Population

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Population
What is population? The significance of population in the production-consumption sector of an economy is very great. The demand for consumer goods depends mainly on the size of population, sex, ratio, population-density.

Causes of Population growth
i. There is a widening gap between birth and death rates. ii. Better medical facilities and application. iii. Improvement in transport facilities helps people to reach the medical and health facilities. iv. Social factors like child marriage and early marriage. v. Lack and adoption of family planning measures. vi. Illiteracy

THE CAUSES OF RAPID POPULATION GROWTH THE CAUSES OF RAPID POPULATION GROWTH
Until recently, birth rates and death rates were about the same, keeping the population stable. People had many children, but a large number of them died before age five. During the Industrial Revolution, a period of history in Europe and North America where there were great advances in science and technology, the success in reducing death rates was attributable to several factors:  Increases in food production and distribution  Improvement in public health (water and sanitation)  Medical technology (vaccines and antibiotics), along with gains in education and standards of living within many developing nations. Without these attributes present in many children's lives, they could not have survived common diseases like measles or the flu. People were able to fight and cure deadly germs that once killed them. In addition, because of the technology, people could produce more and different kinds of food. Gradually, over a period of time, these discoveries and inventions spread throughout the world, lowering death rates and improving the quality of life for most people.

Definition of over population:
Over-population is defined as the condition of having more people than can live on the earth in comfort, happiness and health and still leave the world a fit place for future generations. Overpopulation is a condition where an organism's numbers exceed the carrying capacity of its habitat. In common parlance, the term usually refers to the relationship between the human population and its environment, the Earth. Overpopulation does not depend only on the size or density of the population, but on the ratio of population to available sustainable resources. It also depends on the means of resources used and distributed throughout the population. If a given environment has a population of 10 individuals, but there is food or drinking water enough for only , then in a closed system where no trade is possible, that environment is overpopulated; if the population is 100 but there is enough food, shelter, and water for 200 for the indefinite future, then it is not overpopulated. Overpopulation can result from an increase in births, a decline in mortality rates due to medical advances, from an increase in immigration, or from an unsustainable biome and depletion of resources. It is possible for very sparselypopulated areas to be overpopulated, as the area in question may have a meager or nonexistent capability to sustain human life (e.g. the middle of the Sahara Desert or Antarctica). The resources to be considered when evaluating whether an ecological niche is overpopulated include clean water, clean air, food, shelter, warmth, and other resources necessary to sustain life. If the quality of human life is addressed, there may be additional resources considered, such as medical care, education, proper sewage treatment and waste disposal. Overpopulation places competitive stress on the basic life sustaining resources, leading to a diminished quality of life. If resources required to sustain the organism are being consumed by the organism faster than the resource can be renewed, then the organism is overpopulated. For example, humans are consuming fossil fuels much faster than the planet can renew them and those resources are currently required to produce and distribute the necessary quantity of food to feed the population, and therefore humans are overpopulated on Earth.

The Population Crisis
Few in India can deny that India is facing an intense crisis of resources. There is intense competition for the nation's limited natural resources that is leading to quarrels between states, between communities and even families. Our land and water resources are being exploited to the hilt. The exploitation of our mineral resources is threatening our forests, nature reserves, and general ecology. Seventy percent of our energy resources need to be imported putting constant pressure on us to export more or face currency devaluation. Over use of resources is contributing to natural disasters occurring more frequently and

with greater devastation. For many Indians, life is a big struggle just to put together the bare essentials for survival, and shortages of resources works most against the poor and underprivileged. Even as sections of India's middle-class struggle with scarcities - it is the poor and vulnerable sections of society who suffer most. So far, these resources have been shared in a very unequal way. Some Indians have the luxury of taking long showers twice or thrice a day - even their pets are bathed daily, and their cars scrubbed from top to bottom. Other Indians are lucky if they get to bathe once a week. And many Indians are lucky just to have access to clean drinking water. If in the future, India were to become a more egalitarian nation, and attempt to share its waterresources in a fairer and more just way, it is evident that with projected population growth rates, it is unlikely that every Indian citizen will have access to a reasonable amount of water every day. The same would be true of other precious resources like land, energy and scarce minerals. Twenty years ago, it may have been possible to argue that in a socialist system, the country would find the resources to provide every Indian citizen a comfortable life. Today, it is becoming more and more difficult to make such assertions with any degree of confidence. While there is no doubt that increased research and more ingenuous and creative management of our resources could be quite effective, we must accept that compared to most nations we are becoming exceedingly resource poor. Global warming is also related to overpopulation. To control global warming, population must be controlled. As the population grows, the demand for the consumption of energy such as electricity, cars and other energy resources increases which in turn affects the nature. If population growth is controlled, people can control the ever increasing of burning energy that might hamper their future. Many countries in the world are global warming polluter, contributing greenhouse gas emissions primarily from transportation, industry and power plant sources. The other thing that people should be concerned about is the infrastructure. All of us should understand that places are getting smaller and smaller as the population grows. Places, which once held beautiful landscape, have been turned into mega complexes to house the increasing number of people. Population also affects on the education system. Today, education is very expensive and few people can afford to attend colleges or even high school. The shortage of seats in the colleges and universities are limited and many parents afford to bear the cost of education of more than two children. Hence this is another reason that people should keep smaller families so that they can afford the better facilities for all of them. Over population can cause many problems that people are not aware. Some issues are relating to nature, other relates to crime growth and also less of employment opportunities. Today, many younger generations understand that having few children can help protect the environment. The disparity that lies here is that many younger people feel that they have the right to have as many children they want. Therefore, the only best thing to do in such a case is to better educate them with the merits of smaller family.

Consequences of population explosion
i. Heavy pressure on land. ii. Food shortage. iii. Housing problems. iv. Unemployment v. Illiteracy vi. Economic loss vii.Rate of economic development has been affected. viii.Law and order problems. ix. Emergence of slums and overburden of resources. x. Lower standard of living xi. Pollution problem xii shrinking of national resources.

Population and social development are interrelated.
Population explosion leads to social problems like unemployment, poverty, low economic development etc. The social development which is determined by better health care facilities, education and high literacy rate and improvement in the standard of living of people are adversely affected due to high population. The benefits of government schemes do not reach the masses. A vast share of GDP is required to keep the level of per capita income constant. The weaker sections of the population do not get the share of the development. For an equitable social development government should aim not only at controlling the unregulated human growth of numerical strength but also at checking the unregulated movement of the population and increasing concentration of people in the urbanized areas and providing adequate living space and other facilities. These goals have to be jointly linked with the formulation and implementation of policies aimed at population regulation and planning for harnessing both natural and human resources. Thus only population growth per se may not be perceived as a problem but its relation with the availability of resources may be viewed with great concern.

Suggestions to lower the population growth
i. Emphasis on female literacy ii. Adoption of family planning measures. iii. Educating people through mass -media. iv. Improvement in the quality of health and family welfare services. v. Empowering women as decision makers. vi. Coordination between states and the centers for the implementation of the population control policies. The consequences for the future are serious, if not catastrophic.

ACTIONS AND STRATEGIES THAT CAN BE DEVELOPED TO SOLVE THESE PROBLEMS
Population projections represent the playing out into the future of a set of assumptions about future fertility and mortality rates. More public education is needed to develop more awareness about population issues. Facts like the size or the growth rate of the human population should be in the head of every citizen. Schools should inform students about population issues in order for them to make projections about the future generations. Action plans and strategies can be developed to increase public understanding of how rapid population growth limits chances for meeting basic needs. The spirit of open communication and empowerment of individual women and men will be keys to a successful solution to many population problems. Collective vision about health care, family planning and women's education at the community level build a basis for action. The creation of action plans help to meet challenges to find cooperative solutions. Free and equal access to health care, family planning and education are desirable in their own right and will also help reduce unwanted fertility. Individual choice, human rights and collective responsibility are keys to al-lowing families to plan the size and spacing of their children. It is essential to achieve a balance between population and the available resources. Teachers, parents, community workers and other stakeholders should extend the range of choices about available resources to individuals, especially women, and by equalizing opportunities between the genders from birth onwards. Teachers, parents, other educators, politicians and other concerned citizens can practice how to make good decisions in everyday life. Decisions about family size, and resource will affect the future generations. Through community forums, specific issues about the population growth can be discussed and possible action plans can be developed.

Conclusion
There is controversy over whether population growth is good or bad. Over-population and continuing population growth are making substantial contributions to the destruction of Earth's life support systems. In the past, human populations have rarely been subject to explosion. The powerful long-term momentum that is built into the human age structure means that the effects of fertility changes become apparent only in the future. For these reasons, it is now conventional practice to use the technology of population projection as a means of better understanding the implications of trends.

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