After this, as in other countries that industrialised, birth rates decreased. This correlates with increased economic growth as individuals can gain economically from limiting family sizes and having more money for spending, saving or investing. In addition, as a country becomes more industrialised there is better availability of contraception and family planning facilities enabling those who chose to have fewer children to do so.
Yet, apart from all of this, the main reason for Italy’s negative rate of population change is society’s attitude. The people of Italy are choosing to have fewer children due to a combination of all the factors mentioned. It is common for families in Italy to have both parents working and so many feel that they would be unable to provide the care and attention necessary to a second or third child. Secondly, it is a very large drain on a family’s resources to have many children. Because of this, many choose not to have a second or third child, as they feel unable to provide for it financially. Whilst not quite a case of quality over quantity, this very British idiom does serve as a useful summary of the Italian philosophy to childbirth. This change of attitude occurred very rapidly and so it was not only the rapidity of development, which resulted in a low growth rate.
Social factors in general, have far more influence on rates of population change in the modern world than economic or even physical factors. Social attitudes must change for growth rates to change and they are often what cause differences between countries.
For example, in Russia population growth rates are almost as low as in Italy also as a result of social attitudes, but for very different reasons to Italty. Since 1985, the birth rate has halfed as a result of a change in society’s attitudes. Russian women do not want to have children as they perceive the situation in their country to be so dire, that children do not deserve to be brought into it and that they could not provide for them if they were. Following the end of communism, life expectancy dropped by 6 years – the fastest recorded decline in an MEDC and was accompanied by a rocketing death rate. This was a result of poverty, political upheaval and unemployment and its accompanying problems. The divide between the rich and the poor grew as the wealth of the country became concentrated in a small number of very rich who were the first and most successful to embrace capitalism, causing great poverty for the rest of the population. What Russia does share with Italy and other MEDCs is the concept that a child is an economic burden. This is why many do not choose to have children in the terrible economic climate of modern post-capitalist Russia.
Comparing just Italy and Russia enables one to see of what little importance economic status is in a low birth rate, in Italy, a prosperous economy has resulted in a low growth rate, whilst in Russia, a low growth rate was a result of a poor economic situation. However, it is further shown if one examines much of the LEDW, for example, Ghana.
Ghana has one of the highest population growth rates in the world, with a fertility rate of 4.4 and a rapidly falling, in fact, low, death rate This is a result of a number of reasons, but social attitudes are key. It is often thought that the reason for high birth rates in the LEDW is the lack of contraception; nonetheless, contraception is wildly available in LEDCs and has come alongside the improvements in health care that have caused the falling death rate. People simply do not choose to use it, only 15% of couples practise birth control despite family planning information available at schools, hospitals and churches.
Secondly, the economic state of Ghana is such that it is not of economic benefit to have many children, to send of to work or to help on the fields, as is often thought. Ghana is one of Africa’s most economically successful countries and it would not be of economic benefit for a family to have a child as the costs of sending them to school and of providing the essentials out way the extra income that would result. This is a common situation throughout the LEDW and there are very very few countries in which it is economically beneficial to have more children.
Instead, it is simply society’s attitude towards children, which causes such a high growth rate. In Ghana, the birth of a child is seen as an occasion to celebrate and it is almost unthinkable in most communities to stop such an event occurring, using contraception. The culture of the country is such that children are seen as a blessing and this is the reason for the high growth rate in Ghana. Explaining the reasons for the culture of a country is an extremely difficult task anywhere, and is no less challenging here. It may be a result of the strongly religious feelings of many Christian communities in Ghana or simply be a result of tribal traditions hundreds of years old.
Whilst the rate of economic development may affect the rate of change of attitudes, it could still be said that the reason for the wide range of population growth rates is the wide range of social attitudes, irrespective of a country’s economic situation. There are many different reasons for different social attitudes, whilst some cannot be explained other than by tradition. Human beings are capable of making a choice, and it is this ability, which causes the wide range of population growth rates around the world, each country’s citizens have a different situation and so a differing social attitude.
