What is population growth curve?

The history of world population suggests that there is a demographic cycle of 5 stages, as discussed below:

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Stages

First Stage:

This stage is characterized by a high birth rate and a high death rate so the population is stationary. India was running this stage in 1920.

Second stage:

His death rate begins to decline while the birth rate remains unchanged.

Third stage:

The death rate declines still further and the birth rate tends to fall. The population continues to grow because births exceed deaths.

Fourth stage:

This stage is characterized by a low birth and low death rate with the result of the population becoming stationary.

Fifth State:

The population begins to decline because birth rate is lower than death rate.

India’s Population has been steadily increasing since 1921. The year 1921 is called as the “Big Divide”. In 1947 the population of India stood at 344 million. Within a period of 34 years of our Independence India’s population doubled from about 344 million to 685 million in 1981 adding a second India. To the 1991 census the population of India has reached 84.4 cores and in the year 2004 it has reached 102.7 cores. It has reached the second over populated country will world.

Impact of Human Population growth in developed and developing economics: Increase in population may or may not the accompanied by a rise in per capita income much depends on the rate of capital formation and the availability of unutilized natural resources.

It has been witnessed that in advanced economics increase in population has an advantageous bent as:-

• It leads to fuller utilization of resources. In the newly settled countries as in U.S.A, in-spite of plenty of resources economic development was held back by the paucity of population. Industrial revolution in U.K. took place at the period of rapid population growth.
• An excess of cheap labor enables a country to compete successfully with the goods produced by expensive machinery.
• Population growth becomes very helpful at the last stage of economic development increasing the effective demand and extending the market. Expansion of mad ret can lead to extension of division of labor and the marginal efficiency of capital is maintained preventing the onslaught of secular stagnation.
• Population growth leads to higher social mobility by shifting labor gradually from agriculture to industry or from one type of industry to another. Thus in advanced economics an increase in population is a boon. It has been witnesses that in western European countries increase in population lead to rapid industrialization.

In case of Underdeveloped Economics: – The effect of increased population in undeveloped countries is not the same as in case of developed nations, because the initial conditions are different. In under developed countries, generally there is an unlimited supply of labor and low rate of capital formation. In such cases increasing population could be deterrent.

The thesis that a man has not only a stomach to be fed but also two hands to produce, and so a large population is desirable for development is absurd in context of underdeveloped countries. Before the pair of hands start producing investment is needed for housing, education, and health and also for obtaining. The important question is to relate the size and growth of population to the available resources and levels of technology for their utilization.

• The rate of increase in population and that in natural income is less than the rate of increase in capital stock.
• There is lacking in the improvement of ratio of labor to population and lack of efficiency of labor and capital.

Most of the developing countries are seriously inclined to achieve rapid growth rate but such a goal is held back due to either excessive rate of population growth, unfavorable age structure, unbalanced distribution of population immobility of man power, in adequacy of trained man power, low physical efficiency , under employment institutional resistance, limited technology and cultural inertia. So it is seen that an enormous population size would prove deterrent to economic growth in a developed country.