How can third world countries progress into first world countries and control their population?

Question

Countries like Philppines are expiriencing exteme poverty and total chaos today, some experts believe the root of all these is the massive population explotion.

Answer 1

Family planning. Teaching the women about contraceptives. Expand the rights of women. Many countries still regard women as inferior, women as the property of men, etc.

The additional problem, however, is that you have to fight religion or tradition. The Catholic religion opposes family planning. Have as many kids as you want (or can persuade your wife to have). This may be OK when we had a small population, but now? There's also tradition, where children are the source of security in old age. And there's the fact of the tradition of male domination. IUD's, sterilization, are ways to prevent pregnancy. But if women can't or will not have children for a man, he gets rid of her. So, maybe also marriage laws have to be strengthened.

Answer 2

The problem with underdeveloped countries and huge populations usually lies in the fact that people really don't know any better.

But if you want a more scientific approach, there are two reasons that I can give you that make the most sense.

First of all, underdeveloped countries were colonized by stronger and more economically able countries that forced these other countries to specialize in agriculture. Culturally, this led to the need for large families. A husband/wife team isn't enough to grow X amount of crops. This is where you'll see families with 10-12 kids because they were all needed to help out.

By the same token, many families weren't in a agriculture-based system of prodcution. However, poverty becomes so overwhelming, that the only solution is to have more kids and make them work at an early age. Kids are real cash-cows if you don't send them to school, make them work, and on top, keep whatever they earn. It also helps not to feed them and not to give any kind of medical care whatsoever.

Secondly, there was a belief in the 17th and 18 th centuries that countries with larger populations were more prosperous because there existed a huge labour force that allowed these countries to produce at large scales and it would also guarantee them a large group of consumers for those products.

This theory worked in Europe and North America, but Latin America for example, spiraled out of countrol in the 1940s and 1950s, and the onlu thing that has been evident is an ever incresing disparity between poverty and wealth. The wedge between those who have and the have-nots is at an all-time high.

Another note: underdeveloped countries usually have the most inefficient and corrupt governments. This leads to overspending on running costs and provides little financing to investment spending.

I don't really know alot about the Philippines, but the characteristics between underdeveloped countries are the same. It just a question of having the people and government willing to make difference and to change everyone's way of thinking.

Answer 3

The answer is not even close to being clear cut, but I agree with several of the previous posts that an effective, efficient government is most directly responsible for improving living conditions.

The most impressive recent example of success would be China, where a relatively poor country with a large and growing population was able to stabilize its economic and social problems enough to where it could progress in the right direction. The economic reforms of the 80s were increasingly successful and the one-child policy was very effective in stabilizing population growth. All of this without a massive intervention/occupation from an outside power.

However, the process is far from perfect and progress must be measured in decades if not longer. There is no magic bullet and every country is different, however, based on my limited historical knowledge, it all goes back to the role of the government. After providing the basics of a stable food supply system and safety, the government needs to focus on providing high quality education, efficient infrastructure spending, a well functioning legal system and tax structure, a political/business environment as corruption free as possible, and perhaps most important of all, equal access to opportunities.

As a side note - some would say that democracy or capitalism is the answer, but I would disagree that it is the only answer. Many democracies have extremely sub-par economies (too numerous to list) and many socialist leaning countries enjoy very high standards of living (the Scandanavian countries come to mind).

Answer 4

Population may not be the sole cause, but indeed is a complicating factor.

The situation in the Philippines has as much to do with nepotism and cronyism as it does with population. Less scrupulous leadership had granted right of use of the national resources (such as the vast mahogany forests) to private individuals - friends and relatives - which meant a clearcutting rampage that decimated the mahogany woodlands and eliminated a substantial part of national wealth.

Bangladesh provided an excellent example of population control by empowering women to work and mandating (and paying for) the education of all children, male and female. Suddenly women weren't prized only for childbearing and housework, and children had better things to do than tend the family farm. The average family size decreased, and population pressures have ebbed considerably.

Answer 5

Nice question but not so easy to answer because of the social structure. My friend I live in the Philippines and have for the last 34 years. I came here from America and came to stay.

I see here first a social structure that is influenced by tradition, the catholic church, and a lack of a personal sense of responsibility for acts or actions. This is a nation of great potential but corruption, lack of leadership, and greed is always in the way to any change for the better. I guess one can say no one in a position today to make any progress really cares to make any changes.

I personally say Kick out the church, have a civil war, and let the winner be one who will make a change first by imposing fear in the population along with a strong education program that will demand responsibility for acts and actions. This program of imposed responsibility must include making all accountable and that would mean again impose the death penalty along with revamp of the legal system to bring about fair and swift justice.

Is that possible? Who knows for sure what the future holds but in my view anything is possible.

Answer 6

There is no quick fix or simple solution. When a family is dependent upon subsistence "farming" for survival a large population to contribute to the family unit is imperative. When the infant death rate is high, people have more children knowing that a good percentage will not reach adulthood. Adding these variables into a country which is economically dependent upon the world market and only has what it can produce as a basis of its economy all adds to the problem. The answer? So easy to say so hard to do. Solve these problems. Base economy upon the people not what they produce? i.e. educate and create a technical society capable of marketing their skills? Possibly.

Answer 7

By having real dialogue and objective self-analysis. As long as people in third world countries continue to ignore thier problems those probelms will persist. As cold as this might sound, maybe some kind of child tax after a pre-dertimined number of children allowed will act as a deterent.

The developed countries also have a responsibilty to help third world countries progress. Unfortunately, they probably won't as it is in in their financial best interest to keep people in third world countires poor and desperate so they will work for the most minimal of wages. What do they care about population explosion? Its more workers to make trendy designer t-shirts and cheap electronics right?

Answer 8

It's the other way around. Population explosion is caused by poverty. People have many children because children are the only asset they can afford. Typically, as soon as a country lifts itself out of extreme poverty, the birth rates fall dramatically (although death rates initially fall even faster). Read up on "demographic transition." Here's a good place to start:

http://www.uwmc.uwc.edu/geography/Demotrans/demtran.htm

Answer 9

The Leadership of the People you label third world are failing to see the need to seek or utilize assistance Through world channels to grow Not to a First world country but to a contributing world country. His/Her people deserve the respect. The population will settle when human dignity and growth are encouraged

Answer 10

I think all it starts by the Justice System. If a well organized Justice the corruptions which tends to be the mean reason for the system failure on those country will be fought and the progress will be slowly release.
PS: Put on effect a modern labor law.