Theory of Demographic Transition

Orthodox theories states that all contemporary developed nations transit the same three stages
of population growth.

Demographic Transition is the changes in levels of fertility and mortality in the process of
economic development. This transition is held to involve three phases (see Fig.)

STAGE I: Before economic modernization i.e. a preindustrial phase, countries for centuries
had witnessed a situation of stable or slow growing population in which high birth rates are
balanced by high death rates, a position of equilibrium.

STAGE II: With economic development and consequent improvement in public health care
facilities, societies witnessed a marked decline in the mortality rates that gradually increased
the life expectancy at birth from below 40 years of age to above 60 years of age. It is an
intermediate phase, in which declining death rates are accompanied by high birth rates remain,
the beginning of demographic transition from a slow growing population to a phase of rapid
population growth.

STAGE III: Forces and influences of modernization and economic development cause fertility
rates to decline, eventual convergence of falling birth rates with lower death rates, leaving
almost little or no population growth. It is a concluding phase, in which birth rates fall, leading
to a new equilibrium.

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The decline in death rates was not immediately accompanied by a decline in fertility. As a
result, the growing divergence between high birth rates and falling death rates led to sharp
increases in population growth compared to past centuries.

Explanations usually advanced for this pattern of population change are:

(a) improvements in public health in phase
(b) followed by changes in economic and cultural orientations in phase
(c) leading to a reduction in preferred family size.

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Economic Cost-Benefit Analysis in deciding whether or not to have an additional child in the
family.
BENEFIT: Expected income from child labour usually on the farm and their family support
for elderly parents.

COST:
1. Opportunity Cost of mother’s time, the income she could have earned if she were not
at home caring for her children.
2. Cost of educating children, i.e. a trade-off between having fewer ‘high quality’ high
cost, educated children with expected future high income earning potentials versus ‘low
quality’ low cost uneducated children with relatively much lower earning prospects.

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MALTHUSIAN THEORY OF POPULATION

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