Demographic Trap - Other Viewpoints

Other Viewpoints

The existence of the "trap" is controversial. Some demographers see it as only a temporary problem, which can be eliminated with better education and better "family planning." While others consider the "trap" more of a longer-term symptom of the failure to educate children and provide safety nets against poverty, resulting in more families seeing children as a form of "securing incomes" for the future. Nonetheless, many social scientists agree that family planning should be an important part of public health and economic development.

Others argue that, while the combination of increasing fertility and decreasing mortality is a very real phenomenon, there is no reason to assume that this is harmful to developing countries. In The Ultimate Resource, economist Julian Simon argued that human ingenuity is a resource more important to economic growth than natural resources. Because population growth is accompanied by improvements in resource efficiency, new discoveries of natural resources, the development of substitutes, and changing consumer desires, a growing population will frequently support economic growth rather than hamper it.