The Malthusian Paradigm and COVID -19: Challenges and Opportunities

Mekelle University Institute of Population Studies (IPoSt) Center for Population and Development PhD Program in Population and Development Seminar 2: Assignment 1 The Malthusian Paradigm and COVID – 19: Challenges and Opportunities By Kinfe Assefa PhD Student, Institute of Population Studies(IPoSt) PhD Student, Knife Assefa The Malthusian Paradigm and COVID – 19: Challenges and Opportunities Apr, 2020 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. 2. 3. 4. INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................3 PURPOSE...............................................................................................................4 THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS...............................................................................4 CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES............................................................................7 4.1 CHALLENGES.............................................................................................................................................7 4.2. OPPORTUNITIES.......................................................................................................................................10 5. 6. CONCLUSIONS......................................................................................................12 REFERENCES........................................................................................................13 PhD Student, Knife Assefa PAGE | 2 The Malthusian Paradigm and COVID – 19: Challenges and Opportunities Apr, 2020 1.Introduction The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has created tremendous chaos around the world, affecting people’s lives and causing a large number of deaths. The birth and transmission of the Sars-Cov-2 virus, and the COVID-19 illness it generates, and the response to it – are matters for many dsceplines including demographers. The full consequences will emerge over time, but certain observations may be proposed. It is plain that the health needs of COVID-19 go beyond the capacities of existing hospitals, and other institutional setups. Its first cases were detected in Wuhan, China in December 2019 and now it has been spread to almost every country. Trends from globalization to travel, urbanization and climate change are fueling the increased incidence of outbreaks. There is an increasingly mobile global population, travelling more for both work and pleasure than ever before. Governments of many countries have proposed policies to mitigate the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Malthus’ pessimism and spiritual education inclined him to believe that over-population was an important burden on the world, that was mechanically lessened by God in the form of misery, wars, famines, floods, diseases, pestilence, etc. However, of these area unit natural misfortunes that do not seem to be peculiar to over-populated countries. They visit even those countries wherever the population is on the decline or stationary, like France and Japan (Smriti C., 2020). Therefore, the Malthusian paradigm along with COVID–19 will be reviewed and examined in the subsequent sections. PhD Student, Knife Assefa PAGE | 3 The Malthusian Paradigm and COVID – 19: Challenges and Opportunities Apr, 2020 2.Purpose The purpose of this paper is to review and examine various letratures with regard to the captioned title and finally come up with conclusions and way forwards in response to the assignment provided for the seminar course. 3.Theoretical considerations The radical pessimism imbibed in “dire prophecies of Malthus” (Wolfgram, 2010) regarding threatening view of human growth has long been the fountainhead of world policies and actions directed towards the developing countries. The argument between growth and subsistence goes back to the classical theory of Thomas Malthus. Within the eighteenth century, the speculation of Thomas Malthus has created everybody meet up with believe the negative impact of population on development. The Malthusianism explains the connection between the expansion in food supply and in population. It states that population will increase quicker than food supply and if uncurbed results in vice or misery (Smriti C, 2020). According to this theory, the exponential growth of population could not be supported by the arithmetic increase of subsistence, in effect, the theory is reinforced by this dismal hypothesis, as human population grows food offer would be meagre to feed the rising people in order that population pushed back below the carrying capacity of agricultural systems (Bremner, 2010). The natural and virtual difference between sided links. Changes and variations towards population increasing and production population has manyand land insufficiency were at first attainable through land extensification (Bekele, 2006). As PhD Student, Knife Assefa PAGE | 4 The Malthusian Paradigm and COVID – 19: Challenges and Opportunities opportunities for land growth disappeared, ecosystems, typically while not the agriculture mandatory resource has Apr, 2020 intruded amendments into fragile and run to soil degradation, deforestation, and loss of diverseness. Consequently, Malthus urged positive and preventive checks to balance the rising population with the prevailing subsistence. The positive checks embrace increase of mortality as a results of disease, famine, deficiency disease and war whereas preventive checks square measure due to reducing fertility via delay wedding, abstain, and others(Bremner, 2010). On the word of classical economists, population is a variable determined by preceding changes in agricultural productivity. According to coale and Hoover, high population growth is an obstacle for development that brings burden on public outlay for education, housing and health services. Neo-liberalists believe that robust economy supports population growth whereas radical ecologists argue for stabilization or maybe drop of human population so as to reserve the earth’s carrying capacity (Arman et al, 2011). On the one hand, the earth is limited, which might solely sustain a definite number of people though nobody is aware of what that exact size could also be. In light of this paradigm, population is one of the development challenges in Ethiopia (Getnet, 2012). On the contrary, Boserup(1981) dropped at light-weight that population as an independent determinant and a first-rate driver of technological inventions. The argument of classical theory is neutralized by Boserupian theories via justification of the growing population would respond to their food demands through scientific knowledge and agricultural inventions over a period of time (Bremner, 2010). In relation to this, Mekuria(2018) came up with finding that this downside may be tackled through increasing productivity of land. Consequently, the food supply has increased much faster than in arithmetical progression through improved cultivation practices and technologies. PhD Student, Knife Assefa PAGE | 5 The Malthusian Paradigm and COVID – 19: Challenges and Opportunities Apr, 2020 Besides, World Bank has remarked to Green Revolution as a “paradigm” for development, and it argues that food production has outdone population growth worldwide. For instance in China, institutional and land policy reforms square measure the most causes for agricultural development that meant to support the growing population (Haimanot et al, 2017). It implies institutional reforms, policy changes, and technological innovation will influence favourably the connection between population and subsistence. Thus, population growth is an opportunity for development so that population is not a tangle; however, government policies, economic structures and organization of the society are a problem (Wolfgram, 2005). According to (Lomborg, 2001), in the past 40 years, nutritional standards throughout the world have improved drastically. The natural catastrophes like local famines have occurred less frequently than in the past and these do not appear to have any correlation with overpopulation. As it has been made evident in such diverse countries like Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia, Malawi and North Korea, they have mostly caused from specific local socio-political conditions (Abruzzi, 2002). Thus, Malthus has been proved wrong not only in the advanced countries but also in developing countries like India with the ‘green revolution’. According to Smriti(2020) discussion, empirically, it has been proved by demographists that population growth is a function of the level of per capita income. The globe is experiencing a decline in fertility rate and population growth because of increasing living standard or per capita income. As discussed in Abruzzi (2002), the Malthusian theory had experienced wrong interpretation as a socio-political product of the political economy of England in the early 19th century instead of as an environmental treatise. Currently, it is a tool of developed countries to blame the poorer developing countries for all world resource imbalances even with its amendments (Schuurman, 2008). PhD Student, Knife Assefa PAGE | 6 The Malthusian Paradigm and COVID – 19: Challenges and Opportunities Apr, 2020 4.Challenges and Opportunities Many are now beginning to ascribe meaning to the collective experience. Ambiguity presents both an opportunity and a challenge in moments of crisis. An opportunity because it can prompt action which transcends existing paradoxes, but also a challenge because it can entrench existing biases. In this case, an idea is reflected and forwared with imperfect information and much uncertainty. COVID-19 knows no borders, and neither should the response. Whether these borders are international frontiers, disciplinary boundaries, or industry sectors, it is clear that there need to work together to understand the wide-ranging implications of COVID-19. There can be global challenges and opportunities related to economic, environmental, geopolitical, societal, and technological. 4.1 Challenges 1. Unemployment challenge This challenge is one of the economic challenges typically caused by COVID-19 pandemic this time. Unemployment is the main problem that results from COVID-19, and represents a burden on the state’s budget. As the widespread of coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to threaten the global community, the economy will decline(Chandra, 2020). As cited in Evans(2020), health is fundamental to a prosperous productive society, whereas panic and illness can stifle production, consumption, recreation, travel, and overall well-being. According to Safaa fatouh Gomaa (2020), any states have four categories for labor: the administrative labor “paper labor”, the factories labor, the craft labor, and the service labor. A solution was prposed to turn this challenge to benefits that support the states to overcome COVID-19 though this may be typical to developed countries. First, by turnnin the paper tasks to electronic tasks then no unemployment in the administrative labor. Second, by turning the manual factories to electronic ones; in effect, no passive effects for unemployment in manufactories sector then continuing production with minimum rate of PhD Student, Knife Assefa PAGE | 7 The Malthusian Paradigm and COVID – 19: Challenges and Opportunities Apr, 2020 labor by shifting system. Lastly, conducting transformational training for crafts and service labor then no unemployment in craft & service labor(Safaa fatouh Gomaa, 2020). On the other hand, North American governments proposed a solution and put into legislative to the unemployment challenge caused by the COVID-19 pandemic; which are a broadening of access to (un)employment insurance (EI) and the adoption of payroll subsidies for companies(Lord, 2020). As the widespread of coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to threaten the global community, the global economy will decline. 2. Educational challenge Educational challenge is one of the societal challenges currently being caused by COVID-19 pandemic. Countries around the world have decided to temporarily close schools and universities. Teaching is moving online on an unchartered and unprecedented scale. Students’ learning and assessments are also shifted online, with a lot of trial and error and uncertainty for every stakeholder. Many assessments have been cancelled due to the crisis. As these interruptions stay long, it may harvest unwanted consequences for educational institution, and are likely to increase inequality. Thus, Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic will bring a substantial number of educational challenges. According to Azzi-Huck (2020), the Covid-19 pandemic gives a lesson in getting always ready to cope with the unexpected and get prepared to provide students the best no matter where the learning process takes place. Investing in technology system is crucial for both private and public sectors. The lockdown of educational institutions is causing significant interruption in students’ learning and assessments. 3. Humans and nature disconnection challenge This challenge is one of the environmental challenges in relation to biodiversity loss, which is currently being caused by COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic draws attention to the profound disconnect that exists in modern societies between humans and their environment. As cited by Sander et al. (2020), as a zoonotic disease, COVID- 19 is the latest PhD Student, Knife Assefa PAGE | 8 The Malthusian Paradigm and COVID – 19: Challenges and Opportunities Apr, 2020 newcomer in a long list of what Jared Diamond calls the ‘deadly gifts from our animal friends’. It has long been clear that human health is inextricably linked with that of animals and the environment, but this phenomenon has been exacerbated by increased rates of environmental degradation combined with high levels of urbanisation. Constrained by traditional legal structures, international environmental law has been unable to fully adopt an ecosystemic approach that appreciates the interconnections between the health of our planet, biodiversity, and humans. More specifically, if the hypothesis that the virus originated in a live animal market in Wuhan were confirmed, it would be a painful demonstration of the failure of existing legal regimes to protect the wildlife(Sander et al., 2020). Further, in the face of a global pandemic, domesticated and companion animals are relegated to the most vulnerable stratification of society. Companion animals (pets) have been established as family members in a wide breath of cultures globally; thereby ensuring reliance on humans for maintaining care and wellbeing. This is the moment we collectively challenge the notion of companion animals as family members and the importance of these very animals in our lives(Farkas et al, 2020). 4. Environmental protection challenge The response to the pandemic might nevertheless bring unforeseen environmental impacts, linked for instance to last-minute constructions of hospitals without prior environmental impact assessments; large scale, repeated spraying of disinfectants in cities and towns to eradicate the virus; or temporarily scrapping the plastic bag levy to avoid risking spreading the virus through reusable bags. Additionally, the pandemic could hinder the implementation of environmental treaties: for instance, reporting, financial or capacity-building duties might not be met as a result of shifting priorities(Sander et al., 2020). The pandemic has shed significant uncertainties about the holding of these important environmental talks and risks delaying action and losing momentum in the short run. As for the longer-term impacts of the pandemic for environmental protection, they remain to be seen. PhD Student, Knife Assefa PAGE | 9 The Malthusian Paradigm and COVID – 19: Challenges and Opportunities Apr, 2020 4.2. Opportunities 1. Climate change opportunity In the short-term, the pandemic appears to be having a positive impact on the environment, with emissions of air pollutants and greenhouse gases decreasing significantly in areas affected by the virus. Both global health and climate change are collective action problems, and similarities are plentiful: for instance, both crises rely heavily on scientific knowledge and require individual actions that might not be clearly linked to a collective outcome and can suffer from policy and behavioural lethargy. The warnings of the World Health Organisation about ‘alarming levels of inaction’ from governments will sound oddly familiar to all those involved in the climate fight. However, the unprecedented measures taken by governments to limit the spread of the disease have been exponentially more drastic than those designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions(Sander et al., 2020). A few weeks ago, it was thought that changing our ways of life drastically to mitigate climate change would be impossible. It was told that economic growth would always be prioritised over environmental protection. Governments did not have the budget to finance the energy transition in the countries and abroad. And yet, the pandemic has suddenly shown that when the threat becomes evident, all this becomes possible at great speed and scale. The lexicon used to describe both problems may have been the same – ‘crisis’, ‘emergency’ – but their implications in the climate context have been much more timid. When compared with responses to the pandemic, the inability of the international community to act decisively to solve the climate crisis becomes even more striking(Sander et al., 2020). 2. Tourism opportunity for certain countries Corona(covid-19) pandemic will have both positive and negative impact on tourism. The impact will vary from country to country. According to Choudhary (2020), it is found that PhD Student, Knife Assefa PAGE | 10 The Malthusian Paradigm and COVID – 19: Challenges and Opportunities Apr, 2020 Corona(covid-19) and lockdown as an opportunity to improve and explore new horizon of tourism with more improved infrastructure and service. The Corona(covid-19) crisis and conditional lockdown by several countries have generated tendency of “ escape for change” among locked people. Choudhary highlited that lockdown can be seen as an opportunity to see more tourists and tourism in coming days. Tourism stakeholders should grab this opportunity by monitoring, evaluating and forecasting the dormant demand which is locked inside the hoses in lockdown and waiting to escape for long term change immediately or afterwards. It would be advisable to keep eye for detail to bring dynamism in tourism through more creativity and curiosity. Further, Road (2020) evaluated the impact of COVID19 on Sri Lanka tourism industry. Accordingly, it is concluded that the tourism industry will continue to generate foreign exchange, offer employment opportunities, develop the rural areas, increase cross-cultural understanding and will deliver many more opportunities. Thus, it is important to hold the grounds as a must visit and a safe destinations in the world even during these turbulence times. PhD Student, Knife Assefa PAGE | 11 The Malthusian Paradigm and COVID – 19: Challenges and Opportunities Apr, 2020 Conclusions The paper suggests that the Malthusian theory holds much truth despite its many weaknesses and its applicability this time. The Malthusian doctrine may not be appropriate now to its place of origin, but its influence vast in other parts of the world more likely in the whole developing and least developed countires. For instance, India is one of the first countries to adopt family planning on the state level to control the population. Positive checks like floods, wars, droughts, disuse, and the like were operational. However, the covid-19 pandemic is just a natural phenomenon and it has no relationship with rapid population growth for it is affecting equally all counties with varied magnitude of population growth. There is a need to apply a revisionist perspective towards mapping economic growth in developing countries without blaming the poor and analyzing not just the population growth. Ambiguity presents both an opportunity and a challenge in moments of crisis. An opportunity because it can prompt action which transcends existing paradoxes, but also a challenge because it can entrench existing biases. In this case, an idea is reflected and forwarded with imperfect information and much uncertainty. PhD Student, Knife Assefa PAGE | 12 The Malthusian Paradigm and COVID – 19: Challenges and Opportunities Apr, 2020 1. References Abruzzi (2002). Socio-political implications of the persistent western concern with global population growth. [Online] Available at: http://www.drabruzzi.com/FORUM_paper.htm [Accessed 22 Apr 2020]. Arman M. et al(2011). Positioning population within broader sustainability discourse: A political economy approach. Ninth international conference of the european society for ecological economics. Azzi-Huck et al(March 18, 2020). Managing the impact of COVID-19 on education systems around the world: How countries are preparing, coping, and planning for recovery. Retrieved April 22, 2020 from https://blogs.worldbank.org/education/managing-impactcovid-19-education-systems- around-world-how-countries-are-preparing. Bekele S.( 2006). Poverty and natural resource management in the semi-arid tropics: Revisiting challenges and conceptual issues. SAT e Journal ejournal.icrisat.org. Boserup E.(1981). Population and technological change: A study of long- term trends: University of Chicago. Journal of political analysis and management. Bremner J.(2010). Population, poverty, environment, and climate dynamics in the developing world. Interdisciplinary Environmental Review. Choudhary, C. K. (2020). Corona ( Covid-19 ) And Tourism : More Opportunities In The. 1– 5. Coale AJ, Hoover EM.(1958). 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Retrieved April 22, 2020 from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/03/coronavirus-global-epidemics-healthpandemic-covid-19/. Smriti C. (2020). Malthusian Theory of Population: Criticisms and Applicability. Retrieved April 22, 2020 from http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/population/malthusian-theoryof-population-criticisms-and-applicability/10885. PhD Student, Knife Assefa PAGE | 14