Thomas robert malthus biography summary worksheet

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Malthusian Theory of Population

The Malthusian Theory of Population is the theory of exponential population and arithmetic food supply growth. The theory was proposed by Thomas Robert Malthus. He believed that a balance between population growth and food supply can be established through preventive and positive checks.

Major Elements of the Malthusian Theory

Population and Food Supply

The Malthusian theory explained that the population grows in a geometrical fashion.

The population would double in 25 years at this rate. However, the food supply grows in an arithmetic progression. Food supply increases at a slower rate than the population. That is, the food supply will be limited in a few years. The shortage of food supply indicates an increasing population.

Checks on Population

When the increasing population rate is greater than the food supply, disequilibrium exists. As a result, people will not get enough food even for survival. People will die due to a lack of food supply. Adversities such as epidemics, wars, starvation, famines and other natural calamities will crop up which are named as positive checks by Malthus. On the contrary, there are man-made checks known as preventive checks.

Positive Checks

Nature has its own ways of keeping a check on the increasing population. It brings the population level to the level of the available food supply. The positive checks include famines, earthquakes, floods, epidemics, wars, etc. Nature plays up when the population growth goes out of hand.

Preventive Checks

Preventive measures such as late marriage, self-control, and simple living, help to balance the population growth and food supply. These measures not only check the population growth, but can also prevent the catastrophic effects of the positive checks.

Also read: Organisms and Population Attributes

Criticism of Malthusian Theory of Population

The Malthusian theory was criticised based on

Thomas Malthus, c.1820  ©English economist Malthus is best known for his hugely influential theories on population growth.

Thomas Robert Malthus was born near Guildford, Surrey in February 1766. His father was prosperous but unconventional and educated his son at home. Malthus went on to Cambridge University, earning a master's degree in 1791. In 1793, he was made a fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge. In 1805, Malthus became professor of history and political economy (the first holder of such an academic office) at the East India Company's college in Haileybury, Hertfordshire, where he remained until his death.

In 1819, Malthus was elected a fellow of the Royal Society and two years later he became a member of the Political Economy Club, whose members included David Ricardo and James Mill. In 1824, he was elected as one of the 10 royal associates of the Royal Society of Literature. Malthus was also one of the co-founders of the Statistical Society of London in 1834.

Malthus' most well known work 'An Essay on the Principle of Population' was published in 1798, although he was the author of many pamphlets and other longer tracts including 'An Inquiry into the Nature and Progress of Rent' (1815) and 'Principles of Political Economy' (1820). The main tenets of his argument were radically opposed to current thinking at the time. He argued that increases in population would eventually diminish the ability of the world to feed itself and based this conclusion on the thesis that populations expand in such a way as to overtake the development of sufficient land for crops. Associated with Darwin, whose theory of natural selection was influenced by Malthus' analysis of population growth, Malthus was often misinterpreted, but his views became popular again in the 20th century with the advent of Keynesian economics.

Malthus died on 23 December 1834.

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Thomas Robert MalthusFRS (13 February 1766 – 23 December 1834), was a British scholar, influential in political economy and demography. Malthus popularised the economic theory of rent.

Malthus has become widely known for his theories concerning population and its increase or decrease in response to various factors. The six editions of his An Essay on the Principle of Population, published from 1798 to 1826, observed that sooner or later population gets checked by famine, disease, and widespread mortality. He wrote in opposition to the popular view in 18th-century Europe that saw society as improving, and in principle as perfectible.William Godwin and the Marquis de Condorcet, for example, believed in the possibility of almost limitless improvement of society. So, in a more complex way, did Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose notions centered on the goodness of man and the liberty of citizens bound only by the social contract, a form of popular sovereignty.

Malthus thought that the dangers of population growth would preclude endless progress towards a utopian society: "The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man". As an Anglican clergyman, Malthus saw this situation as divinely imposed to teac

The population is one of the most talked-about subjects in the current world. Every nation is worried and is working towards the benefit of its population. The population of any country has the potential of making the country more successful and taking it to greater heights of achievements. The quality of the population is the country’s way of proving to the world how many people can develop into world leaders of tomorrow. India is one of the fastest-growing countries in terms of population has the same kind of scenario going around all over.

The population of India is also the biggest asset for the country as a whole. We are a nation of diversity and we all come from very different backgrounds, yet the entire population of the country is somehow bonded together. The feeling of togetherness is what the country stands for and this is all because of how the population of the country has learnt to grow. 

Managing the population of a country is also a big task. For the leaders of any nation, the thing that worries them the most is the health, wellbeing and safety of the population of a country. There are several factors and things that contribute to ensuring the health, safety and wellbeing of a country’s population. The kind of food that they eat, the kind of lifestyle that they live and even the kind of money that they earn. The concept of population and its safety is a very complex one. To make things simpler, several theories by experts were devised to make some decisions for the population of any country. One such example is the Malthusian Theory that is going to be talked about in this article.

We are going to dive deep into this concept through this article. This article has been carefully constructed and has been written with the intent to make the readers understand all the details that are involved in the process of making decisions for a population. The story of the Malthusian Theory is a very interesting one and that is why we suggest that student