Population, Poverty, and the Local Environment
A.
- Different opinion on population growth
- population growth as the cause of poverty and environmental degradation
- poverty is the cause rather than the consequence of increasing numbers
- After studying the semiarid regions of sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian subcontinent, poverty, population growth and the local environment aren't interconnected
- Investigators have studied the relations between these ingredients more closely
- Their approach to this involves theoretical modeling with empirical findings drawn from a number of disciplines:
- Anthropology
- Emography
- Ecology
- Economics
- Nutrition
- Political Science
- New perspective has significant implications for policies aimed at improving life for some of the world's most impoverished inhabitants
- The household assumes various guises in different parts of the world
- In contrast with this new perspective, with its focus on local experience, popular tracts on the environment and population growth have usually taken a global view
- Third world countries are subsistence economies
- Parental costs of procreations are lower when relatives help
- People see children as productive assets
- An indicator of the price that women pay is maternal morality
- Women would rather have fewer children
- Keeping working children in school costs more
- Family planning services and measures that empower women are helpful
B. There are many different reasons why people think human population is continuing to grow. Some reasons include poverty and environment degradation. Because of the growing population, people are starting to predict the effects that such a large population can have on our planet in the future. To study and answer the many questions regarding population growth, investigators looked at small, rural communities to find that areas population growth and check if poverty and degradation of local resources are interconnected to each other. Countries that are currently struggling economically have now a bigger emphasis on family because they need to retain the household. These countries have higher fertility rates because the require children for income, to take care of the elderly, as well as an influence to men and families and more. A big reason why these countries have larger fertility rates is because the women in these countries are not educated. Men wild more influence on fertility choices even though women bear a greater cost. Since they live in such a poor environment, children are needed to try and maintain this environment that they live in.
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C. After reading this article, I am really starting to see how much of a difference a growing population can affect our entire planet. It was very interesting to see the authors talk about the future of our planet and how having to many people have a risk of actually causing more harm to the earth than good. There was one particular part in this article that did make me question the values and morals of the different countries. When i read that some countries just make kids to be able to have another source of income, or just to take care of the elderly people is not right in my opinion. That child has a life he or she deserve to live and when their parents do something like this, it takes away the child's freedom to follow his or her dreams. The child will be stuck either as just a working slave or a benefit for the elderly and i do not believe that is right. I am also concerned that the women in these other countries are most often just treated as a baby machine. Women have so much to offer to their community and i believe that the fact that they are taking education away from them is very wrong and it is also detrimental to their country. Women can provide other, even greater services to the world that just to produce babies.
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