort to develop a "rapid development" infrastructure based on certain things such as the replacement of magic by religion, the need for scientific-industrial linkages, increased security of private property, and the values of capital reinvestment as well as thrift, savings, prudence, negotiation and hard work.

Despite its cold and remorseless character, Malthusian economics makes a good deal of sense. Income under every known economic system always starts out at about equal to the subsistence level, but when wages increase, so do population levels, which, in turn, push wages back to subsistence levels. Hence, economic systems have some sort of equilibrium mechanism built-in based on population growth. Differences in living conditions between times and places around the world may very well be caused by "externalities" in the system such as corruption, nepotism, and impulsiveness, but the case might also be that some parts of the world really want NO part in the fruits of industrialization. Americans tend to falsely assume that these fruits are so obviously desirable that other people should do whatever they have to do to make it happen for them, but the fact of the matter is that it cannot easily be done.

Fertility can be measured in different ways, but generally refers to the capability of giving life. Fertility is different from fecundity, which refers to the potential for reproduction and is a measure of fitness. Scientists study fertility because there are a number of interesting factors affecting it, such as nutrition, economics, endocrinology, instinct, and cultural practices. Fertility by itself (the number of children per woman) is not the best indicator of population growth because the number of women on the planet are declining due to sex-selective abortion, female infanticide, and a number of other anti-female practices that go on around the world [see Lecture on International Family Law]. Rather than waiting to actually count the number of children each woman produces, most scientists estimate something called the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) which projects the average number of children that would be born to a woman over her lifetime between the ages of 15 and 44. An alternative measure is the Net Reproduction Rate (NRR) which measures the number of daughters a woman would have in her lifetime subject to the mortality rates in the given year.

Developed countries usually have low fertility rates as well as low mortality rates. Further, women in developed countries often wait until later in their lifetime to have children. For instance, the average fertility rate in a developed country (like the U.S.) is about 2 children per woman. Developing countries, on the other hand, typically have fertility rates that are quite high, averaging around 5 children per woman (6 in Africa). Demographers estimate, with some certainty, that any society with a fertility rate greater than 3.8 is likely to do OK and survive well-enough, population-wise, from generation to generation. Any society with a fertility rate of 2.0 or less is likely to decline, population-wise, unless replacements are brought in from a large enough immigration policy. There are a number of caveats to these findings, however. One thing which matters greatly is whether or not a country is scheduled to have a "baby boom" or boomlet, for example, as these sorts of things throw off the accuracy of any projections. Baby booms, which consist of large numbers of people scheduled to eventually have children, are the main cause of "explosive" population growth, and are the primary means by which countries with low fertility rates (like the U.S. and UK) manage to survive, population-wise. Rapid spikes in population growth, however, often create social problems like congestion and pollution. A different set of social problems usually exist in places of negative population growth, like Eastern and Central Europe, so too-little or too-much fertility can be a problem.

Sub-Saharan Africa is a place with fertility problems. Clearly, the rate of 6 children per woman is better than the high of 8 which the region was experiencing twenty years ago, but also clearly apparent is the fact that only when some of the countries there get their rate down to about 2 (like Mauritius did) can exceptional levels of economic growth take place. A country with a steady fertility rate of 2.1 usually manages to produce an economy where most people make an income around $4000 a month. A country with a fertility rate of 7.7 (like Niger) usually produces an economy where most people make an income of $100 a month. Given such a strong correlation between fertility and economic wealth (usually measured as GDP/per capita), it may come as no surprise that many political leaders in Africa and elsewhere have pushed the idea of cutting fertility rates in hopes of ultimately achieving higher rates of growth. Rwanda's government, for example, has been closely pursuing an agenda similar to China’s one-child policy. On the other side of the issue, there are those who argue that if household income is increased first (via government subsidies, welfare, and so forth), fertility rates will take care of themselves. Only one thing is certain, and that is fertility is extremely hard to predict with any certainty.

New ideas are needed to handle the impending food shortage problem, and scientists at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization have come up with an idea -- entomophagy: adding insects to our diet -- because it would be good for us and the environment too. Eating insects would not only be nutritious but would cut down on the need for pesticides which are harming the planet, crop failures due to insect infestation, and dependence upon livestock, meat-based products which are hard to come by in some climates. An added benefit is that if an industry grows up around this idea, the many bug-farming preserves or forests needed to attract and harvest insects might reverse the deforestation process in some countries. Many insects in their dried form have twice the protein of raw meat and fish, and others are rich in unsaturated fat and contain important vitamins and minerals.

About 113 nations have already added insects to their diet. In Taiwan, stir-fried crickets and sauteed caterpillars are considered delicacies, as are butterfly larvae in Mexico, grubs in Papua New Guinea, and dragonfly in Bali. In places like Thailand, when pesticides fail to control locusts, the government urges locals to eat them and distributes recipes. In parts of North Africa, locusts are sometimes called sky prawns. In parts of Southeast Asia, street markets sell deep-fried insects by the pound as a popular street food. Insects are, after all, simply arthropods, much like the aquatic crab, shrimp, and lobster. However, some scientists dispute the phylogeny of the arthropods, and some subphylums like scorpion and spider might be bad for your health.

Another solution is advocated by organizations such as the Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture, which is named after Dr. Norman Borlaug ("father of the green revolution" and often associated with the topic of genetically altered food) who has developed new scientific methods of agronomy for raising high-yield, disease-resistant crops. Borlaug and other scientists have changed the face of agriculture by creating ways to easily double and triple production of wheat, barley, rice, sorghum, potato, corn, and fish (tilapia mainly). It turns out that "shuttle breeding" the best seeds of a crop at higher and higher altitudes produces seeds which can turn out "double seasons" of crops as well as seeds which work well in just about any geographic climate on earth. It also turns out that disease resistance is enhanced by planting "multiline varieties" (genetically similar but slightly different varieties) of a crop together (actually, the Borlaug method is to plant several purelines with different resistance genes through backcross methods using one recurrent parent). Borlaug has repeatedly said that besides increasing the worldwide food supply, steps need to be taken to decrease the rate of population growth. Only 17% of the planet's land produces 90% of the world's food crops, and there are few new, additional frontiers of arable land left to put into production, unless one is willing to level whole forests (which is unwise). Given current population growth, the solution of doubling or tripling food production with existing farmland will become absolutely necessary by the year 2050. Fortunately, Borlaug methods have started to find widespread use in places like India, China, Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East.

PRINTED RESOURCES
Clark, G. (2007). A farewell to arms: A brief economic history of the world. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press.
Collier, P. (2007). The bottom billion. NY: Oxford Univ. Press.
Diamond, J. (2004). Collapse: How societies choose to fail or succeed. NY: Viking.
Diamond, J. (2005). Guns, germs, and steel: The fate of human societies. NY: Norton.
Ehrlich, P. (1968). The population bomb. NY: Ballantine Books.
Eller, J. (1999). From culture to ethnicity to conflict. Ann Arbor, MI: Univ. of MI Press.
Fink, S. & Stinson, M. (2007). "War, catastrophes, displaced persons, refugees, and terrorism." Pp. 176-199 in Markle, W., Fisher, M. & Smego, R. (eds.), Understanding global health. NY: McGraw Hill.
Hesser, L. (2006). The man who fed the world: Nobel peace prize laureate Norman Borlaug and his battle to end world hunger. Dallas, TX: Durbin House Press.
Hough, P. (2004). Understanding global security. NY: Routledge.
King, M. (1996). "Averting a world food shortage." British Medical Journal 313: 995-97.
Landes, D. (1999). The wealth and poverty of nations: Why some are so rich and some are so poor. NY: Norton.
Levitt, S. & Dubner, S. (2006). Freakonomics. NY: William Morrow.
Malthus, T. (1826). An essay on the principle of population, 6e. London: Library of Economics and Liberty.
Meadows, D., Randers, J. & Meadows, D. (2004). Limits to growth. Post Mills, VT: Chelsea Green.
Musalo, K., Moore, J. & Boswell, R. (2001). Refugee law and policy, 2e. Durham: Carolina Academic Press.
Pomeranz, K. (2001). The great divergence. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press.
Sachs, J. (2006). The end of poverty. NY: Penguin.
Woods, R. (1982). Theoretical population geography. NY: Longman.

Last updated: Aug 15, 2008
Not an official webpage of APSU, copyright restrictions apply, see Megalinks in Criminal Justice
O'Connor, T. (Date of Last Update at bottom of page). In Part of web cited (Windows name for file at top of browser), MegaLinks in Criminal Justice. Retrieved from http://www.apsu.edu/oconnort/rest of URL accessed on today's date.