Demography

Demography is the study of human populations, and is a major specialty in the disciplines of sociology, economics, history, geography, statistics and epidemiology. Demography studies such factors as population size and distribution over time and space, using rates of birth, death, marriage and fertility, as well as emigration and immigration. Much of the work is heavily statistical, and typically uses data sets drawn from national censuses or special surveys.

The “demographic perspective” related population factors (such as the size and growth of a population, or the location in urban and rural areas) to larger political, economic and social issues. "Demographics" is the use of demographic data in market and advertising research to study which groups are more or less likely to view programs or buy products.

World Population[edit]

Table 1: 2005 Population[edit]

Name	Population 2005 [thousands]
China	1,315,844
India	1,103,371
European Union	476,508
U.S.A.	298,213
Indonesia	222,781
Brazil	186,405
Pakistan	157,935
Russia	143,202
Bangladesh	141,822
Nigeria	131,530
Japan	128,085
Mexico	107,029

Source: UN Population Division. World Population Policies 2005

Demographic history of the world[edit]

For a more detailed treatment, see United States Population.

World Population Growth Before 1900[edit]

The history of population growth was s-l-o-w growth until quite recently. In the best of times infant mortality and infectious disease caused high mortality; in the worst of times, famine, wars and epidemics wiped out entire groups. The estimated population of the world reached one billion in 1800. In the 19th century change was most dramatic in western Europe and North America. The discovery of the germ theory of disease led to cures or prevention of epidemics. Improved agricultural techniques, plus the opening of new lands in America, increased the quantity and quality of food production. Improved storage, marketing and manufacturing techniques reduced spoilage and wastage. The growth of schooling equipped more people with the intellectual skills needed to take care of themselves. More education meant higher productivity, better food and sanitation, better medical care, less risk taking, smaller families, and an orientation to the future rather than to the past. The "demographic transition" saw death rates fall, and later birth rates fall. In between the two declines, population surged. Growing efficiency of food production lessened the demand for farmers, while the efficiency of factories of new modes of industrial organization (such as corporations) generated higher paying jobs in the cities. As a result, population flowed out of rural areas and into cities. Urban families had fewer children than rural; better educated ones had fewer children. Combined, these factors meant much lower rates of fertility in Western Europe and North America.

Population Growth 1900-1950[edit]

The steady decline in infant mortality raised the life expectancy at birth from 45 to 50 years in 1900 to 65 to 70 years by 1950. The rest of the world was in a traditional mode, with high birth rates and high death rates. As public health procedures, education, and better medicines diffused from advanced centers to rural hinterlands and less developed countries, they also experienced the demographic transition. Indeed, there was a speed up in the process. Mexico, for example, underwent its demographic transition much faster than Sweden.

Growth 1950-2000[edit]

By 1950 all the industrialized nations had experienced their demographic transition, and in most of them the rural areas had emptied out. Life expectancy continued to rise, now because of new medical treatment for the diseases of old age. The "Reproductive Revolution" began in 1960 with the "pill" and other effective contraceptive techniques, and abortion, and information about family planning. This effectively gave women much more active control over their reproduction. Bangladesh, the poorest of the more populous countries, reduced its fertility rates by half in the last quarter of the 20th century. The sharp decline in childrearing gave countries such as South Korea a one-time "demographic bonus." With fewer children and not yet so many old people, most of the population was of prime working age, thus enabling fast economic growth.

Reversals of Progress[edit]

Fertility in poor countries remains twice as high as fertility in developed areas, so the growth of population will continue, and the center of demographic gravity will move toward the poorer Third World. However, so successful have population control policies been in every large country, that when the world population reached the 6 billion mark in late 1999, the fears of the neo-Malthusians were more muted than any time in 200 years. On the other hand, the neo-Malthusians could take gloomy satisfaction from the dismal story of the reversals that took place, notably in Eastern Europe and southern Africa. The collapse of Communism in Russia in the early 1990s was accompanied by a deep pessimism about life, characterized by heavy alcoholism, suicide, very low birth rates, soaring death rates, and a six-year decline in life expectancy.

Another reversal came in southern Africa, where the HIV/AIDS epidemic grew increasingly worse. In 2006, worldwide 40 million people were infected with HIV and 2.9 million died. More than 25 million people have died of AIDS since 1981, with the heaviest burden in Africa, where there are 12 million AIDS orphans. Transmission is primarily heterosexual in Africa, and affects younger couples. 11 million children were already orphaned. Drug treatment is vastly more expensive than these poor countries can afford (even after the pharmaceutical giants promised to reduce prices 90 percent). In South Africa the government has taken a radical stand against the use of western therapies and medicines, which have been used elsewhere to prevent pregnant women from infecting their babies. The prognosis is for a rapid decline in life expectancy throughout the southern half of Africa in the early 21st century, from 59 years to 45 years. By 2010 it is estimated that Africa will have 70 million fewer people than otherwise, because of AIDS deaths.

History of the study of demography[edit]

The term "demography" was coined in 1855 by a Belgian, Achille Guillard in his book, Elements de statistique humaine ou demographie comparee. In his terms the study included many aspects of humans including general movement and progress (including morals) in civilized countries. He used the vital statistics of birth, marriage, sickness and death from census and registration reports."^[1]

Malthus and Malthusian models of overpopulation[edit]

see Malthusianism and Robert Malthus

Over the centuries many theorists have considered one or another aspect of population, usually to promote the policy of more people (“pronatalist.”) The early Christian tradition, however, was “antinatalist”, with the highest prestige going to priests, monks and nuns who were celibate.

In the 17th and 18th century the general belief, called "mercantilism" was that the larger the population the better for the nation. Larger population meant more farmers and more food, more people in church (and more prayers), and larger, more powerful armies for deterrence, defense and expansion. People equaled power. As Frederick the Great of Prussia put it, "The number of the people makes the wealth of states." The policy implications were clear: the state should help raise population through annexation of territory and pronatalist subsidies that encourage large families. After 1800, a rising spirit of nationalism called out for more people to make a bigger and more powerful nation.

In 1798 English economist Reverend Robert Malthus in "An Essay on the Principle of Population" turned the received wisdom upside down and decisively restructured the debate. His stunning conclusion was that more people might make it worse for everyone—that overpopulation was bad and unless proper steps were taken, disaster was inevitable. Population growth was exceedingly dangerous, he warned, for it threatened overpopulation and soon we would all starve to death. The British were taking over India at this time, and could see first-hand the horrors associated with overpopulation.

Because of the law of diminishing returns food production can only grow arithmetically: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc. On the other hand, the population next year depends on the population this year, so it always expands exponentially: 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, etc. In other words, population expands faster than the food supply, and eventually people will starve.

Malthus saw two ways to keep population down, "positive" and "preventive" checks. Positive checks were nasty: famine, plague and warfare. Preventive checks included voluntary actions reasonable people could take. Malthus (a clergyman) identified two types of voluntary action, the moral one of deferring marriage, and a variety of "vices" or immoral steps that included birth control, abortion, infanticide, adultery, prostitution and homosexuality.

The Malthus model was unusually powerful: it immediately generated predictions about the fate of mankind. Demography suddenly moved from an abstraction to concrete reality and attracted the attention of scholars and politicians. Economists used the model to show that the more workers there are the lower there wages will be. Charles Darwin made the struggle for food into the centerpiece of his theory of evolution of species.

Two key assumptions Malthus made were that the lure of sex was so strong that people would have babies no matter what the consequences and that technology would grow slowly or not at all. Both assumptions were wrong. Agricultural productivity has increased faster than population growth, and 200 years after Malthus the per capita food consumption in (nearly) all the world is much higher than it was then. The exception in recent decades has been sub-Sahara Africa, where Malthusian predictions of overpopulation and famine have come true.

Regarding Malthus's first assumption, all societies have created mechanisms to control fertility (for example, by delaying marriage until the couple had enough land to feed themselves.) Everywhere family formation is a social and economic arrangement (not a sexual tryst) and is closely correlated with the supply of land, and jobs. The demographic historian John Hajnal has explored in detail the propensity in Europe in the 18th and 19th century to use delay of marriage as a population control device, tied to the shortage of farmland. In America, with no shortage of good land, the age of marriage plunged to 18 for women and 20 for men by 1800.

There are two schools of thought that follow Malthus. The "Malthusians" and "Neo-Malthusians." Both see overpopulation as a serious threat to mankind, and both agree about the linkage between unrestrained fertility and poverty. The main difference is that the Neo-Malthusians favor birth control as the main solution and the Malthusians want delayed marriage.

Demography in Medicine[edit]

see Epidemiology

Demographic analysis is an integral part of epidemiology where it is used to understand the sauses and distribution of diseases. It is used in health policy studies to examine the availability of medical services for different populations.

Fertility[edit]

See Demography, fertility

Mortality[edit]

• see Mortality
• Infant mortality
• Life expectancy

Demographic transition[edit]

see Demographic transition

Demographic transition theory was developed by demographers in the 1940s to provide a description and explanation of the main lines of European and American population history.^[2] The demographic transition involves three stages:

• Stage 1: In the first stage, birth rates are high and death rates are high. The population grows slowly.
• Stage 2: In the second stage modernization begins—especially industrialization (factories and railroads) and urbanization (movement off the farms). Medicine improves, as does personal hygiene and public health. This leads to a sharp fall in the death rate. Everyone lives longer, and infants are much more likely to survive. In the second stage, birth rates remain high so (with fewer deaths) the population increases rapidly.
• Stage 3: In the third stage, the death rate continues to fall and now the birth rate falls as well. Families become smaller. Instead of the rapid growth of stage two, population growth slows down; indeed, the population may start to shrink.

Policy issues and the future[edit]

Old Age issues[edit]

Old age is increasingly becoming the number one demographic policy issue in industrialized countries. With fewer and fewer working-age adults, and a fast-growing elderly population that demands more social security payments, medical services, and nursing home care, every major country is faced with the political, economic and social issues of handling this long-term transition. The problem is perhaps least threatening in the United States, where a steady flow of younger immigrants is reducing the aging effect. The problem will be greatest in Japan, Italy and Spain, which are aging very rapidly.

Migration[edit]

Migration history[edit]

The history of migration to US includes the Colonial Era, with largest numbers from England, and others from Scotland, Ireland, Germany, and the Netherlands. The great majority became farmers, in some cases after a few years as an indentured servant. (Young people signed a servitude contract with a ship master who transported them to the American colonies, then sold their contract to a farmer who needed a laborer.) In addition, about 300,000 African slaves were brought in, chiefly from the Caribbean. Flows slacked off between 1776 and the 1840s, then picked up rapidly. The so-called "Old Immigration" saw large numbers arrive, 1840–1880, from Germany, Britain, Ireland, and Scandinavia. Many settled on farms in the Middle West; others worked as laborers and craftsmen in eastern and midwestern cities. After 1890 the inflow became even larger, and originated chiefly in eastern and southern Europe, especially Italians, Poles and Jews. Most of these “new immigrants” worked in low-skill jobs in larger cities, or in coal mines and smaller mill towns. Cultural differences led to fears that society would be drastically changed; hence restrictions and quotas were imposed in the 1920s designed to stabilize the distribution of ethnicity. After 1910, large numbers of Mexicans migrated north to USA. Between 1940 and 1992, 1.2 million Mexicans were admitted with legal documents; another 4.6 million came temporarily as farm workers or "braceros"; and a net figure of around 4 million entered without documents ("illegals"). The status of 2.3 million of the last-named was legalized under a 1986 law. As a result of these migrations and a high birth rate, by 1998 the population of Hispanic origin comprised xx percent of the total US population, two-thirds being from Mexico and the rest from Cuba, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and Central America. In general they hold less-skilled jobs, have low incomes, high dropout rates from school, and high fertility.

Asian immigration to USA came in three phases. From 1850 to 1880 about 165,000 Chinese arrived, brought in to build railroads; most returned to China, and because few Chinese women arrived, the numbers of Chinese-Americans shrank. In 1900–10, Japanese farm workers arrived in California and Hawaii. Public opinion in the West was quite hostile to the Chinese and Japanese, and numerous laws were passed that tried to stop or slow the inflow. After 1965 racial quotas were ended, and large numbers of Asians began arriving. They included Chinese from the Chinese Diaspora, Koreans, Filipinos, Vietnamese, and Indians, as well as smaller numbers from other lands. The majority settle in California.

Migration policy[edit]

Migration continues as a major demographic factor in the 21st century. Travel costs have fallen, education and information levels are higher, and the globalization of the economy means that the world is increasingly a single economic unit. Better educated people in poor countries have a strong incentive to move to high wage countries, which, because of aging, have shortages of skilled labor. In addition, politics and war continues to create refugees who cannot return home. Urbanization has radically changed its tone. A century ago all the world's large cities were centers of business, employment, education and culture—of "urbanity." Now, the largest cities are much bigger and much poorer, as they are crowded with millions of new migrants from the rural hinterlands who eek out a narrow existence. In 2007 half the world's population lives in cities, putting an increasing strain on the infrastructure, the educational system, the economy, and ultimately on the national political structure. A political backlash against immigrants has achieved major proportions in Western Europe and the United States.

Policy: from Politicians or People?[edit]

The United States once took a major role in helping poor countries shape population control programs. However, domestic politics has intervened, and at the 1984 International Conference on Population the American delegates announced the "Mexico City Policy," whereby the US would stop funding any agency that promoted abortion. In addition, feminists from North America and Western Europe began to monitor national population control programs, to ensure that women's rights were being protected, and that women were educated and empowered. As more and more private groups entered the arena, it was clear by 2000 that population policy was no longer the preserve of demographers and politicians, but had to be open to the widest possible range of voices.

Environment[edit]

As countries industrialize and their cities grow, the impact on the environment becomes more severe. Thick brown smog covers much of China and Southeast Asia throughout the year, the product of burning jungles and forests, as well as of new cities, factories and highways that scarcely existed forty years ago. On the optimistic side, city dwellers get much more schooling. The availability of higher education and advanced technical training is much greater in the cities. Some of the graduates will migrate. But others will want to stay close to home, and expect the Internet to bring work to them. Already the Internet is creating high-skilled and high-paying jobs in previously remote areas—all of which are nicknamed after California's "Silicon Valley." Thus, "Silicon India" in the Bangalore region now has tens of thousands of software experts, employed long-distance for wages ten times that of their neighbors. "Silicon Bog" employees 50,000 people in Ireland, making that once-bucolic land the number two software center of the world.

Three Scenarios for Century 21[edit]

UN demographers work with three scenarios for the next half century, knowing full well how poorly have been predictions made in the past. By 2050 world population will be anywhere from a low of 7.3 billion to a high of 10.7, depending primarily on the change in fertility in poor countries. Countries that in 2000 were more developed had 1.2 billion people in 2000, and will contain from 990 million to 1.4 billion. That is, the range is quite small. (The projections for the USA vary a great deal, depending on assumptions about future migration.) Africa, starting at 780 million, will double or triple—depending, of course, on the what happens to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Japan and Europe will shrink, and China will either remain steady at 1.3 million or grow slowly to 1.7 million. The rest of Asia and Latin America will grow rapidly.

Table 2: World population in millions, 1950-2050[edit]

1950	1960	1970	1980	1990	2000	2005	2015	2025	2050
2,519	3,024	3,697	4,442	5,280	6,086	6,465	7,219	7,905	9,076

Source: UN estimates, 2005

See also[edit]

• United States Population
• Critical race theory

Bibliography[edit]

• David Coleman and Roger Schofield, eds., The State of Population Theory: Forward from Malthus (1986)

Textbooks[edit]

• Ellis, David R. and Steve H. Murdock. Applied Demography: An Introduction to Basic Concepts, Methods, and Data. 1991. online edition
• Rowland, Donald T. Demographic Methods and Concepts 2003 ISBN 9780198752639
• Shryock, Henry S.; and Jacob S. Siegel. The Methods and Materials of Demography, 2 vol 1976
• Weeks, John R. Population: An Introduction to Concepts and Issues (10th ed. 2007)
• Yaukey, David and Douglas L. Anderton. Demography: The Study of Human Population. 2nd ed. 2001. Chapter 5

History of demographic theory and methods[edit]

• Cohen, Joel E. How Many People Can the Earth Support? (1995) online edition
• D. E. C. Eversley. Social Theories of Fertility and the Malthusian Debate (1959). online edition
• Geoffrey Gilbert, ed. Malthus: Critical Responses (1998), what critics in 19th said about Malthus' ideas
• Susan Greenhalgh. "The Social Construction of Population Science: An Intellectual, Institutional, and Political History of Twentieth-Century Demography," Comparative Studies in Society and History, Volume 38, Issue 1 (Jan., 1996), 26–66. in JSTOR
• Hauser, Philip M., and Otis Dudley Duncan, eds. The Study of Population: An Inventory and Appraisal. 1959. sumamry of field at mid-century
• Malthus, Thomas. An Essay on the Principle of Population (1st ed 1798) (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought) ed by Donald Winch 1992 ISBN 9780521429726
• Spengler, Joseph J. France Faces Depopulation (2nd ed 1979)

Historical demography[edit]

• Ansley J. Coale and Susan C. Watkins, eds. The Decline of Fertility in Europe, (1986)
• Fogel, Robert W. The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death, 1700-2100: Europe, America, and the Third World (2004)
• Reed, James. From Private Vice to Public Virtue: The Birth Control Movement and American Society Since 1830. 1978.
• Riley, James C. Rising Life Expectancy: A Global History (2001)
• Saito, Oasamu. "Historical Demography: Achievements and Prospects." Population Studies 1996 50(3): 537–553. Issn: 0032-4728 in Jstor

Demographic transition[edit]

• Davis, Kingsley. "The World Demographic Transition." Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1945 237: 1-11. in JSTOR, classic article that introduced concept of transition
• Gillis, John R.; Louise A. Tilly; and David Levine; eds. The European Experience of Declining Fertility, 1850-1970: The Quiet Revolution. 1992.
• Szreter, Simon. "The Idea of Demographic Transition and the Study of Fertility: A Critical Intellectual History." Population and Development Review, 1993. 19:4, pp 659–701.

Current data[edit]

• CIA World Factbook, 2007. online
• Arthur Haupt and Thomas T. Kane. Population Handbook, (Population Reference Bureau: 5th ed 2004) online edition
• Wendel, Helmut, and Christopher S Wendel. Vital Statistics of the United States Births, Life Expectancy, Deaths and Selected Health Data (2006)

Policy and the future[edit]

• Cohen, Joel E. How Many People Can the Earth Support? (1995) online edition

Scholarly journals[edit]

• Demography sample in Project MUSE and JSTOR
• Population Studies British journal; since 1947 in JSTOR
• Population and Development Review since 1975 in JSTOR
• American Demographics, popular; focus on market research; since 1987 in EBSCO
• Demographic Research German journal open access
• International Migration Review since 1966 in JSTOR

External resources[edit]

• Richard Jensen, World Population: A Guide to the WWW
• Population reference Bureau
• Population Index Bibliographic Searchable Database (1986-2000) from Princeton University
• Population Reference Bureau

References[edit]