FACT: Many Factors Impact Economic Status
Many people believe that countries and societies become--and remain--poor because of their large populations. In fact, population size itself cannot be linked to economic well-being and prosperity in any predictable manner. There are often other important factors--land mass, availability of resources, and infrastructure, to name a few--in relation to population count that impacts a country's economic status. Still, a country's population size is often used as an excuse to explain glaring policy oversights, especially for the failure to invest in the provision of quality public services including basic education, health care and security. A comparison of two countries, Malaysia and Nepal, both with approximately the same population number, 23 million, may serve to clarify this point. Nepal reports a per capita income of US$220 and Malaysia of US$3,400. Why is this so? Clearly, the connections between population size and economic well-being are complex, involving a range of factors. There could be many reasons why Malaysia has done so much better than Nepal. For example, although they have the same number of people living within their borders, Malaysia is twice the size of Nepal. Population density--not size--may be more important in understanding poverty than a country's actual head count. But the most obvious difference is in terms of people's achievements in health and education across these two countries. In Malaysia, 88% of the adult population can read and write; in Nepal, the literacy rate is only 42%. In Malaysia, 96% of the births are attended to by a skilled health staff whereas in Nepal, the number is exceedingly low--only 12%. Malaysia's infant mortality rate (IMR) is 8 deaths per 1,000 live births (it is 7 in the United States). In Nepal, the IMR is 72. Malaysia reports a maternal mortality rate of 41 per 100,000 live births, and in Nepal, 540. These statistics indicate that Malaysians have better access to basic education and health care - much more so than the average Nepalese. And the more secure and well-looked after people are in their country, the more they can contribute to economic progress. It is therefore not surprising that in 1975-2000, while Malaysia's per capita income grew annually by 4.1%, Nepal's grew by only 2.1%. Obviously, population size alone is not the single, nor the most important, factor in considering causes of poverty. Above all, a country's lack of effective policies that support sustained access to vital public services, including basic education and health care, affects a people's ability to progress as individuals as well as a community.
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