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That the births cause an increase in the human population is a truth. The birth rate and its increase are due to many factors, which cannot be easily analyzed.

It is said that the developing countries have high rate of births and the rich nations are rather in balancing position and their trend is in decreasing order, but it is not always true. For example Japan's economy is prosperous and it does not fall in the category of 'have nots', even then it has high birth rate. This gives an idea that it is the attitude towards the life that decides the population growth. Once it was believed that the developed nations shun high birth rate because of materials prosperity and many means of recreation and it is becoming true and the rich communities and nations are having growing tendency to sterility. In spite of this fact the European countries have maintained their population growth and their number is not in declining order. It is moderate.

Intensive and mechanized farming has increased the productivity of food. Use of sophisticated machinery and fertilizers has increased the production of agricultural products by four or five times. Thus feeling of security has been instrumental in increasing the birth rate.

Rapid growth of industrialization has enabled a large population to be employed and had opened many avenues for self-development particularly in the field of economic prosperity. It has also accelerated the birth rate. With the development of medical sciences now the diseases are kept under control and the epidemics are unknown which once used to take a heavy toll of human life. This also has decreased the death rate. The ratio between the birth rate and death rate has wide gap and consequently rise of population has been possible.

In New Zealand, Australia, South America and North American increase in the population is due to migration of people from European countries. The concentration of population in the new world has increased but at the same time it has considerably lessened the burden of population in Europe.

Traditionally old-fashioned nations also have high percentage of birth rate. Mediterranean countries and East European countries to a large extent, maintain high birth rate. People of Far East and South Asia also maintain high birth rate because of ancestral traditions and high implicit faith in their religious principles.

The recent legislative enactments in certain countries, for giving privileges to a couple for producing maximum number of children has also increased the birth rate there.

Low death rate in some countries has made the increase in population possible. Had it not been the case, some countries of Europe would have seen sharp decline in population. At present the annual rate of increase is 3.0%

According to Malthus, the world was bound to be doomed because of the high rate of acceleration in population, but it did not happen. Even after 150 years of his death, the world is still undoomed. Perhaps he could not see the possibilities of new vistas of development in industry and scientific field. The great possibilities of the New World in the form of North and South America, Australia and New Zealand had been beyond his vision and the potentialities of these countries to feed the whole of the population of the world had been out of his thinking. But in spite of his false presumption one thing is certain that if the population explosion of the recent time is left uncontrolled present birth rate and population growth remains unabated, the unknown and unforeseen calamities are bound to attack our present civilization. The danger of further population explosion is not less dangerous than the nuclear war awaited by the fear stricken humanity.

Next: Population Growth