The population of the world may cross the 10 billion level by 2100. Providing food and nutrition for everybody while accounting for regional variations in agricultural resource availability and food production will pose a major problem for national governments and for international humanitarian agencies. Currently, the World Food Programme is struggling to meet its aims of providing food to groups that lack the means to afford it. In scenarios of much higher population, possible severe constraints on fertilizer supply ( discussed in other articles ) and nation to nation variations, providing food security will most likely become an overwhelming challenge.
All national governments may do well to examine the projections regarding availability of agricultural land, the possibility of shifting land allocation from non-agricultural uses to agricultural uses, the scarcity level of phosphate rock and the effects on inorganic fertilizer production, the amount of land on which real estate development can be allowed etc. However, depending on their projections for agricultural and industrial manufacturing, certain nations may find it difficult to meet nutrition standards despite their best efforts ( I am not referring here to scenarios of apathy and unresponsiveness of governments that fail to arrange proper food distribution despite the availability of food supplies ).
It may well become necessary for specific nations of different sizes to embark on policies of population control similar to those in place in China, at least for certain periods of time. China’s one-child policy has contributed to population stabilization and may well become a major factor that determines its future economic trajectory ( although a one-child policy can lead to its own long-term problems like plummeting working age population or even uncontrollable and sudden decrease in population if followed for too long ). Other nations may have to adopt the same policy or policies similar to it for certain lengths of time. For example, a national policy that results in one and a half child per couple by using lottery systems to allow half of the couples a quota of one child while allowing the other half a quota of two children can be a policy option for nations that need some population stabilization, but not to the extent of a one-child policy. Minor details like how the policy will work in case of divorce etc can be thrashed out by experts. These and other variations may need to be examined if the food supply situation becomes too precarious, either at the the national or at the international level.
Since education, literacy, awareness, availability and adoption of contraceptives and availability of gainful employment at different age levels are all factors that determine population growth rates in societies that do not have child quotas for couples, governments that do not want to adopt quotas will have to make even more serious efforts in all these areas. Poor couples in villages where the economy and the educational system does not afford good opportunities for upward mobility can act in a risk averse fashion and produce lots of children if child mortality rates are high, as they are in India, for example. Also, if poor villagers need the labor of male children beyond a certain age in India more than that of female children, they may over-produce children. A holistic approach that includes the following measures will become indispensable.
1. Drastic reduction or elimination of child mortality by providing comprehensive basic health care facilities, something that has not happened in sixty years of independent India and several other countries.
2. Education of rural and urban population regarding population control and birth control measures.
3. Providing at least rudimentary food and health security options, and possibly advanced ones, so that villagers do not have very strong preference for the male child, will also help.
4. Similarly, the institution of at least rudimentary and preferably more sophisticated safety nets for old people will obviate the need for villagers to try to have more male children ( male rural children in India, for example, care for the parents when they are old while the rural females often have no resources to help parents after they are married and leave home ).
Even after all these holistic measures are taken, a quota system may still be needed because certain couples may still over-produce and benefit from the possible positive externalities of having more children if a lot of people start voluntarily practicing population control. Public awareness messages about the dangers of population explosion are of little use if the short-term economic incentives for producing more children are present. In other words, even if public awareness messages convince villagers that producing to many children can lead to fallacy-of-composition problems, there may be no good mechanism to overcome the free-rider or externality problem.
The best scenario is one where all the four steps mentioned above are adopted and a concerted effort is made to make a speedy transition to a kind of economy where the incentive for having more than the replacement level of birth rate is absent. Such a speedy transition has proved to be difficult in India, for example. However, the Indian experience has more to do with apathy, shoddy implementation and lack of a holistic approach. Even if the holistic approach is adopted, getting some people to stop piggyback riding on the positive steps taken by others can be a difficult problem, at least for a while. That should not deter adoption of the holistic approach, however, since the net gain is likely to be positive.
In India, the Below Poverty Line ( BPL ) card and the associated food programs are a good beginning, but they are not a substitute for more comprehensive security nets. Further, the prevalence of poverty and starvation despite the BPL card program in India is an indicator that it nowhere approaches a comprehensive security system.
The one-child policy in China has sometimes been maligned based on charges that preference for the male child combined with sex determination prior of the fetus leads to abortion of female fetuses. One possible solution is to ban sex determination of the fetus and to strictly enforce the ban. As for female infanticide, the legal system of the country should provide the disincentive to eliminate this kind of practice. Female infanticide is also reported in countries like India which do not have any limits on the number of children per couple, most likely due to the economic considerations mentioned above. Countries that limit the average number of children per couple will also need to follow the holistic guidelines for a security net in addition to law enforcement if they want to deal effectively with the problem of female infanticide or abortion of female fetuses.
Countries that do not want to mandate the maximum number of children for couples, or have serious political difficulties for doing so, also have the option of trying approaches involving incentives. For example, giving cash incentives to couples who adhere to specific limits for the number of children is one way to encourage population control. This can be done concurrently with the holistic approach outlined previously. It is one way of countering the free-rider problem, but it is difficult to predict its efficacy.
There is no easy solution to this problem of ensuring population stability in times of serious concern about the food supply. One-child policy or other policies similar to it have the stability problems on the lower side as discussed earlier, be it for overall population or for the ability of working age population to support a large old age population. On the other hand, using non-mandatory approaches necessitates holistic frameworks that have proved difficult to implement in poor countries with population problems, and produce the obvious stability problems on the higher side, leading to neo-Malthusian outcomes. Careful modeling of population trajectories, strict implementation of development objectives, constant monitoring of progress or lack thereof and raising the levels of awareness about the population issue may well become the pressing problems of countries in a new age of food supply paranoia and resource paranoia. Those opinion makers and policy framers in developing countries that constantly harp on high elitist growth and trickle-down as the solution to the development problems need to note that this attitude can lead to disastrous outcomes. The point has probably been reached where governments need to assure poor people that enough of a social security net will be available to people so that they do not need to produce excessive number of children and the governments need to follow through on these social security assurances. Trickle-down, even with high growth in the elitist sectors of the economy, cannot produce the necessary changes in old-age security, for example, that are necessary ingredients in the complex problem of population stabilization and poverty reduction. Trickle-down is not going to solve the problem of child mortality at the required rate. For example, with hundreds of millions living at the edge of starvation in a country like India, it will take a very long time before trickle-down can give abjectly poor people the resources necessary to afford basic health care for themselves and for their children. A government that ignores the overwhelming importance of providing free or very cheap and affordable basic health care, and leaves such things to the whims of trickle-down, is inviting disaster in the areas of population, poverty and food security for the overall economy.
by C. Jayant Praharaj
All national governments may do well to examine the projections regarding availability of agricultural land, the possibility of shifting land allocation from non-agricultural uses to agricultural uses, the scarcity level of phosphate rock and the effects on inorganic fertilizer production, the amount of land on which real estate development can be allowed etc. However, depending on their projections for agricultural and industrial manufacturing, certain nations may find it difficult to meet nutrition standards despite their best efforts ( I am not referring here to scenarios of apathy and unresponsiveness of governments that fail to arrange proper food distribution despite the availability of food supplies ).
It may well become necessary for specific nations of different sizes to embark on policies of population control similar to those in place in China, at least for certain periods of time. China’s one-child policy has contributed to population stabilization and may well become a major factor that determines its future economic trajectory ( although a one-child policy can lead to its own long-term problems like plummeting working age population or even uncontrollable and sudden decrease in population if followed for too long ). Other nations may have to adopt the same policy or policies similar to it for certain lengths of time. For example, a national policy that results in one and a half child per couple by using lottery systems to allow half of the couples a quota of one child while allowing the other half a quota of two children can be a policy option for nations that need some population stabilization, but not to the extent of a one-child policy. Minor details like how the policy will work in case of divorce etc can be thrashed out by experts. These and other variations may need to be examined if the food supply situation becomes too precarious, either at the the national or at the international level.
Since education, literacy, awareness, availability and adoption of contraceptives and availability of gainful employment at different age levels are all factors that determine population growth rates in societies that do not have child quotas for couples, governments that do not want to adopt quotas will have to make even more serious efforts in all these areas. Poor couples in villages where the economy and the educational system does not afford good opportunities for upward mobility can act in a risk averse fashion and produce lots of children if child mortality rates are high, as they are in India, for example. Also, if poor villagers need the labor of male children beyond a certain age in India more than that of female children, they may over-produce children. A holistic approach that includes the following measures will become indispensable.
1. Drastic reduction or elimination of child mortality by providing comprehensive basic health care facilities, something that has not happened in sixty years of independent India and several other countries.
2. Education of rural and urban population regarding population control and birth control measures.
3. Providing at least rudimentary food and health security options, and possibly advanced ones, so that villagers do not have very strong preference for the male child, will also help.
4. Similarly, the institution of at least rudimentary and preferably more sophisticated safety nets for old people will obviate the need for villagers to try to have more male children ( male rural children in India, for example, care for the parents when they are old while the rural females often have no resources to help parents after they are married and leave home ).
Even after all these holistic measures are taken, a quota system may still be needed because certain couples may still over-produce and benefit from the possible positive externalities of having more children if a lot of people start voluntarily practicing population control. Public awareness messages about the dangers of population explosion are of little use if the short-term economic incentives for producing more children are present. In other words, even if public awareness messages convince villagers that producing to many children can lead to fallacy-of-composition problems, there may be no good mechanism to overcome the free-rider or externality problem.
The best scenario is one where all the four steps mentioned above are adopted and a concerted effort is made to make a speedy transition to a kind of economy where the incentive for having more than the replacement level of birth rate is absent. Such a speedy transition has proved to be difficult in India, for example. However, the Indian experience has more to do with apathy, shoddy implementation and lack of a holistic approach. Even if the holistic approach is adopted, getting some people to stop piggyback riding on the positive steps taken by others can be a difficult problem, at least for a while. That should not deter adoption of the holistic approach, however, since the net gain is likely to be positive.
In India, the Below Poverty Line ( BPL ) card and the associated food programs are a good beginning, but they are not a substitute for more comprehensive security nets. Further, the prevalence of poverty and starvation despite the BPL card program in India is an indicator that it nowhere approaches a comprehensive security system.
The one-child policy in China has sometimes been maligned based on charges that preference for the male child combined with sex determination prior of the fetus leads to abortion of female fetuses. One possible solution is to ban sex determination of the fetus and to strictly enforce the ban. As for female infanticide, the legal system of the country should provide the disincentive to eliminate this kind of practice. Female infanticide is also reported in countries like India which do not have any limits on the number of children per couple, most likely due to the economic considerations mentioned above. Countries that limit the average number of children per couple will also need to follow the holistic guidelines for a security net in addition to law enforcement if they want to deal effectively with the problem of female infanticide or abortion of female fetuses.
Countries that do not want to mandate the maximum number of children for couples, or have serious political difficulties for doing so, also have the option of trying approaches involving incentives. For example, giving cash incentives to couples who adhere to specific limits for the number of children is one way to encourage population control. This can be done concurrently with the holistic approach outlined previously. It is one way of countering the free-rider problem, but it is difficult to predict its efficacy.
There is no easy solution to this problem of ensuring population stability in times of serious concern about the food supply. One-child policy or other policies similar to it have the stability problems on the lower side as discussed earlier, be it for overall population or for the ability of working age population to support a large old age population. On the other hand, using non-mandatory approaches necessitates holistic frameworks that have proved difficult to implement in poor countries with population problems, and produce the obvious stability problems on the higher side, leading to neo-Malthusian outcomes. Careful modeling of population trajectories, strict implementation of development objectives, constant monitoring of progress or lack thereof and raising the levels of awareness about the population issue may well become the pressing problems of countries in a new age of food supply paranoia and resource paranoia. Those opinion makers and policy framers in developing countries that constantly harp on high elitist growth and trickle-down as the solution to the development problems need to note that this attitude can lead to disastrous outcomes. The point has probably been reached where governments need to assure poor people that enough of a social security net will be available to people so that they do not need to produce excessive number of children and the governments need to follow through on these social security assurances. Trickle-down, even with high growth in the elitist sectors of the economy, cannot produce the necessary changes in old-age security, for example, that are necessary ingredients in the complex problem of population stabilization and poverty reduction. Trickle-down is not going to solve the problem of child mortality at the required rate. For example, with hundreds of millions living at the edge of starvation in a country like India, it will take a very long time before trickle-down can give abjectly poor people the resources necessary to afford basic health care for themselves and for their children. A government that ignores the overwhelming importance of providing free or very cheap and affordable basic health care, and leaves such things to the whims of trickle-down, is inviting disaster in the areas of population, poverty and food security for the overall economy.
by C. Jayant Praharaj