Population and Development: The Demographic Transition - Hardcover

Dyson, Tim

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1842779591 ISBN 13: 9781842779590

Verlag: Zed Books Ltd, 2010

Inhaltsangabe

The demographic transition and its related effects of population growth, fertility decline and ageing populations are fraught with controversy. When discussed in relation to the global south and the modern project of development, the questions and answers become more problematic.

Population and Development offers an expert guide on the demographic transition, from its origins in Enlightenment Europe through to the rest of the world. Tim Dyson examines how, while the phenomenon continues to cause unsustainable population growth with serious economic and environmental implications, its processes have underlain previous periods of sustained economic growth, helped to liberate women from the domestic domain, and contributed greatly to the rise of modern democracy. This accessible yet scholarly analysis will enable any student or expert in development studies to understand complex and vital demographic theory.

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Tim Dyson is Professor of Population Studies at the London School of Economics. His research interests include world food and agricultural prospects, the causes and consequences of famines, the demographic basis of urban growth and urbanization, climate change and global warming, the demography and epidemiology of HIV/AIDS, and the past, present and future population of the Indian subcontinent.
Tim Dyson is Professor of Population Studies at the London School of Economics. His research interests include world food and agricultural prospects, the causes and consequences of famines, the demographic basis of urban growth and urbanization, climate change and global warming, the demography and epidemiology of HIV/AIDS, and the past, present and future population of the Indian subcontinent.

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Population and development The Demographic Transition

By Tim Dyson

Zed Books Ltd

Copyright © 2010 Tim Dyson
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-84277-959-0

Contents

Figures and tables, vi, 
Preface, viii, 
Glossary, xiii, 
PART ONE Introduction, 
1 Introduction, 3, 
2 The demographic transition – origins, processes, effects, 8, 
3 World population and the transition, 50, 
PART TWO The processes of the demographic transition, 
4 The demographic transition – facts and theory, 83, 
5 Urbanization and the transition, 125, 
PART THREE The effects of the demographic transition, 
6 Social effects of the transition, 159, 
7 Economic and political effects, 188, 
PART FOUR Conclusion, 
8 Conclusions, discussion, the future, 215, 
Appendix: remarks on data and approach, 229, 
Notes, 231, 
Bibliography, 245, 
Index, 262, 

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

This book addresses the central role of the demographic transition in the creation of the modern world. It considers how the major processes involved in this transition have unfolded during the modern era. And it examines the immense – and often unrecognized – impact that these processes have had on many key aspects of life.

At the start of the twenty-first century, every country in the world is being affected by the demographic transition. Indeed, most countries are still experiencing it to varying degrees. The transition is a phenomenon that will continue to transform human society for many decades to come. So an appreciation of its major causal processes, and their principal societal effects, is important.

The demographic transition is a global phenomenon – one that, at its heart, involves the movement of all human populations from experiencing high death and birth rates to experiencing very much lower death and birth rates. Essentially, these are the processes of mortality decline and fertility decline respectively. As populations go through the transition, they always increase in size. That is, they experience a period of population growth due to natural increase. And they always undergo two fundamental changes in composition: they move from being predominantly rural to being predominantly urban (i.e. the process of urbanization); and they move from having young age structures to having old age structures (i.e. the process of population ageing). These are the five main processes of the transition.

These demographic processes are causally related to each other. As a result, they always occur in a similar order. In brief: mortality decline is the crucial initiating process – it causes population growth; in turn, population growth leads to stresses and strains in society which eventually bring about fertility decline; urbanization is in large part the result of mortality decline; and fertility decline is the main cause of population ageing.

These five processes usually unfold over very long periods. Indeed, even in its swiftest manifestations the movement of a society from having high death and birth rates to having low death and birth rates can take almost a century to occur. And because they involve changes in population composition, the processes of urbanization and population ageing are usually even slower. Therefore, viewed from the perspective of our own individual lives, the transition's constituent processes happen very slowly. In fact, they may be so gradual that they go virtually unseen. This helps to explain why their wider effects are often missed by social scientists – in favour of more immediate, but often shallower, explanations.

Viewed in historical terms, however, the demographic transition is a phenomenon that has occurred – and is occurring – with remarkable speed. The changes involved are huge, and so are their societal effects. But to appreciate this it is necessary to stand back and examine how the processes unfold over the very long run. It is also important to realize that the transition's processes affect other dimensions of life in remote (i.e. underlying) rather than in proximate ways. This is another reason why the transition's influence in bringing about social, economic and political change is often neglected.

Notice that the logic of the argument put forward here is that provided mortality decline occurs in a population – i.e. provided the death rate falls from high to low levels – then all of the transition's other major demographic processes will happen. That is, there will be a period of population growth, the birth rate will fall from high to low levels, urbanization will take place, and the population will become markedly older in its age composition (as the transition draws to a close). Of course, these statements are made other things equal. As we shall see, it is possible for 'third factors' to intervene and delay the occurrence of these basic causal relationships. As we will also see, however, experience suggests that the delaying influence of any such factors is usually limited – at least if things are viewed in relation to the very long run.

Naturally, the processes of the demographic transition do not happen in exactly the same way in every population. The phenomenon varies a lot in its details. The overall context – historical, geographical, institutional, socio-economic, political, cultural, etc. – is important in this connection. Clearly, we would not expect the experience of, say, Poland, to be identical to that of Chile, Egypt or Vietnam, for example. Therefore the transition's main processes – including their timing and speed – are influenced greatly by the circumstances in which they unfold.

Nevertheless, it should be emphasized that the demographic transition has occurred – and is occurring – in every kind of context. For example, it has happened in populations with widely varying cultures and religions. It has happened in societies with very different political systems. It has happened in rich countries, and it has happened in poor countries. There is no reason to believe that a major rise in per capita income is required for the constituent processes of the transition to unfold. Ultimately, the central demographic chain of cause and effect appears to be both reasonably self-contained and inexorable over the long run. Although most countries are still at some stage of the transition, there is every reason to think that we are dealing with processes that will eventually be completed everywhere. And the same may well be true of the transition's principal societal effects.

Turning to these effects, the influence of the demographic transition on general development processes has often gone unnoticed. Yet the phenomenon provides a unique framework for studying many aspects of development, and in an integrated way. The falls in death rates and birth rates which in many ways define the phenomenon are a key part – indeed, arguably they are the most important part – of whatever is meant by the term 'development'. Surely, no aspect of human progress is more precious than the banishment of death rates that are capricious and high – circumstances which mean that people's very hold on life is full of great uncertainty. Moreover, the fall in fertility that is integral to the transition allows women, in particular, to be freed from lives that are otherwise usually dominated by childbearing, childcare and related concerns of the domestic domain.

Insofar as the...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Zed Books Ltd
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2010
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1842779591
• ISBN 13: 9781842779590
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 288
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar