There is an interesting relationship between overpopulation and economic development. In a country, there is a fixed land as national borders, which overpopulation will lead to reduction of the allocation of resources. It is that very same overpopulation that will have more human capital, advances in technology, have more tax income for the government, increase market sizes and extra demand of all needs resulting in stimulated investments.
More people means, more production, more business activities, more income which all results in economic growth and development. However, people also need to spend on basic needs to survive.
A growing population has the capacity to generate economic growth because there will be parallel increased purchases of basic needs such as food, educational expenses, clothing and housing. Population growth and economic spending goes hand in hand, however; after the saturation point of population, overpopulation takes place.
Negative Effects of over population on a country’s welfare level can generally be summarized under the topics of unemployment, poverty, pressure on natural resources and social infrastructure. One of the reasons of growing poverty and famine in the 21st century is the increase of overpopulated countries.
If a country is overpopulated, naturally, the demand for employment will increase and there will be a shortage of employment opportunities, which might also result in migration to other countries. Due to unemployment, it is only natural that poverty will follow; decreasing the welfare level of the country as a whole. Overpopulation paves the way to food insecurity, unemployment, illiteracy and poverty; which in turns leads to downsizing of a country’s economic welfare as a whole. Overpopulation can also lead to lower agricultural productivity when compared with the number of the people and production may not be sufficient to feed all the dependents.
More people means more needs, more needs means increased imports in a country, which can affect the national welfare negatively. As the growth of population exceeds the rate of output in terms of production, economic development and welfare of a country will decline.
Throughout the past centuries, human beings always managed to find a way through the challenges of the era they lived in and develop solutions to improve welfare standards. Having said that, with the unprecedented increase of the human population starting from the early 1900’s, management and balancing of population with the economic welfare of countries became more important for the sustainability of future generations’ welfare as well.