Malthusian Theory

The Malthusian Population Theory was a demographic theory created around 1789 in England by economist and Protestant priest Thomas Robert Malthus (1766 - 1834), in his main work, Essay on the Principle of Population. According to this theory, the world population grows in geometric progression, while food production in arithmetic progression. The importance of this publication in this historical moment, at the end of the eighteenth century, was due to the problems in which the country passed with the First Industrial Revolution , such as the rural exodus , unemployment and population increase, where in short periods of time there was a growth population in the european countries that accompanied the implementation of the revolution.

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Malthusianism

Malthus believed that poverty was part of mankind's destiny, based on the premise that the population had unlimited growth potential, unlike food production. He concluded that if population growth were not contained, the population would grow according to a geometric progression, and food production would grow according to an arithmetic progression, so the population would double every 25 years.

If the theory were to be confirmed and there was this mismatch between increasing population and lack of food, the result would be a starving world population living in misery, which would lead to a disruption in social life. Therefore, the increase of the population would be the cause, and the misery, the consequence.

To contain the fast pace of population growth, Malthus, based on his religious background, believed in the need for birth control, which he called "moral control". Such control should not be done by the use of contraceptive methods, but by sexual abstinence or postponement of marriages. It is worth mentioning that this control was only suggested for the poorest population. According to him, it was necessary to force the most needy population to reduce the number of children.

Why did not Malthus's theory materialize?

The Malthusian theory did not imagine the technological advances that were to come, the emancipation of women to have been decisive in controlling fertility, women entering the labor market, social well-beingin european countries, which, in a way, served for birth control. The population did not growin geometric progression, therefore, did not double every 25 years. Technological modernization was able to increase the development of land cultivation, making food production sufficient, and then reaching a geometric progression. Thus, hunger and misery could not be attributed to the productive incapacity of food, as Malthus believed, but to its maldistribution.

Curiosity

Besides being a demographer, economist and statistician, Thomas Malthus was also pastor of the Anglican Church and professor of History and Political Economy.