Examine the effect of high population growth

Advantages of high population growth

• A high population also provides a large market for goods and services within a given country.
• A big population size provides labour which combined with other factors of production ensure full utilization of resources
• It encourages specialization since people under take different production activities
• Leads to increase in government revenue through taxation
• It encourages competition and improvement in quality of products and service
• If labour force is skilled, it may be exported
• A big population size ensures political security and a big number joins security organs to protect the people
• It increase the ease of distributions of good and service because when people are concentrated in one area
• It is a source of cheap labour since many people are willing to work at a low wage rate.
• A high population encourages the exploitation of idle resources.
• It also encourages a high level of innovation and invention as people try to look for survival in a competitive environment.
• It encourages increased agricultural output as people try to produce enough food for their own survival.

Disadvantages of high population growth

• Increase government expenditure on infrastructure like schools and health care
• Increased environmental degradation/pollution, garbage accumulation
• It fuels income inequality since not all people will get access to natural and economic resources
• It worsens unemployment in an economy
• It leads to brain drainage because skilled labour is not well remunerated.
• It worsens balance of payment because high populations tends to lead to high importation
• It reduces the marginal propensity to save
• It leads to high illiteracy rate due to lack of enough education facilities
• Increased dependence burden from the young children
• Causes political instability since majority of the people disgruntled for not gaining access to national resources.
• Leads to starvation due to shortage of food
• Disease outbreak
• Leads to rural-urban migration
• Water shortage
• congestion