population

Population Explosion in India

Is population explosion a boon or a curse? For the European developed countries like Spain and Italy, where the population is decreasing, this might be considered as a boon. However, for the developing countries like India, population explosion is a curse and is damaging to the development of the country and it’s society. The developing countries already facing a lack in their resources, and with the rapidly increasing population, the resources available per person are reduced further, leading to increased poverty, malnutrition, and other large population-related problems. 

    The literal meaning of population is “the whole number of people or inhabitants in a country or region” (Webster’s dictionary), and the literal meaning of population explosion is “a pyramiding of numbers of a biological population” (Webster’s dictionary).As the number of people in a pyramid increases, so do the roblems related to the increased population. The main factors affecting the population change are the birth rate, death rate and migration. The birth rate is the ratio between births and individuals in a specified population and time (Miller, 253). The death rate is the ratio between the number of deaths and individuals in a specified population and time (Miller, 253). Migration is the number of people moving in (immigration) or out (emigration) of a country, place or locality. The population change is calculated by the formula: 

Population change = (Births + Immigration) – (Deaths + Emigration)    The recent increase in the world population has been caused due to the following major reasons:

1. The increase in birth rates due to medical improvements
2. The decrease in death rates due to better medical facilities and advancements in the field of medicine.
3. Immigration to better developed countries due to several reasons like better job opportunities, war, and natural causes like hurricanes, earthquakes, and so forth.

EFFECTS OF POPULATION EXPLOSION:
    The current rate of population growth in India is 1.58% and the total fertility rate is 3.11 (AskJeeves.com, Internet).Although the total fertility rate has decreased, due to the increase in the total number of women between the ages of 15 and 44 (reproductive ages), the total number of births has increased. This has lead to the current enormous population size of approximately 1 billion. This has greatly hampered the development of the Indian economy. The amount of resources that could have been available to one person a few years ago now need to be shared between two people, which is not sufficient for either of them. The population increase has lead to air and water pollution, unemployment, poverty, lack of educational resources, and even malnourished women and children.