This is the problem almost everywhere. Even with larger
doses of capital investment than can be realistically
expected, the prospects for significant gains in per capita
income in many underdeveloped countries, where population
is now doubling every generation, are slight indeed. The
economic development that does occur is likely to leave
the bulk of the people untouched. Social services which
may not only alleviate the needs of people but provide
a more skilled labor force become impossibly costly.
There are few underdeveloped countries which can now
afford a broad attack on the educational needs of their
entire pre-adult population. Puerto Rico has done so in
exceptional degree. The gradual rise in the level of
educational attainment promises indirectly, so far as we
now know from our knowledge of population processes, to
contribute to a decline in fertility rates within the
present generation.

But for most of the underdeveloped countries, there is
little possibility of financing the requisite capital
investment, let alone education and other social services,
unless there is a more immediate and direct attack upon
the problems of "over-population."

Sometimes it is said, however, that what is ordinarily
looked upon as an excess of population is in fact a source
for financing economic development. For, since the under-
employed are being sustained by the output of the economy,
they represent a potential source of labor for capital
formation, assuming changes in the structure of the econo-
my and the necessary allocation of manpower. There is

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