Thomas Robert Malthus, who lived from February 1766 until 23rd December 1834, was an English Economist most well-known for his extensive essay titled ‘An Essay on the Principle of Population’. The main focus of his essay expressed the relationship between society’s resources, and population growth. Malthus (1798) argued that the population grows geometrically, doubling every 25 years, whilst resource production grows arithmetically at a slower rate. In this way, there would come a point in time whereby population growth and resource production are in equilibrium, and various checks to population growth would occur such that population growth does not exceed resource production. These include “preventative checks” to population growth, such as birth control, late marriage and moral restraint, and “positive checks” such as disease, famine and war. In his essay, alongside his theory about the supply of resources and population, he also displayed beliefs that economic growth and technological advancements directly lead to greater increases in population growth. In this essay, I will firstly explain the theory behind Malthus’ principle of population with respect to economic growth, and thus why population did in-fact grow due to economic growth prior to the industrial revolution. However, I will then go on to show how this trend did not hold during the industrialisation process of the 20th century amongst capitalist countries in Europe and provide potential reasoning for this. I have chosen to answer the question in this way of a comparison between time periods, as I believe that this is the most relevant contrast to this topic, with the changing structure of different economies over time being the most important factor in explaining differing population growth.
The population growth rate of an economy is compiled of two components: the fertility rate – the rate at which new children are born – and the mortality rate – the number of deaths that are recorded over a period of time. The European Demographic Transition is a term that describes how Europe went from high levels mortality and fertility in the pre-industrial world, to moderate and then low rates in the modern world. One may analyse that population growth occurs when there is a fertility rate that is higher than the mortality rate in a given period. Malthus’ theory about growth and population was based on the idea that with economic growth comes increases in food production, advancements in medical technology, and improvements in healthcare due to greater spending and capital. These factors can directly lead to reductions in “positive checks” to population in society, mainly famine and disease, which can result in a fall in the mortality rate and improved living standards. At the same time, people in society may be encouraged to reproduce more with the prospect of their children having a better life, and thus increasing the fertility rate. With the fertility rate rising and mortality rate falling, Malthus’ theory seems rather plausible and logical, especially when applied to the pre-industrial world. During the agricultural revolution, just before industrialisation, growth and subsequent innovation in agricultural tools and techniques allowed the yields of crops to significantly increase. As a result of higher crop yields, better nutrition and food supplies were available for the population. This contributed to a longer life expectancy and reduced infant mortality, and standards of living were on the rise; this finally led to an increase in the fertility rate, explained by Malthus’ theory, and so there was exponential population growth aligned with the economic growth of the agricultural revolution, during the 18th and 19th century. However, as the agricultural revolution made way for the industrial revolution at the beginning of the 19th century, population growth began to fall, and Malthus’ principle was failing to hold value.
Industrialisation in Europe was a process which, especially in Britain, saw agriculture’s share of GDP fall rapidly in response to significant advancements in the manufacture and service sectors; in 1840, agriculture was just 22% of GDP compared with 41% in 1600 (Whynes). What made Britain so superior in the transformation of its economy was the introduction of Capitalism. This was the idea that the systems of society were controlled by private owners and investors, rather than centrally-owned by government, which allowed for greater investment in the economy due to the knowledge that these individuals could potentially earn an income in a free market. As a result of such investment, there were huge transformations in the capital that was being used in manufacturing; immense technological advancements in machinery and the development of a vast number of factories and construction plants. With this, came the production of different raw materials and goods such as iron, steel, concrete and railways, along with the discovery of different sources of energy like oil, gas and nuclear. At first, it seems that industrialisation and capitalism were vital in the development of the British economy; mass production allowed surplus good to be exported, providing export-led growth for the UK as a worldwide supplier, and new high levels of productivity in both agriculture and manufacturing allowed profits to be heightened. However, I would argue that capitalist industrialisation was a major contributing factor to the First and Second World Wars, some of the main reasons as to why population growth remained so low in Europe in the 20th century. Capitalism brought about competition between Britain and other developing capitalist countries in their global commerce, their ownership of land and their production performances. Capitalist industrialisation also provided countries with the funding and the production assemblies required to mass produce armament and military required for war. As a result, war between European countries was more easily facilitated, and this had catastrophic effects on population growth.
Firstly, it goes without saying that the consequences of the World Wars of the 20th century put a huge dent in the population growth of industrialising capitalist countries; Europe suffered over 12 million deaths in World War I, and over 35 million in World War II (Haines 2018). War is a source of one of Malthus’ “positive checks” to population growth, as it is a check that increases the mortality rate within society. Therefore, it can be said that in the early 20th century adult mortality rates were increased as a result of the World Wars. Simultaneously, especially after the Second World War, capitalist European economies grew rapidly; a lot of investment and economic stimulus was required to replace capital that was destroyed during the war, leading to vast economic growth from around 1946 and its divergence from population growth. With economic growth on the rise and low population growth as a result of war, this is one clear scenario in which Malthus’ population principle did not apply.
Along with rising death rates, there were various socioeconomic consequences of the war that may have had an influence on the low population growth rates in Europe in the 20th century; the main consequence being the growing status and increases in the pay of women. As men were called to fight against enemy capitalist countries during WWI and WWI, a large number of jobs were made available and these jobs were subsequently filled by housewives and mothers. In contrast to the jobs of the pre-industrial, agricultural world whereby strong physical strength was the main skill required to operate manual physical capital, the jobs made available were suitable for women; they would involve the production of armaments using technological machinery. Therefore, a vast number of women were called into the labour force, and this increase in female employment reduced the time available for women to both carry and look after a child. Furthermore, due to the increase in pay of women after the industrial revolution, women experienced greater opportunity cost of having a child, as they their time could have been better spent earning a larger income than before. As a result, a greater proportion of women may have wanted to go and get a job, instead of raising more children. These are both strong reasons as to why fertility rates, especially marital fertility, fell in Europe during the 20th century, and thus why population growth remained low during this period in spite of reasonable economic growth rates.
Another explanation as to why population growth remained low in industrialising capitalist European countries in the 20th century may be related to changes to human and physical capital during the industrialisation process.
Human capital can be defined as “the knowledge, skills, competencies and attributes embodied in individuals that facilitate the creation of personal, social and economic well-being” (OECD). There have been several studies produced providing reasoning as to why the principle of Malthus broke down, focusing mainly on human capital and the rising incomes of Europeans in the 20th century. Clark (2005) summarises the pre-industrial world with having high fertility rates accompanied with its low levels of human capital, and then goes on to suggest how the characteristics of the scenario for the modern world are opposite; low levels of fertility are accompanied with high quality human capital. Becker (1960) is the first author to produce the most influential study conflicting the Malthusian principle and supporting Clark’s (2005) summary characteristics. In his study, he argues that there is a trade-off for parents between the quality and quantity of children. He further suggests that in the modern world, the income elasticity of the quality of children is greater than the income elasticity of the quality of children; as incomes rise, parents would prefer to spend more money on improving the human-capital of their children, bettering their education and improving their ‘quality’, rather than simply reproducing more and raising more children. This provides an explanation as to why fertility and population growth may fall with growth and increasing incomes, as human capital improves.
This was seen as ground-breaking, as this intuition would not have made sense in the Malthusian era, when human capital was low. During this period, low human capital was suited to the low levels of skills required to work in the agricultural sector. As result of this trend of unskilled labour, people were under the impression that the more children brought into the family business the better, in order that there would be a greater supply of labour available and productivity on the farms would be higher. Furthermore, in this period the stability of production was dependant on the stability of the population, because the agricultural sector was mainly reliant on human labour as mentioned before. This made the agricultural economy very vulnerable to social and environmental disasters that increased mortality: failings of the ecosystem and famine, human disease such as smallpox, and armed conflicts through rebellions and invasions (Whynes). This was capable of creating a viscous cycle, whereby increased mortality from these disasters would lead to lost labour, which would disrupt agriculture and food production, leading to potential famines and further increases in mortality (Whynes). To combat this, high fertility rates were required to maintain stable levels of labour and prevent this disastrous cycle from occurring.
Becker (1960) built on his work about income-elasticity of quality and quantity of children. Murphy, Tamura and Becker (1990) stated that fertility would only fall with increases in economic growth if there were increasing returns to human capital growth. Then further to this, several authors began to introduce the concept of physical capital into the debate about fertility and human capital. Physical capital is a one of the four factors of production that includes things such as buildings, machinery or computerised technology, and I believe the introduction of physical capital is very important in breaking down Malthus’ principle as it is the factor most relevant to the capitalist industrial revolution. Firstly, Collins and Williamson (1999) observed a fall in the price of capital from around 1870, as a result of capital-specific technological change; this occurs when there is technological progress in the sector producing the capital good greater than the sector producing the consumer good. Secondly, Krussel et al. (2000) observed capital-skill complementarity