Malthus was aware of the relationship between population growth and the social inequalities too and showed a clear understanding of the class basis of pressures to exercise restraints on population and consequences of population growth. He said that even though all classes defer marriages to check the reproduction, the motives are different for different classes.

Among the lower classes, it is the fear of not providing well for the family, and among the higher classes, it is the fear of lowering their life condition. If a society is equal the misery due to population growth is for all, but in an unequal society, the misery is more for the poor people. The labourers have to work harder, the wages decrease, marriages are discouraged, freedom is lost, many of the poor persons are reduced to severe distress and the population becomes constant. (The positive checks are confined mainly to the lowest stratum of the society.) Poor people are malnourished and infant deaths among the poor are more than among middle and rich classes.

In the meantime, cultivators can use cheap and efficient labour and increase the production of food. When the food-population balance is re-established, the labourers can again live comfortably and the restraints to population are weakened.

Thus population and development maintain a cycle of growth and decline. Many people use the term Malthusian state to refer to a situation in which birth and death rates are high, population is more or less stationary, and there is a lack of development.