ECONOMICS MADE SIMPLE: Quantity and quality of population matter for development

The question of population is among the debates that dominated various places, including different media platforms in Tanzania in the first two weeks of August. This was prompted by remarks by President Magufuli that women should kiss goodbye to birth control and bear as many children as possible in his tenure in office. The reason cited by the President is that of free education meaning, that they can afford the cost of sending the children to school. Free education starts at primary school and most children start primary school at the age of seven years. Children born in May 2017, which is the earliest one can bear a child based on the President’s remarks, will start primary school in 2024, other factors remaining constant. This will be one year before the President ends his tenure, assuming he gets a second one. This piece gives some economic perspectives on the role of quantity and quality of population for economic development in Tanzanian type economies.

Labour

Economically, a country’s population can be looked at as labour, which is one of the factors of production, others being land, capital and entrepreneurship. The higher the population of a country the higher the available labour force and vice versa, ceteris paribus (other factors remaining constant). These other factors include the quality of the population as measured by various variables. These variables include but are not limited to skills and talents in the labour force. Skills include both hard and soft skills. Hard skills include what one learns in schools as a profession. Soft skills are mostly in-born although they can be learnt. They include hard working, team spirit, innovation and creativity, honesty, confidence, endurance and much more along those lines. To attain the qualities however, the country has to invest heavily in human resources by way of education and health inter alia. To invest on the other hand one needs money.

Consumers

Consumers are the customers for what is produced in the supply side of the economy. The higher the population the higher the number of potential consumers and vice versa ceteris paribus. As is the case for labour, the quality of population in the context of consumption matters.

Demographic structure

Demographers would argue, and correctly so, that a country’s population is not homogeneous, but heterogeneous. It is composed of various groups in terms of inter alia gender and age. A country with many children has a pyramid-shaped population with a very broad base. This implies high dependence of the children on the working population. This is also true for a country with many elderly in the population. High dependency ratio implies many mouths to be fed. For a poor country, this constitutes economic burden.

Public goods and services

Availability and accessibility of public goods and services to be consumed by a country’s population is very crucial for economic development. Public goods include hard infrastructure like roads, railways, port and airports. They also include soft infrastructure such as telecommunication networks in its very broad sense. Typical public services include health, education water and security. Availability, accessibility and affordability of adequate quantity and quality of these goods and services is very important for a country’s economic development. Therefore high population without adequate provisioning of public goods and services is bad economics.

Environment

There is direct relationship between the state of the environment of a country and its economic development. There is also a direct relationship between population size and the state of environment. The higher the population, the higher the stress on the environment thereby affecting flora and fauna (plants and animals) negatively. High population affects the bearing capacity of the earth and the quality of public commons such as air and water. It also leads to faster depletion of finite natural resources. Generally, therefore, higher population stands to be bad for the environment.

Various economic magnitudes

A country’s population is very important in computing various economic magnitudes. These include per capita income and related poverty and standard of living. High population amidst low national income implies low per capita income, more income-poverty and living standards. By extension it implies more challenges to attain middle income economy status for countries aspiring to join that club. All these imply that both the quantity and quality of population matter for a country’s economic development. Tanzania is not an exception.

The author is a Professor of Economics, Researcher and consultant in Economics and Business at Mzumbe University Dar es Salaam Business School.