ABSTRACT
In this second half of the twentieth century we have become particularly aware that the world is experiencing a population problem that steadily grows more acute, and also of a growing problem of world poverty. It is not surprising that a broad correlation between these two conditions is readily assumed by large numbers of people, who tend to regard the one as being the prime cause of the other. In fact, this is by no means true, although the demographic factor plays a powerful part in affecting the levels of national wealth and the speed of accumulation of wealth by nations. Much of the poverty of a large part of the world is due to under-development of resources. The United Nations General Assembly has recognised this in designating the 1960s as the ‘United Nations Development Decade’. In a sense the term ‘under-developed’ is a euphemism for ‘poor’.
