While arguments about social, economic and environmental effects of overpopulation are wide spread, it is also important to note that they have been overwhelmingly deemed problematic not only in obscuring inequality as the more fundamental cause of the supposed effects of overpopulation but also (by explicitly or de facto) locating/placing responsibility on the poor! The seminal proponents of overpopulation as a key causal factor was first and foremost Thomas Malthus—later to be followed by Garrett...
While arguments about social, economic and environmental effects of overpopulation are wide spread, it is also important to note that they have been overwhelmingly deemed problematic not only in obscuring inequality as the more fundamental cause of the supposed effects of overpopulation but also (by explicitly or de facto) locating/placing responsibility on the poor! The seminal proponents of overpopulation as a key causal factor was first and foremost Thomas Malthus—later to be followed by Garrett Hardin, and most prominent today, Paul and Anne Ehrlich.
They (along with other research conducted around the world) would attribute the following five social and economic effects to overpopulation:
1) overpopulation causes lower life expectancy
2) overpopulation causes depletion of natural resources
3) overpopulation causes disease and epidemics
4) overpopulation causes increased crime and conflict as resources become more scarce
5) overpopulation causes standard of living and unemployment to rise
One set of evidence used in order to debunk this logic is known as the demographic transition model—whereby overpopulation (and the fluctuation of population rates writ large) can be seen as itself an effect of socially equitable economic growth.
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