Population Dynamics And Economic Development In Malawi

The study dwells on analysing population dynamics in relation to economic development in Malawi. As Malawi's population grows at 3% per year, this rapid growth of the population has been identified as a challenge by various players in the area of development calling for innovative ways of managing population phenomena for sustainable development. The study's specific objectives are threefold which are to determine the effects of changes in Malawi's population size, population growth, age structure and spatial distribution on one hand on economic growth, food production and socioeconomic development in Malawi on the other hand. The study employed Autoregressive Distributed Lag models on time-series data spanning from 1960 to 2016 obtained from the World Bank's World Development indicators and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations. The study first finds that population dynamics and economic development have a significant long run relationship in Malawi. Specifically, the rate of population growth and the share of urban population have a negative effect on economic development while the young and working aged population have a positive effect. In sum, the study identifies how population dynamics relate to economic development and thus how they can be managed to achieve development targets both in the short term as well as in the long term. The implications on policy are that interventions need to be made on the reduction of the rate of population growth, investments in the current youth and working aged population's human capital as well as skills development and physical capital formation in rural areas.