Author: Stan D'Souza
Publisher: Indian Social Institute
Year: 2001
Language: English
Pages: 383
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8187218320
Description
This publication brings together the shared international experience of demographers and social scientists with activists in the field of population and poverty. While the scope of the publication is global, Indian issues are given prime importance.
Two hundred years ago in 1798 an Anglican clergyman, Robert Malthus, published an anonymous article, which for the first time, in a scientific manner, linked the problem of poverty to the question of population growth. The rapid growth of population, he argued, would eventually lead to serious increases in death rates due to the inability to provide food for everyone. Malthus assumed that, while food production could increase at an arithmetic progression, populations would grow at a geometric progression.
The population of the world has burgeoned from around an estimated 900 million from the time of Malthus at the end of the eighteenth century to an estimated 6 billion at the end of the 20th century. The estimated population of India itself has crossed the 1 billion mark in 1999. assertion that population growth is the cause of poverty is an oversimplification, since population problems are often the consequence of poverty and the interrelationship is always complex, particularly in the light of globalization.
While the scope of the publication if global, including papers on Europe, Africa and Latin America, and relating to problems raised at the 1994 Cairo International Conference on Population and Development, Indian issues are given prime importance.
Apart from technical papers regarding the present burning demographic issues of growth and migration, concepts of poverty are clarified. Descriptive papers and case studies attempt to bridge the gap between theory and practice. The debate on population issues is carried beyond mere development considerations to the new paradigms of “rights” and ethical concerns. The editors confidently hope that his publication will serve to clarify and reinforce the processes of human and integral development.
Contents
Foreword
Introductory remarks
Opening message to the colloquium
Final statement of New Delhi colloquium
SECTION 1: POPULATION AND POVERTY
Population growth: A world reassessment
Concepts of poverty – A brief review and some examples
Migration in the world: Links with human richness and material poverty
Forced migration: An overview of refugees and forcibly displaced people today
SECTION 1.1.: INDIA AND ASIA
Trends and determinants of poverty in India: A critical review
Globalization and its impact on the Indian economy
Dalits: Victims of an oppressive caste system
Communalism, conflict and change
Networking around housing the poor
SECTION 1.2 : EUROPE
Unemployment and employment policies in Europe: Special reference to the European Union
Effects of migration on family structure: A “life story” of a Moroccan immigrant to Spain
SECTION 1.3: AFRICA
The urban population of Sub-Saharan Africa
Population and poverty in Africa: The case of Madagascar
The challenge of poverty Eradication in Africa and its relationship to population and development : The Zambian case study.
SECTION 1.4: LATIN AMERICA
Indigenous people in Latin-American cities
The consequences of poverty and injustice: The exploitation of working children
SECTION 2: THE POPULATION AND DEVELOPMETN DEBATE
International conference on population and development (Cairo 5-13 September, 1994) and the Holy See
Which population for the global society?
Population and development: A case of Fads vs. Facts
The global ecological crisis: A third world perspective on some practical implications
SECTION 3: POPULATION POLICY ISSUES
Critical approach to the concept of population policy
Malthus Redivivus? Ethical implications of population policy
Competing rights paradigms in the population debate
Islamic points of view on population and poverty in Egypt
Globalisation, religion and a new promising role for NGOs