For more than a decade, since the 1986 release of a seminal report by the U.S.
National Research Council, discussion of the impact of population growth on economic
change in developing countries has languished within both the demographic and
economic fields. While the linkage between demographic and economic dynamics is
undeniably complex, some recent findings stand out.
Despite lack of clear evidence for this relationship in previous decades, new data
make clear that during the 1980s, on average, population growth dampened the growth of
per capita gross domestic product, the primary measuring unit of economic growth. The
negative effects of rapid population growth appear to have weighed most heavily on the
poorest group of countries in the developing world during the 1980s and also throughout
the two previous decades.
More positively, declines in human fertility in the 1970s and 1980s almost
certainly helped fuel explosive economic growth during the 1980s and early 1990s in
such East Asian countries as South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, the former Hong Kong
Territory, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia. Several economic studies link the rapid
growth in domestic savings experienced in these countries to an increase in the
proportion of working adults to dependent children. National studies in various regions
provide substantial evidence that smaller families, later childbirths and parents’ enhanced
capacity to plan their families— factors that slow population growth through declines in
fertility—create opportunities at both household and national levels that have positive
implications for education, health, and labor and capital markets.
Population affects the course of national economic development. But so do
modern institutions such as competitive markets, flexible public policies and well-run
government programs, which help economies adjust to the rapid changes produced by
population growth. Adjustment has its costs, however.
This paper draws attention to the long-term consequences of even those
institutional adjustments that successfully cope with stresses related to population
growth. The authors conclude that the long-term costs of these adjustments are most often
paid by groups and interests to which institutions respond inadequately or not at all: the
presently marginalized, future generations, and the natural resources on which present
and future societies depend.