The Reasons For Growth Of Rapid Population Between Nineteenth And Nineteenth Century Britain

In 19th Century England, living conditions were horrible for the poor. If you didn’t have enough money to stay out of poverty you were heading into a harsh and unforgiving life as a person in the slums. People took poison to escape the horrors that a poor person could easily slip into. Both adults and little children drank gin and beer because of all of the sewage and garbage dumped into the rivers. For the many, many poor people there was often no clean water and people went to the bathroom in ‘bathroom’ privies that everyone in the slums used outside. At least half of the poor children died before their fifth birthday. In contrast, the wealthy could have mansions with servants, grand food, and clean drinking water. On top of all of this,

Thomas Malthus was an English philosopher who lived from 1766 to 1834, An Essay on the Principle of Population, is one of the most influential pieces of writing in history. Not only did it help to establish the modern field of economics, it aided Charles Darwin on his regarding evolutionary science. Malthus’ core argument that runs a majority of the book is dedicated to the ‘Iron Law of Population’. This essay will seek to examine the premises of Thomas Malthus’ 1798 an Essay on the Principle of Population and conclude on its argument as well as provide a justification of the invalidity of the argument. In addition, it will identify its multiple influences on historical contexts throughout time.

2,000 years ago the world, in terms of population, was only the size of the United States of America, 300 million people. Today, the world’s population is at seven billion and counting. If the population rose at a steady rate from year 0, we would’ve reached 1 billion people by about 210 A.D. This, however, was not the case. We reached 1 billion people in 1800 A.D, which means that there had to be very odd growth periods for the population as a whole REWORD ME. From 0 to 1000 A.D. the population only rose about 10 million people, “and well into the second millennium, [the population] grew less than 0.1 percent each year” [1]. However, from the year 1800, with 1 billion people worldwide, to 1930, the world gained another billion people. We then reached three billion people in 1960, five billion in 1987, and 7 billion in 2013. One can clearly see that once we entered the 19th century, the world’s population started growing like a 14 year old boy going through puberty; rapidly, and without any warning. One thing that can explain this growth is called the Demographic Transition.The Demographic Transition is a theory that explains the growth.

During the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the European population grew immensely (Doc. 1). This was because there were lower death rates and more opportunities during this period. Also, one could also observe that the population increased the most in the countries that were being industrialized. Europe experienced tremendous population growth, but it was often decreased with plagues, wars, and famine. Food prices rose because there was a great need to feed the steadily increasing European population. This change fueled both the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions. With more job opportunities, the European people took advantage of having multiple children because now they could provide more for their family. These fundamental

Human population growth was relatively slow for most of human history. Within the past 500 years, however, the advances made in the industrial, transportation, economic, medical, and agricultural revolutions have helped foster an exponential, "J-shaped" rise in human population (Southwick, Figure 15.1, p. 160). The statistics associated with this type of growth are particularly striking: "Human beings took more than 3 million years to reach a population of 1 billion people...The second billion came in only 130 years, the third billion in 30 years, the fourth billion in 15 years, the fifth billion in 12 years..." (Southwick, p. 159). As human population has grown, there has

The Agricultural Revolution was a time period in which farmers begin to use efficient ways to plant things. This event led to fewer people being needed on farms since the machines used for farming only need a few workers. Because farming took fewer workers, the population of Europe increased. Workers were able to have a life outside of the harsh labor of farming. The Agricultural Revolution helped paved the way for the Industrial Revolution in Britain. The industrial revolution was a time period in the 18th century in which the British experienced changes in technology and an increase in power. These technological changes made possible a great increase in the use of natural resources and the mass production of manufactured goods. Although the industrial revolution seemed like a helpful event to the people of Europe, it caused more damaging effects than it did good.

The demographic changes from 1500 to 1700 altered family life to a great extent and it had a mostly negative effect on the English people, mostly women. The population of England grew rapidly due to a sudden increase in food; this had a negative effect on England, for the sudden increase in population caused an increase in unemployment. The wages in England also decreased which caused an increase in poverty. This negatively affected England because less people got married, for nobody wanted start a family. This lack of marriages caused many women to become prostitutes, for they were unable to work and provide for themselves. This increased the number of illegitimate children, and many women would murder them because they can not afford to care for them. Eventually, the wages and the number of marriages would both increase. This changed the lives of women; however, their lives were not much better because they were under complete control of their husbands.

During the 18 century, in Britain occurred the most important phenomenon that changed the history, Industrial Revolution. It was a major turning point in their history but in the world’s history as well because the impact of the inventions changed the economical, social and political field forever. The standard of living increased therefore the population had increased.

By the 1740’s the population increased due to the improved amounts of food and by 1800 more than half of the population aged under 25.

Imagine if Earth’s population was so large that all of the world’s resources had to be exhausted to their last limits just to provide food for only half of the population. That is exactly what 17th-century demographer Thomas Malthus envisioned when he predicted how the world’s population would affect the world’s resources. In An Essay on the Principle of Population, published in the late 18th century, Malthus expressed many controversial predictions in which he argued that the increase of resources was arithmetic while the increase in population was exponential; thus, he concluded that the population would greatly outpace the amount of resource growth on Earth. Being that Malthus made his predictions during the industrial revolution (which was when North America and Europe reached stage two of the demographic transition), many critics of his theory claim that Malthus’ calculations were inaccurate because he did not consider technological advances in relation to food production. Also, Malthus’ critics believe that he overestimated population increase (mainly because of the time period he lived in) and (adverb) underestimated the production rate of resources. Though both sides of the debate are plausible, it is evident that Malthus’ views were incorrect because modern-day statistics regarding population and food production do not support his claims. Therefore, because of Malthus’ uncircumspect approach when he predicted population

Finally, London had an increased population. The over population was a factor in which the houses were built poorly. In the text it said the population went from 675,000 in 1750 to 900,000 in just 50 years. They had “poor holes” where they would put multiple coffins in them and they didn’t cover them until they were completely full which left a horrible smell the priest would usually have to conduct the ceremony from a comfortable distance. Therefore, even though there were many deaths there was still an increased population.

The Agricultural Revolution was the single most important advancement in the way that humans lived making civilization possible, until the 19th Century. The Age of Revolution occurred when the modern world was birthed with the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution, a shift in the means of producing goods and food, from manual to mechanized labor, transformed the economy, society, politics, and culture first beginning in Britain and spreading through Western Europe. This spread to “the West” (also later to include the United States), brought them into modernity and empowered them to dominate nations in the periphery, less developed countries, “the Rest”.

European demographic trends in the eighteenth and nineteenth centu-ry thoroughly diverged from the demographic trend of the periods leading up to this timeline. Unlike the demographic trend of preceding periods, where a rise in real income would lead to a rise in fertility and consequently in mortality, the trend of these two centuries were marked by disparate swings as a result of several occurrences. Population growth in Europe re-mained relatively stable in the beginning of the eighteenth century but started to rapidly expand after 1720, however food supply was surpassing population due to the Agricultural Revolution, which led to declining mor-tality, allowing countries to circumvent the precursory trend. Medical breakthroughs, the Enlightenment,

England’s experience with change in demographic is one that is almost entirely based on pure simple cause and effect. For them everything was basically stemmed from a need. No matter which model one chooses to use as the basis of one came because of the other either there was a larger population which required more or, there was more money and people felt more comfortable in having more children. Under either model it stems all from economic reasons.

In 1798, Thomas Malthus wrote an essay about population growth that reflects a pessimistic view to future economic development. This essay was a result of his discussion with positivists that tend to praise perfectibility of the man and knowledge diffusion as a source of prosperity for future generations. Malthus essay about population growth based on observing 17th and 18th century US population data.