Population and Consumption
There are a few different links between poverty and population. The text notes (p.169) that "much of the recent international migration has been from the developing world to the developed world," and that many people migrate because they realize that their best chance to escape poverty is to move to another country. Yet, rapidly growing populations are also a contributing factor to poverty in the developing world. In much of the developed world, natural (non-migration) population growth rates are slow, and have been for decades. These are also the wealthiest countries in the world. The countries with the most rapid growth rates are those with the worst economies. Those countries struggle to produce enough food for their people, and that struggle becomes even harder when the population increases rapidly.
The population pyramids in some countries provide interesting perspective on the links between poverty and population. In some developing nations, the median age is very low, in the 20s, and as much as half the population are under the age of 18. That is a vast amount of people in the country that are dependent on a relative small number of working age people. It...
Rosling (2010) notes in his talk that people in the Western world have generally been able to maintain a lifestyle of high consumption, but that there have been changes in the way that the developing world has evolved, such that the old developed-developing paradigm is outmoded. In the developing world, billions of people have been added, and they have a relatively high level of quality of life and consumer culture. However, this has not affected the quality of life for the poorest people.
Rosling also notes that population growth is going to continue as long as people continue to exist in extreme poverty. Getting out of such poverty requires the same things that slow population growth -- education, women's rights, access to child health care. These things all help to bring about better economies in the long run. He cites evidence from the countries that were poor in1960 and are not poor today, most of which are found in Asia. The rise of a global middle class has helped to slow population growth and because of its relationship with education and health care is also related to the economic status of…
