Demographic transition: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 23:45, 26 December 2024

Revision as of 00:27, 27 December 2024

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The transition involves four stages, or possibly five.

* In stage one, [[pre-industrial society]], [[Mortality rate|death rates]] and [[birth rate]]s are high and roughly in balance. All human [[population]]s are believed to have had this balance until the late 18th century when this balance ended in Western Europe.<ref name=":5">{{Cite web |last=Montgomery |first=Keith |title=Demographic Transition |url=http://pages.uwc.edu/keith.montgomery/demotrans/demtran.htm |website=WayBackMachine|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190605095831/http://pages.uwc.edu/keith.montgomery/demotrans/demtran.htm |websitearchive-date=WayBackMachine5 June 2019 }}</ref> In fact, growth rates were less than 0.05% at least since the [[Neolithic Revolution|Agricultural Revolution]] over 10,000 years ago.<ref name=":5" /> [[Population growth]] is typically very slow in this stage because the society is constrained by the available food supply; therefore, unless the society develops new technologies to increase food production (e.g. discovers new sources of food or achieves higher crop yields), any fluctuations in birth rates are soon matched by death rates.

* In stage two, that of a [[developing country]], the [[Mortality rate|death rates]] drop quickly due to improvements in food supply and [[sanitation]], which increase [[life expectancy]] and reduce [[disease]]. The improvements specific to food supply typically include selective breeding and crop rotation and farming techniques.<ref name=":5" /> Numerous improvements in public health reduce mortality, especially childhood mortality.<ref name=":5" /> Prior to the mid-20th century, these improvements in public health were primarily in the areas of food handling, water supply, sewage, and personal hygiene.<ref name=":5" /> One of the variables often cited is the increase in female literacy combined with public health education programs which emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.<ref name=":5" /> In [[Europe]], the death rate decline started in the late 18th century in [[northwestern Europe]] and spread to the south and east over approximately the next 100 years.<ref name=":5" /> Without a corresponding fall in birth rates this produces an [[Demographic trap|imbalance]], and the countries in this stage experience a large increase in [[population]].

* In stage three, birth rates fall due to various [[Fertility factor (demography)|fertility factors]] such as access to [[contraception]], increases in wages, [[urbanization]], a reduction in [[subsistence agriculture]], an increase in the status and education of women, a reduction in the value of children's work, an increase in parental investment in the education of children, and other social changes. Population growth begins to level off. The birth rate decline in developed countries started in the late 19th century in northern Europe.<ref name=":5" /> While improvements in contraception do play a role in birth rate decline, contraceptives were not generally available nor widely used in the 19th century and as a result likely did not play a significant role in the decline then.<ref name=":5" /> It is important to note that birth rate decline is caused also by a transition in values, not just because of the availability of contraceptives.<ref name=":5" />