Population

 The Malthusian Theory of Population

The Malthusian Theory of Population is the theory of exponential population growth and arithmetic food supply growth. The theory was proposed by Thomas Robert Malthus. He believed that a balance between population growth and food supply can be established through preventive and positive checks.

Major Elements of the Malthusian Theory

Population and Food Supply

The Malthusian theory explained that the population grows in a geometrical fashion.

The population would double in 25 years at this rate. However, the food supply grows in an arithmetic progression. Food supply increases at a slower rate than the population. That is, the food supply will be limited in a few years. The shortage of food supply indicates an increasing population.

Checks on Population

When the rise in population is greater than the food supply, there is a condition of disequilibrium. As a result, people will not get enough food even for survival. People will die due to a lack of food supply. People will be subjected to wars, epidemics, famines, starvation, and other natural calamities which are named as positive checks by Malthus. On the contrary, there are man-made checks known as preventive checks.

Positive Checks

Nature has its own ways of keeping a check on the increasing population. It brings the population level to the level of the available food supply. The positive checks include famines, earthquakes, floods, epidemics, wars, etc. When humans fail to control excessive population growth, nature plays its role.

Preventive Checks

Preventive measures such as late marriage, self-control, simple living, help to balance the population growth and food supply. This measure can not only check the population growth but can also prevent the catastrophic effects of the positive checks.

The Optimum Theory of Population

The theory states as “Given the natural resources, stock of capital and the state of technical knowledge, there will be a definite size of the population with the per capita income. The population which has the highest per capita income is known as an optimum population”.

Under Population:

If the actual population in a country is less than the optimum or ideal population, there will not be enough people to exploit all the resources of the country fully. Thus, the population and the per capita income will be lower. In other words, if the per capita income is low due to too few people, the population is then under population.

Over Population:

If the actual population is above the level of optimum population, there will be too many people to work efficiently and produce the maximum goods and the highest per capita income. As a result, the per capita income becomes poorer than before. This is the stage of overpopulation. In other words, if the per capita income is low due to too many people, the population under these circumstances would be overpopulation.

Prof. Dalton expresses the theory in the form of a formula which is given below:

If M is zero, the population is optimum, when M is positive, it is overpopulation, when M is negative, it is under population. Therefore, the optimum population is not fixed and a rigid one. It is rather variable and relative to resources and technology. The optimum population is not just an economic concept but qualitative in nature. Prof. Cannan has correctly remarked, “It is being perpetually altered by the progress of knowledge and other changes affecting the economic system. It is, thus, a dynamic concept. It may be higher or lower as different methods of production are used.”