Demographic Transition Model Essay ⋆ Environment Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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Demographic transition is a useful, if flawed, framework for understanding how human populations respond over time to particular types of social and economic change. Within this framework, the scale of analysis is typically that of a single country (of any size), and the key elements of population change are birth and death rates, which determine the pace at which a population grows – that is, its rate of natural increase.

Demographic transition models are most often depicted graphically. Birth and death rates are plotted on the y-axis; both are measured as a number per 1,000 population per year. On the x-axis, a unit of time-whether years, decades, or centuries-proxies for a country’s level of economic development, or modernization. Four stages are then identified from left to right that correspond to particular ways the population changes as the country modernizes.

Transition Model Phases

In Phase I, pre-industrial, pre-transition populations are characterized by high birth rates and high death rates. Births are high at this stage because the economy is largely agriculture-based, and children’s labor is valued. Further, because state social security systems are weak, children represent old age security. Couples may also overshoot their ideal family size because they expect some children to die young. Death rates are high because clean water is scarce and medical care is rudimentary or inaccessible, and death from hunger, infectious and parasitic diseases, and epidemics is common, particularly among children. Because birth and death rates are high, populations in Phase I grow slowly, if at all. These conditions have characterized human populations for most of history.

Phase II is catalyzed by the development of an early industrial economy. Machines replace agricultural workers, and the rural labor force moves to cities in search of jobs. Improvements in technology and national infrastructure enhance food production, storage, and supply; hunger becomes uncommon. Health is also enhanced by basic improvements in clean water provision and hygiene, and by medical treatments (such as vaccines and antibiotics) that reduce the incidence of disease. Death rates therefore drop dramatically. Meanwhile, birth rates remain high. Although children’s labor is less needed than before, society is relatively slow to change deeply ingrained notions about the benefits of large families. Because the death rate falls much more quickly than the birth rate, populations undergoing early industrialization typically experience a dramatic population boom (sometimes exceeding three percent per year).

In Phase III, a fertility transition begins. As a new generation grows up in the city and as technological and industrial economies develop and grow, former ideals regarding family size are dropped. More importantly, employment opportunities for women mean that there is an economic cost associated with staying at home to care for children. Educational opportunities also become more widespread; women who stay in school longer typically marry later and are better skilled at ensuring the survival of existing children, as well as availing themselves of contraceptive technologies. For all of these reasons, birth rates begin to decline noticeably in Phase III, and begin to approach the still-declining death rate. Because births continue to outnumber deaths, however, population growth continues, but at a much slower rate (usually well under two percent per year).

Birth and death rates finally align again in Phase IV. By this stage, the economy is no longer dominated by industrial jobs; there is widespread access to good medical care and education, and employment is characterized by service industry jobs. In short, the economy is deemed developed. Small nuclear families of about two children are the culturally celebrated norm. Highly developed medical and sanitation systems mean that fatal infections have all but disappeared, and life expectancies are at an all-time high. Life-threatening conditions are more likely to be heart disease, cancers, and diseases associated with affluence, such as diabetes. Because birth and death rates are low, post-industrial, modernized economies have very low, and even negative, rates of natural growth.

Criticisms of the Models

The basic tenets of the demographic transition model were originally proposed in the late 1920s as a means to model the early-to-modern demographic history of Europe. The model was then elaborated and popularized by demographer Frank Notestein in 1945. He showed how European populations had changed since the early 18th century in response to the Industrial Revolution in ways that were later repeated in North America and other industrialized nations. He also showed how post-war Japan and other populations might be expected to change with increasing economic development.

His model was quickly adopted by demographers as a predictive tool with which to anticipate-even recommend-how a country’s population would, or should, change under particular types of social and economic transformation. Its popularity spread as it was found to fit the mid-20th century demographic trajectories of most countries, particularly in the less developed world. In many Latin American and southeast Asian nations, for example, peak growth rates were generally synchronized with massive rural-to-urban migration stimulated by industrialization policies during the 1950s and 1960s (as in Phase II); subsequent entrenchment of the urban labor force led to greater employment and educational opportunities for women, and a correspondingly sharp drop in birth rates was noticeable from the 1970s on (as in Phase III).

By the 1970s, the model was also firmly established as a guide for population policies. Countries whose populations appeared to be lagging behind were prescribed programs to accelerate them to the next stage-usually through family planning programs designed to reduce birth rates. At the same time, academic demographers began to hone the generic model to suit the unique cultural or political contexts of different populations. Post-classic versions of demographic transition therefore incorporated attention to the role of religion, cultural practices, and political-economic arrangements.

But while it was widely recognized that different factors might, in different places, influence the rate and pace of fertility and mortality transitions, for most of the 20th century few scholars or policymakers questioned that the standard sequence of demographic stages through which Europe once passed should hold for all countries. Only recently has this Eurocentric model been seriously challenged. Some point out that Europe’s demographic history cannot be a template for countries whose economies have been severely impacted by European colonization. For example, Europe’s population would not have changed as it did if millions of rural Europeans had not emigrated to North and South America, thus relieving considerable pressure to absorb this labor force at home. But the demographic transition model, which rests on the problematic assumption that a country’s population dynamics can be examined in isolation, does not consider international migration processes.

Other research is also showing that the demographic transition’s unilinear, step-wise pattern is not inevitable. In Kenya, for example, researchers have shown that severe economic crises in rural areas-or the absence of economic development – have in fact stimulated a fertility transition. In Sub-Saharan Africa generally, the HIV/AIDS epidemic is also accelerating mortality rates (average national life expectancies below 45 are common) and slowing population growth at a stage of economic development where death rates should be declining. The post-socialist societies of eastern Europe appear to be Stage IV because of their extremely low birth rates, but in fact their economies still incorporate large agrarian elements, and death rates are rising due to economic deprivation and alcoholism.

Bibliography:

Frank W. Notestein, “Population: the Long View,” in T.W. Schultz, Food for the World (University of Chicago Press, 1954);
L. Peters and R.P. Larkin, Population Geography (Kendall/Hunt, 2002);
J. Stolnitz, “The Demographic Transition: from High to Low Birth and Death Rates,” in G.J. Demko, H.M. Rose, and G.A. Schnell, Population Geography: A Reader (McGraw Hill, 1970).