Population Growth and Economic

Development. Case Study of China,

Singapore and France

Dr. Shoaib Ahmed Wagan

Email: waganshoaib@yahoo.com
 Malthusian Theory of Population
 Thomas Robert Malthus :
 Population
increases by geometric progression (exponential)
2*2= 4*4=8*8=16…
 Resources increases by arithmetic mean 1, 2 3, 4 ,5 …
 Positive check: Nature has its own ways of keeping a check on the increasing
population. It brings the population level to the level of the available food supply. The
positive checks include famines, earthquakes, flood, epidemics, wars, etc. Nature plays up
when the population growth goes out of hand.
 Primitive check: The preventive measures such as late marriage, self-control,
simple living, help to balance the population growth and food supply. These measures not
only check the population growth, but can also prevent the catastrophic effects of the
positive checks.
Population growth
 Population growth is associated with slower per capita
income growth and slower improvement in living standard
 Higher fertility decreases family resources for completion of
basic needs and living standard
 In 2013, the world’s population reached about 7.2 billion
people. In that year, the United Nations Population Division
projected that population would rise to about 8.1 billion in
2025 and reach about 9.6 billion by the year 2050.
 The majority of that population will inhabit the developing
world
 China is leading country worldwide in term of population
Population growth China
 China is high populated country and there population is over 1.388
billion.
 There is a inverse relationship between Economic growth and
Population growth of China before the policy.
 higher the birth rate, the slower the economic growth.
 Adopted one child policy for economic growth in 1979.
 The one-child policy has left China’s economic and social support
systems and overcome population growth
 It helps as:
 1. Lower fertility leads to a higher level of schooling per child.
 2. Lower fertility increases parental labor supply.
 3. Lower fertility may facilitate parental migration, thus enabling the
reallocation of the labor force from rural to urban areas.
Economic growth policies of China

 1978 economics reform;

 Household responsibility system: 1979, Household responsibility
system was development from government to improve agricultural
productivity and small scale industrial growth.
 Land distribution policies: Land owned by government
 One Mu for one person (1 Acre=6.07Mu) for 30 years
 Land protection policies (Land quantity protection and Land quality
protection)
 Foreign Direct Investment: Invited foreign industries with less taxes
and duties, it support to produce skilled labor and GDP
 Trade policy: Chinese government provides subsidies to support export
and substitute to imports
 Economic Growth of Singapore
 Singapore was a poverty-stricken, disease-riddled little port city with a multi-
racial population of around a million Chinese, Malays, and Indians, constantly
fighting with each other, while living in poor housing conditions.
 Singapore found itself in 1965
 Each ethnic group was let to “their own devices to mobilize resources and
develop their own community organization to look after the welfare and
religious needs of its members
 In fact, in 1964 Singapore was shaken by racial riots which resulted in dozens of
deaths and hundreds of injured.
 To top it all at least half the population of the time was illiterate, had little or no
access to education, housing and health care
 Singapore had no natural resources, and relied on processing rubber and other
local produce
 Economic Growth of Singapore
 had a few positive things going on for them, starting with its geographic
location, it located at mouth of the Strait of Malacca, which has been
historically the major maritime gateway to and from Asia
 British also left a certain legacy to Singapore as port area, and railroads
for the transport of commodities between Singapore and Malaysia
 Singapore economic development cannot be understood removed from
the key principles put forward by the government of maintaining
 (a) An active military and compulsory recruitment for prevention and
protection
 (b) good relations with other countries in a base of reciprocity,
Economic Growth of Singapore

 (c) a secure and peaceful environment in and around Southeast Asia and in the
Asia Pacific region and
 (d) a free and open multilateral trading system
 Singapore gears up for its 50th year of independence, its remarkable
transformation into an economic powerhouse is there for all to see
 Today’s Singapore is a model for developed and developing economies alike.
 Developing economies look at Singapore as a role model as they chart their
own economic turnarounds
 In 1965, the country became a member of the United Nations and the
Commonwealth of Nations
 Two years later founded the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)
to promote cooperative trade and efforts
Economic Growth of Singapore

 While in 1989, Singapore founded the Asia-Pacific Economic

Cooperation (APEC), a forum of currently 21 Pacific Rim
member economies with the purpose of promoting free trade
throughout the Asia-Pacific region.

 Singapore established diplomatic relations with more than 189

countries and started to negotiate in earnest Free Trade
Agreements and Investment Treaties

 Currently, Singapore is part of 79 International Investment

Agreements (IIA) to contribute economy
Factors Contributing to Singapore’s Growth

 Flexible and Future-sensitive Planning

 Policymakers planned for flexibility and with an outward-facing perspective to response to
needs of international market
 Provided cheap, trained and disciplined labor force
 Government carefully chooses programs to subsidize housing, healthcare, education
 Housing Policy that facilitates wealth-building and stability
 Policymakers decided to promote the public housing via Housing Development Board
(HDB) down payments and loan-servicing
 Education and Manpower Development
 Establishment of education policy based on skills needed in various economic development
 Education is linked to manpower planning to support in tertiary programs law, medicine,
architecture, engineering
Factors Contributing to Singapore’s
Growth
 Push towards R&D and Innovation
 Singapore started competing closer and closer to the technology
barrier, started creation of innovation and technology
 Invested in R&D infrastructure and efforts to increase
technological income
 Economic Growth of France
 The French Revolution
 In old regime the countries were ruled by absolutism – the monarch had absolute control over
the government
 Unprivileged people – paid taxes and treated badly
 Privileged people – did not pay taxes and treated well
 In France, people were divided into three estates
 First Estate
 High-ranking members of the Church
 Privileged class
 Second Estate
 Nobility

 Privileged class
 Third Estate
 Everyone else – from peasants in the countryside to wealthy bourgeoisie merchants in
the cities
 Unprivileged class
• Monarch /King ruled by divine right (Lord like)
– God put some people in positions of power
– Power is given by God
– No one can question God
– No one can question someone put in power by God
Economic Conditions under the Old Regime
 France economy was based on
agriculture
 Peasant farmers of France bore the
burden of taxation
 King spend money on himself and
residences like nobles and military and
church masters
 A government spending more money
than it takes in from tax revenues
 Advantaged classes would not submit
to being taxed
 It created war and poverty situation
 Low agricultural productivity and food
crises taken place
Philosophy of the French Revolution: The Enlightenment
(Age of Reason)
1. Serious Hungry, impoverished peasants feared that nobles at Estates-General
were seeking greater rights
 Voting was conducted by estate
 Each estate had one vote
 First and Second Estates could operate as a bloc to stop the Third Estate
from having its way

S
V o ec on
te o d E
r 11 sta
0, 0 t e =
00 1
Vo
te s
Philosophy of the French Revolution: The
Enlightenment (Age of Reason)
 Economic and social problems and unequal voting created violation
which results eradication of monarchy and a completely new socio-
political system for France
 The Third Estate relocated to a nearby tennis court where its
members vowed to stay together and create a written constitution
for France.
 On June 23, 1789, Louis XVI relented. He ordered the three estates
to meet together as the National Assembly and vote, by population,
on a constitution for France.
 The National Assembly established, which considered that it has been
bad to establish the constitution of the kingdom, to effect the public,
and, finally, all members are assembled taken oath
Major changes under the National Assembly
 Declaration of the Rights of Man
 Abolition of special privileges
 Taxes levied based on the ability to pay
 Freedom of religion
 Freedom of speak
 Women could receive property, but only because doing so weakened feudalism and
reduced wealth among the upper classes.
 Women rights movement, and was able not to influenced husband
 Leading Economic Development factors
 Exports of value added quality products
 Exporter of processed food
 Exports of services such Business and IT, transportation and Tourism
 Exporter of Weapons
 Entrepreneurship
 Major share of Tertiary Industry in GDP