A Critical Evaluation of the Relevance of Thomas Malthus and Ester Boserup’s Theories

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A CRITICAL EVALUATION OF THE RELEVANCE OF THOMAS MALTHUS AND ESTER BOSERUP’S THEORIES Blessings Chiepa University Of Malawi, The Polytechnic(student). blessingschiepa@gmail.com Human population is a key driver in any given economy because it is a source of labour which pushes all economic responsibilities. The theme of population and more specifically, overpopulation has been in the popular mind for the last thirty years or more. Schools, governments, international legislative bodies, interest groups and the media have all but insured that the public sees the issue of population as a problem, and increasingly, in reference to natural resources and the environment. At the heart of population-resources-environment debate lies the question: can earth sustain 7 billion or more people? How one answers this question depends greatly on whether or not one sees population as a problem. Over the years, two main theories of population sustainability contributing to the idea of the balance between population and resources has emerged and stood the taste of time. Thomas Malthus in his essay “An essay on the principles of population” published in 1798 offered one of the widely known theories in population studies. An alternative viewpoint came from Ester Boserup in 1965 through her book “The conditions of Agricultural Growth: The economics of agrarian changes under population pressure”. This essay will critically evaluate the relevance of these two major theories in their attempt to explain the relationship between population and resources. Thomas Malthus, a British economist born in 1766 presented one of the major theories in population studies in his essay which was published in 1798.His core principles were based on the premise that food is necessary for human existence. He argued that because of the natural human urge to reproduce human population increases geometrically

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