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Topic 3 – Population Theory

Topic 3 – Population Theory. A – Demographic Transition B – Malthusianism C – Neo-Malthusianism D – Creative Pressure. A. Demographic Transition. 1. Concept What is the demographic transition? 2. Stages What are the major stages of its occurrence? 3. Geographical Variations

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Topic 3 – Population Theory

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  1. Topic 3 – Population Theory A – Demographic Transition B – Malthusianism C – Neo-Malthusianism D – Creative Pressure

  2. A Demographic Transition • 1. Concept • What is the demographic transition? • 2. Stages • What are the major stages of its occurrence? • 3. Geographical Variations • Does the demographic transition occurred at the same time and places?

  3. 1 Concept • Overview • A “social modernization” of the reproduction process: • Improved health care and access to family planning. • Higher educational levels, especially among women. • Economic growth and rising per capita income levels. • Urbanization and growing employment opportunities. • Involves moving from one equilibrium to another: • Initial equilibrium: High birth and death rates. • Final equilibrium: Low birth and death rates. • Theory backed by solid empirical evidence. • Involves four phases.

  4. 1 Concept • Epidemiological Transition • Focuses on changes over time in the causes of mortality affecting certain populations: • Health conditions. • Disease patterns. • Result in a decline in death rates and an increase of life expectancy. • The society goes through a transition from communicative diseases to degenerative diseases.

  5. 1 Concept • Stages in epidemiological transition • Three identifiable stages in the transition. • 1) Age of communicative diseases. • 2) Age of receding pandemics. • 3) Age of degenerative and man-made diseases. Communicative Diseases High Fertility High Mortality 30 years Receding Pandemics High Fertility Decreasing Mortality 50 years Degenerative and Man-made Diseases Low Fertility Low Mortality 70 years

  6. 1 Survivorship of the British Population, 17th and 20th Centuries

  7. 1 Demographic Transition Theory Stage I Stage II Stage III Stage IV Birth Rate Population Demographic Growth Death Rate 1700 1800 1900 2000

  8. 1 Crude Birth Rates, Western Europe, 1751-1991

  9. 1 Crude Death Rates, Western Europe, 1751-1991

  10. 1 Stages in Demographic Transition

  11. 1 Fertility Declines, Real and Projected (1950-2050)

  12. 3 Geographical Variations • Developed countries • Took 250 years for most developed economies to go through their own demographic transition (from 1750 to 2000). • Population growth never surpassed the capacity of these economies to accommodate it. • Developing countries • Demographic transition started in the 20th century: • The most advanced segment after WWI. • The least advanced segment after WWII. • Very few have went trough the transitory mutation. • Most of them have a type III demographic transition. • By the time they reach type IV, a huge amount a population will be added to their populations.

  13. 3 Beginning of Demographic Transition

  14. 3 Fertility Transition in some Countries, 1962-2000

  15. 3 Geographical Variations • Will demographic transition occur all around the world? • Model based upon the Western experience. • Evidence underline that the process is likely. • Problems: • The base population in the developing world is large. • Low percentages of population increase will result in large numbers of additional people. • Limited possibilities for immigration (Unlike Europe at the end of the 19th century and early during the 20th century). • Religious and cultural influences.

  16. B Malthusianism • 1. Concept • What are the principles of Malthusianism? • 2. The Malthusian Crisis • What does a Malthusian crisis involves? • 3. Contemporary Issues

  17. 1 Concept • Context • Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) in his book “Essays on the Principle of Population” (1798). • Relationships between population and food resources (area under cultivation). • Growth of available resources is linear while population growth is often non-linear (exponential). • Took notice of famines in the Middle Ages, especially in the early 14th century (1316). • From the data he gathered, population was doubling every 25 years. • Over a century’s time, population would rise by a factor of 16 while food rose by a factor of 4. Deficit Resource growth Demographic growth

  18. 2 The Malthusian Crisis • The “Malthusian crisis” • Available agricultural spaces are limited. • Technical progresses (machinery, irrigation, fertilizers, and new types of crops) are slow to occur. • Increasing incapability to support the population. • If this persists, the population will eventually surpass the available resources. • The outcomes are “Malthusian crises”: • Food shortages. • Famines. • War and epidemics. • “Fix” the population in accordance with available resources. • Necessity of a “moral restraint” on reproduction.

  19. t3 t2 Technological Innovation t1 Resources Population 2 The Malthusian Crisis Quantity Overexploitation Time

  20. 2 The Malthusian Crisis • The Malthusian Crisis has not occurred • Malthus has been criticized on several accounts during the last 200 years. • Religious view (Protestantism), racist and elitist. • Did not foresee the demographic transition: • Changes in the economy that changed the role of children in the industrializing societies. • Failed to account for improvements in technology: • Enabled food production to increase at rates greater than arithmetic, often at rates exceeding those of population growth. • Enabled to access larger amounts of resources. • Enabled forms of contraception.

  21. 3 Contemporary Issues • The Malthusian crisis today • Demographic growth: • Between 1960 and 2000, three billion persons were added to the global population. • To sustain this growth, agricultural resources had to be doubled. • Required housing space surpassed all that was constructed since the beginning of mankind. • Agricultural growth: • Between 1960 and 1990, grain yields has increased by 92% while cultivated surfaces have only increased by 8%. • Foresee a limit to growth in agricultural production. • Consumption growth. • Environmental degradation.

  22. 3 Contemporary Issues • Relevance of the Malthusian theory • Was Malthus right or the trend in agricultural production will again increase to surpass population growth? • Are improvements in agricultural techniques enough to answer demand? • The next 25 years will be crucial and will bring forward answers to these questions. • The work of Malthus continues to be important to demographers: • Influence of many contemporary theorists from various academic disciplines. • Built upon Malthus’s ideas and linked them to modern sciences.

  23. C Neo-Malthusianism • 1. Neo-Malthusian Concepts • How can the Malthusian theory be adapted to the current situation? • 2. The Commons • In which way common resources are used? • 3. Neo-Malthusianism and Human Reproduction • Is reproduction a right or privilege?

  24. 1 Neo-Malthusian Concepts • Carrying capacity • Issue linked with the carrying capacity of land. • Limits to absorb ever-greater numbers of people. • Population growth has environmental impacts. • Support of family planning, contraception and abortion. • Population problems cannot be addressed through technology beyond the short term. • Overpopulation • A multidimensional issue linked with the carrying capacity. • Numbers should be linked with level of consumption. • The United States would be more overpopulated than China.

  25. 1 Neo-Malthusian Concepts • Population bomb • Fast population growth seen as a threat: • The word “bomb” obviously refer to the lethal character of the problem. • Brought forward by Paul Ehrlich in the late 1960s. • Most Third World countries were in the middle of their demographic transition at the time. • Ehrlich and others continued the basic Malthusian numbers game in which population growth outstrips food production. • Moved Beyond Malthus in their consideration of many environmental issues.

  26. 1 Neo-Malthusian Concepts • Limits to growth • “Club of Rome”, 1972 • Scientific report on the limits to growth. • Used computer models for the first time: • Population growth, food per capita, industrial output, resources and pollution. • Blaming huge waste of resources by developed economies. • Supporting a zero growth policy. • Main arguments: • Resources are in finite number. • Demographic growth cannot occur indefinitely. • Must stop at some point. Population Industrial output Resources

  27. 2 The Commons • Definition • Resources that we share as a population: • Land and other inputs into the food production process. • Oceans and their contents, particularly fish as a food source. • The atmosphere. • Sources of energy. • Landscape for recreational purposes. • Resources of the commons are in finite quantities while access is free (in theory). • The world is finite and can support only a finite population: • Population growth must eventually equal zero. • Otherwise we have to abandon certain freedoms of access to the Commons. • The only way freedoms can be saved is by relinquishing the freedom to breed.

  28. 2 The Commons • Example of using the commons • Decision on whether to increase the size of herd that grazes on common lands. • A rational being seeking to maximize his gain: • Positive component of adding animals is additional income from additional animals. • Negative component is the overgrazing caused by the additional animals. • The costs are shared by those using the common grazing lands. • Decision to add the extra animals to his herd. • Unfortunately, all of the other villages will arrive at the same conclusion, do the same thing. • The outcome is the ruin to the environment.

  29. 2 The Commons Village 1 4 Commons (sustain 14) 2 3 Cattle (grazing) Benefits: +1 each Costs: -1 each

  30. 2 The Commons • The tragedy of the commons • Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all. • All the resources will be used. • Solutions • Private property: • Removes some of the Commons from access. • Encourages conservation and wise management. • Vested interest in maintaining it for future use. • Collective property: • Parts of the Commons not possible to divide into private segments - atmosphere, oceans, etc. • Collective (global) ownership. • Taxation and coercive laws as the primary means of preservation.

  31. 2 World Fish Catch per Capita, 1950-1999

  32. 2 Commercial Harvests in the Northwest Atlantic of Some Fish Stocks, 1950-95 (in 1,000 metric tons)

  33. 2 Carbon Emissions from Fossil Fuel Burning, 1751-2001

  34. 3 Neo-Malthusianism and Human Reproduction • Human reproduction • Malthus was advocating “moral restraint”: • A religious bias. • Modern contraception: • A tool of population control (state perspective). • A tool of freedom in reproductive choice (market perspective). • Against subsidizing reproduction: • Welfare state. • Many international aid programs. • Remove the punishment (such as children starving to death) from having too many offspring.

  35. 3 Neo-Malthusianism and Human Reproduction • Freedom to breed • Clashes between neo-Malthusianism and human rights. • UN’s Declaration of Human Rights: • Defense of the individual family’s right to determine family size. • Support the freedom to breed for political reasons. • Few governments are able or willing to enforce restrictions on the reproduction of their populations. • Human population control cannot be achieved through voluntary means. • With freedom to breed comes equal obligations: • Responsibility to the welfare of the children. • Difficult concept to grasp, especially by an uneducated population. • Each new individual competes with other for resources.

  36. D The Creative Pressure • 1. Concept and Issues • What does the creative pressure theory imply? • 2. Limits to Productivity • What may be the limits to productivity? • 3. Creative Pressure vs. Neo-Malthusianism • Can Neo-Malthusianism and creative pressure be reconciled?

  37. 1 Concept and Issues • Concept • Opposed to the Malthusian and Neo-Malthusian perspectives. • Brought forward in the early 1960s. • View shared by several economists. • Population has a positive impact on economic growth. • “Necessity is the mother of all inventions”. • Population pressure forces the finding of solutions: • Agriculture. • Economy. Demographic growth Problem Higher occupation densities ? Pressures to increase productivity Solution Innovations Outcome Productivity growth

  38. 1 Concept and Issues • Technological innovation and agriculture • Intensification of agriculture. • New methods of fertilization. • Pesticide use. • Irrigation. • Multi-cropping systems in which more than one crop would be realized per year. • Creative pressure and global population growth • Would lead to new productivity gains. • Humans don’t deplete resources but, through technology, create them. • Resources will become more abundant. • Help overcome shortage in food production and employment.

  39. 2 Limits to Productivity • Limits of food production by environmental factors • Soil exhaustion and erosion. • Evolutionary factors such as the development of greater resistance to pesticides. • Climate change. • Loss of productive soils due to land use conversion to other purposes, such as urbanization. • Water shortages and pollution. • Limits by technology • May be available but not shared. • Maybe too expensive for some regions (e.g. desalination).

  40. 3 Creative Pressure vs. Neo-Malthusianism Carrying capacity Environmental degradation Neo-Malthusianism 21st century Creative pressure Resources Malthusianism 19th-20th century Population Demographic transition

  41. Neo-Malthusianism Population consumes resources. Population growth has environmental consequences. Notion of carrying capacity. Population should be controlled by strict family planning policies. Overpopulation linked with levels of consumption. Creative Pressure Population induces the creation of resources and the substitution to alternative sources. “Necessity is the mother of all inventions”. Population will adjust itself to the quantity of available resources. 3 Creative Pressure vs. Neo-Malthusianism

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