Demographic transition

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Not to be confused with Demographic shift.

Demographic transition (DT) refers to the transition from high birth and death rates to lower birth and death rates as a country or region develops from a pre-industrial to an industrialized economic system. The theory was proposed in 1929 the American demographer Warren Thompson,[1] who observed changes, or transitions, in birth and death rates in industrialized societies over the previous 200 years. Most developed countries have completed the demographic transition and have low birth rates; most developing countries are in the process of this transition.[2][3] The major (relative) exceptions are some poor countries, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa and some Middle Eastern countries, which are poor or affected by government policy or civil strife, notably,Pakistan, Palestinian territories, Yemen, and Afghanistan.[2]

The demographic transition model, in isolation, can be taken to predict that birth rates will continue to go down as societies grow increasingly wealthy; however, recent data contradict this, suggesting that beyond a certain level of development birth rates increase again.[4] In addition, in the very long term, the demographic transition should be reversed via evolutionary pressure for higher fertility and higher mortality.[5]

The existence of some kind of demographic transition is widely accepted in the social sciences because of the well-established historical correlation linking dropping fertility to social and economic development.[4] Scholars debate whether industrialization and higher incomes lead to lower population, or whether lower populations lead to industrialization and higher incomes. Scholars also debate to what extent various proposed and sometimes inter-related factors such as higher per-capita income, higher female income, lower mortality, old-age security, and rise of demand for human capital are involved.[6]

Demographic Transition overview, with below-replacement-fertility broken out into a "stage 5"

History of the theory[edit]

The theory is based on an interpretation of demographic history developed in 1929 by the American demographer Warren Thompson (1887–1973).[1] Adolphe Landry of France made similar observations on demographic patterns and population growth potential around 1934.[7] In the 1940s and 1950s Frank W. Notestein developed a more formal theory of demographic transition.[8] By 2009, the existence of a negative correlation between fertility and industrial development had become one of the most widely accepted findings in social science.[4]

Summary of the theory[edit]

Demographic change in Germany, Sweden, Chile, Mauritius, China from 1820 to 2010.
Pink line: crude death rate (CDR), green line: (crude) birth rate (CBR), yellow line: population

The transition involves four stages, or possibly five.

  • In stage one, pre-industrial society, death rates and birth rates are high and roughly in balance. All human populations are believed to have had this balance until the late 18th century, when this balance ended in Western Europe.[9] In fact, growth rates were less than 0.05% at least since the Agricultural Revolution over 10,000 years ago.[9] 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.[9]
  • In stage two, that of a developing countr(y/ies), the death rates drop quickly due to improvements in food supply and sanitation, which increase life expectancies and reduce disease. The improvements specific to food supply typically include selective breeding and crop rotation and farming techniques.[9] Other improvements generally include access to ovens, baking, and television. For example, numerous improvements in public health reduce mortality, especially childhood mortality.[9] 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.[9] 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.[9] 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.[9] 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 various 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.[9] While improvements in contraception do play a role in birth rate decline, it should be noted that 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.[9] 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.[9]
  • Some scholars break out, from stage four, a "stage five" of below-replacement fertility levels. Others hypothesize a different "stage five" involving an increase in fertility.[5]


Stage One[edit]


During this stage, the society evolves in accordance with Malthusian paradigm, with population essentially determined by the food supply. Any fluctuations in food supply (either positive, for example, due to technology improvements, or negative, due to droughts and pest invasions) tend to translate directly into population fluctuations. Famines resulting in significant mortality are frequent. Overall, population dynamics during stage one are comparable to those of animals living in the wild. According to Edward, Revocatus. (2016) This is the earlier stage of demographic transition in the world and also characterized by primary activities such as small fishing activities, farming practices, pastoralism and petty businesses.

Stage Two[edit]

World population 10,000 BC - 2000 AD



  • First, improvements in the food supply brought about by higher yields in agricultural practices and better transportation reduce death due to starvation and lack of water. Agricultural improvements included crop rotation, selective breeding, and seed drill technology.

A consequence of the decline in mortality in Stage Two is an increasingly rapid growth in population growth (a.k.a. "population explosion") as the gap between deaths and births grows wider and 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 north-western 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 rapid growth of number of living persons that has demographers concerned today. In this stage of DT, countries are vulnerable to become failed states in the absence of progressive governments.

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 deaths are 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 and a growing population. Hence, the age structure of the population becomes increasingly youthful and start to have big families and more of these children enter the reproductive cycle of their lives while maintaining the high fertility rates of their parents. The bottom of the "age pyramid" widens first where children, teenagers and infants are here, accelerating population growth rate. The age structure of such a population is illustrated by using an example from the Third World today.

Stage Three[edit]

Stage Three moves the population towards stability through a decline in the birth rate.[14] Several fertility factors contribute to this eventual decline, and are generally similar to those associated with sub-replacement fertility, although some are speculative:

  • In both rural and urban areas, the cost of children to parents is exacerbated by the introduction of compulsory education acts and the increased need to educate children so they can take up a respected position in society. Children are increasingly prohibited under law from working outside the household and make an increasingly limited contribution to the household, as school children are increasingly exempted from the expectation of making a significant contribution to domestic work. Even in equatorial Africa, children (age under 5) now required to have clothes and shoes, through the body, and may even require school uniforms. Parents begin to consider it a duty to buy children(s) books and toys, partly due to education and access to family planning, people begin to reassess their need for children and their ability to grow them.[11]
  • Improvements in contraceptive technology are now a major factor. Fertility decline is caused as much by changes in values about children and gender as by the availability of contraceptives and knowledge of how to use them.


However, unless factors such as those listed above are allowed to work, a society's birth rates may not drop to a low level in due time, which means that the society cannot proceed to stage Three and is locked in what is called a demographic trap.

Countries that have witnessed a fertility decline of over 50% from their pre-transition levels include: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Panama, Jamaica, Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Lebanon, South Africa, India, Saudi Arabia, and many Pacific islands.

Countries that have experienced a fertility decline of 25-50% include: Guatemala, Tajikistan, Egypt, and Zimbabwe.

Countries that have experienced a fertility decline of less than 25% include: Sudan, Niger, Afghanistan.

Stage Four[edit]


Countries that are at this stage (Total Fertility Rate of < 2.5 in 1997) include: United States, Canada, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, the majority of Europe, Bahamas, Puerto Rico (US territory), Trinidad and Tobago, Brazil, Sri Lanka, South Korea, Singapore, Iran, China, Turkey, Thailand, and Mauritius.[13]

Stage Five[edit]

United Nation's population projections by location.
Note the vertical axis is logarithmic and represents millions of people.



In an article in the August 2009 issue of Nature, Myrskyla, Kohler and Francesco Billari argue that the previously negative relationship between "development", as measured by the Human Development Index (HDI), and birth rates has become J-shaped. The HDI is a composite of life expectancy, income, and level of education. Development promotes fertility decline at HDI levels below 0.9 but further advances in HDI cause a small rebound in birth rate.[17] In many countries with very high levels of development, fertility rates are now approaching two children per woman — although there are exceptions, notably Germany, Italy and Japan.[18]

In the current century, most developed countries have increased fertility. From the point of view of evolutionary biology, richer people having fewer children is unexpected, as natural selection would be expected to favor individuals who are willing and able to convert plentiful resources into plentiful fertile descendants. This may be the result of a departure from the environment of evolutionary adaptedness.[19][20] Thus, from the perspective of evolutionary psychology, the modern environment is exerting evolutionary pressure for higher fertility.[5]

Jane Falkingham of Southampton University has noted that "We've actually got population projections wrong consistently over the last 50 years... we've underestimated the improvements in mortality... but also we've not been very good at spotting the trends in fertility."[5] In 2004 a United Nations office published its guesses for global population in the year 2300; estimates ranged from a "low estimate" of 2.3 billion (tending to -0.32% per year) to a "high estimate" of 36.4 billion (tending to +0.54% per year), which were contrasted with a deliberately "unrealistic" illustrative "constant fertility" scenario of 134 trillion (obtained if 1995-2000 fertility rates stay constant into the far future).[5][21]

Effects on age structure[edit]


Historical studies[edit]











As of year 2013, India is in later half of third stage demographic transition with 1.23 billion population.[25] It is nearly 40 years behind in demographic transition process compared to EU countries, Japan, etc. The present demographic transition stage of India along with its higher population base will yield rich demographic dividend in future decades.[26]






Russian male and female life expectancy since 1950.[29][30]

Russia entered stage two of the transition in the 18th century, simultaneously with the rest of Europe, though the effect of transition remained limited to a modest decline in death rates and steady population growth. The population of Russia nearly quadrupled during the 19th century, from 30 million to 133 million, and continued to grow until the First World War and the turmoil that followed.[31] Russia then quickly transitioned through stage three. Though fertility rates rebounded initially and almost reached 7 children/woman in the mid-1920s, they were depressed by the 1931-33 famine, crashed due to the Second World War in 1941, and only rebounded to a sustained level of 3 children/woman after the war. By 1970 Russia was firmly in stage four, with crude birth rates and crude death rates on the order of 15/1000 and 9/1000 respectively.

In the 1980s and 1990s Russia underwent a unique demographic transition; observers call it a "demographic catastrophe": the number of deaths exceeded the number of births, life expectancy fell sharply (especially for males) and the number of suicides increased.[32] From 1992 through 2011, the number of deaths exceeded the number of births.

United States[edit]



However, this late decline occurred from a very low initial level. During 17th and 18th century, crude death rates in much of colonial North America ranged from 15 to 25 deaths per 1000 residents per year[33][34] (levels of up to 40 per 1000 being typical during stages one and two). Life expectancy at birth was on the order of 40 and, in some places, reached 50, and a resident of 18th century Philadelphia who reached age 20 could have expected, on average, additional 40 years of life.

This phenomenon is explained by the pattern of colonization of the United States. Sparsely populated interior of the country allowed ample room to accommodate all the "excess" people, counteracting mechanisms (spread of communicable diseases due to overcrowding, low real wages and insufficient calories per capita due to the limited amount of available agricultural land) which led to high mortality in the Old World. With low mortality but stage 1 birth rates, the United States necessarily experienced exponential population growth (from less than 4 million people in 1790, to 23 million in 1850, to 76 million in 1900.)

The only area where this pattern did not hold was the American South. High prevalence of deadly endemic diseases such as malaria kept mortality as high as 45-50 per 1000 residents per year in 18th century North Carolina. In New Orleans, mortality remained so high (mainly due to yellow fever) that the city was characterized as the "death capital of the United States" - at the level of 50 per 1000 population or higher - well into the second half of the 19th century.[35]


Critical evaluation[edit]



Countries with lower economic development have much faster demographic transition than high-income countries.




Second demographic transition[edit]

The second demographic transition refers to a theoretical framework first advanced in 1986 by Ron Lesthaeghe and Dirk van de Kaa[38] which addresses the changes in the patterns of sexual and reproductive behavior which occurred in North America and Western Europe in the period from about 1963, when the birth control pill and other cheap effective contraceptive methods such as the IUD were adopted by the general population, to the present. Combined with the sexual revolution and the increased role of women in society and the workforce the resulting changes have profoundly affected the demographics of industrialized countries resulting in a sub-replacement fertility level.[39]

The changes, increased numbers of women choosing to not marry or have children, increased cohabitation outside marriage, increased childbearing by single mothers, increased participation by women in higher education and professional careers, and other changes are associated with increased individualism and autonomy, particularly of women. Motivations have changed from traditional and economic ones to those of self-realization[40]

See also[edit]


  1. ^ a b "Warren Thompson". Encyclopedia of Population. 2. Macmillan Reference. 2003. pp. 939–40. ISBN 0-02-865677-6. 
  3. ^ a b "Demographic transition", Geography, About .
  4. ^ a b c d Myrskylä, Mikko; Kohler, Hans-Peter; Billari, Francesco C. (2009). "Advances in development reverse fertility declines". Nature. 460 (7256): 741–3. Bibcode:2009Natur.460..741M. doi:10.1038/nature08230. PMID 19661915. 
  5. ^ a b c d e Can we be sure the world's population will stop rising?, BBC News, 13 October 2012
  6. ^ Galor, Oded (17 February 2011). "The demographic transition: causes and consequences". Cliometrica. 6 (1): 1–28. doi:10.1007/s11698-011-0062-7. PMC 4116081Freely accessible. PMID 25089157. 
  7. ^ Landry, Adolphe (December 1987). "Adolphe Landry on the Demographic Revolution". Population and Development Review. 13 (4): 731. doi:10.2307/1973031. JSTOR 1973031. 
  8. ^ Woods, Robert (2000-10-05). The Demography of Victorian England and Wales. Cambridge University Press. p. 18. ISBN 978-0-521-78254-8. 
  10. ^ Barcelona fieldwork
  11. ^ a b Caldwell (2006), Chapter 5
  12. ^ BBC bitesize Archived October 23, 2007, at the Wayback Machine.
  13. ^ a b c Caldwell (2006), Chapter 10
  14. ^ "Demographic transition", Geography, Marathon, UWC .
  17. ^ Myrskyla, M; Kohler, H-P; Billari, F (6 August 2009), "Advances in development reverse fertility declines", Nature, 460 (7256): 741–43, Bibcode:2009Natur.460..741M, doi:10.1038/nature08230, PMID 19661915 .
  19. ^ Clarke, Alice L.; Low, Bobbi S. (2001). "Testing evolutionary hypotheses with demographic data". Population and Development Review. 27 (4): 633–660. doi:10.1111/j.1728-4457.2001.00633.x. 
  20. ^
  21. ^ "World Population to 2300" (PDF). United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. 2004. Retrieved 24 May 2016. 
  22. ^ Coleman, DA (1992), "The Demographic Transition in Ireland in International Context", Proceedings of the British Academy (79): 53–77 .
  23. ^
  24. ^ Baudelle, Guy; Olivier, David (2006), "Changement Global, Mondialisation et Modèle De Transition Démographique: réflexion sur une exception française parmi les pays développés", Historiens et Géographes (in French), 98 (395): 177–204, ISSN 0046-757X 
  25. ^ "The arithmetic's of Indian population". Retrieved 13 September 2013. 
  28. ^ Campbell, Gwyn (1991), "State and Pre-colonial Demographic History: the Case of Nineteenth-century Madagascar", Journal of African History, 32 (3): 415–45, doi:10.1017/s0021853700031534, ISSN 0021-8537 .
  29. ^ "Life expectancy of the Russian Federation since 1950". 26 April 2011. Archived from the original on 14 May 2011. Retrieved 14 May 2011. 
  30. ^ Life Expectancy of the Russian Federation since 1992 Retrieved on 29 May 2008
  31. ^ "Population of Eastern Europe". 
  33. ^ Herbert S. Klein. A Population History of the United States. p. 39. 
  34. ^ Michael R. Haines, Richard H. Steckel. A Population History of North America. pp. 163–164. 
  35. ^ "The Urban Mortality Transition in the United States, 1800-1940". 
  36. ^ "US", World factbook, USA: CIA .
  38. ^ Ron Lesthaeghe; Dirk van de Kaa (1986). "Twee demografische transities? [Two demographic transitions?]". Bevolking: groei en krimp [Population: growth and shrinkage] (in Dutch with summaries in English). Deventer : Van Loghum Slaterus. pp. 9–24. ISBN 9789036800181. 
  39. ^ Dirk J. van de Kaa (29 January 2002). "The Idea of a Second Demographic Transition in Industrialized Countries" (PDF). Retrieved May 6, 2016. 
  40. ^ Ron Lesthaeghe (December 23, 2014). "The second demographic transition: A concise overview of its development". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 111 (51): 18112–18115. Bibcode:2014PNAS..11118112L. doi:10.1073/pnas.1420441111. PMC 4280616Freely accessible. PMID 25453112. 


  • Carrying capacity
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  • Davis, Kingsley (1945), "The World Demographic Transition", Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (237): 1–11, JSTOR 1025490 . Classic article that introduced concept of transition.
  • Friedlander, Dov; S Okun, Barbara; Segal, Sharon (1999), "The Demographic Transition Then and Now: Processes, Perspectives, and Analyses", Journal of Family History, 24 (4): 493–533, doi:10.1177/036319909902400406, ISSN 0363-1990, PMID 11623954 , full text in Ebsco.
  • Galor, Oded (2005). "The Demographic Transition and the Emergence of Sustained Economic Growth". Journal of the European Economic Association. 3: 494–504. doi:10.1162/jeea.2005.3.2-3.494. 
  • Greenwood, Jeremy; Seshadri, Ananth (2002). "The US Demographic Transition". American Economic Review. 92 (2): 153–59. doi:10.1257/000282802320189168. JSTOR 3083393. 
  • Harbison, Sarah F.; Robinson, Warren C. (2002). "Policy Implications of the Next World Demographic Transition". Studies in Family Planning. 33 (1): 37–48. doi:10.1111/j.1728-4465.2002.00037.x. JSTOR 2696331. PMID 11974418. 
  • Hirschman, Charles (1994). "Why fertility changes". Annual Review of Sociology. 20: 203–233. doi:10.1146/ PMID 12318868. 
  • Kirk, Dudley (1996). "The Demographic Transition". Population Studies. 50 (3): 361–87. doi:10.1080/0032472031000149536. JSTOR 2174639. PMID 11618374. 
  • Mercer, Alexander (2014), Infections, Chronic Disease, and the Epidemiological Transition. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press/Rochester Studies in Medical History, ISBN 978-1-58046-508-3
  • Saito, Oasamu (1996), "Historical Demography: Achievements and Prospects", Population Studies, 50 (3): 537–53, doi:10.1080/0032472031000149606, ISSN 0032-4728, JSTOR 2174646, PMID 11618380 .
  • Szreter, Simon (1993), "The Idea of Demographic Transition and the Study of Fertility: A Critical Intellectual History", Population and Development Review, 19 (4): 659–701, doi:10.2307/2938410, JSTOR 2938410 .
  • ————————; Nye, Robert A; van Poppel, Frans (2003), "Fertility and Contraception During the Demographic Transition: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches", Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 34 (2): 141–54, doi:10.1162/002219503322649453, ISSN 0022-1953 , full text in Project Muse and Ebsco
  • Thompson, Warren S (1929), "Population", American Journal of Sociology, 34 (6): 959–75, doi:10.1086/214874, After the next World War, we will see Germany lose more women and children and soon start again from a developing stage .