World in the balance

Judging from the patterns of demographic change, it is imminent that we are going to face a major population crisis. There is no doubt that both the developed and the developing countries are behind this and that the population policies introduced to solve the problem seem to have hit a snag.

Just take a look at China, the world's fastest developing country where GDP continues to enjoy growth of double digit percentage points every year. Despite having the one-child policy around for decades, the population continues to grow at exponential rates, partly due to lack of reinforcement of the law as well as rampant corruption among officials. Continued population growth will bring about high unemployment rate in the country as the country would not be able to generate enough jobs for the entire country. Instead of serving its purpose of controlling the population, such policies brought about adverse effects to the society. Rooted to their Confucianism ethics, Chinese are bound to the obligation of having a male offspring so as to continue the family line and with the one-child policy in place, many of the less-educated peasants from rural villages would rather end a baby girl's life or desert her for a second chance of conceiving a boy. This leads to serious gender inbalance in the country, which will eventually lead to more social problems such as difficulty for a man to get a wife and shortage of female workers in related industries.

If the problems caused as as result of overpopulation are disturbing, the consequences of an ageing population would be disastrous. Ageing population is a common trend seen in many developed countries such as Japan, Italy, Germany and yes, Singapore. In Singapore, in spite of repeated calls for people to have more offsprings and incentives targetted at those who respond to these calls, there seem to be only a minor blip in an otherwise downward population trend. This might not be serious enough to press the emergency button for now but there are serious repurcussions for these countries in the future. With an ageing population, a country will face a shortage of labour, which will lead to it losing its economic competitve edge and eventually failure to sustain the economy. After which, future economic powerhouses such as India and China will take over, usurping the country's position of leader in the economical rat race. This may look like a case of winning or losing on the macro level, but when zoomed to the micro level, such a scenario would probably mean that the country will undergo recession, leading to high unemployment and a considerable drop in the standard of living.

As such, countries should take the initiative to make sure that population policies are effective in solving the two population issues. Only then, the standard of living of the people can be maintained and we would not have to see such unwanted possibilities materialise.