The two kinds of 'checks' to population growth identified by Malthus…

The two kinds of 'checks' to population growth identified by Malthus are:

(A) Preventive

(B) Prescriptive

(D) Negative

(E) Alternative

Choose the correct answer from the options given below:

Answer & explanation

Correct answer: option 1

The correct answer is Option (1) → (A) and (C) only

(A) Preventive Correct. Preventive checks are the ways in which people voluntarily reduce the growth of population, such as postponing marriage or practising sexual abstinence or celibacy. Malthus thought humanity had only a limited ability to use them.

(B) Prescriptive Incorrect. Malthus named only two checks, preventive and positive; ‘prescriptive’ is not one of them.

(C) Positive Correct. Positive checks are famines and diseases. Malthus believed they were inevitable because they were nature’s way of dealing with the imbalance between food supply and increasing population.

(D) Negative Incorrect. ‘Negative’ sounds like the opposite of ‘positive’, but it is not a check Malthus described; the partner of the positive check is the preventive check.

(E) Alternative Incorrect. Malthus offered no ‘alternative’ check; his two checks were the voluntary preventive and the natural positive ones.

NCERT (2025-26): “The Malthusian Theory of Population Growth … Malthus’s theory of population growth – outlined in his Essay on Population (1798) – was a rather pessimistic one. He argued that human populations tend to grow at a much faster rate than the rate at which the means of human subsistence (specially food, but also clothing and other agriculture-based products) can grow. Therefore humanity is condemned to live in poverty forever because the growth of agricultural production will always be overtaken by population growth. While population rises in geometric progression (i.e., like 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, etc.), agricultural production can only grow in arithmetic progression (i.e., like 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, etc.). Because population growth always outstrips growth in production of subsistence resources, the only way to increase prosperity is by controlling the growth of population. Unfortunately, humanity has only a limited ability to voluntarily reduce the growth of its population (through ‘preventive checks’ such as postponing marriage or practicing sexual abstinence or celibacy). Malthus believed therefore that ‘positive checks’ to population growth – in the form of famines and diseases – were inevitable because they were nature’s way of dealing with the imbalance between food supply and increasing population.…”