The Malthusian Model

• Robert Malthus(1766 -1834)

• Studied at Cambridge University, an English
clergyman and a college professor.
• His perspective(The Malthusian Perspective) is
from his essay on ‘The Principles of
Population as it affects the future
improvement of society.
 The Malthusian Model
According to this thesis;
The power of population growth is always greater than the
power of earth to produce subsistence for man-kind. His well
known propositions surrounding his theory are:
• Population is necessarily limited by the means of subsistence

• Population invariably increases where the means of

subsistence increases, unless prevented by some very
powerful and obvious checks.
• The checks are also resolvable into moral restraint, vice and
misery
The two fundamental assumptions underlying
these propositions are:
• That food is necessary for existence

• That passion between the sexes is necessary

• Upon these foundations lie Malthus’ famous
principle of population which holds that while
population expands at a geometric rate,
subsistence increases at an arithmetic
progression. If left unchecked, the rate of
population growth will eventually so outstrip
the rate of food production that a ‘natural
break’ or unlimited growth would occur,
resulting in death and extreme misery for
millions
• Malthus argues that ;
• Population, unless checked, constantly tends to
increase and even outstrip the production of food
supplies
• Because of the strong attraction between the
sexes, population can easily double every 25
years if nothing stops it(i.e. it grows
geometrically- two parents could have 4
children,16 grandchildren, etc)
• Food supplies however cannot be produced that
fast
• He argued that due to the law of diminishing
returns in agriculture, the speed at which food
production can be made is much lower. At best it
will increase at an arithmetic ratio(1.2.3.4.etc).
• Law of diminishing returns in agriculture -
successive applications of equal quantities of
labor to a given area of land will, beyond some
point, result in less than proportionate increases
in output
• He believed that human beings like plants and
nonrational animals are impelled to increase the
population of the species by a powerful instinct
’the urge to reproduce’.
• Population does not exceed food supply due to
the operation of checks or obstacles to
population growth, which are of two kinds
• Checks to growth-(factors that have kept
population growth from reaching its biological
potential for covering the earth with human
bodies).
 Checks to growth

• He said that the ultimate check of growth is

lack of food(the means of subsistence).
• He was of the view that in the natural order of
nature ,population growth will outstrip food
supply, and the lack of food will ultimately put
a stop to increase of population.
 Checks to growth
• He was also aware that starvation rarely operates
directly to kill people, since something else
usually intervenes to kill them before they
actually die of starvation.
• This something else is what he called positive
checks
• 1)The repressive or positive checks such as
famine and environmental decay increase death
rates. These factors tend to prematurely weaken
and destroy the human frame. These are called
the causes of mortality nowadays.
 Checks to growth
• 2)The preventive checks such as birth control
and delayed marriage reduce birth rates.
• He said the two checks are inversely related
• But the preventive checks are preferred over
the positive checks.
• In theory, preventive checks would include all
possible means of birth control, including
abstinence, contraception and abortion.
 Checks to growth
• But to Malthus the only acceptable means of
preventing a birth was to exercise moral
restraint(i.e postpone marriage, remaining
chaste in the meantime, until a man feels
secure that should he have a large family, his
utmost exertions can save them from rags and
squalid poverty, and their consequent
degradation in the community)
 Checks to growth
• Moral restraint was important to Malthus as
he believed that if people were allowed to
prevent births by improper
means(prostitution, contraception, abortion
or sterilization) then they would expend their
energies in ways not economically productive.
 Checks to growth
• Malthus believed that this cycle of increased
food resources leading to population growth,
leading to many people for available
resources, then leading back to poverty was
part of a natural law of population.
 Critique of Malthus
• Three most criticised aspects of his theory:
1) The assertion that food production could not
keep up with population growth.
2) The conclusion that poverty was an inevitable
result of population growth
3)The belief that moral restraint was the only
acceptable preventable check.
• Malthus was not a firm believer in progress,
he accepted the notion that each society had
a fixed set of institutions that established a
stationary level of living.
• He was aware of the industrial revolution, but
skeptical of its long run value, and agreed with
those who believed that real wealth was in
agricultural land.
• He was also criticized for constantly confusing
moralistic and scientific thinking.
• Although heavily criticized, his work has been
the single most influential work relating
population growth to its social consequences,
which is still relevant today.
Conclusion
• Population growth exerts pressure on the
environment, and failure to provide adequate
resources from the environment acts as a positive
check on population through higher mortality .
• Technology, which usually drives development
does not play a role in this simplest Malthusian
model.
• Morality has an impact on social development,
mechanisation of birth control is not necessarily
the only fertility control measure.