Demographic transition

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--> In demography, the term demographic transition is a theory describing a possible transition from high birth rates and death rates to low birth and death rates as part of the economic development of a country from a pre-industrial to an industrialized economy. Usually it is described through the "Demographic Transition Model" (DTM) that describes the population changes over time. It is based on an interpretation begun in 1929 by the American demographer Warren Thompson of prior observed changes, or transitions, in birth and death rates in industrialized societies over the past two hundred years. Most developed countries are already in stage four of the model, the majority of developing countries are presumed to be in stage 2 or stage 3, and no country is currently still in stage 1. The model has explained human population evolution relatively well in Europe and other highly developed countries; the model is often applied to lesser developed countries to allay concerns regarding overpopulation, without proof that the underlying dynamics will allow these countries to trace similar evolution paths as the European and other Western countries.

Contents

1 Origins Of DTM
2 Summary of the theory
3 Stage Two in detail
4 Stage Three in detail
5 Stage Five?
6 Criticism of the DTM
7 Further reading

Origins Of DTM

The idea of DTM was first put forward by W.S Thompson in 1929. He divided the world into three major groups, namely North & Western Europe, Central and Southern Europe, and Rest of the world. This theory was later developed by F.W Notestein in 1945. Notestein suggested that there was a relationship between population change and industrial development. His model was based on population changes in several industrialized countries in Western Europe and North America. It also suggested that with time, countries go through a linear evolution from traditional, non-industrial society to a modern, industrial and urban one. More Information can be found in textbooks on A level geography.

Summary of the theory

Demographic change in Sweden from 1735 to 2000.

The transition involves four stages (Possibly five).

In stage one, a preindustrial society, death rates and birth rates are both high and fluctuate rapidly according to natural events, such as drought and disease, to produce a relatively constant and young population.
In stage two, that of a developing country, the death rates drop rapidly due to improvements in food supply and sanitation, which increase life spans and reduce disease. These changes usually come about due to improvements in farming techniques, access to technology, basic healthcare, and education. Without a corresponding fall in birth rates this produces an imbalance, and the countries in this stage experience a large increase in population.
In stage three birth rates fall due to access to contraception, increases in wages, urbanization, a reduction in subsistence agriculture, an increase in the status and education of women, and other social changes. Population growth begins to level off.
During stage four there are both low birth rates and low death rates. Birth rates may drop to well below replacement level as has happened in countries like Italy, Spain and Japan, leading to a shrinking population, a threat to many industries that rely on population growth. The large group born during stage two ages and creates an economic burden on the shrinking working population. Death rates may remain consistently low or increase slightly due to increases in lifestyle diseases due to low exercise levels and high obesity and an aging population in developed countries.

As with all models, this is an idealized picture of population change in these countries. The model is a generalization that applies to these countries as a group and may not accurately describe all individual cases. The extent to which it applies to less-developed societies today remains to be seen. Many countries such as the East Asian Tigers, China, Brazil and India have passed through the DTM very quickly due to fast social and economic change. Some countries, particularly African countries, appear to be stalled in the second stage due to stagnant development and the effect of AIDS.

Stage Two in detail

This stage leads to an increase in population and rapid fall in death rates. The changes leading to this stage in Europe were initiated in the Agricultural Revolution of the 18th century. Countries in this stage include Nigeria, Kenya and Bangladesh. The decline in the death rate is due initially to two factors:

First, improvements in the food supply brought about by higher yields in agricultural practices prevent death due to starvation. These improvements in agricultural productivity included crop rotation, selective breeding, and seed drill technology. In England, the greater wealth this brought about enabled people to work less on farms and marry earlier, and so contributed to industrial development and raised the birth rate slightly at the same time. Another food-related factor was the introduction of potato and maize (corn) from the Americas. These new crops increased the quantity of foodstuffs in the European diet, especially in northern Europe. In developing countries today the changes are due to increases in agricultural yields due to the use of high yielding varieties and other improvements in farming technique typical of the green revolution. Increased knowledge of basic nutrition and access to protein and vitamins and minerals in a more varied diet also improve health in countries with malnutrition.Better nourished populations are better able to resist disease.
Second, significant improvements in public health reduce mortality, particularly in childhood. These are not so much medical breakthroughs (Europe passed through stage two before the advances of the mid-20th century) as they are improvements in water supply, sewage, food handling, and general personal hygiene following from growing scientific knowledge of the causes of disease. This is illustrated below for the case of measles and TB in the USA over the past 100 years. However, bear in mind that killer infectious diseases such as TB are airborne and not water borne, so public engineering tasks such as sewer and water projects cannot take all the credit. In fact, perhaps the most important factor here was increased female literacy allied with public health education programs in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In developing countries today access to contraceptives to prevent AIDS, vaccinations, and access to antibiotics are also important factors.

A consequence of the decline in mortality in Stage Two is an increasingly rapid rise in population growth (a "population explosion") as the gap between deaths and births grows wider. Note that this growth is not due to an increase in fertility (or birth rates) but to a decline in deaths. This change in population occurred in northwestern Europe during the 19th century due to the Industrial Revolution. During the second half of the 20th century less-developed countries entered Stage Two, creating the worldwide population explosion that has demographers concerned today.

A major factor in reducing birth rates in stage 3 countries such as Malaysia is the availability of family planning facilities, like this one in Kuala Terenganu, Terenganu, Malaysia.

Another characteristic of Stage Two of the demographic transition is a change in the age structure of the population. In Stage One, the majority of death is concentrated in the first 5–10 years of life. Therefore, more than anything else, the decline in death rates in Stage Two entails the increasing survival of children. Hence, the age structure of the population becomes increasingly youthful. This trend is intensified as these increasing numbers of children enter into reproduction while maintaining the high fertility rates of their parents. The age structure of such a population is illustrated below by using an example from the Third World today.

Stage Three in detail

Stage Three moves the population towards stability through a decline in the birth rate. In general, the decline in birth rates in developed countries began towards the end of the 19th century in northern Europe and followed the decline in death rates by several decades. This was spurred by the Industrial Revolution and later industrialization. Many countries are currently in this stage including India, Mexico and Brazil. There are several factors contributing to this eventual decline, although some of them remain speculative:

In rural areas continued decline in childhood death means that at some point parents realize they need not require so many children to be born to ensure a comfortable old age. As childhood death continues to fall and incomes increase parents can become increasingly confident that fewer children will suffice to help in family business and care for them in old age.
Increasing urbanization changes the traditional values placed upon fertility and the value of children in rural society. Urban living also raises the cost of dependent children to a nuclear family (education acts and child labor acts increase dependency). Partly due to education and access to family planning, people begin to assess more rationally just how many children they desire or need. Once traditional patterns of thinking are broken the decline is likely to accelerate. People in urban areas often become more materialistic and seek a better quality of life rather than large families.

In countries in stage 4 of the demographic transition, even places normally associated with children, such as beaches, are dominated by the presence of adults. Only two children can be seen among hundreds of adults in this view of Scheveningen Beach, Netherlands.

Increasing female literacy and employment lower the uncritical acceptance of childbearing and motherhood as measures of the status of women. Valuation of women beyond childbearing and motherhood becomes important. In addition, as women enter the workforce their life extends beyond the family, and the connections they make with other women serve to break their isolation and change their attitudes towards the burdens of childbearing. Within the family they become increasingly influential in childbearing decisions.
Improvements in contraceptive technology are now a major factor, but contraceptives were not widely available in the 19th century and so did not contribute to the European decline. Fertility decline is caused as much by changes in values about children and sex as by the availability of contraceptives and knowledge of how to use them. Today in the world there exists a close correspondence between fertility and contraceptive use, but this likely means that those families that have chosen to limit family size find contraceptives the easiest and most effective way to do so. In some countries birth rates fall more slowly or not at all because traditional religious beliefs inhibit the use of contraception.

The resulting changes in the age structure of the population include a rapidly aging population, a sharp decrease in the number of young people, reducing the youth dependency ratio. The population structure becomes less triangular and more like an elongated balloon.

Stage Five?

Diagram showing stage five

The original Demographic Transition model has just four stages but it is now widely accepted that a fifth stage is needed to represent countries who have undergone the economic transititon from manufacturing based industries into service and information based industries, or what is called Deindustrialization. Countries such as Germany, Sweden, Italy, and most notably Japan, whose populations are now below their replacement levels. This means that there is a natural decrease in the population as birth rates have fallen below the death rate.

Criticism of the DTM

One of the principal criticisms of the DTM is the questionable applicability to lesser developed countries, where the prerequisites for wealth and information access are limited. This is an important shortcoming, since DTM is used widely to minimize concerns regarding overpopulation and paint an exaggeratedly optimistic version of the future, without adequate basis.

The DTM is used to classify countries into general groups. Hence, it is unable to take into account evolutionary changes in the process of population growth and classify diverse population into distinct but coherent stages of the development process. It is also limited in the sense that it gives a generalized picture of population change over time based on European studies, assumming that all countries would follow suit. In addition, the DTM is rigid in assuming that all countries will go through the stages 1 to 4 in that exact order. There are variables and exceptions such as war and turmoil that may lead to different results. Some countries may even skip stages.

The Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto has argued that one obstacle to industrial development is that subsistence farmers can not convert their work into capital which can be used to start new businesses and trigger industrializations. He argues that these obstacles exist often because subsistence farmers do not have clear title to the land which they work and to the crops which they produce.

Another limitation of the DTM is that it assumes population changes are brought about by industrial changes and increased wealth. This is not true as social changes are equally important in determining birth rates, for example, the education of women. Also, DTM assumes that the birth rate is independent of the death rate. The opposite is true. When infant mortality increases, people are more likely to have more children to replace themselves. Next, the time taken for Economically Less Developed Countries to go throught the stages might be lower as there is availability of knowledge from mistakes made by Economically More Developed Countries.