SOUTH ASIA: Population Growth

India’s most pressing problem continues to be its population growth [countries] [wrpopgr]  Population growth and economic development are linked together and a country’s overall well being are determined by their stage of population growth and economic development.

When the British ruled India, it was still in stage one of the demographic transition [demotran] (see http://geography.about.com/library/weekly/aa090798.htm.) High death rates and high birth rates [demotran] were common with the high death rates caused by famines, infant mortality, diseases and wars.  Population growth was anything but stable.  When India entered the second stage, birth rates remained high, but death rates fell [wwcdr] due to improvements in medical services (such as immunizations, widespread use of soap, etc.).  The third stage has likely been reached when death rates level off and birth rates begin to decline [wwcbr] substantially.  This generally indicated that the country is becoming more developed.  India’s problem is that during the second stage, population grew so rapidly, that even with a declining rate of natural increase, continues to add even more numbers to a very large population base.

For a very brief discussion on world population growth see:
http://geography.about.com/library/weekly/aa061798.htm

For a discussion of china's "one-child" policy see:
http://geography.about.com/education/scilife/geography/library/weekly/aa092799.htm

[The text of the above was written by Scott Girhard, San Antonio College from his online course GEOG 1301 World Geography. Used with permission.]