The avoidable costs of population

The social and economic consequences of current demographic trends in South Africa are analyzed using the concept of avoidable costs. The author presents projections of the population up to the year 2000 organized under four major categories: executive and managerial; professional; semi-skilled; and the unskilled, peasants, underemployed, and very poor. Comparisons are made with projections for the same four categories for Canada to show the problems faced by South Africa, in that relatively small growth in the first two classes is contrasted to massive growth in the other, and particularly the least privileged, classes. Consideration is given to the implications for the provision of schools and for the labor force. The author concludes that "if a problem is to be tackled at its roots it is to the control of human numbers that our attention is to be directed."