The Human Population: Patterns, Processes, and Problematics Lecture

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The Human PopulationPatterns, Processes, and
ProblematicsLecture 4 Demographic Perspectives

• Paul Sutton
• psutton_at_du.edu
• Department of Geography
• University of Denver

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Establishing your Demographic Perspective

• Most people have a demographic perspective which
  influences attitudes about immigration,
  english-only policy, foreign aid, etc.
• By taking this class you will be exposed to a
  significantly larger and more diverse set of
  Demographic Perspectives that will hopefully
  allow you to develop a fairly sophisticated one.
• Demography at the Core whereas, various other
  Theories are influential in their attempts to
  link basic demographic phenomoena with social,
  economic, and political processes.

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Development of Demographic Perspective

• Basic Questions to answer
• What causes populations to grow and change?
• What are the consequences of population growth?
• Doctrine vs. Theory
• Plato, Adam Smith, etc. produced Doctrine
• Easterlin, contemporary demographers produce
  Theory
• Doctrine is statement of perceived Truth
• Theory is a scientific approach to explaining
  observations and generally evolves with time.

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Examples of Pre-Modern Doctrines Concerning
Population

• 1300 b.c. Book of Genesis Be Fruitful
  Multiply
• 500 b.c. Confucius Pop Growth Good but, Govt.
  should balance population with resources
• 360 b.c. Plato Pop Quality more important than
  Pop Quantity
• 340 b.c. Aristotle Pop size should be limited
  abortion ok
• 100 b.c. Cicero Pop growth good to maintain
  Roman Empire
• 400 A.D. St Augustine Abstinence best, Marry
  breed 2nd
• 1280 A.D. Thomas Aquinas Celibacy NOT better
  than marrying
• 1380 A.D. Ibn Khaldun Population Growth
  necessarily good because it increases
  occupational specialization and raises incomes.
• 1500-1800 Mercantilism Increasing National
  Wealth depends on growing population that can
  stimulate export trade
• 1700-1800 Physiocrats Wealth of a nation is in
  land, not people therefore population size
  depends upon the wealth of the land, which is
  stimulated by free trade (laissez faire)

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Modern Theories of Demography

• 1798 Malthus Pop grows exponentially Food
  Supply Arithmetically, Misery Poverty result in
  absence of moral restraint
• 1800 Neo-Malthusians Same as Malthus but birth
  control ok
• 1844 Marxism Each society has their own
  demographic destiny Poverty not a natural result
  of population growth
• 1870-1930 Precursors of Demographic Transition
  Theory (Mill, Dumont, Thompson)
• 1945 Demographic Transition Theory Evolution of
  Birth Death Rates stable pop gt Growing pop gt
  stable pop
• 1963 Theory of Demographic Change and Response
  Causes and Consequences of Population Change are
  intertwined
• 1968 Relative Cohort Size Ever increasing
  cohorts impact earning power and trade-offs are
  made between family size and standard of living
• 1890-Present Various Other Theories of
  Predictable Consequences of Population Growth
  (Boserup, Goldstone, Durkheim, etc.)

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Debates about the social, economic, and
environmental Consequences of human population
growth have raged for centuries. The figure on
the right summarizes some of the diverse
perspectives that have arisen from these dialogs.
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18th Century Europe Prelude to Malthus 1798
essay

• Optimistic Time for Liberal Democracy
• Marquis de Condorcet (shaped French Revolution
  but was nonetheless killed by revolutionaries
  wrote Sketch for an historical picture of the
  progress of the human mind Book was an outlandish
  writing that argued for universal education,
  universal suffrage, equality before the law,
  freedom of thought and expression, women rights,
  redistribution of wealth, system of national
  insurance and pensions what a wacky liberal ?)
• William Godwin (father of Mary Shelly who wrote
  Frankenstein wrote a dont worry be happy book
  titled Enquiry concerning Political Justice and
  its influences on Morals and Happiness
• Perfectibility of Human Society seemed possible
• There were poor people (lots of them) but they
  existed because of bad social institutions
  (according to Godwin Condorcet)
• Malthus shows up and pisses on this parade of
  optimism in his 1898 Essay on the Principle of
  Population

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Thomas Robert Malthus 1766-1834

• In this famous work, Malthus posited his
  hypothesis that
• (unchecked) population growth always exceeds the
  growth
• of means of subsistence. Actual (checked)
  population
• growth is kept in line with food supply growth by
  "positive checks
• (starvation, disease and the like, elevating the
  death rate) and
• "preventive checks" (i.e. postponement of
  marriage, etc. that
• keep down the birthrate), both of which are
  characterized by
• "misery and vice". Malthus's hypothesis implied
  that actual
• population always has a tendency to push above
  the food supply.
• Because of this tendency, any attempt to
  ameliorate the condition
• of the lower classes by increasing their incomes
  or improving
• agricultural productivity would be fruitless, as
  the extra means
• of subsistence would be completely absorbed by an
  induced boost
• in population. As long as this tendency remains,
  Malthus argued,
• the "perfectibility" of society will always be
  out of reach.
• In his much-expanded and revised 1803 edition of
  the Essay, Malthus concentrated on bringing
  empirical evidence to bear (much of it acquired
  on his extensive travels to Germany, Russia and
  Scandinavia). He also introduced the possibility
  of "moral restraint" (voluntary abstinence which
  leads to neither misery nor vice) bringing the
  unchecked population growth rate down to a point
  where the tendency is gone. In practical policy
  terms, this meant inculcating the lower classes
  with middle-class virtues. He believed this
  could be done with the introduction of universal
  suffrage, state-run education for the poor and,
  more controversially, the elimination of the Poor
  Laws and the establishment of an unfettered
  nation-wide labor market. He also argued that
  once the poor had a taste for luxury, then they
  would demand a higher standard of living for
  themselves before starting a family. Thus,
  although seemingly contradictory, Malthus is
  suggesting the possibility of "demographic
  transition", i.e. that sufficiently high incomes
  may be enough by themselves to reduce fertility.

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Charles Darwin on Malthus

• "In October 1838, that is, fifteen months after
• I had begun my systematic inquiry, I happened
• to read for amusement Malthus on Population,
• and being well prepared to appreciate the
• struggle for existence which everywhere
• goes on from long- continued observation
• of the habits of animals and plants, it at once
• struck me that under these circumstances
• favorable variations would tend to be
• preserved, and unfavorable ones to be
• destroyed. The results of this would be
• the formation of a new species. Here, then
• I had at last got a theory by which to work".
• Charles Darwin, from his autobiography.
  (1876)

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Summarizing The Principle of Population

• Cause of Population Growth
• People naturally breed more than enough to
  replace themselves
• Consequence of Population Growth
• Population oustrips food supply, starvation
  misery
• Avoiding the Consequences
• Moral Restraint

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Criticism of Malthus(theres a lot of it)

• Malthus Essay on the Principle of Population must
  have been important because it has been attacked
  by so many.
• Flawed Premises Population growth geometric,
  Food Growth arithmetic (linear), Population
  growth causes poverty.
• Failure to anticipate Technological progress and
  change.

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Neo-Malthusians

• People like Garret Hardin, Paul Ehrlich, Lester
  Brown, Sandra Postell, and others still contend
  that a growing population causes social,
  economic, political, and environmental problems.
• There are good reasons for using Malthus as a
  point of departure in the discussion of
  population theory. These are the reasons that
  made his work influential in his day and make it
  influential now. But they have little to do with
  whether his views are right or wrong.Malthus
  theories are not now and never were empirically
  valid, but they nevertheless were theoretically
  significant.

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The Marxist Perspective

• Karl Marx Friedrich Engels teenagers in Germany
  in 1834 when Malthus died. Malthus influential
  there and laws against marriage unless you could
  demonstrate financial viability. Unintended
  consequence more kids out of wedlock on the
  dole.
• Marxist theory has no explanation for the why
  of population growth (essentially agrees with
  Malthus). However, the consequences of population
  growth are dependent upon the social, economic,
  and political system in place. Capitalism
  produces overpopulation and poverty Socialism
  allows for ready absorption of new population
  into economy with no problems.
• Capitalism created overpopulation intentionally
  to be used as a tool to keep labor in its place.
  Thus capitalism, not overpopulation, caused
  poverty.

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Criticism of the Marxists

• Marx and later Lenin held that under Socialism
  there would be no population problem(s).
• Russia and China both had problems of a very
  different nature Russia was de-populating
  whereas Chinas population was growing too much.
• In fact, China perceived its population problems
  to be so profound that it initiated the coercive
  one-child policy to curb its population growth.
  Promoting both later marriage (Malthusian) and
  abortion and contraception (Neo-Malthusian)

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History of United Nations Population Conferences

• 1972 Bucharest Developed Countries to 3rd World
  Stop having so many Children youll undermine
  your economic development 3rd World Response
  Development is the best Contraceptive
• 1982 Mexico City Developed Countries to 3rd
  World Population growth has nothing to do with
  economic development 3rd World Response Can we
  have some foreign aid to help us curb these wild
  growth rates
• 1992 Cairo Its all about status of women The
  Population Feminist Environmentalist
  rallying cry

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Prelude to Demographic Transition Theory

• John Stuart Mill
• Arsene Dumont
• Emile Durkheim

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John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)

• Standard of Living influences Fertility
• In proportion as mankind rises above the
  condition of the beast, population is restrained
  by the fear of want, rather than by want itself.
  Even where there is no question of starvation,
  many are similarly acted upon by the apprehension
  of losing what have come to be regarded as the
  decencies of their situation in life.
• Population Resources in a race. By increasing
  peoples standard of living you can decrease
  birth rates. (post Plague, post French
  Revolution)
• Empowering women reduces birth rates because
  women want fewer children than men.

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Arsene Dumont

• People limit their fertility to allow climbing
  the social ladder rather, than Mills ideas
  about falling down the social ladder. Social
  capillarity
• Democracy increases social mobility thus causing
  lower fertility rates
• Dumont was consequently an ardent socialist
  because he thought socialism would increase birth
  rates

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Emile Durkheim(1858-1917)

• Focused more on the consequences of population
  growth rather than the causes
• The division of labor varies in direct ratio
  with the volume and density of societies, and, if
  it progresses in a continuous manner in the
  course of social development, it is because
  societies become regularly denser and more
  voluminous
• Population growth leads to specialization which
  echoes Darwin and Ibn Khaldun

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Demographic Transition Theory

• Describes a transition from High Birth and Death
  rates to Low Birth and Death rates with
  population growth during transiton (cause death
  rates drop first)
• Warren Thompson (1929) showed that countries fell
  into three main groups
• Group A (Western Europe and U.S.) High increase
  to Low increase eventually to negative growth
• Group B (Italy, Spain, and Central Europe)
  dropping growth rates. 30-50 years ahead of Group
  A
• Group C (The rest of the world) Little or no
  control over birth or death rates

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Theory to Explain Fertility DeclineThe
Demographic Transition
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Criticism of Demographic Transition Theory

• Theory must match empirical observations,
  explain, and predict.
• Many state that the Demographic Transition Theory
  only describes what has happened in some
  countries at certain times.
• What is the cause of the changes to birth and
  death rates? Modernization, Industrialization,
  Improvements in Health Care, Changes to the
  status of women?

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Reformulation of Demographic Transition Theory

• Geographic studies of the spatial diffusion of
  fertility decline in places like Spain took place
  along cultural rather than levels of urbanization
  or economic development.
• A certain level of economic development is a
  necessary but not sufficient condition for
  fertility decline. New ideas suggested that
  secularization a more important pre-cursor of
  fertility decline.
• Macro to Micro explanations for fertility decline
• Rational Choice Theory, the wealth flow in
  pre-modern societies is from children to parents
  but this changes as a society becomes modern.
  Children as helpers on the farm to children as
  expensive tuition bills and sullen teenage looks.

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Demographic Transition asa set of transtions

• The Epidemiological Transition Lower death rates
  from improved sanitation, antibiotics, etc.
• The Fertility Transition Shift from high
  (uncontrolled) birth rates to low (controlled)
  birth rates
• The Migration Transition Spatial differences in
  the aforementioned transitions and technological
  gains create an overpopulated rural area.
• The Age Transition Much larger older population
• The Family and Household transition Structural
  changes to economy and society resulting from
  older more urban population

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Theory of Demographic Change and Response

• How do causes and consequences of population
  growth interact? Are they independent?
• Specifically How and under what conditions can
  a mortality decline lead to a fertility decline?
• As mortality declines, more children survive to
  adulthood, more pressure on family resources,
  family responds to pressures.
• Family response is to Personal Goals, NOT
  National goals.
• I have two sisters and a brother (my parents had
  four children). I have one child and at most will
  have one more. Kingsley Davis and Richard
  Easterlin might argue that I am limiting my
  fertility in order to maintain the same or better
  standard of living that my parents had.

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Easterlins Relative Cohort Size Hypotheis

• People want to live at or better than the
  standard of living they experienced as teenagers.
• If your prospects look good you will breed early,
  if they look bad you will postpone breeding.
• Age structure of aggregate population also comes
  into play in a demographic feedback cycle
• The increase in relative cohort size that occurs
  as a result of declining mortality during the
  demographic transition in part determines when
  the fertility portion of the transition begins.
  The increasing proportion of young adults
  generates a downward pressure on young mens
  relative wages this in turn causes young adults
  to accept a tradeoff between family size and
  material well-being. This acceptance of a
  tradeoff could mark a turning point in a
  societys regulation of fertility, setting in
  motion a cascade or snowball effect in which
  total fertility rates tumble as social norms
  regarding individual control of fertility and
  accaptable family sizes begin to change
  (Macunovich 2000)
• Some people are now suggesting that one response
  to this kind of pressure was more women entering
  the workforce.

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Theories about the Consquences of Population
Growth

• Malthus laid down the gauntlet and stated
  population growth inevitably results in misery.
• Much of pre 20th century thought addressed these
  issues.
• 20th century thought has gone back to looking at
  causes rather than consequences of population
  growth to gain greater understanding of the big
  picture (fertility, mortality, migration, age and
  sex structure, population attributes and spatial
  distribution)
• Modern Outlook Population Growth not a simple
  thing not caused by any specific set of forces,
  not necessarily resulting in any particular
  consequences

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Consquences continued

• Jack Goldstone Population growth a precursor of
  early modern world. Large young populations
  forced change and revolution
• Stephen Sanderson (also Boserup, Durkheim
  others) Had paleo-lithic hunter gatherers been
  able to keep their populations from growing, the
  whole world would likely still be surviving
  entirely by hunting and gathering Population
  growth as driving force behind agricultural and
  industrial revolution.
• Robert Kaplans The Coming Anarchy Shattering
  the dreams of the Post Cold War posits that
  demographic forces in tandem with natural and
  institutional resource shortages paint an ugly
  near future for the human race.

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Why are there so few Demography departments in
Colleges and Universities?

• Demography is weak on theory but strong on
  evidence. The evidence or empirical observations
  are numerous and confusing which makes it
  difficult to generate overarching theory.
• Demography is embedded in many other disciplines
  (Geography, History, Sociology, Economics,
  Political Science) Statistics may meet the same
  fate.

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Next Up Population Processes

• Chapter 4 Mortality
• Chapter 5 Fertility Concepts and Measures
• Chapter 6 The Fertility Transition
• Chapter 7 Migration