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Demographic Transition
The worldwide human population has continued to grow at an elevated rate compared to
most of human history. This trend in population growth shows no signs of stopping soon either,
even with below replacement fertility levels in highly developed countries. The majority of
population growth is due to the rapid growth in developing countries, especially underdeveloped
countries in Asia and Africa. This trend of population growth can be explained by the
demographic transition, which essentially is the period of rapid growth in developing countries
after mortality rates drop yet fertility rates stay high. The demographic transition is also heavily
connected to life history theory, especially the tradeoff of quantity versus quality of offspring.
The demographic transition is usually correlated with developing countries growing and
transitioning into an industrialized and urban environment. Before the demographic transition,
underdeveloped countries more closely resembled the historically traditional way of human life.
Society was centered around hunting and gathering or subsistence farming. In this period before
the demographic transition, the environment poses many dangers, and mortality is high. Fertility
is also high in this sort of environment to prevent a groups extinction. Then, through internal or
external forces, mortality will drop steeply. Bloom (2011) explains this mortality decline with,
Mortality decline is conventionally understood to be reflective of some combination of medical
advances (especially vaccines and antibiotics); dietary improvements; and public health
measures focus on sanitation, safe drinking water, and vector control (p. 564). In other words,
numerous technological advances and shifting societal concerns will bring about much safer
conditions to people, especially infants. During this time, fertility will continue to be high, and
its during this period of low mortality and high fertility that populations grow at an increased
rate. This increase in population has an effect on the number of working aged people after a

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number of years. This increase in the number of working aged people causes financial growth
and is a start to the transition to an industrialized state. Eventually, the fertility rate will drop as
well. Bloom again describes the decline in fertility with, Fertility decline is often triggered by
parents realization that they no longer need to bear as many children to achieve their desired
family size, and desired family size may itself moderate with education and income gains (2011
p. 564). The changing ecological conditions into an industrialized, urban state bring about
different requirements for parents reproductive success and achieving fitness goals. Access to
contraceptives also play a role in lower fertility rates. Once fertility rates drop down to a little
above the levels of mortality, then increased population growth has ceased and the society has
exited the demographic transition.
The demographic transition is also related to life history theory, specifically the life
history tradeoff of quantity versus quality of offspring. If a parent wants as many of their offspring
to survive, it must choose between producing as many offspring as it can (quantity) or investing more
energy into a smaller number of offspring (quality). It is fair to assume that the investment of a parents
resources directly increases the chances of survival of offspring, so which decision will let the organism
have better reproductive success? Similarly to the growth versus reproduction tradeoff, it depends on
demographic parameters such as mortality rates. In a high mortality environment, organisms are more
likely to reproduce early, more often, and, across species lines, in larger batches. In other words they
focus on quantity. However, organisms in low mortality environments tend to reproduce at a later age,
more slowly, and fewer offspring at a time. These organisms focus more on quality and invest more in
personal growth. So before the demographic transition, in a period of high mortality, parents will

focus on quantity in offspring in order to maximize the number that make it to reproductive age.
When the demographic transition is happening though, and the ecology is changing into a more
industrialized/urbanized one, parents will choose the opposite side of the tradeoff. Lawson and

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Mace (2011) describe this choice with, family size has a negative influence on both mothers
and fathers time spent engaged in childcare over the first decade of life and that in the
struggle to feed, clothe and house more children, parents from large family households reported
increased financial difficulty (p. 338). So in a low fertility-low mortality industrialized
environment, children are more expensive to raise. This is due to the fact that children need
more resources put into them, such as education, in order to achieve and realize fitness goals.
This means that parents will have less children and focus more on the quality of their offspring.
Overall, the demographic transition is the period of time where mortality in a population
is low, yet fertility is high, causing a large increase in population growth. The demographic
transition is also related to life history theory, most notably the tradeoff of quality versus quantity
of offspring.

Works Cited
Bloom, D.E. (2011). 7 Billion and Counting, Science 333, 562-569.

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Lawson, D.W. & Mace, R. (2011). Parental investment and the optimization of human family
size, Philosophical Transactions Royal Society B 366, 333-343.