mauritius

[1b] Explain the main factors that have contributed to the sudden spurt in the population growth rate since the mid 1950’s. (Marks 15)
The population growth rate in Mauritius since mid-1950’s has seen a sudden increase and this was mainly due to the health conditions, fertility rate, age structure, health care services, old age pensions. In 1952, the general population of Mauritius increased to around 148 thousands more precisely 70 thousands males and 78 thousand females.

HEALTH CONDITIONS

The health conditions in Mauritius were poor in the 17, 18 and 19 centuries. There were epidemics and parasitic diseases. The Spanish flue in 1919 shot the mortality rate. 60 per 1000 people were killed by the Spanish flue. Thus, the early period was one of high death rates as well as birth rates with the population remaining almost constant. Improvements in the health conditions were present in the year 1920 where the death rate fell. There was the chlorination of water supply and campaigns against malaria and hookworm. Soon there was the eradication of malaria which brought about with the introduction of DDT in 1948 which caused a fall in the death rates. From around 27 per 1000 in 1926- 1940, death rates fell to 11 per 1000 in 1956-1960.

FERTILITY

In addition, the fifties were a period of high fertility. After being around 35% for most of the time after 1920, it shot up to 44.7% in the 1946-1950 and 43.3 % live births in the 1954-1956. The 1950’s were the baby boom for Mauritius as it was in many other parts of the world.

AGE STRUCTURE

A special feature of the early 1950 was the youthful character of the population. 43% of the population was under 15 years of age in 1957; the population in the age group 15-64 compromised 53% of the population and above 60 years old made up only 3% of the population.

HEALTH CARE FACILITIES

The population growth rate in Mauritius in the mid 1990’s was also affected by the health care facilities. Prior to the creation of the ministry, health care services were the responsibility of the medical and health department, which had been created in 1894. With the setting up of the ministry, systematic improvement were made for the provision of health care. Medical facilities were available but not free of charge. The establishment of a free national health service was an outstanding development in the health care in the pre independence era. All these contributed to a better standard of living and hence a fall in death rate.

OLD AGE PENSIONS

Moreover, in 1950, a non-contributory old age pension was introduced. It was provided to old persons aged 65years and above and blind persons above 40 years. This also improved the standard of living of the people and the life expectancy of old aged persons were also improved.

Hence to conclude, not a single factor but different factors together have led to the sudden spurt in the population growth rate since mid-1950.

[2] What were the major outcomes from the sudden increases in the population since the1950’s? What were the measures recommended by Meade to remedy this situation? (Marks 12).

The main factors that have contributed towards the sudden increase in the population in Mauritius since the 1950’s have already been identified in question 1(b). The outcomes of such an increase was first of all on the economy of the country. The economic situation of Mauritius fell drastically. A rise in the population growth of about 3% per annum and a gross national product(GNP) at constant prices increasing at a rate of about 1%-2% had automatically generate a fall in the gross national product per capita since the increased in the GNP was not being matched to the increase in population rate. The gross national product per head was used as an indicator of standard of living hence a fall in the GNP per head from RS 1078 in 1953 to RS 956 in 1958 implied a fall in the standard of living of the population. This can be illustrated from the table below.

YEAR
GNP AT CONSTANT PRICES
(MILLION RS)
ANNUAL RATE OF GNP GROWTH
(PER CENT)
GNP PER CAPITA
(RS)
1953
566
-
1078
1954
559
-1.24
1037
1955
565
1.07
1009
1956
571
1.06
986
1957
588
2.98
985
1958
587
-0.17
956

Source: Meade report (1961), p.43

Moreover, the sudden rise in the population rate also led to a rise in unemployment rate. In 1958, Luce report found the unemployment rate to be about 15% of the labour force.

Meade tried to cure the extreme economic situation by proposing that Mauritius had to diversify from its over-dependence on sugar, and to industrialize. The industrial strategy proposed was the import substituting industrialization (ISI) and the export-orientated industrialization (EOI).#

In the early 1960’s, the government reacted according to Meade recommendations. The import-substituting industrialization strategy was adopted. Manufacturing activities were encouraged in the economy by passing laws in favour of the setting up of ISI industries. They were protected from international competition through protectionist tools like the tariff and quota protection, duty-free entry of raw materials and tax holidays. The development bank of Mauritius was established in 1964 to support this industrial policy by providing subsidized long terms loans to investors in non-sugar activities. This was done to diversify the economy. However although there was the setting up of many factories, the problem of unemployed was not cured. The unemployment problem had worsen off. Between 1964 and 1968, only 1200 jobs were created and the labour force was growing at an increasing rate, faster than job creation. The positive repercussions of the ISI strategy was that it gave birth to a new generation of entrepreneurs and the labour force experienced a new industrial work environment. Unfortunately, the ISI strategy had failed to the goods with respect to the unemployment situation.

Due to failure of the ISI strategy in Mauritius and looking at the success of the Export orientated strategy(EOI) in Singapore, Korea and Taiwan, the government of Mauritius switched its development strategy to the EOI strategy through the export processing zone (EPZ). The constraints of the takeoff of the EPZ was the low level of gross domestic or national output couples with a low level of savings insufficient to generate enough funds for investment purposes in order to bring about economic development. Another constrain was in terms of low technological knowledge. Moreover, a relatively low level of management and technical skills generated through the educational sector which was too academically biased was also a constraint.
To encourage the setting up of EPZ industries or manufacturing firms, the government had to offer a large range of financial and fiscal incentives, particularly to attract foreign investors in the country because of lack of domestic capital which was an important constraint. Incentives were given to both foreign and domestic investors.

To conclude Meade recommendation has contribute to the recovery of the Mauritian economy since during the first half of the 1970’s the EPZ strategy seemed to pay off. Many manufacturing enterprises were set up and more jobs than expected were created. This can be illustrated from the following table.

Year
Number of enterprises
Employment
Change in employment
Share in total employment
1971
9 644

0.00
1972
19 2588 1944 0.02
1973
32 5721 3133 0.04
1974
45 10669 4948 0.06
1975
66 11407 738 0.07
1976
85 17403 5996 0.09

SOURCE: WONG, D. (1985), HEINP, P. (1989)

[1a] Compare and contrast the growth of the population in the Village Councils and the Municipalities over the period 1902 to 1990. Give explanations for the same. (Marks 8)

The population rate in village councils from 1901 to 1990 have largely increased from 256,962 to 603,048. There had been more precisely an increase of 346,086. At the same time, there was an increase in the population rate in municipalities also from 116,374 to 455,724; that is a growth of 339,350.

The first and foremost reason behind the population growth rate in both village councils and municipalities is the overall increase in the population rate in Mauritius, that is from 373,336 in 1901 to 1058,775 in 1990. Hence the population growth in village councils and in municipalities was bound to occur.

However, the population growth was greater in village councils than in municipalities. The reason behind was simply because of the increase in population rate in Mauritius which also implied an increase in the labour force, that is the population by age group from 15-59 has risen from 121,632 in 1901 to 330,554 in 1990. Since the village councils were fast developing into economic centres e.g Flacq, Mahebourg and Goodlands and hence major job creation were in these villagers so, there has a higher population rate in villagers than in municipalities. Moreover from the map given on the next page, it can be seen that the rest of settlements consists of villagers. There are 124 of them some are big with a population of 10,000 to 30,000.

Moreover, there had been intensive urban development with the building of businesses, apartments, guess houses, hotels and restaurants. The transformation of Grand Baie for instance has had considerable social impact on the local impact. Its population doubled from 4074 in 1972 to 8370 in 1990. *

To conclude, both in village councils and in municipalities, population has increased implying a rise in birth rates which prove that health facilities, water supply and other factors that contributed to a rise in standard of living were improved at that time.

* LONGMAN MAURITIUS RESOURCES ATLAS