Week 1 Global demographic trends

What is Demography?

Demography is the study of human populations in terms of their size, composition, and distribution, and the causes and consequences of change in mortality, fertility, and migration

What are the 6 key concerns of Demogrpahy?

·       Population size

·       Population growth or decline

·       Population processes

·       Population spatial distribution

·       Population structure (age and gender)

·       Population characteristics (e.g. education, occupation, family, etc.).

What has the continuing rise in life expectancy transformed?

Education; Rich vs. Poor; Children’s nutrition; Environment.

Patterns in population, life expectancy, birthrate, immigration, urban and age distribution have all changed

What does Demography demonstrate?

Maps the population change. In how population change is a prime force behind social and technological change because societies must adjust to demographic change

How does population and globalisation link?

Population is intimately related to social and political dynamics

- Globalization is closely related to the search for cheap labor

- Backlash against immigrants is aggravated by xenophobia in the face of the need for workers in the richer, ageing countries

- Regional conflict is aggravated by population growth [MENA]

What are examples of population change impacts? [in different age groups and spaces]?

·       Education

·       Health

·       Crime

·       Consumer fashions

·       Economic opportunities

What are Age Structures?

HOw many people of each age/generation are there in society

How does population link to Gender equality?

It is intimately connected to the Rights of women, with the status of women underlying many conflicts.

Women tend to live longer than men, unless there is a social intervention.

What is the choronological history of human population between 200,000 years ago - mid-14th centuary?

• Human beings have been around for at least 200,000 years. As hunter-gatherers living a primitive existence marked by high fertility and high mortality, and very slow population growth.

• Agricultural Revolution 10,000 years ago, population is c4 million. Many argue that the Agricultural Revolution occurred because the growth of hunting-gathering populations pushed the limit.

• 8000 B.C. - 5000 B.C.: about 333 people were being added to the world’s population each year.

• 5000 B.C.: major civilizations established in China and Greece, the world was adding about 100,000 people each year.

• 1 A.D.: there may have been c250 million people on the planet, increasing by nearly 300,000 a year.

• 3rd - 5th centuries A.D.: increases in mortality led to declining population in the Mediterranean area (Roman Empire collapsed), and in China (Han empire collapsed)

• Population growth recovered until the plague arrived in Europe in the mid-14th century.

What is the choronological history of human population between the mid-18th centuary - cNow? [and Why?]

• Mid-18th century, on the eve of the Industrial Revolution, the population of the world was approaching one billion and was increasing by about 2.2 million every year.

• Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution approximately 250 years ago, the size of the world’s population has increased dramatically.

Acceleration in population after 1750 was due to declines in the death rate associated with scientific advances and the Industrial Revolution. People were eating better, bathing more often, drinking cleaner water, and vaccinations were being discovered.

What were the Migration flows from rapidly growing areas to less rapidly growing areas over time?

European expansion (14th-20th centuries):

• Europe to North and South America and Oceania

• Africa to Latin America, Caribbean and North America

South to North migration (20h-21st centuries):

• Latin America and Asia to the United States

• Asia to Canada

• Africa, Asia, and Latin America to Europe

The urban revolution: in earlier decades, as population grew dense in a region, people moved to a less populated area, now they move to urban areas

What are the 2 Demographic theories being applied?

the Mauthusian Perspective (1798)

the Demographic Transistion Theory [DTT] (1945)

What did the Malthusian Perspective argue?

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.

What are critiques of Malthus?

Malthus based his theory on food production not keeping up with population growth:

• Recognizing this error by Malthus stimulated Charles Darwin’s thinking. We are all competing for space and resources.

• Conclusion that poverty was an inevitable result of population growth led to adamant rejection by Marx and Engels.

• Belief that moral restraint (avoiding intercourse until marriage and only marrying when you can afford the subsequent children) was the only acceptable preventive check

What is the Demographic Transition Theory and its ORIGINAL model?

Emphasizes the importance of economic and social development, which leads first to a decline in mortality and then to a commensurate decline in fertility. [Based on the experience of the developed nations.]

Original model divided roughly into 3 stages:

1. Birth and death rates are high.

2. 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

   1. Death rates are as low as they are likely to go, while fertility should go down to a level equal to the death rate

What is the Reformulated 5 stage DTT?

What is DTT Stage 1 characterised by?

• Pre-industrial/Traditional Society

• High mortality: disease; famine; poor medical knowledge

• High fertility (As reaction to high mortality)

• Many children needed for farming, but many die at an early age.

• No control of mortality or fertility

• Little population growth

What is Stage 2 of DTT characterised by>

• Early Industrial

• Mortality declines: improvements in medical care, water supply and sanitation

• Fertility still high

• Rapid population growth

What is Stage 3 of DTT characterised by?

• Mature industrial economy

• Mortality is low: improvements in medical care, water supply and sanitation continue

• Fertility starts to fall, a few decades after mortality first declines: fewer children needed.

• Nuclearization of families

• Slowing population growth

What is Stage 4 of DTT?

• Post-industrial

• Low mortality and fertility: family planning, good health, improving status of women and later marriage + good health care and reliable food supply

• Little to no - negative population growth

What is Stage 5 of DTT AKA?

Second Demographic Transition

What is Stage 5 of the DTT characterised by?

• Below replacement fertility (TFR < 2.1)

• Low mortality

• Aging population

• Population decline

What are critiques of DTT?

• Assumes population stability is the ”normal” condition for populations

• Developed world-centric

• Low predictive ability

• Lacks a clear causal mechanism

• Not a linear path Is it really a theory? Or just descriptive?

What are various sets of Demographic Transitions?

- Health and Mortality transition: shift from deaths at younger ages due to communicable disease to deaths at older ages due to degenerative diseases.

- Fertility transition: the shift from natural high to controlled low fertility.

- Age transition: changing numbers and % of people at each age and sex as mortality and fertility decline, and as migrants flow in and out