What Are the Dangers of Rapid Population Growth?

Rapid population growth reaches a dangerous level when the growth rate significantly exceeds the foreseeable increases in resources, land space and death rate. A massive increase in fertility skews the population balance, and can impact several key areas of the economy and society. These can range from short-term shortages to long-term effects, affecting generations to come.

Short Term: Food

• Rapid population growth would inevitably take its toll on the food supply. The accumulation of food items such as meat would not increase in the same pace as future demand, resulting in potential shortages. Additionally, most of the new population is unproductive in terms of creating more food supply; "Yemen Times" reports that the imbalanced number of children in their population is causing nationwide food shortages.

Medium Term: Land

• Rapid population growth would increase the demand for habitable land. This leads to rapid expansion, which the land cannot support. The actual existing land mass may be too small to begin with, forcing denser populations in neighborhoods and cities. In other cases, rural reservations are cut down to create more habitable land. Michael N. Dobkowski, author of "On the Edge of Scarcity" states that the environment has biophysical limits; the resources from these reservations such as wood and soil minerals would be depleted to the point where the land is no longer capable of production.

Long Term: Economics

• Poverty is the main economic effect of rapid population growth. Because of the inherent rise of prices and demand for food and land, the population would naturally skew beneath the poverty line. The lack of these basic needs results in weaknesses in health -- lessening overall productivity and the ability to generate revenue. Dennis A. Ahlburg, author of "The Impact of Population Growth on Well-Being in Developing Countries" adds that as the overall health of children is impacted, poverty is more likely to continue in the upcoming generations.

Long Term: Education

• Gavin W. Jones, author of "Population Dynamics and Education and Health Planning" conducted a study on the relationship of increased fertility and enrollment in schools. Jones concluded that as fertility increased, enrollment was attributed more toward the increase of the demographic size (rather than an actual real increase in enrollment). More importantly, this increase was not matched with the proper amount of education expenditures; in Malawi, they experienced the same phenomenon in enrollment rates in 2000, but education costs only rose 0.6 percent annually. This effectively meant that the amount of spending on each student was falling at 2.6 percent per year. The decreases in teacher salaries and school supplies led to decreases in graduation rates to the end of primary school -- adversely affecting overall education.