Demographic Perspectives

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Chapter 3

• Demographic Perspectives

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Chapter Outline

• Premodern Population Doctrines
• The Prelude To Malthus
• The Malthusian Perspective
• The Marxian Perspective

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Chapter Outline

• The Prelude To The Demographic Transition Theory
• The Theory Of The Demographic Transition
• The Demographic Transition Is Really A Set Of
  Transitions

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Population Density of the World
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Developing a Demographic Perspective

• Two Questions
• What are the causes of population growth (or, at
  least, population change)?
• What are the consequences of population growth or
  change?

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Premodern Doctrines
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Premodern Doctrines
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Premodern Doctrines
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Modern Theories
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Modern Theories
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Modern Theories
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The Malthusian Perspective

• Malthus argued that people have a natural urge to
  reproduce, and the increase in the food supply
  cannot keep up with population growth.
• The major consequence of population growth,
  according to Malthus, is poverty.
• Within that poverty is the stimulus for action
  that can lift people out of misery.

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Critiques of Malthus

• Assertion that food production could not keep up
  with population growth.
• Conclusion that poverty was an inevitable result
  of population growth.
• Belief that moral restraint was the only
  acceptable preventive check.

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Geometric and Arithmetic Growth

• If we start with 100 acres supporting 100 people
  and add 100 acres per decade (arithmetic) while
  the population increases 3 per year (geometric)
  there will be a few decades of food surplus
  before growth overtakes increased cultivation,
  producing a food deficit..

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The Marxian Perspective

• Each society at each point in history has its own
  law of population that determines population
  growth.
• For capitalism, the consequences are
  overpopulation and poverty.
• For socialism, population growth is readily
  absorbed by the economy with no side effects.

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John Stuart Mill

• Basic thesis was that the standard of living is a
  major determinant of fertility levels.
• The ideal state is that in which all members of a
  society are economically comfortable.

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Arsène Dumont

• Late 19th century French demographer who felt he
  discovered a new principle of population called
  social capillarity.
• The desire of people to rise on the social scale,
  to increase their individuality as well as their
  personal wealth.
• To ascend the social hierarchy requires that
  sacrifices be made.

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Émile Durkheim

• Based an entire social theory on the consequences
  of population growth.
• Population growth leads to greater societal
  specialization, because the struggle for
  existence is more acute when there are more
  people.

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Theory of the Demographic Transition

• Emphasizes the importance of economic and social
  development.
• Leads first to a decline in mortality and then to
  a commensurate decline in fertility.
• Based on the experience of the developed nations,
  and derived from the modernization theory.

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The Demographic Transition

• Divided roughly into three stages.
• Birth and death rates are high.
• Transition from high to low birth and death
  rates. The growth potential is realized as death
  rate drops before the birth rate drops, resulting
  in rapid population growth.
• Death rates are as low as they are likely to go,
  while fertility may continue to decline to the
  point that the population might decline.

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The Demographic Transition
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Modernization Theory

• Macro-level theory that sees human actors as
  being buffeted by changing social institutions.
• Individuals did not deliberately lower their risk
  of death to precipitate the modern decline in
  mortality.
• Society wide increases in income and improved
  public health infrastructure brought about this
  change.

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Easterlin Relative Cohort Size Hypothesis

• The standard of living you experience in late
  childhood is the base from which you evaluate
  your chances as an adult.
• If you can improve your income as an adult
  compared to your childhood level, you are more
  likely to marry early and have several children.

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Demographic Transition A Set of Transitions

• Mortality transition -shift from deaths at
  younger ages due to disease to deaths at older
  ages due to degenerative diseases.
• Fertility transition- the shift from natural (and
  high) to controlled (and low) fertility.

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Demographic Transition A Set of Transitions

• Age transition- social and economic reactions as
  societies adjust to constantly changing age
  distributions.
• Migration transition - Growth in the number of
  young people in rural areas will lead to an
  oversupply of young people looking for jobs,
  which encourages people to leave in search of
  economic opportunity.

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Demographic Transition A Set of Transitions

• Urban transition - begins with migration from
  rural to urban areas and morphs into urban
  evolution as most humans are born in, live in,
  and die in cities.
• Family and household transition - brought about
  by structural changes that accompany longer life,
  lower fertility, an older age structure, and
  urban instead of rural residence.

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Transitions In the Demographic Transitions
Impact on Society