How economic growth affects society

Changes in social structures occurring during the process of economic growth can be considered direct consequences of this process, while other changes are caused by factors such as technological progress, that affect simultaneously social structures and growth. Below are the effects of economic growth on poverty and population. 

The impact of economic growth on poverty have been documented even though the relationship is not direct. In some cases it can be positive, i.e. economic growth leading to reduction in poverty; while in some cases it can be negative, i.e. economic growth leading to increase in poverty. The impact of economic growth on poverty depends highly on the inequalities that are prevailing in an economy.

Economic growth does impact population. As the economy grows, and societies become more able to physically support excess population, population growth has declined. 

This is because in most primitive societies, an additional child is another source of labor, and another hedge against the time when the parents cannot provide for themselves. This is the case in most primitive societies, where the parents who do not have many children cannot expect to have someone to support them in their old age. 

Once society shifts towards a more knowledge based economy, however, the investment required to make someone a contributing member of society increases, while at the same time, social safety nets reduce the dependence people have on their children during their old age. 

So as the economy grows, population also grows, but once a shift is made from a primarily agrarian economy to a more technologically focused one, the benefit of having additional children declines, and parents tend to invest more in a few offspring, rather than have a lot in the hopes that some will survive and take care of them. 

In some case, such as Japan and some parts of Europe, natural reproduction rates have fallen below that needed for the replacement of members. 

Concerns about possible negative effects of growth on the environment and society led some to advocate lower levels of growth. This led to the ideas of unconomic growth and gegrowth – and Green parties that argue that economies are part of a global society and global ecology, and cannot outstrip their natural growth without damaging those.

Those more optimistic about the environmental impacts of growth believe that, though localized environmental effects may occur, large-scale ecological effects are minor. The argument, as stated by commentator Julian Lincoln Simon, states that if these global-scale ecological effects exist, human ingenuity will find ways to adapt to them.

Zheng Boya (24)

How economic growth affects the society.

In tracing the recent history of theory and research on the connection between demography and economics, we find a new consensus is emerging; that reductions in fertility and declining ratios of dependent to working age populations provide a window of opportunity for economic development and poverty reduction.

Empirical studies increasingly support the idea that countries which have incorporated population policies and family planning programmes in their overall economic development strategies have achieved high and sustained rates of economic growth and that they have also managed significant reductions in poverty. Fertility reduction is by no means an economic development panacea and is certainly not a sufficient condition for economic growth, but it may well be a necessary condition, establishing conditions in which governments can invest more per capita in education and health, thus creating the human capital for sustained economic growth. Likewise, with fewer children to care for and raise, families can improve their prospects for escaping the poverty trap. At both the macro- and micro-levels, moderating fertility enhances economic prospects.

Throughout the developing world, declining birth rates and rising living standards have gone hand in hand. The evidence suggests that the interrelationship between them represents a virtuous circle, whereby improvements in one reinforce and accelerate improvements in the other. The virtuous circle can be initiated either by investing in human development programmes such as healthcare and education or by investing in programmes to reduce fertility. But the example of the East Asian Tigers suggests that the best strategies have been those that do the two simultaneously.

These recent historical experiences hold important lessons for Africa, development's last major frontier. By drawing on these examples, as well as Africa's own success stories, and by recognizing the link between demography and economic development, African leaders and policymakers can devise integrated economic development strategies that give a prominent role to population policies that include strong reproductive health and family planning programmes.

By Jia Xuan (15)

2E

How economic growth affects the society

Economic growth affects the social structure. Do the poor benefit from economic growth? On one hand, it is argued that the potential effect of economic growth on poverty rates is offset either entirely or in part by an increase in income inequality. Alternatively, economic growth may reduce poverty by raising the incomes of everyone in society, including the poor.  if economic growth leads to increased inequality, then the growth effect on poverty would be tenuous at best. 

There appears to be a consensus in the literature that economic growth does not have much of an impact on inequality, because income distributions do not change appreciably over time. There is some evidence that economic growth has reduced poverty in developing countries. Squire (1993) found that a ten percent increase in the growth rate reduced poverty across a sample of countries by 24 percentage points. 

There is also evidence that changes in inequality can affect changes in poverty, ceteris paribus. However, rising income inequality could also be associated with declines in poverty rates. This could result from a “burst” in technological change that would create fortunes for entrepreneurs/managers and contemporaneously improve the wages of those at the bottom of income scale.  

Moreover, higher skill levels required by new technology create a demand for advanced education and training. An increase in the quantity and quality of education would generate a wider disparity between skilled and unskilled workers--contributing to greater income inequality. A better educated labor force is also associated with declines inpoverty. The poverty rate in 2004 among college educated persons is 4.3 percent compared to 11.9 percent for those who have high school education.

--by Jia Rong

How economic growth affect the society

Changes in social structures occurring during the process of economic growth can be considered direct consequences of this process, while other changes are caused by factors such as technological progress, that affect simultaneously social structures and growth. 

The impact of economic growth on poverty have been documented.The relationship is not direct. In some cases it can be positive ie economic growth leading to reduction in poverty in some cases it can be negative, ie economic growth leading to increase in poverty. The impact of economic growth on poverty depends highly on the inequalities that are prevailing in an economy. It will not make sense to measure poverty in a developed economy in the same way you would meausre it a developing country, because the definitions of poverty will definately differ.

If economic growth actually resembled the ‘extended reproduction’ coined by Marx and implicit in the steady state regimes of many contemporary growth models, one would not expect growth to have major social consequences. All economic magnitudes, including the standards of living of individuals or social groups, would be kept in the same proportion to each other so that only the scale of the economy would be changing over time.

Of course, economic growth is something more than a mere uniform change of scale of economic magnitudes. For a host of reasons, it is in the very nature of growth to modify economic structures and, because of this, to affect social structures and social relations. For instance, growth may modify the sectoral structure of an economy leading firms in one sector to close down and firms in other sectors to be created or expand. Growth modifies the structure of prices, thus affecting the standard of living of households in a way that depends on their consumption preferences. In other cases, growth will call on some particular skills, increasing the remuneration of those endowed with those skills and also, possibly, their decision-making power within society. Finally, growth may reduce the availability of public goods like clean air or water, requiring public intervention in order to maintain the adequate supply of environmental goods. In all these cases, it is not only the economic structure – i.e., the relative importance of sectors, labor skills, remuneration of factors, and size of the public sector – that may be modified by growth. It is also the whole social structure, that is the relative weight of socio-economic groups or the way in which individuals define themselves with respect to the rest of the society, that is affected. As a consequence, social relations that govern how individuals in a society interact with each other through explicit or implicit rules may also be modified by economic growth and may in turn affect the growth process itself.

Malvin (27)

2E

China Youth Culture

Wechat and line are very popular messaging apps, similar to whatsapp that is used in Singapore.

QQ and Weibo are blogging and chatting websites.

Jay Chou and Mayday are popular artists that generally do Mandopop.

步步惊心, also known as scarlet heart, is a very popular Chinese drama.

Bubble tea is a drink well appriciated by people in China.

The red scarf (红领巾) is something that Chinese students have to wear to school.

By 5bonacci✋