Indian Population and sustainablity

[someone]

Given, how much is the population of our country, how is that gonna be sustained? Why is this issue so little talked about, Why such a low awareness about this in the general environment. When many problems can be related to this huge population and growth. Some charts We are among one of the poorest nations among the world. And with this population growth, where exactly are we heading towards? Does something needs to be done about it? 1-2 Child policies? Are we waiting for complete chaos?

[cowboysfan]

We are lucky we have the monsoons and reliable rainfall every year,i shudder to think what would happen with a few years of drought.

[Rocky Balboa]

Indians have misunderstood the call to avoid the usage of plastic.

[Muloghonto]

define 'sustained'. If you mean putting 3 meals in the belly and a roof over our heads, we can, with land reform, feed and house up to 4 billion people in India. If by 'sustain' you mean the western dream, then we are hopelessly overpopulated and anything over 200-250 million is unsustainable.

[adi B]

whoa!! 41.6% is a massive population % under rs 75 per day but then their cost of living is low and the population of india is enormous.. another reason is that aforementioned countries have their currency value very low compared to $,a better way to check is by taking a benchmark value of their own currency bcoz that value will be high.. nevertheless disappointing figures

[kubrickian]

India's population should never have crossed 300 million at max but its something the leaders or even people in general never cared about in the past. It will always be an impossible task for the fruits of development to reach such a huge population. India will always be a poor country.

[Muloghonto]

]India's population should never have crossed 300 million at max but its something the leaders or even people in general never cared about in the past. It will always be an impossible task for the fruits of development to reach such a huge population. India will always be a poor country.

That would've been quite tough to pull off even with family planning. British India circa 1901 had total population of 220 million IIRC. Even with family planning and liberation of women by 1940s, we'd still be batting at 600-700 million by now.

[kubrickian]

That would've been quite tough to pull off even with family planning. British India circa 1901 had total population of 220 million IIRC. Even with family planning and liberation of women by 1940s' date=' we'd still be batting at 600-700 million by now.[/quote'] Yeah, you could say over population has always been India's burden. But if family planning had started earlier, it could have made a difference. Even now states like Bihar, UP, MP have very high fertility rates. 600 million with a one child plan could have been reduced to 400 million within a generation. Still sounds better than 1.5 billion population by 2030. India's population is more than the whole of Africa put together and almost twice as whole of Europe and reaching thrice as whole of North America. One country's population is multiple times that of continents much bigger its size. This is the magnitude of the size of India's population. Because of this, a significant portion of India will always remain poor and it will never be a developed country with a high per capita like countries in Europe, North America, Japan etc.

[Muloghonto]

Yeah, you could say over population has always been India's burden. But if family planning had started earlier, it could have made a difference. Even now states like Bihar, UP, MP have very high fertility rates. 600 million with a one child plan could have been reduced to 400 million within a generation. Still sounds better than 1.5 billion population by 2030. India's population is more than the whole of Africa put together and almost twice as whole of Europe and reaching thrice as whole of North America. One country's population is multiple times that of continents much bigger its size. This is the magnitude of the size of India's population. Because of this, a significant portion of India will always remain poor and it will never be a developed country with a high per capita like countries in Europe, North America, Japan etc.

Well there is more to population densities than simple land-mass areas. India has consistently been a world leader through the ages in population because India has one of the largest arable land areas in the world. We have more arable land than anyone but America IIRC and we are 1/3rd the size. Factor in our 'two harvests a year due to lack of winter freezing' and we are easily batting at 3-4x the grain output of China, Europe or America by pre-industrial standards. Human population density from pre-industrial times, is more or less a factor of agricultural output. As for family planning, i am not sure family planning does much to reduce population. It does arrest the runaway growth rate but doesnt bring it in the negative. The only way you are going to have negative growth rates is by empowering of women. The reason eastern Europe and Germany are having negative growth rates (minus immigration) is because they've had the longest histories of liberated women. When women start to value careers and personal life more than being breeding factories, they have less children and children later in life. This is the only proven cause of negative growth rates. If Indians want to lower our population, we simply have to bring up our daughters to value their careers more than kids.

[nikred]

Am I wrong in saying that India was always populated, even during the ancient times? I think the lack of migration of the ancient population outside the subcontinent is at least partly responsible for the population issue.

[The Outsider]

Am I wrong in saying that India was always populated' date=' even during the ancient times? I think the lack of migration of the ancient population outside the subcontinent is at least partly responsible for the population issue.[/quote'] That and the fact that we didn't lose half our population to the plague.

[Muloghonto]

That and the fact that we didn't lose half our population to the plague.

Plague was a blip. By 1600s, the numbers had recovered to pre 1450s level.

[Muloghonto]

Am I wrong in saying that India was always populated' date=' even during the ancient times? I think the lack of migration of the ancient population outside the subcontinent is at least partly responsible for the population issue.[/quote'] populations didnt migrate much out of prime agricultural zones anyways. You see tons of mongols and turks migrate into China but how many Chinese migrated to Central Asia ? not many. Same thing with mesopotamia- tons migrated into it, hardly anyone out of it. In Europe, the massive migrations happened to the agricultural societies that were the Roman Empire. Once Germany and Eastern Europe started to become intensively farmed societies (7th-8th century CE onwards), the migrations stopped. India is no different. People in the ancient times generally migrated to agrarian bases, comming out of nomadic/hunter-gatherer settings.

[Tiger80]

Well there is more to population densities than simple land-mass areas. India has consistently been a world leader through the ages in population because India has one of the largest arable land areas in the world. We have more arable land than anyone but America IIRC and we are 1/3rd the size. Factor in our 'two harvests a year due to lack of winter freezing' and we are easily batting at 3-4x the grain output of China, Europe or America by pre-industrial standards. Human population density from pre-industrial times, is more or less a factor of agricultural output. As for family planning, i am not sure family planning does much to reduce population. It does arrest the runaway growth rate but doesnt bring it in the negative. The only way you are going to have negative growth rates is by empowering of women. The reason eastern Europe and Germany are having negative growth rates (minus immigration) is because they've had the longest histories of liberated women. When women start to value careers and personal life more than being breeding factories, they have less children and children later in life. This is the only proven cause of negative growth rates. If Indians want to lower our population, we simply have to bring up our daughters to value their careers more than kids.

You are wrong Germany, Italy and other east European countries are not at all considered as feminist paradises.Birth rate is low in most of ex communist countries.Russia is trying hard to increase their birth rate.Nobody knows the main reason of low birth rate but one reason is when society put women in workforce but govt don't give maternity or other child raising benefit and give women choice either to stay home and raise kids or work. Anyway career in India is just meant for around 2-3% population.Other just work to live and feed their families.You can't sell dreams of either going abroad or becoming boss to 1.26 billion people.so that type of birth control is not going to work in India. Also with low birth rate old age population burden too start increasing , that's why majority of low birth rate countries are trying to increase their birth rate.Europe will face massive shortage of young population especially for menial jobs in near future

[Muloghonto]

You are wrong Germany, Italy and other east European countries are not at all considered as feminist paradises.Birth rate is low in most of ex communist countries.Russia is trying hard to increase their birth rate.Nobody knows the main reason of low birth rate but one reason is when society put women in workforce but govt don't give maternity or other child raising benefit and give women choice either to stay home and raise kids or work. Anyway career in India is just meant for around 2-3% population.Other just work to live and feed their families.You can't sell dreams of either going abroad or becoming boss to 1.26 billion people.so that type of birth control is not going to work in India. Also with low birth rate old age population burden too start increasing , that's why majority of low birth rate countries are trying to increase their birth rate.Europe will face massive shortage of young population especially for menial jobs in near future

dont include Italy because I didnt include it either. As for Germany and eastern Europe- you are totally wrong. They did have women's liberation earlier than the west (except for Britain and Canada who went liberal circa 1920s) because they were communist/socialist. People forget that the Nazi party were a socialist party, not a capitalist one (that is how Hitler turned Germany around into an economic powerhouse when the capitalist economies went kaput due to the great depression).Many anti and pro-communist sociologists have pointed out that one thing where communists were way more progressive than the capitalists 100 years ago was the equality of women & men in every persuit of life. It was one aspect where the US didnt even begin catching up to the USSR till the 1960s. The point is not to give people fake dreams, the point is to make women realize that having kids is not their central goal in life and if they never have kids, its okay. The stigma for women who have not given birth is far greater in India and elsewhere than men who never sire children. Once that happens, like in eastern Europe, women will be less inclined to see the 'professional turned mom turned professional once kids are old enough' as the ideal and instead see their ideal in life to be successful career driven women who do what they want to do. I am not making this up- according to most prominent sociologists, increase in professional persuits by women is directly correlated to low birth rates. In the US women didnt get fully integrated into workplaces till the 1980s and the US does show significant reduction in birth rates post 1980 than pre 1980. Same with Germany, Russia, Poland, etc. As for creating problems due to the 'ageing parents outnumbering kids' scenario- its not a big factor unless it is forced over a short period of time. In commie China their one-child policy is forced and in effect since 1979 and as such they are having the sudden demographic shift problem. In Russia or eastern Europe, the negative birth rates are in smaller percentages spread over almost a century ( 1925 onwards for most of eastern Europe + Germany). For India, it is not a problem- the biggest problem is overpopulation. The 'generational window of overburden for the new generation due to falling birthrates' really only affects the first generation, when the biggest drop is noticed, after which the latter generations are far less affected.

[Clarke]

Its tripled since Independence and we're talking of 5 centuries back ?

[Muloghonto]

Its tripled since Independence and we're talking of 5 centuries back ?

huh? who's talking 5 centuries back ?

[Clarke]

Am I wrong in saying that India was always populated' date=' even during the ancient times? I think the lack of migration of the ancient population outside the subcontinent is at least partly responsible for the population issue.[/quote']

[Muloghonto]

Me' date=' Myself & Irene.[/quote'] Thats called establishing the groundwork. Is Egypt overpopulated ? You look at their pop. density and its not very high. But 95% of Egypt is crammed into less than 15% of its land. So its inhabited areas are extremely overpopulated. My point was, trying to see things in population densities alone is not the complete picture, we need to look at population density to available arable land. That is the main determinant of population density in a pre-industrial context. That determines if India was or was not overpopulated a century ago or earlier. Which IMO, it wasnt.

[Tiger80]

dont include Italy because I didnt include it either. As for Germany and eastern Europe- you are totally wrong. They did have women's liberation earlier than the west (except for Britain and Canada who went liberal circa 1920s) because they were communist/socialist. People forget that the Nazi party were a socialist party' date= not a capitalist one (that is how Hitler turned Germany around into an economic powerhouse when the capitalist economies went kaput due to the great depression).Many anti and pro-communist sociologists have pointed out that one thing where communists were way more progressive than the capitalists 100 years ago was the equality of women & men in every persuit of life. It was one aspect where the US didnt even begin catching up to the USSR till the 1960s. The point is not to give people fake dreams, the point is to make women realize that having kids is not their central goal in life and if they never have kids, its okay. The stigma for women who have not given birth is far greater in India and elsewhere than men who never sire children. Once that happens, like in eastern Europe, women will be less inclined to see the 'professional turned mom turned professional once kids are old enough' as the ideal and instead see their ideal in life to be successful career driven women who do what they want to do. I am not making this up- according to most prominent sociologists, increase in professional persuits by women is directly correlated to low birth rates. In the US women didnt get fully integrated into workplaces till the 1980s and the US does show significant reduction in birth rates post 1980 than pre 1980. Same with Germany, Russia, Poland, etc. As for creating problems due to the 'ageing parents outnumbering kids' scenario- its not a big factor unless it is forced over a short period of time. In commie China their one-child policy is forced and in effect since 1979 and as such they are having the sudden demographic shift problem. In Russia or eastern Europe, the negative birth rates are in smaller percentages spread over almost a century ( 1925 onwards for most of eastern Europe + Germany). For India, it is not a problem- the biggest problem is overpopulation. The 'generational window of overburden for the new generation due to falling birthrates' really only affects the first generation, when the biggest drop is noticed, after which the latter generations are far less affected.

Please read abouty Nazi party and hitler. They have only one role for women and that is to produce kids.No western style liberation. As far as Russia and other communist countries are concerned that was just pseudo liberation.There were hardly any woman politicians in power and there was no attempt by them to tell men to share household chores.Infact communist dictators used women when required.For example first Soviet allowed abortion but in 1936 they banned it all because birth rate was getting lower

The bureaucracy found the traditional conservatism and discipline of individual family units useful in reinforcing its own social and economic policies. In 1936 new legislation to reinforce the traditional role of the family was introduced, restricting women's rights to independence and mobility. Divorce became more difficult to obtain. Legal abortions were abolished except on health grounds and women were instructed that they had no right to deny the "joys of motherhood". Abortion became the privilege of those who could afford it. Ordinary women, out of necessity, were forced to procure illegal abortions without adequate sanitation and facilities. Many women suffered mutilation and medical problems. The benefits of life under a socialist system as envisaged by Lenin, where women would have a full and equal life with proper childcare, would have removed the insecurity and fear which the birth of another child often brought, thus eliminating the need for many abortions. This approach contrasted with the coercive instruction of the Stalinists to "enjoy motherhood". http://www.newyouth.com/marxist-theory-mainmenu-41/marxism-and-women-mainmenu-46/39-women-in-the-soviet-union.html

Also if we look at rural India most of women are in workforce yet they produce 3-4 kids.It is not like they are housewives producing kids. They work in farms , raise their animals or do any job available so I don't know how this study is relevant for indian circumstances