NEGATIVE IMPLICATIONS (COSTS) OF AN INCREASING POPULATION

The negative implications of an increasing population are:

Overutilisation of natural resources. An increasing population leads to overutilisation of resources and their exhaustion due to overstocking, overfishing and over farming by the large population.

Widening income disparities. Income inequality increases because only a few people own means of production especially land and capital while the majority have very limited access to resources.
Low savings and investment. The level of savings and investment decreases due to the high dependence burden. The large number of dependants on few workers leads to consumption of most of the incomes and low savings.
land fragmentation and landlessness. Population increases more than the capacity of the available land to contain it leading to problems of landlessness and land fragmentation.
Poor standards of living. The living conditions of the people become poorer because more and more people, especially children, share the limited resources. This results in malnutrition, congestion, poor medical care and education facilities.
Increased government expenditure on provision of social services.

Government expenditure increases due to the rising cost of provision of social services such as infrastructure, education and health for the large population.
Balance of payment problems. A country faces balance of payment deficits because imports are increased to meet the ever increasing consumption needs of the population while exports do not increase at a fast rate because local output if mainly for domestic consumption.
Increased levels of unemployment and underemployment. The level of unemployment and underemployment rises because there are more workers than can be employed by the available resources.
Increased rates of rural-urban migration. Many people move from rural to urban centres in search of better opportunities such as social amenities and better paying jobs. This results in open urban unemployment and other evils.
Low income per capita. Although national income increases due to increase in national output, it increases at a rate less than the rate of population growth. This leads to lower and declining per capita incomes.

Increased social unrest. An increasing population leads to development of an idle and disorderly population because many people are unemployed, underemployed and poor and are therefore, easily convinced to cause social animosity in society, for example walk- to -work campaigns in Uganda.