Causes and problems of population increase in Kenya

  

Date Posted: 9/10/2011 12:35:33 PM

Posted By: Wishstar  Membership Level: Gold  Total Points: 7507

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Population in Kenya has been on the increase-uncontrollably-for the past few years. This was mainly seen in rural areas because;

i. They don't know about the importance of family planning

ii. Some still follow their culture of having many children for the continuation of the generation

iii. Some just do it for prestige

iv. Some just adopt the biological statement "have many off springs to increase chances of survival". This occurs in poor families so that if one of them gets to be successful, they may help their family

v. Most do not know the economic importance of population problems

Parliament then decided to implement family planning in rural areas to control the population but how far it went, I don't know.

Great interest is taken in population problems both for social and economic reasons.

Uncontrolled increase in population has seen social amenities to be under intense pressure. This is mainly witnessed in school. As a result, the quality of education has gone down. It has also brought about unemployment and this has seen people engage in dubious ways of making ends meet, of which some are illegal. We also see the social impact of increased population when we look at the number of churches that have mushroomed in every corner of the country. Some of the church leaders are doing this just to get money-because of hard economic times. And speaking about economics; population also has an impact in the economic development in our country.

Linked up with the question of food production, population problem is one of Man's economic problems. There are three reasons why this is so:

i. Labour is one of the factors of production

ii. People require to be adequately fed if efficient labour service is to be provided

iii. The aim of all production is to satisfy people's wants.

Population problems are both varied and far-reaching in

their effects. Man's main concern, for a long time, has been with food and shelter. If the population continues to increase at an uncontrollable rate, then food and shelter will be scarce. The latter has already been experienced in Kenya.

The problem with shelter is not that much threatening as that of food as people have, of late, improvised ways of coping with it-they have adopted to building storey buildings/flats in order to accommodate more people on a small tract of land.

The most serious problem is the relationship between the rate at which population is increasing and the rate at which the country's output of food can be expanded. Another serious aspect is the problem of ensuring that increased supplies of food in some parts of the country go to the undernourished people. This effect has already been seen in Kenya in that some parts of the country had food in more than plenty amounts while others had little or zero amounts. The result was that some people died! The problem was in the distribution of the food.

If a country is over-populated in proportion to its stock and land, the people will be poor because output per head will be low. This population problem may hinder the economic growth of the country if it is not checked keenly and urgently. Our dreams may not be fulfilled and instead we may have our worst nightmares. In order for Kenya to grow economically then we should be able to check and control our population, not to be under or over, but to be optimum, and of manageable levels.

It all starts from you, yes you. Who was planning to have twelve kids, who was planning to have many wives in order to have many kids and then after you then to all of us.

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