What We Can and

Cannot Learn from the

History of World
Population
GLOBAL POPULATION AND MOBILITY
Introduction
In any field of study concerned with the history of
mankind, the question of the relevance of the past for the
exploration of the future emerges forcefully.

◦Population is no exception, and particularly so in this

historical phase of maximum acceleration of growth
and the anxious questions it raises about the future.
Questions for the Future
How many billion people will share the fixed
resources of our globe a century from
now?
What will be the consequences of climate
change for human society?
 There is no “Answer,” but we can
observe the past
There are constants and structures in
human demographic behavior, and there
are robust mechanisms in the functioning
of the demographic systems that are of
some help in preparing us to deal with the
future.
 Population Cycles Yesterday & Today
One element very relevant for the interpretation of
major social, economic, and political forces is the changing
pattern of the geodemography of the world

aka

The demographic characteristics and

distribution of people according to their
geographical location.
 Historical Examples of Changing
Geographical distribution of population

In Europe: Natural fertility was prevalent, but survival was precarious. Voluntary
fertility was limited to only small sectors of the populus. Almost everywhere, the
average life expectancy at birth was under 40 years.

In the Americas, despite significant immigration from Europe and Africa,

America’s world population share dropped to 2% in 1800s before rising to 13% in
1950. European invasion and immigration played a role in diminishing and
recovering the demographic share.
• In Western Europe, Germany and the UK, made up around one-third
of the region's population in 1820; just before the First World War,
their percentage had risen to 43 percent.

Essentially….

These changes were brought about by the various

continents, regions, and nations of the world experiencing
the transition at distinct times.
Is the transition still ongoing?
What happens if the cycle ends?
Will nations and continents come to a common population
pattern?
Will fertility hover around replacement—where the average
number of children a woman reproduce herself survives to
childbearing age to replace the previous generation.
Will survival reach an unmovable biological maximum?
Will migration ripen the fruits of globalization?
Extinction and Erratic
Mortality
 EXTINCTION

Many prophesies hold that mankind will become extinct.

Pessimists believe that extinction might happen soon.
For the optimists the end of mankind is inevitable.
Basic definition of extinction- A species is said to be extinct when it no longer live anywhere on the
planet.

We know very little about the patterns and causes of the extinction of past populations. Many became
extinct because of fragmentation and isolation that led to communities falling under a minimum
sustainable size We may speculate that this mode of extinction might have happened with relative
frequency in hunting and gathering societies, organized in small and dispersed groups.

Other populations disappeared because of natural or man-made catastrophes: an island’s population

destroyed by the explosion of a volcano, a group settled along the coastline wiped out by a tsunami, a
village destroyed by an earthquake, a faction slaughtered in a war, a religious or an ethnic group
annihilated in a genocide. Events of this kind may happen in the future.
Another group of causes of extinction relate to what has been defined as ‘demographic suicide’ or a
continuous and structural imbalance between births and deaths.
The extinction of the native populations of the Caribbean in the sixteenth century, and of the
Tasmanians or the Fuegians in the nineteenth, although one may argue that their decline was the
consequence of disruption caused by contact with the Europeans

In our times, Germany, Spain, Italy, Russia, South Korea, and Japan have been often described as
countries attempting ‘demographic suicide’, with reference to the excess of deaths over births (Pritchett
and Viarengo 2013).
Populations disappeared also because they ‘lost’ their identity through mixing with other groups. In this
case, it is a social, cultural, or linguistic extinction, not a demographic one. In a globalized world,
where migration and intermarriage are expected to increase, mixing will probably become a major
force in shaping societies, determining changes of identities or even wiping out the distinctive features
of a population.
 ERRATIC MORTALITY
Before the onset of the demographic transition in the late eighteenth century in Europe, much later,
in the nineteenth and twentieth century elsewhere the powerful driving force of population change
was mortality.
Patterns of mortality in the past have been heavily affected by crises, generally of short duration,
but with a profound impact on population growth. However, mortality has also undergone deep
cycles, owing to the continuous modification of the system of pathologies.
The system evolves because of genetic mutations and drift, and social inheritance through changing
interactions between humans, microbes, animal vectors, and the environment. New diseases appear, old ones
re-emerge, others lose or increase their virulence, some vanish. Sweating sickness and other fevers, typhus,
malaria, smallpox, plague (and many others) each has its own and often mysterious origin and history, and
has had a variable impact on general mortality

Does the history of survival provide some guidelines for the future?
Certainly, the occurrence of crises produced by natural causes and typical of the naturally caused ancien
régime crises is improbable, but the twentieth century offers many examples of horrible man-made famines,
such as those that plagued Ukraine–Russia, China, or North Korea.
The two major factors that could jeopardize the enormous advances of survival achieved during the last
century, or cripple future progresa:

The first is any unforeseen modification of the system of pathologies—as outlined above—through the
emergence of new deadly diseases, as well as the resilience of old diseases caused by, for instance,
unforeseen resistance to antibiotics. The emergence and rise of HIV infections, and the costly struggle to
contain its consequences, should be kept in mind as a symptom of the mutability of the biological sphere.
The same can be said of the Ebola virus.

The other factor is the possible economic unsustainability of modern health care systems, threatened by
rising costs and demographic ageing. Inasmuch as rising costs produce a retrenchment of public health care
and restricted accessibility to health services, more inequality and more vulnerability may be generated,
with negative consequences for survival.
REBOUND AND
ADJUSTMENTS
 Definitions

Demography –the study of statistics such as births, deaths, income , or the

incidence of disease, which illustrate the changing structure of human populations.
Population growth or decline depends upon fertility, mortality and migration.
Rebounds- bounce back
Mortality- death
Fertility-ability to produce offspring
Crisis/Crises-time/s of intense difficulty
Deep crises or high negative phases in the demographic cycle are almost
always followed by ‘rebounds’ or by ‘adjustments’ of the demographic
system.

Demography –the study of statistics such as births, deaths, income

Rebounds – typically follow the ‘ancien regime’ or old order type of
crisis:
Plague, small pox , or cholera
Also, rise of cereal prices due to adverse weather, parasites that destroys
main staple, a man-made event like war followed by a major epidemic of
typhoid fevers, typhus or other diseases.
 Effects
A crises explodes
Mortality rises
Marriages are dissolved by widowhood
Fewer new marriages are concluded
Conceptions and birth falls
Going back to normal
Recuperation of marriages
Higher marital fertility
Lower mortality
Higher natural growth

- Depending on the gravity of crises, the negative consequences of the crises will be wiped out and
the system returns to its normal equilibrium.
 Where is it observed?

After first and second World Wars

After forced collectivization in Russia-Ukraine (1932-1933)
‘Great Leap Forward’ in China (1959-1961)

-Adjustments and response after a crisis or catastrophe implies convergence toward a different
demographic system.

-may or may not take place according to specific circumstances

Adjustments generally requires time, unlike Rebounds, whose
mechanism are relatively clear, Adjustment factors are complex and
variable.
Adjustment factors are complex and variable.
Population and a growing pressure on the available resources are
viewed as forces that put on motion responses tending to minimize and
contain the negative outcomes.
Responses: general economic nature
demographic
combination of the two
Responses
Demographic
General economic
nature
COMBINATION Adjustment of the
demographic system
Advances in technology and leading to a lower
productivity rate of growth
Investment in new land
 European populations
Great plague cycle (14th and 15th century)
Economy nature:

Lower density

More land available

More extensive cultivation

Demographic:

Restructuring of families in larger and more complex units

Higher fertility

Changes of the marriage pattern

Population was restored to the position before the crisis after a century-long period of growth
In Japan, the long cycle of population growth of the
early Tokugawa period terminating in the first decades
of the eighteen century was followed by a period of
quasi-stagnation until the second third of the
nineteenth century, through marriage control and
infanticide(Hayami 2009).
Rebounds would certainly happen in the future as a response to
catastrophic events, although probably with less force than in the
‘high pressure’ systems of the past.

Countries in Europe and Eastern Asia: low fertility

-give way to a gradual recovery
According to many institutions, researchers and authors of
demographic projections and forecasts.
Adjustments includes becoming open to immigration despite
of sentiment of national identity. Like Japan , who may
change its restrictive stance.
Robust Fertility
Insufficient reproductive capacity
Destruction of the foundations of fertility
A lack of mating opportunities
Forcible separation of couples
Loss of libido, decrease of fecundity because of infections,hunger, or stress
High mortality that raised the bar of ‘replacement’
 Sample of below replacement countries
England

Plague cycle(1348)- (Hollingsworth 1969)

Later termed as ‘Black Death’, causing death around 20% of the population

❖6 out of 67 five-year period between 1541-1875(Wrigley and Schofield 1981 )

Caribbean Islands

Native populations became extinct during the sixteenth century because the ‘natural’ foundations of reproduction were compromised by the European new comers.

Causes:

Displacement of families and communities

Separation of couples

Inclusion of women into the reproductive pool of the conquerors

Mexico (indirect evidence)

Below replacement fertility was a rare event. Even during exceptional periods of
distress, fertility has shown remarkable resilience, as can be illustrated by the
following example from Southern America .

Catastrophic period (1733 and 1767)

onset of wars, smallpox, epidemics, displacement

The Guarani of the 30 missions of Paraguay maintained a very high fertility, with a
total fertility in the vicinity of eight children per woman(Livi-Bacci 2008)

Populations of the past, before the modern demographic transition, were certainly
endowed with fertility levels that were high, robust, and resilient.
Demographic transition is a phenomenon and theory which refers to historical shift
from high birth rates and high death rates in societies with minimal technology,
education (esp. of women) and economic development, to low birth rates and low
death rates in societies with advanced technology, education and economic
development, as well as stages between these scenarios.
Although the shift has occurred in many industrialized countries, the theory and
model are frequently imprecise when applied to individual countries due to specific
social, political and economic factors affecting particular populations. However, this
is widely accepted due to the well-established historical correlation linking dropping
of fertility to social and economic development.
Still, Scholars debate whether industrialization and higher incomes lead to lower
population, or whether lower populations lead to industrialization and higher
incomes.
Selection and fitness
The inhabitants of the Tierra del Fuego, the Cape of Good Hope and
Tasmania in the one hemisphere, and of the arctic region in the other,
must have passed through many climates, and changed their habits
many times, before they reached their present homes’ (Darwin 1871,
pp. 135–136).
The human species described here by Charles Darwin in The
Descent of Man originated in equatorial Africa, and its methods of
survival, ways of life, and habits had to evolve continually in
order to make settlement possible in those more extreme corners
of the two hemispheres

-Since the development of agriculture, the majority of migration flows have

developed in unpopulated or areas with large open spaces in a wave-like
pattern. In a simplified model, the first wave would settle in a convenient
area, creating a demographic surplus that caused subsequent waves to settle
further away, and so on.
Two primary features of model migration

•The first was the ability to move and adapt to a

wide range of environments, including surprisingly
challenging ones.

•The second feature was the ability of those

families and settlements at the front of the wave to
generate a demographic surplus adequate for
further expansion.
This paradigm fits well the late medieval German eastward migration in
Europe (Drang nach Osten), the settlement of Europeans in North
America and of Russians in Siberia, and the Chinese migration to
Manchuria (Livi-Bacci 2012).

Mobility is not driven mainly by natural factors, as are fertility and

survival. The interference of policies and regulations, particularly after
the rise of nation- states, has become very strong and, today, is at its
maximum historical level.
Migration policies
Migration policy can be defined as a planned intervention of the state or
nation in order to stimulate, direct, control, select, and organize mobility
and migration flows

The ability to move is a fundamental component of human capital

and most migrations were of:

•Individuals

•Families

•Groups moving mainly on their own initiative.

However, even before the emergence of modern nation-states,
there were examples of organized migration, such as:

•The foundation of Greek settlements in the Mediterranean

•The forced migration of settlers (mitima) by the Inca empire

to distant places, in order to consolidate newly conquered
lands

•and the east- ward German migration and settlement

organized and financed by princes, bishops, or chivalric
orders.

Migration policies are always selective, sometimes in an open and transparent fashion,
sometimes in a hidden fashion. Selection attempts to increase the fitness of migrants, in order
to improve their chances of success, be this demographic, social, or economic.
History provides cases of success and failure.
• For instance, the immigration of German farmers promoted by Catherine
II into Russia in 1762–65 was extremely successful; the farmers were
well endowed in terms of knowledge of agricultural techniques, tools,
animals, and land.

• The newly established settlements saw population and economic growth. Similar initiatives to
settle immigrants in sparsely inhabited areas in Italy and Spain during the seventeenth century
failed, either due to poor planning or the selection of the incorrect selection criteria. There were
further instances in various parts of the world (Livi-Bacci 2012). If the state is any good at creating
the criteria for choosing immigrants, either entering or outgoing, or whether it should abstain from
this function, is an important subject for policymakers. In the second case, migration rules should
regulate, but they should not be prescriptive about the characteristics of the migrants.

• The great transatlantic migration from Europe to America has been a

successful mass movement (successful for the Europeans rather than for
the American natives) that was, by and large, free from state interference.
In our times, policies are increasingly selective, in an effort to
maximize the utility of the immigrants and their fitness for the
new environment. Qualities selected for :

•Age

•Educations

•Skills adaptabilities

•Financial endowment

However, crucial sets of questions for policymakers have emerged, the first
being whether the state is a good judge of the criteria to be used in the
selection process, and whether it is capable of applying its chosen criteria
effectively.