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Rapid Population Growth and Poverty Generation in Malawi

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

William J. House  and
George Zimalirana
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Extract

There has been a long controversy over the likely impact of population dynamics on economic growth and development. As long ago as 1789 the Reverend Thomas Malthus argued in his famous ‘Essay on the Principle of Population’ that food production would not keep pace with the population's natural proclivity to grow in an unchecked fashion. In the absence of prudential checks, the result would be starvation, vice, and misery, with a tendency for economies to stagnate at a subsistence or poverty level of income.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 30 , Issue 1 , March 1992 , pp. 141 - 161
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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References

1 World Bank, World Development Report, 1990 (Washington, D.C., 1990), pp. 180–5.Google Scholar

2 Kelley, A. C., ‘Economic Consequences of Population Change in the Third World’, in Journal of Economic Literature (Nashville, TN), 26, 12 1988, p. 1, 715.Google Scholar

3 Economist Intelligence Unit, Malawi: country profile, 1991–92 (London, 1991), p. 8.Google Scholar

4 National Statistical Office, Malawi Population Census, 1977. Analytical Report, Vol. II (Zomba, 1984), p. 3.Google Scholar

5 The T.F.R. was estimated by the National Statistical Office to be 7·6 in the Malawi Demographic Survey, 1982 (Zomba, 1987), p. 28,Google Scholar and 7·7 in the Malawi Family Formation Survey, 1984 (Zomba, 1987).Google Scholar

6 World Bank, Malawi Population Sector Study, 1991 (Washington, D.C., 1991), p. 28.Google Scholar

7 Ibid. p. 27. The infant mortality rate measures the number of babies per 1,000 live births who die within their first year. The child mortality rate reflects the number of deaths per 1,000 births within the first five years of life. The suggestion by the Economist Intelligence Unit, op. cit. p. 8, that the infant mortality rate had risen to 178 by 1990 must be treated with caution, because this alarming figure has no empirical foundation.

8 The sources of these projections are World Bank, 1991, op. cit. p. 32; Malawi Population Census, 1977. Analytical Report, Vol. II, 1984, p. 155; and House, William J. and Zimalirana, George, ‘Malawi's Population Dynamics: future prospects’, Lilongwe, 1992. The differences between the World Bank's projections and the others can be partly explained by the lack of agreement about the rate of decline in mortality, as well as assumed current levels.Google Scholar

9 World Bank, Growth and Structural Change in East Africa (Washington, D.C., 1989), p. 20.Google Scholar

10 World Bank, Malawi: growth through poverty reduction (Washington, D.C., 1990), p. 19.Google Scholar

11 National Statistical Office, Urban Household Expenditure Survey, 1979–80 (Zomba, 1983).Google Scholar

12 This section draws heavily on material presented in House, William J. and Babu, S., ‘Population Growth and Food Sufficiency in Malawi: a background note’, Lilongwe, 1991.Google Scholar

13 World Bank, Malawi: food security report (Washington, D.C., 1989), p. 20.Google Scholar

14 Growth and Structural Change in East Africa.

15 Department of Town and Country Planning, Office of the President and Cabinet, National Physical Development Plan, Vol. II (Lilongwe, 1987), p. 172.Google Scholar

16 Other additional pressures in the farm sector caused by rapid population growth include rising demands for extension staff and services, marketing and transport facilities, and water supplies, all of which will place heavy claims on a resource-poor economy.

17 See Ettema, Wim, ‘Small-Scale Industry in Malawi’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), 22, 3, 09 1984, pp. 487–510.Google Scholar

18 Malawi: growth through poverty reduction, p. 40.

19 Sahn, D. E., Arulpragasam, J., and Merid, L., Policy Reform and Poverty in Malawi: a survey of a decade of experience (Ithaca, NY, 1990), p. 205.Google Scholar

20 Ibid. quoting World Bank, Malawi Public Expenditure Review, 1989 (Washington, D.C., 1989).Google Scholar

21 Ministry of Education and Culture, Education Statistics (Lilongwe), 1988 and 1990.Google Scholar

22 Ministry of Education and Culture, ‘Primary School Quality Study Report’, Lilongwe, 1990.

23 National Statistical Office, Malawi Population and Housing Census (Zomba, 1987), p. 1.Google Scholar

24 This section has benefited from the contribution of Ramesh Shrestha, formerly of Unicef, Lilongwe.

25 Department of Economic Planning and Development, Statement of Development Policies, 1987–1996 (Lilongwe, 1987), p. 115.Google Scholar

26 Malawi Population Sector Study, 1991, p. 24.

27 National Statistical Office, Family Formation Survey (Zomba, 1984).Google Scholar

28 House and Zimalirana, op. cit.

29 See the Report of the Tripartite [British/German/Malawi] Project-Identification Study for the Establishment of a Medical School in Stages, chaired by Kimble, David, A Plan for Medical Education in Malawi (Limbe, 1986).Google Scholar