Population, Poverty, and the Local Environment
By: Partha S. Dasgupta
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- Some would point to population growth as the cause of poverty and environmental degradation
- Economists have typically not regarded poverty, population growth and the local environment as interconnected
- Focusing on the vast numbers of small, rural communities in the poorest regions of the world, the work has identified circumstances in which population growth, poverty and degradation of local resources often fuel one another
- This new perspective has significant implications for policies aimed at improving life for some of the world’s most impoverished inhabitants
- Those who enjoy the greatest power within a family can often be identified by the way the household’s resources are divided
- It was observed that the sharing of resources within a household is often unequal even when differences in needs are taken into account
- In poor households in the Indian subcontinent, for example, men and boys usually get more sustenance than do women and girls, and the elderly get less than the young
- Such inequities prevail over fertility choices as well. Here also men wield more influence, even though women typically bear the greater cost
- In a society where female life expectancy at birth is 50 years and the fertility rate is, say, seven, nearly half of a woman’s adult life is spent either carrying a child in her womb or breast-feeding it
- Another indicator of the price that women pay is maternal mortality
- In most poor countries, complications related to pregnancy constitute the largest single cause of death of women in their reproductive years
- Data on the status of women from 79 so-called Third World countries display an unmistakable pattern: high fertility, high rates of illiteracy, low share of paid employment and a high percentage working at home for no pay—they all hang together
- There is also good reason to think that lack of income-generating employment reduces women’s power more directly than does lack of education
- Policies aimed at increasing women’s productivity at home and improving their earnings in the marketplace would directly empower them, especially within the family
- The importance of gender inequality to overpopulation in poor nations is fortunately gaining international recognition
- One motive, common to humankind, relates to children as ends in themselves. It ranges from the desire to have children because they are playful and enjoyable, to the desire to obey the dictates of tradition and religion
- Procreation in closely knit communities is not only a private matter; it is also a social activity, influenced by the cultural milieu
- A society can get stuck at a self-sustaining mode of behavior that is characterized by high fertility and low educational attainment
- Still other motives for procreation involve viewing children as productive assets. In a rural economy where avenues for saving are highly restricted, parents value children as a source of security in their old age
- It stems from children’s being valuable to their parents not only for future income but also as a source of current income
- Third World countries are, for the most part, subsistence economies
- Children, then, are needed as workers even when their parents are in their prime. Small households are simply not viable; each one needs many hands
- The need for many hands can lead to a destructive situation, especially when parents do not have to pay the full price of rearing their children but share those costs with the community
- If access to shared resources continues, parents produce too many children, which leads
to greater crowding and susceptibility to disease as well as to more pressure on environmental resources - The perception of both the low costs and high benefits of procreation induces households to produce too many children
- As the community’s resources are depleted, more hands are needed to gather fuel and water for daily use
- More children are then produced, further damaging the local environment and in turn providing the household with an incentive to enlarge
- Families with greater access to resources are, however, in a position to limit their size and propel themselves into still higher income levels
- Family planning services, especially when allied with health services, and measures that
empower women are certainly helpful - Literacy and employment drive for women is essential to smooth the transition to having fewer children
- Improving social coordination and directly increasing the economic security of the poor are also essential
Accusations have been made to the fact that why the human population is growing are related to the causes of poverty and environment degradation. Through thorough observations in overlooking the small rural communities; it was shown that population growth, poverty, and degradation of local resources are truly innerconnected to each other as they influence one another. In most poor countries, data of those certain areas clearly shows a pattern in high concentrations of fertility rates, women with lack of education and less control in the households. The reason for such high fertility rates is due to the need for children as a source of income to provide their families and taking part in the work of gathering resources such as water. The main issue lies in the education for specifically women because it's important for the empowering of women within families and that they can be more secure and comfortable about family planning to set how many children they will have. Many of those women in these countries tend to live a harsh and difficult life in large families where there are lots of duties and often occupy environments that have poor sanitation. Since there are many inhabitants that are typically poor in the community, many of the resources from where they live is depleted which then leads to the transition in taking resources in the environment and, thus, harms it in the process and the inability for it to support the people in that community. However, there has been ways that can end this cycle such as educating women and the community, the urge for fewer children, and services regarding health. In addition to showing how children are a huge burden can open the minds of the people to not as much of them in order to reduce fertility rates.
I can now see how human population growth is connected to both poverty and environment degradation. Its important to spread the awareness to women about how children can put stress and challenges when having them. By doing this, it will open their doors to healthier, safer, and better lifestyles to be advocates of themselves to take opportunities in jobs and education to receive earnings while also having fewer children. Also, they would'nt need to rely on their man to provide the income or any sort of help which could result in being an independent individual without having any kids. What can be even better is if the developed nations gave a helping hand to less developed nations in supporting the poor with services. All of these can put a barrier onto the human population growth to become sustainable in the future and eliminating poverty that would then in turn put environments at stable conditions.