Chapter 3
Demographic Perspectives
Chapter Outline
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Premodern Population Doctrines
The Prelude To Malthus
The Malthusian Perspective
The Marxian Perspective
Chapter Outline
• The Prelude To The Demographic
Transition Theory
• The Theory Of The Demographic
Transition
• The Demographic Transition Is Really A
Set Of Transitions
Developing a
Demographic Perspective
• Two Questions:
1. What are the causes of population
growth (or, at least, population
change)?
2. What are the consequences of
population growth or change?
Premodern Doctrines
Date
Demographic Perspective
~1,300 bc
Genesis—“Be fruitful and multiply.”
~500 bc
~360 bc
~340 bc
Confucius—Governments should maintain
balance between population and resources.
Plato—population quality more important than
quantity
Aristotle—population should be limited;
abortion might be appropriate.
Premodern Doctrines
Date
~100 bc
~400 a.d.
~1280 a.d.
Demographic Perspective
Cicero—population growth necessary to maintain
the Roman Empire.
St. Augustine—abstinence is preferred way to deal
with sexuality; second best is to marry and
procreate.
St. Thomas Aquinas—celibacy is not better than
marriage and procreation.
Premodern Doctrines
Date
Demographic Perspective
~1380 a.d.
Ibn Khaldun—population growth increases
occupational specialization and raises incomes.
~1500–
1800
Mercantilism—increasing national wealth depends
on a growing population that can stimulate trade.
~1700–
1800
Physiocrats—population size depends upon the
wealth of the land, which is stimulated by free
trade.
Modern Theories
Date
Demographic Perspective
1798
Malthus—population grows exponentially, food
supply grows arithmetically; poverty is the result in
the absence of moral restraint.
~1800
Neo-Malthusian—birth control measures are
appropriate checks to population growth.
~1844
Marxian—each society has its own law of population
that determines consequences of population growth;
poverty is not the natural result of population growth.
Modern Theories
Date
Demographic Perspective
1945
Demographic transition in its original form—the
process where a country moves from high birth and
death rates to low birth and death rates.
1962
Earliest studies suggesting the need to reformulate
demographic transition theory.
1963
Demographic response made by individuals to
population pressures is determined by the means
available to them to respond; causes and consequences
of population change are intertwined.
Modern Theories
Date
Demographic Perspective
1968
Easterlin relative cohort size hypothesis —
successively larger young cohorts put pressure on
young men’s relative wages, forcing them to make a
tradeoff between family size and overall well-being.
1971–
present
Decomposition of the demographic transition into its
separate transitions—mortality, fertility, age,
migration, urbanization, and family and household.
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.
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.
Over Time, Geometric Growth
Overtakes Arithmetic Growth
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Demographic
Transition
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.
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.
The Demographic Transition:
Impact on Society
Demographic Transition:
A Set of Transitions
1. Mortality transition -shift from
deaths at younger ages due to
disease to deaths at older ages due
to degenerative diseases.
2. Fertility transition- the shift from
natural (and high) to controlled
(and low) fertility.
Demographic Transition:
A Set of Transitions
3. Age transition- social and economic
reactions as societies adjust to
constantly changing age distributions.
4. 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.
Demographic Transition:
A Set of Transitions
5. 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.
6. 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.