Flawed argument #5, and answer: Population growth is a cause of poverty in the South
Flawed argument
Population growth would be one of the causes of poverty in the South and population stabilization would be a factor in the enrichment of the North.
“The reduction in the birth-rate triggered by the regular use of contraception would, in effect, initially appear to facilitate the economic expansion of a country by cutting public and private expenditure on education. This would prevent the arrival into the world of human individuals who would be ‘useless mouths’ as long as they would not have been put to work. By the same token, one would for a time solve the problem of youth employment, given that there would be less young people”.
Answer
The short-sightedness of such arguments is obvious. The wealth of countries in the North does not come from their low birth-rate, but from their streamlined economic system, well-established industries, the great advantage of acquired know-how among the people and the ability of those countries to call upon foreign manpower to fill the gap caused by the low birth-rate. Without wishing to spread doom and gloom, ageing populations will sooner or later pose a threat to this well-being and the lack of a youthful population will deprive these countries of their dynamism, unless they rely increasingly on immigration to meet the needs of industrial production in a country lacking in manpower, a policy which poses a risk to social peace. Conversely, the attribution of poverty in certain countries to a birth-rate regarded as excessive and the belief that, by reducing that birth-rate, one will promote the economic expansion of the country, is a naïve assumption: it is not children who damage economic expansion, but the lack of development projects, of local know-how, of efficient agricultural techniques and adequate tools, of the basic economic infrastructure necessary for local industry to start up, of an education system capable of training the expert manpower these countries need for their development, as well as political instability and wars. Rather than receiving contraceptives, these countries need peace, political stability, governments that are truly interested in the good of their country and that are capable of setting up cooperation programmes with universities and in those sectors most in need of development. They need trainers and educators to transform a body, apparently excessive, of children, into the human capital without which long-term development is inconceivable”.