Preventive and positive checks
Topic: World Population: Distribution, Density, Growth and Migration · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 2 "The World Population: Distribution, Density and Growth"
Meaning
Preventive and positive checks are the two ways Thomas Malthus (1798) said population growth gets held back. Preventive checks lower births, through late marriage and moral restraint. Positive checks raise deaths, through famine, disease and war. Malthus believed people should use preventive checks so that nature would not apply the harsh positive checks.
Example
Delaying marriage in rural India lowers births, which is a preventive check. The Bengal famine of 1943, in eastern India, killed huge numbers of people, which Malthus would call a positive check. However, Amartya Sen showed that it came from people losing the ability to buy or grow food, not just from a lack of food.
Don't confuse with
- "Positive" in everyday use: A positive check is not a good thing. It means a check that works by raising deaths.