Another Look at the Impact of Nigeria’s Growing Population on the Country’s Development
Population studies
21
Issue: 1
(04 - 2006)
This paper is a contribution to the debate about the impact of Nigeria’s growing
population on the country’s development. With a population that already exceeds 130
million people and growing at roughly 3 per cent annually, a considerable proportion
of the nation’s resources are consumed instead of accumulated for development
purposes. In effect, the paper empirically tests the association between population
growth and economic development in Nigeria between 1980 and 2003 and found that
growth in population outweighs that of output and this has hindered the capacity of
successive governments to efficiently provide social services to the people, thereby
negatively affecting development. Our contention, therefore, is that curbs on
population growth through appropriate policies that would integrate the country’s
population programmers into the mainstream development efforts are necessary. That
way, higher per capita consumption of social services by the citizens would be
facilitated and which ultimately would boost their access to the benefits of
development.
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