The social sciences and the population problem

Abstract

Four essentially independent conceptions of the population problem are visible in current discussions. One is derived from macroeconomics, one from microeconomics, one from the health sciences, and one from ethical concerns about the just relation between man and nature. After describing these conceptions, this paper addresses the population problem principally using the economic definitions. It cites five reasons why discussions of the economic hazards posed by population growth have become markedly less alarmist in the past decade. Failures of highly quantified input-output models to account for human progress are emphasized. The paper presents examples of how technical demography has shed light on the dimensions of and solutions to the population problem and concludes with a brief discussion of contemporary population problems in the U.S. The real world consists not of numbers but of shapes and sizes. It is topological rather than quantitative. Quantification for the most part is a prosthetic device of the human mind, though certainly a very useful one. Anyone who thinks that numbers constitute the real world, however, is under an illusion, and this is an illusion that is by no means uncommon (Boulding, 1980:833).