Large Populations – General Overview, Advantages and Complications

Countries like China, United states of America, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Russia have large populations (not in relation to land mass or resources- just based on numbers). How can their population affect them both in a good note and a bad one? Generally speaking, a large population is one with a large number of inhabitants in a particular region at a particular time. Are there advantages of having such a population? Let’s find out!

1. Large Labor: High population provides large labor force for the industries.
2. Large market: High population is a source of a large market for the goods produced by the industries.
3. Defence: Organized army and other law enforcement agencies are easy to recruit in highly populated areas.
4. Quick information dissemination: Because people stay everywhere in these areas, it is very easy for information to go round quickly.
5. Attraction to investors: Investors are easily attracted to areas of high population because of large market for finished products.
6. Urbanization: Areas of large population do lead to urbanization.
7. Respect from international bodies: Countries with high population are normally respected by international bodies like W.H.O; U.N.O etc.
8. Attraction of foreign aids: countries with high population do enjoy foreign aid from developed countries such as United state of America and Japan etc.

Food for thought- can you think over the significance of the American lottery?

On the other hand it could be disadvantageous in that, Natural resources like fertile farmlands, minerals, etc become over exploited where there is high population growth in an area; areas of high population density are usually associated with high crime rate due to lack of jobs; as a result of the high influx of people into an area, there will not be sufficient food to cater for a high population which leads to food shortage. Also, areas of high population density usually do not have enough jobs for the ever increasing influx of people. This leads to unemployment and underemployment; high population concentration leads to poor accommodation as the houses available may not be enough for the high population; traffic congestion since many people travel by road at the same time, environmental pollution due to poor housing, turn out of waste materials due to high level of human activities. More disadvantages can occur by pressure on social amenities like pipe borne water, electricity etc which are usually over stretched by the influx of people into the area; inadequate health services to meet up or match the increasing population; reduction in standard of living due to a drop in per capital income and a high cost of living.

From these few afore-mentioned points we can deduce that the developed nations can benefit highly from a large population because they have all the amenities already in place and they can manage as much as possible the implications which in a final balance scale, they have the edge of benefiting highly from large population. Whereas the developing nations tend to be on the other end (its implications). Putting the United states of America and Nigeria into this pictures helps to better understand it.