Dear Tim
The greater the GDP per capita the lower the natural population growth (ignoring net migration) and vice versa when you view the countries in the world comparing the 2 metrics. This is contrary to conventional wisdom that may view having a child as a cost where the greater affordability that comes with higher income should cause population growth to increase.
Population growth and technology are source of real economic growth. Read any book of G. Mankiw on Macroeconomics.
I think we shall look at the causality carefully. We can observed that developed economy with high per capita income are experiencing aging population ex. Japan, China and US. or maybe the causality is on other way around. During baby boom of this countries they experience high economic growth that push their per capita income.
A health economic growth leads to positive outlook and need for people to fuel the growth. Hence logically, a population growth will occur.
A good economic growth in the presence of increased population growth connotes optimum productivity per capita. Therefore, optimum productivity per capita among increased population leads to a good economic growth. However, if the per capita among the increased population is low, then the economic growth is low as well.
Gary Becker is closer to the solution, concerning internal methodical validation.
External methodical validation could work by field research, e.g. to compare high density population political entities, with respect to economic growth, health indicators, overall productivity and life quality. Education or investment into people is the key, but we should not forget about land value taxation or re-capturing economic rent as public revenue.
As for me we can not comparative theory of Gary Becker and Thomas Malthus in context of this question. The results of modern economic analysis show that resources are still quite enough for all people. The theory of Malthus is of a category character, and in this is weak. The theory of Harry Becker describes the existing facts and this is strong. Undoubtedly, the economy influences the population, because in itself it is the result of human activity
Thank you everyone for your comment.
I have counted three posts in support of Becker and one favoring Malthus.
@Kateryna: Thank you for your note. Still, I believe that we can compare those contrary theories. Malthus explicitly stated that population growth tends to increase with income growth while Becker wrote that population growth slows down as a result of growth in income. Consequently, one of them must be wrong.
In mature economies, with economic progress, there have been delay in young people settling down, late marriages & smaller families. In India we also have the phenomenon of DINKS - Double Income, no kids.
Tim Lueger, Thank you for your comment:)
The theory of Malthus was convenient for wealthy people of that time. She justified the wealth of some and the poverty of others. Fictional facts were taken as a basis. Thus, this theory was rather an ideological tool and survived to the present day. Harry Becker took as a basis the results, which are easily verifiable. For example, a comparison of the given statistics of fertility and life expectancy in the economies of developed countries and in countries that are developing. Therefore, I believe that it is impossible to compare ideology and economically justified theory.