Population and Resources: The effects on China and Bolivia

China

With only 7% of the world's arable land and 8% of the world water supply for 25% of the world population, China has great difficulty providing water, food, employment and facilities for its people.

Another 13 million Chinese babies will be born this year, how does overpopulation affect china?

Overpopulation is when the population of an area or country is too great to be supported and sustained by available, natural resources.

Social and economical development has been hampered and slowed as a result o rising population rate.

Whilst the population rises, development is still not bridging the gap needed to raise quality of life.

Factors affecting quality of life

In 1999 the number of unemployed people in china was around 9.37 million. There are not enough jobs in china to go round everyone, only the well educated and plain lucky get jobs. This is a major economical and social issue, as those who cannot find work get frustrated and cannot support their families.

Whilst under-nutrition and famine is not I widespread problem or concern in china today, the rising population in putting increased pressure on cereal supplies, both population and cereal population are rising but population is rising at a much higher rate.

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Economic developments is not even across the country many people, living in remote villages etc, live in poverty and are unable to work themselves out of I with out full fledged support form the Chinese government.

Internal migration within china proves to be a big headache for the authorities. As people move form the poorly developed and supported rural areas, to the highly developed city areas.

The highly developed areas of china already have a large population and as internal migration increases, the strain on resources increases.

Bolivia

With a population of 8,857,870 and a population density of 6.4 persons per square kilometre, Bolivia is vastly under populated.

Under population is when a country's population is too small to make efficient use of naturally occurring resources, this can stop development and slow economic growth to a disatourous level.

Bolivia is a place of varied topography, landlocked in South America; it is a place of extreme environments. Bolivia is the poorest country in South America, however the country has abundant supplies of varied metals, coal, gold, dense forests and plenty of potential for exiting development, and Bolivia continues to grow slowly.

Most of the population remains un-educated and those that are employed are employed in menial simple labour. The main problem in Bolivia is simple, for all the resources and potential to work 2 things are required, technology and manpower, 2 things Bolivia has very little of. The lack of education in the country means many people are unable to gain the specialist knowledge required to support design and innovate technologies. The low population hinders progress and development through an insufficient workforce to work on new developments, the less people working on a project the longer it takes and the more it costs slowing down the rate of development and damaging the economy.

Resent statistic show that the birth rate in Bolivia has fallen from 7.3 children per woman in 1965 to 4.2 children per woman today. Although Bolivia has plenty of work to share around un-employment is very high as many people are not physically able to perform the strenuous manual labour, needed for most job positions. As mentioned before Bolivia has a very varied topography, the population of Bolivia is spread across this area, and many jobs are too far away from many people or are in unsuitable locations for easy transportation, many Bolivians cannot afford a car or public transport.

In recent years many people in Bolivia have turned to the illegal trade of cocaine, it is believed Bolivia is the world's 3rd largest exporter of cocaine.

Why would people turn to cocaine exportation?

Cocaine exportation, smuggling and growing is a very reliable income for those involved. A traditional local herbal remedy, there is no social stigma attached to it. Although it is illegal to export the drug, there are too few people in authorities to police the growth of this exportation.