ABSTRACT

Human societies are complex thermodynamic systems. It is natural to ask to what extent results obtained from simple thermodynamic systems can be extended to provide insights into more complex thermodynamic systems. We apply some simple results from thermodynamics to examine relations among population size, migration patterns, living standard, space, social pressure, and cost to raise children. The result shows that at low levels of living standard, increasing living standard will increase the population size and at high living standard, increasing living standard will decrease the population size. The increase of population size or living standard increases social pressure and pressure to migration.

KEY WORDS

population, living standard, cost of raising children, social pressure

CLASSIFICATION

JEL:	B41, E11, Q01
PACS:	89.65.Cd