251. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN POPULATION GROWTH AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT.
- Author
-
Stockwell, Edward G.
- Subjects
POPULATION ,ECONOMIC development ,PER capita ,INCOME ,DEVELOPING countries ,ECONOMICS - Abstract
One of the major problems confronting mankind today concerns the fact that roughly two thirds of the world's population lives in countries that are characterized by extremely low levels of economic and social well-being. In contrast to an annual per capita income of $1,864 in the United States, recent estimates indicate that about 70 per cent of the countries in the world have annual per capita incomes of less than $400. The economic development of any given country is a process which entails changes in nearly every aspect of economic and social life. The article makes an effort to compare the annual rates of increase in population and per capita income for selected underdeveloped countries during the period 1952 to 1958. For those countries which have been growing at a rate of less than 1 per cent per year, the annual rate of increase in per capita income has ranged from 3.1 per cent to 7.5 per cent, with an overall average of 5.9 per cent a year. In contrast, the average annual rate of per capita income increase has been only 2.4 per cent for countries whose annual rate of population growth has been between 1 and 2 per cent, and only 1.7 per cent for those countries which have been growing at a rate in excess of 2 per-cent per year.
- Published
- 1962
- Full Text
- View/download PDF