Population growth and sustainable economic development in Nigeria

The study evaluates the impact of population growth on sustainable economic development in Nigeria. Sustainable economic development was disaggregated into two components; Economic growth and environmental degradation using real gross domestic product (RGDP) as a proxy for economic growth and carbon dioxide (CO₂) emission to capture environmental degradation. The study was based on Malthusian Population Theory and the Kuznet’s Inverted-U Hypothesis. The main arguments in the synthesis are that the rate of economic growth will have to surpass that of population growth in order to sustain growth and development. Development will result in rising incomes. Rising incomes lead to environmental degradation which, if not curtailed, will reverse all the benefits of development. There is justification to examine how economic growth responds to population dynamics in Nigeria which is gaining much recognition for its increasing population. The study used secondary data which were sourced for the period 1973-2016 and was analyzed the ordinary least square (OLS) method. The findings revealed that, population growth exerts a positive influence on economic growth in Nigeria and on carbon-dioxide emissions, leading to environmental degradation. While the effect on growth is significant, the effect on environmental degradation is not significant. Oil consumption (which is a reflection of human activity) exerts a significant and positive effect on carbon-dioxide emissions implying that it contributes to environmental degradation. The study concludes that though population growth is instrumental to spurring economic growth, it also has the tendency to cause environmental degradation. The study primarily recommends that investments in human capital development that would directly improve the quality of labour and enable it to conduct activities in a manner that will not threaten the environment be given priority. Second, alternative energy sources, such as solar and wind energy, should be encouraged and pursued as part of her energy policy, in order to achieve sustainable economic development.