What conclusions for the role of population in economic development can we draw from the British industrialisation experience?
What conclusions for the role of population in economic development can we draw from the British industrialisation experience?
Economic development is the process of improving the standard of living and well-being of the population of developing countries by raising per capita income. Population has a complex role in this process, influencing, inducing and determining the behaviour of the demand and supply sides of the economy, which, in turn, interact, but the geographical aspects also require consideration. By analysing the British experience of industrialisation over the early 18th to mid 19th century we will ascertain the nature of the roles played by population in economic development.
Population has a major role in economic development: people are a factor of production and have varying types and sizes of influence on the production possibility frontier and national income, depending on their circumstances. Malthus, however, believed the growth in numbers would always limit the living standards of the population at subsistence level. His argument, as put forth in his “Essay on the Principles of Population” (1798), was that, while food production could increase in an arithmetic ratio, the exponential growth of population would create increasing food prices, declining real wages and inevitably reach a point where the carrying capacity of the land would be outstripped by the number of people dependent on it. Here, “positive” checks would occur to reduce population such as famine, while “preventative” checks of voluntary constraint of early marriages would further alleviate the pressure, influenced by the relationship between living standards and real wages and nuptiality. Using Wrigley and Schofield (1981) data, the English population grew from 5 million at the beginning of the 18th century, to 8.6 million by 1800, and continued rising, reaching 16 million by the mid 19th century. According to Malthus’s theory, this should be reflected in increasingly negative circumstances for the population; however, there was a growth rate of 0.6% per year during the 18th century in England, with real wages remaining constant through this period (Lee 1986). It is fairly safe to say that Malthus’s argument was incorrect; he did not consider the ability of population to be able to simulate the supply-side of the economy. For example, important agricultural organisational changes were brought about, such as parliamentary enclosure; incited by rising food prices and desire for the application of the best available techniques and innovation, there was a new wave of enclosures, culminating in the government’s General Enclosure Act in 1801. Crop rotation was also introduced in 1730 by Charles Townshend, and new practices in selective breeding also occurred. In this way, food growth was proved to be exponential, population managing to expand agricultural production to satisfy it’s needs.
