What is the actual cause for population growth?

[FrostyBoy]

In the Civilization games, the more food you have, the faster your population growth; well we all know that isn't quite true in the real world.


So what is the main cause of population growth?

What was it like 10,000 years ago? Why did they have children? To work the land? Did they have many children or just 1 or 2?

Throughout the ages what has caused population growth exactly? Did the advanced Civilizations (such as the romans) have many children? Or just the underdeveloped civilizations?


Does the amount of food available have any effect at all? I seem to recall that starving African countries are overpopulated, yet they have no food; is this true?

This is not a civ question or a game question, but I'm curious, if you had to make the game Civilization realistic, how would you design population growth?

[curtsibling]

Possibly the surrounding employment/wealth/health/safety levels of a region being at a premium...

[Lawrence of Arabia]

1) women's rights, work oppertunities for women
2) available money/capital/resources

[Japher]

Interesting question. Also, on a side note, I heard that in order for a population to be considered "growing' that each family must have 2.1 kids... I believe that it's was 2.1 kids/per every two people or something like that, and that Europe is around 1.5 and is therefore shrinking!

Is that true?

And, I don't think any Europeans are starving. At the same time Americans are fat lazy bastards and we aren't growing out of proportion.

I think that when people switched from nomads to settlers due to the technology they realized the more hands to work the fields and hunt meant more "wealth", but it also meant more "freetime" which in the day before TV must have meant sex, which would get you kids as well.

[chequita guevara]

people ****ing, duh

[chequita guevara]

Re: What is the actual cause for population growth?

Originally posted by Sn00py
Does the amount of food available have any effect at all? I seem to recall that starving African countries are overpopulated, yet they have no food; is this true?

Starving African countries aren't starving all the time. It's simply impossible to have more people than you can feed on a long term basis. Normally not only can Africa feed itself, but it can feed Europe as well. The problem is in years when there is drought or locusts, etc., then Africa can only feed one continent, and guess which one has more money to buy scarce food. Even during the Somolian famine, Somolia was exporting food.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
people ****ing, duh

[FrostyBoy]

So really, having children is not something that the government can control directly.

Population growth is caused by how a couple feel about having children.

But I wonder how many were mistakes and how many were born from prostitution or similar.

[chequita guevara]

Would be parents make the final decision based on a number of economic and social factors. Politics comes in to pay by creating incentives or disincentives, though the PRC has forced some to have abortions.

[Japher]

Why is the population growth negative in Italy?

No one gets married!

I think today it has something to do with family values, and not just fornication. Do ppl have sex and not have kids? Of course. People adopt for this reason as well, and adoption is tough from what I hear.

Mistakes I think are fewer, and I think that in most cases the mistake turns out to be more of a surprise.

[Kidlicious]

The supply of food did at one time constrain population growth. That stopped with the industrialization of agriculture which has caused the exponential growth in population. Now population is increasing even though people are having less children because there is such a large base. It will decline when the large generations start to die off.

[Tingkai]

Re: What is the actual cause for population growth?

Originally posted by Sn00py
I

Throughout the ages what has caused population growth exactly? Did the advanced Civilizations (such as the romans) have many children? Or just the underdeveloped civilizations?

A primary cause would be new types of food, or new farming methods.

But perhaps more importantly are death rates. China has a large population because it was relatively stable and peaceful for 2,000-odd years.

A society engaged in long-term warfare has less ability to feed itself and more people dying which affects the logirithmic (correct word?) population increase.

[chequita guevara]

The main cause for the population explosion hasn't been the increase in the food supply, but rather the increase in sanitation and health care. More people are surviving infancy and reaching old age. If you look at many 3rd world countries, the population is more than half youth. Family planning hasn't caught up to more children surviving.

On top of this, you have the pernicious effects of religions telling people to have as many children as they possibly can and opposing birth control.

[Ben Kenobi]

1) women's rights, work oppertunities for women

Actually, that tends to result in a population decline, and has one of the strongest correlations with population decline.

2) available money/capital/resources

Not really. The wealthier you are, the less you have to rely upon children to take care of you, and the fewer you need to have to ensure that they will support you.

The poorer you are, often results in just the opposite, that you put everything you have into your kids, who then take care of you when you get older.

Also, if you know that having 3 kids, means 3 kids live to adulthood, then you are less likely to have more than 3 kids. If their future is less certain, then it won't make sense to only have 3.

[Japher]

You're right Che. I'm 30 and there is only one person younger in than me in our birthing class, and that's my wife.

Not only are people living longer, they are also having kids later in life... Also, deaths at birth have been reduce due to better birthing procedures and practices during pregnancy. I was reading a book writen in the 30s that said that you should quit smoking when pregnant as it causes undo stress.