Question

1. Fertility rates have important economic effects. Discuss at least one direct and one indirect effect of fertility on economic development.   

Answer 1

Fertility rate is the average number of children that would be born to a women in her lifetime. The fertility rate have important economic effects on the economy because the fertility rate decides the level of population in an economy, and the level of population effects economy in many ways.

One direct effect of fertility on economic development is that if fertility rate is high than the total population will be high and hence unproductive consumption will lead to decrease in economic development.

One indirect effect of high fertility rate may be that with increase in fertility rate total population will rise and hence the labour force will rise. A high level of labour force will produce a large amount of goods and services. This increase in the level of goods and services is called economic development.

So a high fertility rate can both be good as well as bad for economic development of a country, it depends on the composition of population if the proportion of working population is high than it will boost economic development. It also depends on the other resources available in the economy, if the population can be used for productive activities than it is good or otherwise it will be a burden on government.