ECONOMIES suffer from frequent economic and financial crises regardless of the fact that the country is developed, developing or underdeveloped. But the causes however, of such unstable conditions may be different for different countries. In economic terms, we regard these problems as the result of imbalances in demand and supply.
In the recent years, Pakistan has been witnessing acute food shortages that has pushed up the prices of commodities like wheat, sugar, rice, pulses, making it difficult for people to get the basic necessities. As the population is growing fast in many countries, the same amount of food produced for years is no longer sufficient. This results in shortage of supply and prices increase. But is the population growth the only reason for such food crises? Will population reduction solve all such problems? Let's take a look at other possibilities before coming to a conclusion.
Studies suggest that the developed countries benefit from nearly 80 per cent of all of the world's recourses and only 20 per cent is left for the poor countries. Developing nations like China, India, Brazil, and Pakistan are among the most densely populated countries and they have more mouths to feed. If the available wealth (both financial and natural) is channelised fairly to all the countries inclusive of the third world, there would be no scarcity, at least of basic provisions. The problem is not “numbers”, rather “resources”. If a country has resources, it can manage to serve more people and work for their welfare.
There are instances where lesser number of inhabitants is a dilemma. Countries like Canada, Australia and Libya are the examples where smaller population is a handicap. Many developing countries face scarcity of labour, both of skilled and unskilled manpower.
When a few areas are urbanised, all industries, plants and other institutions concentrate in these areas. The whole rural-urban migration trend depicts the same picture, where people from small cities and villages move to big industrial areas for work, business and studies often leaving fewer people taking care of farming and the underdeveloped areas. The major problem of resource scarcity is over-concentration of population in few areas; whereas resources may remain available in regions where there is shortage of people.
There are many examples where big population is considered a desirable phenomenon for developing nations. For big manufacturing firms all over the globe, deficiency of cheap labour is one of the major issues. If a country has more labour force it can be availed by initiating different vocational training programmes. This will not only make these peopled skilled and productive but will also help them earn a good standard of living.
China has trained its manpower by efficiently utilising it and made it available for business firms as cheap and productive labour force. The giant multinationals have their plants and manufacturing industries in China. India is another major example; big foreign companies have their call centres operating in India just because India has large, cheap and skilled labour force.
Pakistan stands fifth in the list of world's most populous countries. The majority of its population lives in rural areas, they are uneducated. The low income group considers children as the only source for financial support. Birth control programmes initiated by different governments did not control the growing population. The only way possible to counter over-population is to provide abundant resources and opportunities to people to be productive..
The distribution of population among different regions of the country requires that people do not remain concentrated in one area while leaving others unutilised in productive pursuits.
The proper utilisation of cheap labour can be done through planning and skill development so that the dependency ratio in households can be decreased and standards of living improved.