Weeks R.J.

Population and Introduction to Concepts and Issues

Chapter 1: Introduction to demography

What is demography? The classical definition is: “the scientific study of changing population size and
structure(s)”.

 Multiple structures, not only age structures: age, sex, place of residence, education, labor force
participation, ethnicity -> Multi-dimensional demography.
 Demography affects nearly every facet of our life.
 Demography is made up of our own life course events.
 Population change is one of the prime forces behind social and technological change all over the
world.
 Every social, political, and economic problem facing the world has demographic change as one of its
root causes.
 Understanding the cause and consequences of population change is the business of demography.

What does demography study?

 Size, composition and distribution of populations and changes of these populations over time.
 Core processes: fertility, mortality, migration.
 Study of life events in the life course.
 Population studies: causes and consequences of demographic change.
 Demography as social science (the latter studies societies and the relationships among individuals
within those societies)

Structure by sex

 Pt=Pm+Pf
 Sex ratio: number of males/number of females*100
 At birth, for genetic reasons, the proportion between males and females is approximately 106/100.
 Immediately after birth, males lose this advantage as their mortality is higher.
 At the end of life, the difference between men and women becomes positive for women as they live
longer.
 A sex ratio greater than 100 means that there are more males than females, while a value of less
than 100 indicates there are more females than males.
 The ratio can be calculated for the entire population or for specific age groups.
 Migration, mortality and fertility operate differently to create inequalities in the sex ratio.

Age-specific sex ratio

 The male-female balance by age group is measured by the sex ratio: the number of men of a given
age group divided by the number of women of the same age group.
 Age is the distance between the date of birth and the current calendar date.

The population balancing equation is the most fundamental equation in demography and is also used to
estimate population growth:

 The population of a country can increase or decrease between any two points in time only as a
result of
 B- Birth, D-Death, I- Immigration, E-Emigration
The Formula of Population Balancing Equation is P1-P0= (B-D) + (I-E)

 P1-P0 (Difference between the population at time 1 and the population at time)
 B-D (Natural Increase)
 I-E (NET migration)

SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 1

It is an often-repeated phrase that “demography is destiny,” and the goal of this book is to help you to cope
with the demographic part of your own destiny and that of your community, and to better understand the
changes occurring all over the world. Demographic analysis helps you do this by seeking out both the causes
and the consequences of population change. The absolute size of population change is very important, as is
the rate of change, and of course, the direction (growth or decline). The past 200 years have witnessed
almost nonstop growth in most places in the world, but the rate is slowing down, even though we are
continuing to add nearly 9,000 people to the world’s total every hour of every day. You may prefer to bury
your head in the sand and pretend that there is no world beyond your own circle of family and friends, but
everything happening around you is influenced by demographic events. I refer not just to the big things like
regional conflict, globalization, global warming, and massive migration movements, but even to little things
that affect you directly, like the kinds of stores that operate in your neighborhood, the goods that are
stocked on your local supermarket shelf, the availability of a hospital emergency room, and the jobs
available to college graduates in your community. Influential decision makers in government agencies, social
and health organizations, and business firms now routinely base their actions at least partly on their
assessment of the changing demographics of an area. So, both locally and globally, demographic forces are
at work to change and challenge your future. In the next chapter, I outline the basic facts of the global
demographic picture

MAIN POINTS OF CHAPTER 1

1. Demography is concerned with virtually everything that influences or can be influenced by population
size, distribution, processes, structure, or characteristics.

2. The cornerstones of population studies are the processes of mortality (a deadly subject), fertility (a well-
conceived topic), and migration (a moving experience).

3. Almost everything in your life has demographic underpinnings that you should understand.

4. Examples of global issues that have deep and important demographic components include terrorism and
regional conflict, violence in sub-Saharan Africa, the backlash against immigrants, globalization, and the
degradation of the environment.

5. There are also “local” uses for demographic information, usually labeled “demographics” and defined as
the application of population theory and methods to the solution of practical problems.

6. When we account for the location of the people whose demographic behavior we are studying, we are
engaging in spatial demography, or geodemographics.
7. Demographics is the central ingredient in congressional reapportionment and redistricting in the U.S. and
politicians also find demographics helpful in analyzing legislation and in developing their strategy for their
own election to office.

8. Local agencies use demographics to plan for the adequate provision of services for their communities,
including education, criminal justice, and health.

9. A major use of demographics is to market products and services in the private sector.

10. Demographics are an important component of site selection for many types of businesses, are key
elements of human resource management, and help investors pinpoint areas of potential market growth,
because population is a major factor behind social change (and thus opportunity).

Chapter 2: Global Population trends

Human populations, like all living things, have the capacity for exponential increase. A common way of
measuring the growth potential of any combination of birth and death rates is to calculate the doubling
time, the number of years required for a population to double in number if the current rate of growth
continues. You can calculate this easily for yourself by remembering the “rule of 69.” The doubling time is
approximately equal to 69 divided by the growth rate (in percent per year). So, if we estimate the world’s
rate of growth in the year 2008 to be 1.2 percent per year, we can calculate that the doubling time is 58
years. Where does the 69 come from in the doubling formula? Exponential growth is expressed
mathematically by natural logarithms.

 A common way of measuring the potential growth of any combination of birth and death rates is to
calculate the DOUBLING TIME, the number of years required for a population to double in number if
the current rate of growth continues.
 You can calculate this by remembering the “rule of 69.” Х=69:У
 The doubling time is approximately equal to 69 divided by the growth rate (in percent per year).
 So, if we estimate the world’s rate of growth in the year 2008 to be 1.2 percent per year, we can
calculate that the doubling time is 58 years.
 Similarly, Dividing –69 by a negative rate of population growth then tells us how long it would take
for the population to be only half as big as it currently is.

How many people have ever lived?

People have been born over the past 200,000 years: 61.3 billion. Alive in 2022: 7.9 billion (12.8%)

Why was early growth so slow? Two explanations

 Death rates were very high, and very few populations have ever tried to maximize the number of
children born. The Agricultural Revolution increased growth rates as a result of people settling down
in stable farming communities, where death rates were lowered. Sedentary life was thought to have
improved living conditions because of the more reliable supply of food. Birth rates remained high,
but death rates declined slightly, and thus the population grew.
 The sedentary life and the higher-density living associated with farming raised death rates by
creating sanitation problems and heightening exposure to communicable diseases. Growth rates
probably went up even in the face of higher mortality as the constraints of hunter-gatherer life were
 reduced. Fertility rates rose as new diets improved the ability of women to conceive and bear
children.

Why are more recent increases so rapid?

 The acceleration in population growth after 1750 was due to the declines in the death rate that
accompanied the Industrial Revolution. First in Europe and North America and more recently in
less-developed countries, death rates have decreased sooner and much more rapidly than
fertility rates.
 In the more developed countries, declines in mortality were due to economic development and a
rising standard of living. These improvements in the human condition helped to lower exposure
to disease and also to build up resistance to illness.
 Later, especially after 1900, much of the decline in mortality was due to improvements in public
health and medical technology, especially vaccination against infectious diseases.
 Declines in the death rates, then, first occurred in only those countries experiencing economic
development. In each of these areas, primarily Europe and North America, fertility also began to
decline within at least one or two generations after the death rate began its drop.
 However, since World War II, medical and public health technology has been available to
virtually all countries of the world regardless of their level of economic development.
 In the less-developed countries, although the risk of death has been lowered dramatically, birth
rates have gone down less significantly, and the result is continued high levels of population
growth.
 Today most of the growth of the world’s population is originating in less-developed nations.

Global Demographic Contrasts

 In the less-developed nations, population continues to grow quickly.

 In the more-developed countries, population growth has slowed, stopped, or in some places even
started to decline.
 The more rapidly growing countries tend to have high proportions of people who are young, poor,
prone to disease, and susceptible to political instability.
 The countries that are growing slowly or not at all tend to have populations that are older, richer,
and healthier.
 The vast European expansion into less-developed areas of the world, which began in the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries, is a notable illustration of massive migration and population redistribution.
 Today migration patterns have shifted, and people are mainly moving from less-developed to more
developed nations.
 Demographic dynamics represent the leading edge of social change in the modern world: we need
to understand causes and consequences of population change.

Implosion or invasion? The choices ahead for low fertility countries.

 Within most of European and North American countries there is a concern about the economic
impact of an aging population. ------ Who will earn the money that is to be paid out to retirees as
pensions? Who will keep the economy going so that the standard of living does not drop? Who will
care for the elderly?
 How to raise the birth rate? Ad hoc programs and gender balance in the labor market…
 How to increase labor force participation? Raise the age at retirement…
 How to replace the “missing” population with immigrants? Immigration of not just workers…
Summary of chapter 2

High death rates kept the number of people in the world from growing rapidly until approximately the time
of the Industrial Revolution. Then improved living conditions, public health measures, and, more recently,
medical advances dramatically accelerated the pace of growth. As populations have grown, the pressure or
desire to migrate has also increased. The vast European expansion into less-developed areas of the world,
which began in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, is a notable illustration of massive migration and
population redistribution. Today migration patterns have shifted, and people are mainly moving from less-
developed to more developed nations. Closely associated with migration and population density is the
urban revolution—that is, the movement from rural to urban areas. The current world situation finds China
and India as the most populous countries, followed by the United States, Indonesia, and Brazil. Everywhere
population is g rowing we find that death rates have declined more rapidly than have birth rates, but there
is considerable global and regional variability in both the birth and death rates and thus in the rate of
population growth. Dealing with the pressure of an expanding young population is the task of developing
countries, whereas moredeveloped countries, along with China, have aging populations, and are coping
with the fact that the demand for labor in their economies may have to be met by immigrants from more
rapidly growing countries. Demographic dynamics represent the leading edge of social change in the
modern world. It is a world of more than six billion people, heading to nine billion by the middle of this
century and perhaps more beyond that, even assuming that there is no backsliding in the fertility declines
currently under way in many less-developed nations. In order to cope with the demographic underpinnings
of our lives, we need to have a demographic perspective that allows us to sort out the causes and
consequences of population change.

Main points of chapter 2

 During the first 90 percent of human existence, the population of the world had grown only to the
size of today’s New York City.
 Between 1750 and 1950, the world’s population mushroomed from 800 million to 2.5 billion, and
since 1950 it has expanded to 6.5 billion.
 Doubling time is a convenient way to summarize the rate of population growth. It is calculated by
dividing the average annual rate of population growth into 69.
 Early population growth was slow not because birth rates were low but because death rates were
high; on the other hand, continuing population increases are due to dramatic declines in mortality
without a matching decline in fertility.
 World population growth has been accompanied by migration from rapidly growing areas into less
rapidly growing regions. Initially, that meant an outward expansion of the European population, but
more recently it has meant migration from less-developed to more-developed nations.
 Migration has also involved the shift of people from rural to urban areas, and urban regions on
average are currently growing more rapidly than ever before in history.
 Although migration is crucial to the demographic history of the United States and Canada, both
countries have grown largely as a result of natural increase— the excess of births over deaths—
after the migrants arrived.
 At the time of the American Revolution, fertility levels in North America were among the highest in
the world. Now they are low, although not as low as in Europe.
  The world’s 10 most populous countries are the People’s Republic of China, India, the United States,
Indonesia, Brazil, Russia, Bangladesh, Russia, Japan, and Nigeria. Together they account for 59
percent of the world’s population.
 Almost all of the population growth in the world today is occurring in the less developed nations,
leading to an increase in the global demographic contrasts among countries.

Slide 3: Chapter 3: Demographic Perspectives

 A demographic perspective is a way of relating basic information to theories about how the world
operates demographically.
 A demographic perspective will guide you through the relationships between population factors
(such as size, distribution, age structure, and growth) and the rest of what is going on in society.

What are the causes of population growth? What are the consequences of population growth or change?

The origin of demography as a science dates back in 1600-1700 in England, Fathers are J.Graunt and
T.R.Malthus

J.Graunt 1620-1674, wrote “Bills of Mortality” a statistical analysis of demographic data.

Plague(chuma,epidemia) was the most common cause of death.

He conducted surveys (evaluated mortality, birth rate, gender distinction), began to analyze (the
characteristics of the deceased: age, sex, employment, type of living area: urban or rural). Invented live-
tables (considering a single cause of death, he began to calculate the probability of dying, according to the
characteristics of deaths).

T.R.Malthus 1766-1834, economist, he wrote “Principles of population”.

He was the first to draw a picture that links the consequences of growth to its causes in a systematic way.

He contrasted the ‘population’ variable (understood as human resources) to the ‘economic’ variable
(understood as economic resources). Malthus found that in the city of London there were poor people
because they did not work, because they lived in the middle of the street, because they lived at margins of
society; he gave a broader meaning of poverty and, starting from the observation of poverty, he began to
search for its causes. Studying the causes of poverty, he discovered the so-called “Principle of population”.

Populations tend to grow more rapidly than the food supply does, since population has the potential for
growing geometrically, while food production could be increased only arithmetically (incorrectly, as Darwin
later pointed out), by adding one acre at a time.

This “natural” imbalance resides in the fact that the population grows at the indicated rates, since its
reproductive capacity is constant over time, while the productive capacity of natural resources tends to
provide decreasing returns over time as their exploitation increases.

(в двух словах: популяция растет, потому что репродукция постоянна, но натуральные ресурсы
уменьшаются, так как растет потребление)

Malthus and the causes of poverty

  The motivation for the book and for all the controversies that followed was based on the
interpretation of poverty.
 According to Malthus, the causes of poverty lie in the fact that there is much more reproduction in
the poor than in the rich, so poverty increases dramatically.

Poor Laws

Malthus was opposed to the English Poor Laws (welfare benefits for the poor), because he felt they would
serve to perpetuate (увековечивать) misery.

(по закону беднягам должны были помогать, чтобы они не чувствовали боль, избежание которой
могло бы привести к профилактике рождаемости. Мальтуз же наоборот, утверждал, что если
человеку нужно будет прокормить себя самого и своих детей, то он бы был предусмотрительным в
будущем, заводя семью и детей.)

Possible solutions to poverty

1. Preventive checks – Moral restraint (possible way to reduce the gap between population growth
and the rate of growth of subsistence/food. Limits to birth: birth control. Abortion, contraception)
2. Positive checks (Когда люди умирают не от голода из-за нехватки средств, а что-то их убьет
раньше. causes of mortality: war, plague, famine)

(Malthus the only acceptable means of preventing a birth was to exercise moral restraint; to postpone
marriage, понимать, что ты твердо стоишь на ногах)

(Moral restraint was a very important point with Malthus, because he believed that if people were allowed
to prevent births by “improper means” (that is, prostitution, contraception, abortion, or sterilization), then
they would expend their energies in ways that are, so to speak, not economically productive. Individual
human beings must bring reproductive capacity back to the level of productive capacity: little work –> few
children; lots of work -> many children)

Malthus believed that a natural consequence of population growth was poverty. This is the logical end
result of his arguments that (1) people have a natural urge to reproduce, and (2) the increase in the food
supply cannot keep up with population growth.

Critique of Malthus

 The assertion that food production could not keep up with population growth,
 The conclusion that poverty was an inevitable result of population growth
 The belief that moral restraint was the only acceptable preventive check

Malthus was skeptical about technological progress and the Industrial Revolution: he was convinced that
the increase in manufacturing wages that accompanied industrialization would promote population growth
without increasing the agricultural production necessary to feed those additional mouths.

Neo Malthusians
Those who criticize Malthus’s insistence on the value of moral restraint, while accepting many of his other
conclusions, are typically known as neo-Malthusians. Neo Malthusians favor contraception. Spread
knowledge of Birth control.

Garret Hardin: Personal goals are not necessarily consistent with societal goals when it comes to population
growth.

Paul Ehrlich: “too many people,” “too little food,” and “environmental degradation” (not foreseen by
Malthus) and The Population Explosion.

Only two solutions to the population problem: birth rate solution (lowering the birth rate) and death rate
solution (a rise in the death rate). He views the death rate solution as being the most likely to happen,
because, like Malthus, he has little faith in the ability of humankind to pull its act together.

Echoes of Malthus

 Population policies & population conferences.

 Report for the Club of Rome – Dennis Meadows (Meadows, D.H., Meadows, D.L., Randers, J. and
Behrens, W.W. (1972). The limits to growth. A report for the Club of Rome’s project on the
predicament of mankind. Earth Island Press, London).
 Public debate: Paul Ehrlich vs. Julian Simon
 Major contending theory: Ester Boserup (Boserup, E. (1981), Population and technological change.
Chicago, University of Chicago Press)

Slide 4: Anti-Malthusians

 Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) were both teenagers in Germany when
Malthus died in England in 1834, and by the time they had met and independently moved to
England, Malthus’s ideas already were politically influential in their native land, not just in England.
 Several German states and Austria had responded to the rapid growth in the number of poor people
by legislating against marriages in which the applicant could not guarantee that his family would not
ask for welfare support (Glass 1953).
 These laws were then abolished, but they had an impact on Marx and Engels: their demographic
perspective arose in reaction to Malthus.

The basic Marxian perspective is that each society at each point in history has its own law of population that
determines the consequences of population growth. For capitalism, the consequences are overpopulation
and poverty, whereas for socialism, population growth is readily absorbed by the economy with no side
effects. This line of reasoning led to Marx’s vehement rejection of Malthus, because if Malthus was right
about his “pretended ‘natural law of population’” (Marx 1890 [1906]:680), then Marx’s theory would be
wrong.

Causes of Population Growth

 Neither Marx nor Engels ever directly addressed the issue of why and how populations grew.
 They were skeptical of the eternal or natural laws of nature, preferring instead to view human
activity as the product of a particular social and economic environment.
  The basic Marxian perspective is that each society at each point in history has its own law of
population that determines the consequences of population growth. For capitalism, the
consequences are overpopulation and poverty, whereas for socialism, population growth is
readily absorbed by the economy with no side effects.

Consequences of Population Growth according

 Resources could grow as rapidly as population

 Science and technology could increase the availability of food and other goods at least as quickly
as the population.
 Whatever population pressure existed in society was really pressure against the means of
employment rather than against the means of subsistence.
 Poverty is the result of a poorly organized society, especially a capitalist society.
 In a well-ordered society: more people → more wealth → not more poverty

Quarrel разногласия

 According to Engels, in England more people had meant more wealth for the capitalists: they retain
workers’ wages as profits for themselves.
 Marx argued that capitalism worked by using the labor of the working classes to earn profits to
buy machines that would replace the laborers, which, in turn, would lead to unemployment and
poverty.
 Thus, the poor were poor because capitalists had first taken away part of their wages and then
taken away their very jobs and replaced them with machines.
 The consequences of population growth that Malthus discussed were really the consequences of
capitalist society, not of population growth per se. (где он описывает, что нужно сначала
экономически развиться, чтобы думать о детях. А это не получается, потому что капиталисты
не позволяют)
 Overpopulation in a capitalist society: an industrial reserve army that would keep wages low
through competition for jobs and would force workers to be more productive in order to keep their
jobs.
 The growing population would bear the seeds of destruction for capitalism: unemployment would
lead to disaffection and revolution.

Critiques of Marx

 For Marx, the Malthusian principle operated under capitalism only, whereas under pure socialism
there would be no population problem. However, Marx offered no particular guidelines.
 At best, Marx implied that the socialist law of population should be the antithesis of the capitalist
law. If the birth rate were low under capitalism, then the assumption was that it should be high
under socialism.
 Soviet socialism was unable to alleviate one of the worst evils that Marx attributed to capitalism,
higher death rates among people in the working class than among those in the higher classes
(Brackett 1967). (Moreover, birth rates dropped to such low levels throughout pre-1990 Marxist
Eastern Europe that it was no longer possible to claim (as Marx had done) that low birth rates were
bourgeois.)
 The same applies to China (gradually shifting to the one child policy) (“A large population in China
is a good thing. With a population increase of several fold we still have an adequate solution. The
solution lies in production” Yet by 1979 production no longer seemed to be a panacea, and with the
 introduction of the one-child policy, the interpretation of Marx took an about-face as another
Chinese official wrote that under Marxism the law of production “demands not only a planned
production of natural goods, but also the planned reproduction of human beings”)

Mill – standard of living is a major determinant of fertility levels. The ideal state from Mill’s point of view is
that in which all members of a society are economically comfortable. Mill was convinced that an important
ingredient in the transformation to a non-growing population is that women do not want as many children
as men do, and if they are allowed to voice their opinions, the birth rate will decline.

Dumont – Social Capillarity (desire of people to rise on social scale, to increase their individuality as well as
their personal wealth. Argued that having few or no children was the price many people paid to get ahead.

Durkheim - "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”. (This theory is derived from Darwin’s theory, which in turn was
acknowledge his own debt to Malthus).

Again on Malthus

 To say that poverty was ‘caused’ by population growth rather missed the point that the social and
geographical distribution of wealth and poverty had more to do with the nature and strength of
the structures of the capitalist economy than with the size or rate of growth of the population.
 Population growth per se is not responsible of poverty…
 The poverty of the labor force was due to the inequality in the distribution of wealth.
 Malthus considered only one part of the picture: the growing population and increasing poverty.
 Development is a multifaceted issue that cannot be reduced to a single variable (the population
variable).
 Population growth is a stimulus for better food production, new technology and forms of
governments, availability of capital, resources, transports, etc.
 At the time of Malthus, the produced wealth was not well distributed among the individuals.
 The land-owning and factory-owning classes accumulated massive fortunes.
 Since the landless and urban poor seemed to Malthus to be growing rapidly in number, there
needed, in the short term, to be preventive checks to reduce their fertility, otherwise the longer-
term positive checks of famine, disease and warfare would inevitably impose themselves.
 However, as the nineteenth century progressed, wages and living conditions improved, poverty
was reduced even though population continued to grow (emigration).

Julian Simon and ‘The Ultimate Resource’ (1981)

 Julian Simon (1932-1998) is an American neo-liberal economist (political right).

 People are not only consumers, mouths to feed, but also resources, creators and managers of
natural producers of resources, hands to work.
 He does not argue for no constraints on fertility. Low population growth may be preferable to zero
population growth. However, annual growth rates of 2 per cent sustained over several years are
normally too high.
 However, the force of the population variable is generally positive rather than negative. People
are themselves resources that constitute the basis for wealth creation.

Ester Boserup

Ester Boserup (1910-1999), an economist working as consultant for various international agencies:
population growth can act in some circumstances as a stimulus rather than an impediment to
economic change.

For Malthus, population growth → additional pressures on available resources → falling per capita
outputs (downward spiral).

For Boserup, population growth → a stimulus to agricultural output → raising outputs per unit of input
of land, labor and technology (upward spiral).

Malthus: Technology – Land – Population

Boserup: Population – Technology – Land

Ester Boserup and ‘The Conditions of Agricultural Growth’ (1965)

 Low population densities inhibit agricultural progress and intensification in agriculture.

 Where there is population growth, societies have a clear incentive to innovate in their food
supply system by intensifying production from existing land (by applying more and more
effective fertilizer, water, or by growing different and more productive crops).
 Population growth → additional production → intensification of agricultural production →
reduction in the fallow period.
 The Neolithic Revolution, the early hydraulic civilizations, Agricultural Revolution in early
modern Europe and Green Revolution in Asia from the 1960s are associated with population
pressure.
  These increases in production were sustained by major changes in the social organization of
society, bringing people into the commercial sector, opening the household supply to non-
family, hiring labor, allowing emigration and empowerment of women (who reduced fertility).

Malthusians vs Anti Maltusians

Malthus and neo-Malthusians share a pessimistic view: population growth as detrimental.

The Anti-Malthusians, and the ‘developmentalists’ and ‘human resource development analysts’, such as
Boserup, are optimists: they view moderate population growth as ‘beneficial’ in most circumstances.

Slide 5: The Theory of the Demographic Transition

Introduction

 The demographic transition theory is a generalized description of the changing pattern of

mortality, fertility and growth rates as societies move from one demographic regime to
another.
 The term was first coined by the American demographer Frank W. Notestein in the mid-
twentieth century, but it has since been elaborated and expanded upon by many others.
 According to M. Livi Bacci (2017), “it is a complex process of passage from disorder to order
and from waste to economy”.
 The general scheme of the demographic transition is considered a typical model of the changes
in the natural components of the demographic dynamics that each population experiments
over time, passing from a condition of pre-modern type (rural, agricultural, illiterate) to a much
more advanced one (urbanized, industrialized, schooled)
 The beginning of the process coincides with the social and economic development: the
beginning of the nineteenth century for various Northern European countries, 1970-1980 for
the Maghreb and the beginning of 2000 for various areas of sub-Saharan Africa.
The original model of the demographic transition is divided roughly into three stages. The demographic
transition was merely a picture of demographic change, not a theory. But each new country studied fit
into the picture, and it seemed as though some new universal law of population growth—an
evolutionary scheme—was being developed.

The four stages of the Demographic Transition model

Stage 1: Pre-transition

 Characterized by high birth rates, and high fluctuating death rates.

 Population growth was kept low by Malthusian “preventive” (moral restraint: late age at
marriage) and “positive” (famine, war, pestilence) checks.

Stage 2: Early transition

 During the early stages of the transition, the death rate begins to fall.
 As birth rates remain high, the population starts to grow rapidly.

Stage 3: Late transition

 Birth rates start to decline.

 The rate of population growth decelerates.

Stage 4: Post-transition

 Post-transitional societies are characterized by low birth and low death rates.
 Population growth is negligible, or even enters a decline.

The Demographic Transition model

 The rate of natural increase itself varies over time:

➢ it is usually increasing in a first sub-phase, characterized by decreasing death rates and constant
birth rates;
➢ subsequently, its expansion tends to decrease, since a gradual lowering of the rate of decrease in
mortality is associated with an increasingly intense decrease in the birth rate.
  The final phase of the transition process is followed by a posttransitional phase: both the birth and
the death rates remain at very low values, especially the death rate

Demographic Transition
Демографический переход — исторически быстрое снижение рождаемости и смертности, в
результате чего воспроизводство населения сводится к простому замещению поколений, а на
заключительном этапе, вследствие падения рождаемости ниже уровня воспроизводства
населения (2,1 рождений на женщину), из-за старения населения, и как следствие постепенно
растущей смертности, рождаемость падает ниже уровня смертности, и возникает депопуляция.
Этот процесс является частью перехода от традиционного общества (для которого характерна
высокая рождаемость и высокая смертность) к индустриальному, а затем и
к постиндустриальному (для которых характерна низкая рождаемость и низкая смертность, но из-
за процессов демографического старения населения, всё более растущая смертность).
Последняя, заключительная фаза демографического перехода характерна
для индустриальных и постиндустриальных обществ, как в развитых, так и в развивающихся
странах, где уже завершился демографический переход.

В концепции демографического перехода выделяются четыре последовательных этапа в

демографической истории человечества. Обозначим коэффициент рождаемости через R(x),
коэффициент смертности через S(x), тогда прирост коэффициента рождаемости будет R'(x), а
коэффициента смертности будет S'(x).

 На первом этапе обнаруживается меньшее снижение коэффициента рождаемости чем

снижение коэффициента смертности (R'(x)>S'(x)), следовательно коэффициент
естественного прироста максимален (прирост максимальный). К 1925 году этап пройден
промышленно развитыми странами.
 На втором коэффициент смертности снижается и достигает минимума (S'(x)=0,(min)), в то
время как коэффициент рождаемости снижается быстрее коэффициента смертности
(R'(x)<S'(x)), что приводит к замедлению прироста населения, а также к демографическому
старению населения.
 На третьем коэффициент смертности увеличивается (S(x) растёт) (вследствие
демографического старения), а также замедляется снижение коэффициента рождаемости
(R'(x) падает). К концу третьего этапа коэффициент рождаемости примерно равен уровню
простого воспроизводства, а коэффициент смертности ниже уровня простого
воспроизводства. (R(x) ≈ 2,1, S(x) < 2,1, где 2,1 — это уровень простого воспроизводства).
 Наконец, на четвёртом этапе коэффициент смертности увеличивается (S(x) растёт), и
становится равным коэффициенту рождаемости (S(x)=R(x)) или даже превышает его.
Процесс демографической стабилизации заканчивается.
В настоящее время наименее развитые страны мира (в основном страны Африки южнее Сахары)
находятся на 1—2—3 этапах, развитые и уже многие развивающиеся страны — вышли на 4 этап,
при этом во многих из них смертность превысила рождаемость и наблюдаются отрицательные
показатели естественного прироста населения.
Переход от высоких уровней рождаемости и смертности к низким и получил название
демографического перехода. 
The «Demographic Transition» is that process of moving from high birth and death rates to low birth and
death rates, from “high growth potential” to “incipient decline”. From a traditional to a modern
demographic regime.

In between, we find the transitional phase or transitional growth, where a high birth rate is countered by a
reduction in mortality rates.

Stage 1:

 It is characterized by high birth rates offset by high death rates.

 In traditional societies, the birth rate was encouraged by popular sentiment and religion.
 Furthermore, in order to survive, society and the family needed many arms and individuals…
 The natural balance (difference between births and deaths) was close to zero, population growth
was low due to epidemics, wars, famines

Stage 2 and 3:

 As a result of better living conditions, mortality is reduced, while the birth rate is still high.
 The rate of growth is 4% per year.
 With the transition from a rural economy to an industrialized economy, to urbanization, to the
spread of female education, births begin to decline, and population growth slows down.

Stage 3 and 4:

 The birth rate declined and reaches the death rate.

 Zero growth is reached, some countries may have negative balances.

The classic tale of Demographic Transition Theory

Key propositions:

 Mortality decline invariably precedes fertility decline.

 Fertility decline inevitably follows mortality decline.
 Process is irreversible.
 Process is inescapable for all societies experiencing modernization.

The causal interpretation of the Demographic Transition

 From the formulation of Notestein (1945), the theory of demographic transition has been
considerably enriched with critical contributions.
 Process of transition from “natural” fertility to “controlled” fertility: the reproductive behavior is
not determined by the parity (a woman’s number of previous live births), but by birth intervals and
by the total number of children couples decide to have.
 While mortality is mainly subject to external objective factors, fertility is conditioned by a set of
social, psychological and political circumstances → evolution of fertility as a consequence of socio-
economic transformations.
 The transition from an agricultural economy to an industrial economy determines a profound
transformation of living conditions, involving a direct control over fertility.
 The transition from rural to urban settlements leads to greater participation of women in the labor
market
  In modern society, the cost of raising and supporting children increases compared to agricultural
societies.
 Reduction in infant mortality → need for fewer births
 Not just economics: the interpretation that attributes the demographic transition process to factors
originating from economic transformations has raised various objections.
 Socio-cultural, political and institutional factors would explain the delay in some countries
(developing countries) or the acceleration of others with respect to their development (Hungary
and Romania)

Critique of the Demographic Transition

 The connections between economic and socio-demographic development have been identified at
the aggregate level and not at the local and individual level.
 European Fertility Project (1960, Princeton Office of Population Research, led by Ansley Coale): the
decline in fertility occurs in a wide variety of demographic, social and economic conditions.
 Cultural contexts influence the onset and spread of the decline in fertility, sometimes regardless of
socio-economic conditions.
 Importance of cultural and regulatory contexts and urbanization.
 However, the economic reading of the decline in fertility has not lost value (see for instance the
micro-economic approach of the Chicago school and the theory of family production)

When does transition start? Threshold hypothesis

Assumption of threshold values or ranges of certain social, economic, and health variables, which need to
be crossed by a population before any decline in fertility can be expected (United Nations, 1963).

European Fertility Project: Objectives:

 To test the TDT against European historical data.

 To determine the social and economic circumstances that prevailed when the decline in fertility
began in search of the causal mechanisms of the fertility transition.
 To create a quantitative record of the European fertility transition.

Main results:

 Some doubts about data reliability.

 Doubt about mortality-fertility sequence – but refuted.
 Fertility decline is generally correlated with selected indicators, but there are many exceptions, i.e.,
they are not not sufficient conditions.
 No threshold for fertility decline.
 Timing of birth rate decline was spatially clustered: indication of importance of cultural factors and
diffusion of ideas.
 No indicator for speed of fertility decline.
 Based on Europe’s experience – only partial relevance for contemporary developing countries.

One of the critical aspects of the demographic transition theory is the assertion that the decline in
mortality always precedes that of fertility.
It has happened that mortality and fertility have started to decrease simultaneously, or that the decline in
fertility preceded that of mortality or even that fertility has registered a temporary increase.

Difference between historical Europe and contemporary developing countries

 In Europe, the transition is completed – much less so in developing countries: low mean age of
marriage. Public health and vaccinations programs available in developing countries.
 No emigration escape for developing countries.
 Access to effective family planning methods.

The Demographic Transition: a set of Transitions

 Usually, the first transition to occur is the health and mortality transition (the shift from deaths
at younger ages due to communicable disease to deaths at older ages due to degenerative
diseases).
 This transition is followed by the fertility transition – the shift from natural (and high) to
controlled (and low) fertility, typically in a delayed response to the health and mortality
transition.
 The predictable changes in the age structure (the age transition) brought about by the mortality
and fertility transitions.
 The rapid growth of the population occasioned by the pattern of mortality declining sooner and
more rapidly than fertility almost always leads to overpopulation of rural areas, producing the
migration transition, especially toward urban areas, creating the urban transition.
 The family and household transition is occasioned by the massive structural changes that
accompany longer life, lower fertility, an older age structure, and urban instead of rural
residence.

Summary of chapter 3:

A lot of thinking about population issues has taken place over a very long period of time, and in this chapter
I have traced the progression of demographic thinking from ancient doctrines to contemporary systematic
perspectives. Malthus was not the first, but he was certainly the most influential of the early modern
writers. Malthus believed that a biological urge to reproduce was the cause of population growth and that
its natural consequence was poverty. Marx, on the other hand, did not openly argue with the Malthusian
causes of growth, but he vehemently disagreed with the idea that poverty is the natural consequence of
population growth. Marx denied that population growth was a problem per se—it only appeared that way
in capitalist society. It may have seemed peculiar that I discuss a person who denied the importance of a
demographic perspective in a chapter dedicated to that very importance. However, the Marxian point of
view is sufficiently prevalent today among political leaders and intellectuals in enough countries that this
attitude becomes in itself a demographic perspective of some significance. Furthermore, his perspective on
the world finds its way into many aspects of current mainstream thinking, including modernization theory,
that underlay aspects of the demographic transition theory. The perspective of Mill, who seems very
contemporary in many of his ideas, was somewhere between that of Malthus and Marx. He believed that
increased productivity could lead to a motivation for having smaller families, especially if the influence of
women was allowed to be felt and if people were educated about the possible consequences of having a
large family. Dumont took these kinds of individual motivations a step further and suggested in greater
detail the reasons why prosperity and ambition, operating through the principle of social capillarity,
generally lead to a decline in the birth rate. Durkheim’s perspective emphasized the consequences more
than the causes of population growth. He was convinced that the complexity of modern societies is due
almost entirely to the social responses to population growth—more people lead to higher levels of
innovation and specialization. More recently developed demographic perspectives have implicitly assumed
that the consequences of population growth are serious and problematic, and they move directly to
explanations of the causes of population growth. The original theory of the demographic transition
suggested that growth is an intermediate stage between the more stable conditions of high birth and death
rates to a new balance of low birth and death rates. Reformulations of the demographic transition
perspective have emphasized its evolutionary character and have shown that the demographic transition is
not one, monolithic change, but rather that it encompasses several interrelated transitions: A decline in
mortality will almost necessarily be followed by a decline in fertility, and by subsequent transitions in
migration, urbanization, the age structure, and the family and household structure in society. As I explore
with you the causes and consequences of population growth and the uses to which such knowledge can be
applied, you will need to know about the sources of demographic data. What is the empirical base of our
understanding of the relationship between population and society? We turn to that topic in the next
chapter.

Main points:

1. A demographic perspective is a way of relating basic population information to theories about how
the world operates demographically.
2. Population doctrines and theories prior to Malthus vacillated between pronatalist and antinatalist
and were often utopian.
3. According to Malthus, population growth is generated by the urge to reproduce, although growth is
checked ultimately by the means of subsistence.
4. The natural consequences of population growth according to Malthus are misery and poverty
because of the tendency for populations to grow faster than the food supply. Nonetheless, he
believed that misery could be avoided if people practiced moral restraint—a simple formula of
chastity before marriage and a delay in marriage until you can afford all the children that God might
provide.
5. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels strenuously objected to the Malthusian population perspective
because it blamed poverty on the poor rather than on the evils of social organization.
 6. John Stuart Mill argued that the standard of living is a major determinant of fertility levels, but he
also felt that people could influence their own demographic destinies.
7. Arsène Dumont argued that personal ambition generated a process of social capillarity that induced
people to limit their number of children in order to get ahead socially and economically, while
another French writer, Émile Durkheim, built an entire theory of social structure on his conception
of the consequences of population growth.
8. The demographic transition theory is a perspective that emphasizes the importance of economic
and social development, which leads first to a decline in mortality and then, after some time lag, to
a commensurate decline in fertility. It is based on the experience of the developed nations, and is
derived from the modernization theory.
9. The theory of demographic change and response emphasizes that people must perceive a personal
need to change behavior before a decline in fertility will take place, and that the kind of response
they make will depend on what means are available to them.
10. The demographic transition is really a set of transitions, including the health and mortality, fertility,
age, migration, urban, and family/household transitions.

Slide 6. Toward Order and Efficiency. The Recent Demography of Europe and the Developed World by Livi
Bacci (2017)

From Waste to Economy

1. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, growth was accompanied by considerable
demographic waste.
2. Women had to bear (рожать) half‐a‐dozen children simply in order to achieve replacement in the
following generation.
3. Between one‐third and one‐half of those born perished (умирать) before reaching reproductive age
and procreating.
4. Old‐regime societies were inefficient: in order to maintain a low level of growth, a great deal of
fuel (births) was needed, and a huge amount of energy was wasted (deaths).
5. The ‘old demographic regime’ was characterized not only by inefficiency but also by disorder. The
probability that the natural chronological hierarchy would be inverted – that a child would die
before its parent or grandparent – was considerable.
6. High levels of mortality and frequent catastrophes rendered precarious any long‐term plans based
on individual survival.
7. The complex process of passage from disorder to order and from waste to economy starting from
the eighteenth century, is generally referred to as the “Demographic transition,” a term that has
entered common usage much as has “Industrial Revolution.”
8. In the developing countries, this transition is still in process; in the more backward countries it has
just begun, while in others it is near completion.
9. Keeping in mind the necessary historical adjustments, the European experience – and that of the
West in general – can serve as a useful guide to that which is occurring in the rest of the world.

Ok
Demographic transitional model:

 the beginning of both mortality and fertility decline,

 the end and duration of the phase of decline, t
 he maximum and minimum distances between the two variables

From Disorder to Order:

 In the past was high infant and neonatal mortality/ Infectious diseases
 The beginning of the transition of death in 19 th century: measure against epidemics ( vaccines) /
urbanization/ improvement in nutrition

Relationship between real GDP per capita and life expectancy (e0)

In the first phase of the transition- Improvements in life expectancy. quality of medical care - life
expectancy, decreasing mortality. urbanization - fewer deaths, but also fewer births. agrarian society -
children worked and helped their parents (birth rate increase)

Birth control

 High fertility –to compensate for the loss of children.

 France begins the movement to: more children to survive/ change behaviour towards children and
women status

From High to Low fertility

Social economic transformation made an impact on the declining in fertility, as indirectly results from the
delay of the most backward or peripheral areas.

Important exceptions: is explained to a limited extent by social and economic indicators, such as the degree
of education, the degree of rurality, industrialization and urbanization.

European emigration

 Economic cause: because the Industrial Revolution and technological progress increased
productivity and so rendered masses of workers superfluous, especially in rural areas
 Demographic because the transition entailed a large demographic “multiplier”, which is to say it
sped up population growth, and so worsened the problems created by economic changes.
 Massive migration happened due to the demand for labor forces, globalization (better transport),
and welfare differentials.

Characteristics of the Demographic Transition

 Necessity: the lowering of mortality (whether due to factors exogenous or endogenous to the
demographic system) determines, with greater or lesser delay, also the progressive containment of
fertility.
 Irreversibility (Необратимость): the process of reducing fertility has slowdowns and pauses, but
never returns to higher levels if not accidentally.
 Universality: all populations of the modern era seem destined to undergo the transition process

Demographic factors are changes associated with the Demographic transition…

  Mortality decline and the reduced frequency of disease increased not only longevity, but also the
efficiency of the population.
 Mortality began to follow a more hierarchical and chronological order largely eliminated the risk of
premature death and allowed for longer‐term planning – certainly an aid to development.
 The decline of fertility – previously accompanied by high infant mortality – reduced the amount of
energy and resources devoted to the raising of children and so allowed these resources (particularly
in the form of female employment) to be devoted to more directly productive activities.
 Up until at least the middle of the twentieth century, age structure was shifting to favor the more
productive ages, improving the ratio between the productive and dependent sectors of the
population.

The structural consequences of the Demographic Transition

 Population ageing: From above (mortality decline) and from below (fertility decline)
 Migration: International and Internal

Slide 7: The demographic window of opportunity

Демографическое окно (демографическое «окно благоприятных возможностей») — период
времени в демографическом развитии страны, в который пропорция
населения трудоспособного возраста наиболее велика. Такая ситуация становится возможной,
когда население молодеет и процент трудоспособных людей достигает максимума, а
коэффициент демографической нагрузки составляет менее 50 на 100 человек трудоспособного
населения, то есть численность рабочей силы вдвое больше иждивенцев. Как правило,
демографическое окно благоприятных возможностей остается открытым на протяжении 30-40
лет.

Коэффициент демографической нагрузки — обобщённая количественная

характеристика возрастной структуры населения, показывающая нагрузку на общество
непроизводительным населением. Определяется различными соотношениями численности
укрупненных возрастных групп: детей (0—14 лет), пожилых и старых (60 лет и старше),
трудоспособных (условно 15—59 лет). Различают следующие показатели демографической
нагрузки: отношение числа детей или числа пожилых людей (или общего числа детей и пожилых
людей) к числу людей трудоспособного возраста; соотношение числа пожилых людей и числа
детей.
Расчёт: k = n1/n2
n1 — количество граждан на исследуемой территории, не относящихся к трудоспособному
населению, то есть пенсионеров и детей.
n2 — количество граждан на исследуемой территории, относящихся к трудоспособному
населению.
 1. Fertility declining= population growth declining
2. However, it is still positive due to “Population momentum” ( number of people in reproductive age)
3. BUT, birth cohorts size stabilizes and starts to decline (while population is still growing).
4. A ‘youth bulge’ appears.
5. Thus, dependency ratios fall progressively, reaching below 50 (2 adults for one dependent: children
< 15 or elderly > 65).

The ‘demographic dependency ratio’ is: the ratio of dependents (children under 15 and elderly above 65) to
working age 15- 64 population. Dependency ratio = (P 0-14 + P 65+) / P 15-64

(Dependency – когда на 2 взрослых только 1 зависимый от него)

Reduction in fertility is a prerequisite - the demographic transition must be started

IF THE DEPENDENCE IS REDUCED -> THE ECONOMY HAS MORE WORKERS AVAILABLE > SAVINGS ARE
GENERATED BY THE SMALLER FAMILY SIZE > PARENTS INVEST IN THE QUALITY OF THE OWN CHILDREN
(EDUCATED AND HEALTHY) > economic development

The two phases of the demographic window of opportunity

The youth bulge (БУМ): increased ratio of workers to population, increased qualification/productivity of
work force (young people are usually more educated).

When the youth bulge reaches late adult ages, children of ‘youth bulgers’ have left the family, enabling
parents to increase savings, a situation that is favorable to investment.

The link between fertility and dependency/demographic window

 The ranking of regions and sub-regions is very close for fertility and dependency ratios – as
expected, because the basis of the age-pyramid is a direct result of fertility levels and children
under 15 are the major contributor to dependency before aging takes place.
 Earlier and stronger fertility declines are associated with earlier demographic window and lower
dependency ratios: below 50 from 2045 in Western and Eastern Africa. Thus, it is possible to have
earlier demographic window in Africa if we speed fertility decline.
 Reducing aging after the demographic window can be done by stabilizing fertity at the replacement
level (if TFR (total fertility rate) does not decline under 2.1

Economic aspects:

Macro economic effects of the demographic window of opportunity

 States sped less for child/maternal health service

 States can invest in some else to improve quality, develop infrastructure

Micro economic effects of the demographic window of opportunity

 Households spend less on need for a large number of kids and have more saving. Mother can work

Only if kids of Youth Bulge ( baby boomers) can be employed.

Slide 8. Population aging: causes and consequences

The determinants of population aging

 Reduction in the number of birth and mortality rates

 Indissoluble ( неразрывная) link between demographic transition and population ageing.
 Inevitable phenomenon with the economic and demographic development of a country.
 It can be measured in both absolute terms (as an increase in the amount of the elderly) and
relative terms (on the total population or on the young population).
 Individual level – ppl have reached positive condition+helathy life+ desired number of kids
 Collective level – improvement in the quality of life (hygienic conditions, nutrition, medicine, well
being)

Preliminary considerations

 Population aging produces changes in the organization of society

 The natural consequence of the demographic transition is for the population to age: both higher
numbers of older people and a greater fraction of the population that is older.
 Increasing number of older people caused by a decline in mortality + increase in the proportion of
older people, caused by a decline in fertility, in combination with out-migration (especially
urbanization)
 Biological aging (irreversible) and Demographic aging ( collective e and can diminish or increase over
time)
 Population aging – change in the age of population
 Biological aging - is the progressive decline in physiological ability to meet demands, that occurs
over time.
 Rejuvenation or counter-ageing: our societies are getting younger, as we live better and longer, so
the potential (physical and intellectual) capacities in terms of human capital are increasing.
 Active aging is defined by the European Commission as “helping people stay in charge of their own
lives for as long as possible as they age and, where possible, to contribute to the economy and
society. The way they spend time over life – learning, working, and partaking in leisure activities and
giving-care”.

Population aging: the result of two processes

1. Increases in life expectancy -> collective choices

2. Reproductive behaviours -> individual choices

Associated with the extraordinary increase in life expectancy, the sharp decline in fertility now poses
problems of sustainability that advanced societies must necessarily face.

The control on births and deaths has led to an increase both in the absolute number of elderly people (gray
pressure), and in their proportional weight on the total population, on the active population (15-64) and
on the other part of the non-active population (0-14 years, green pressure)

How to measure population aging?

Mean age: Weighted average of individual ages with the amount of the population at a certain age
expressed in years.
Median age: Age that divides the population in two parts of equal size, that is, there are as many persons
with ages above the median as there are with ages below the median.

Life expectancy: the number of years a person can expect to live.

Dependency ratio: Ratio between the population of inactive age (0-14 years and 65 years and over) and the
population of active age (15-64 years), multiplied by 100.

Old-age-dependency ratio & Young-age dependency ratio.

Economic consequences: Who finances the costs of aging?

 Traditional society-> Family solidarity

In Welfare Societies-> The State through solidarity between generations

Four pillars:

1. Welfare States (pensions)

2. Private pension schemes
3. Income from savings
4. Income from a second job (for the youngest

The greater the number of young people and / or the elderly, the greater the economic burden to be
supported. Specifically for the elderly, the costs are related to: Health/ Care/ Pension

Social consequences

The generation will be very different (habits, customs)

More single-person families (not necessarily isolated).

Help for older people (role of the informal sector).

Migration temporary and partial solution

Migration as an instrument to alleviate the imbalance between generations (sustainability/cultural shock)

Different treatment of the elderly in different societies (social role of the elderly).

Which solutions?

 Increase in fertility rates (reduce the gap between the desired number of children, close to the
replacement level, and the actual number of children)
 Policies and services for children and work-family balance
 Gender equity in the family and at work
 Replacement migration (not just workers…)
 Pension reform (raise the age at retirement… a gain also for the young)
 New forms of savings and investments

Summary

The age and sex structure of a society is a subtle, commonly overlooked aspect of the social structure, yet it
is one of the most influential drivers of social change in human society. The number of people at each age
and of each sex is a very important factor in how a society is organized and how it operates, and for this
reason the age transition that accompanies the mortality and fertility transitions is a critical force for
change. Age composition is determined completely by the interaction of the three demographic processes.
Mortality has the smallest short-run impact on the age distribution, but when mortality declines suddenly
(as in the less-developed nations), it makes the population more youthful. At the same time, a decline in
mortality influences the sex structure at the older ages by producing increasingly greater numbers of
females than males. Changes in fertility generally produce the biggest changes in a society’s age structure,
regardless of the level of mortality. Falling fertility, for example, is the single biggest driver of the increase in
the proportion of the population that is in the older ages. Migration can have a sizable impact, because
migrants tend to be concentrated among young adults, and are more likely to be males rather than females.
In all of the more-developed societies in the world today, the fertility rate has been low for long enough
that we are approaching the end of the age transition and population aging has become a major societal
concern—not because we are afraid of old people, but rather because the demands on societal resources
are very different for an older than for a younger population. “Life in an era of declining and ageing
populations will be totally different from life in an era of rising and youthful populations. A new age calls for
a new mindset” (Wallace 2001:220). Creating that mindset is aided by the use of population projections,
which allow us to chart the course of change implied by different age structures. There are some fairly
predictable changes that occur to a population in the context of the age transition from a younger
population at the beginning of the demographic transition to an older population at the end of the
demographic transition. The critical question is how quickly that transition occurs, because the distortions in
the age structure that are part of the age transition can lead to changes in economic organization, political
dominance, and social stability that must be dealt with by society—and they have the potential to be either
positive or negative in their impact, depending on how society responds. Another important change in
human society that is taking place simultaneously—and intimately bound up with the age transition—is the
broad scale transfer of human existence into urban places. The next chapter looks at this transition.

Main points

The age transition is a predictable shift from a predominantly younger population when fertility is high
(usually when mortality is high) to a predominantly older population when fertility is low (usually when
mortality is also low).

The age composition of a society is a powerful stimulant to social change.

More male babies than females are generally born, but the age structure is further influenced by the fact
that at almost every age, more males than females die, and the sex ratio drops dramatically in the older
ages.

Mortality has very little long-run impact on the age structure, but in the short run a decline in mortality
typically makes the population younger in medium- to high-mortality societies, and a little older in lower-
mortality societies; declining mortality mainly operates to increase population size, rather than dramatically
affecting the age and sex structure.

Fertility is the most important determinant of the shape of the age/sex structure —high fertility produces a
young age structure, whereas low fertility produces an older age structure.

Migration can have a very dramatic short-run impact on the age and sex structure of a society, especially in
local areas.
Age transitions can provide a demographic dividend for countries experiencing a rapid fertility decline.

The end result of the age transition is to produce a population with a higher fraction of people in the older
ages.

The percentage of the population that is 65 and older is greatest in more developed countries, because its
increase largely depends on a decline in the birth rate, but the majority of the world’s older population lives
in developing countries.

Population projections provide a way of using the age structure to read the future, being developed from
applying the age and sex distribution for a base year to sets of age-specific mortality, fertility, and migration
rates for the interval between the base year and the target year.

Slide9: Demographic data: population Censuses, vital statistics, population registers, sample surveys

Classification

1. Stock or flow data: stock data refer to a precise instant in time, flow data refer to a certain interval.
However, stock data (Censuses, Sample Surveys) may contain retrospective questions, and
information on flows can be obtained.
2. Statistical or administrative data: depending on who produces the data. Statistical data should be
preferable to administrative data.
3. Individual or collective data: originally data are always individual, but the difference depends on
which data are released (confidentiality).
4. Individual data are always organized in matrices: each row is a unit (the individual, the family, the
company, etc.) and a series of information is collected for each unit.
5. Universal coverage or sample data: data can refer to the whole population (Census) or to a sample.
6. Cross-sectional or longitudinal data: cross-sectional data are generally more available; longitudinal
data, following individuals over time, are generally more expensive.
7. Raw data or elaborations: the data can be raw/original and therefore, they can be used for
research purposes, or they can be available in the form of elaborations

Census

Census - is a total survey of the population, housing, businesses of a country or region at a given time.
Essential feature of census are:

1. Universality within a defined territory (complete, or total, or exhaustive), because it is extended to

all the constituent units of the population under study. Goal to detect each person in a designated
area. Homeless included, Foreign citizens belonging to the diplomatic and consular corps are
excluded)
2. Individual enumeration (Survey is individual. However, your family/cohabitants can fill it in for you)
3. Simultaneity (the survey conducts at the same time, but its hard to make it all over the country.
Someone can be born/dead by the time of ending of the survey. This date also constitutes the
instant with reference to which some variables are detected such as age, marital status, citizenship)
4. Defined periodicity (each country defines periodicity itself)
Census Data

1. Place of residence/ Place of Survey (you may reside in Rome but live in Milano)
2. Provide info of the population
3. Determine the set of residents who make up the legal population (legal migrants)
4. to provide information for updating and reviewing the Population Registry of the resident
population;
5. to provide information on the number and characteristics of homes and buildings

The survey Units of the census:

1. Family/ Cohabitation/ Single couple

2. Resident population (reside in Italy, but off for France atm) / Present Population (“people that are
physically in the territory of the country at the moment of the enumeration”)
3. Foreign citizens residing in Italy/ Foreign citizens with habitual residence abroad (occasionally
present in Italy)

Registration of vital events: elaborated each month, and referring to the present population

 Number of births / Number of deaths / Number of marriages (civil and religious)

 Birth rates (births per 1,000 population) / Death rates / Marriage rates
 Flow data and administrative data

Population registers:

 Flow data and administrative data / Resident population

Sample survey:

 A sample survey is a survey which is carried out using a sampling method, i.e., in which a portion
only, and not the whole population is surveyed. ( bc its easier and cheaper to survey only few ppl
and then you can track it in longitudinal data). It divides into 3 categories:
 Microdata are the atomic data elements describing the individual objects being studied.
 Macrodata describe aggregates of objects and have storage and manipulation problems different
from those of microdata.
 Metadata provide information about the variables, objects, samples, distributions, and so on which
occur during a scientific investigation.
 Definition of the units and variables to be detected; choice of the reference period and detection
technique.

Slide 10: MEASURING MIGRATION: CRITICAL ISSUES AND NEW RESEARCH TOOLS

1. Definitions
2. Traditional data sources of migration statistics
3. Measuring illegal migration
4. Innovative data sources of migration statistics

Definitions
“[A] long-term migrant is a person who moves to a country other than that of his or her usual residence for
a period of at least a year (12 months), so that the country of destination effectively becomes his or her new
country of usual residence.”

The Concept of usual residence

1. An immigrant must not have been a usual resident, and will establish usual residence in the country
he or she has entered.
2. An emigrant should have been a usual resident of the country from which he or she is departing,
and is establishing usual residence in another country.
3. A person’s country of usual residence is that in which a person lives, that is, the country in which the
person has a place to live where the person normally spends the daily period of rest (UN 2016). Use
of this definition allows for the collection of internationally comparable data on international
migration

2 primary units of analysis: the person (who moves) • geography (where the person moved from and
where the person moved to).

(1)

(2)

(3)
Migration stocks and flows

 the stock of international migrants is the total number of international migrants living in a country
at a particular point in time
 the flow of international migrants is the number of migrants entering or leaving a country over the
course of a specific period (for example, one year).
 Country of birth and citizenship are the main criteria used for categorizing different types of
population stocks and flows. Duration of stay providing a further element for statistics on migration
flows.

MEASUREMENT OF MIGRANTS’ STOCK: COUNTRY OF BIRTH

 Foreign born are persons who were born in a country other than the country of enumeration where
they currently reside. This group corresponds to the stock of international migrants who migrated at
least once in their life and reside outside their country of birth.
 Persons born in the country are defined as native born.
 The concepts of the foreign-born and native-born population are referred to as nativity status.

MEASUREMENT OF MIGRANTS’ STOCK: CITIZENSHIP

 Foreigners are the group of persons who do not have citizenship of the country in which they
reside. Foreigners can be foreign born or native born.
 Persons having citizenship of the country of residence are defined as citizens, and can also be
foreign born or native born.
 Persons who do not have the citizenship of any country are referred to as stateless.
 Together, the concepts of citizens and foreigners are referred to as citizenship status.

MEASUREMENT OF MIGRANTS’ STOCK: COUNTRY OF BIRTH VS CITIZENSHIP

Using the criterion of citizenship status to measure migration has the advantage of being policy relevant
and wide available across countries.

Disadvantages of using citizenship:

 citizenship can change over time;

 persons can have citizenship of more than one country,
 or, being a stateless person, may not have any citizenship;
 and foreigners are not necessarily international migrants.
 The use of country of birth has the advantage to not change over time. Except for cases when
country borders have been redrawn - e.g., Ukraine-born people who moved within the USSR later
being counted as foreign born after the collapse of the USSR. This would lead to problems when
comparing the proportion of foreign born over time within the Russian Federation.
 It is an objective measure, although some countries use the measurement of the mother’s place of
usual residence at time of birth, rather than actual place of birth, and it directly measures whether a
change of residence has taken place over one’s lifetime.
 As with the citizenship method, the information on foreign born populations is widely available
across countries.
DURATION OF STAY AND MEASUREMENT OF MIGRATION FLOWS

International migrant is defined as “any person who changes his or her country of usual residence.” A
person’s country of usual residence is that in which the person lives, that is, the country in which the person
has a place to live where he or she normally spends the daily period of rest.

By the criterion of duration of stay:

 Long-term international migrants: those who move to a country other than their country of usual
residence for a period of at least one year.
 Short-term international migrants are people who move to a country for a period of at least three
months but less than one year.

Most countries to compile migration flow data collect data on a yearly (12-month) basis, although some
surveys and censuses use a five-year period. However, most countries in the world do not collect data on
migration flows:

 International migration flow data are more often collected and available for foreigners than for
citizens or the foreign born.
 Data on the inflow of international migrants are much more common than information on the
outflow of international migrants.
 In reporting international migration flow data, many of the countries that collect such data comply
with the Recommendations by collecting information on the country of previous residence for
arriving migrants and next residence for departing migrants.

 Difficult to distinguish between short—and long-term migrants, especially given the different data
collection systems used by different countries.
 Not only does the country of usual residence need to be determined, but so does the migrant’s
duration of stay. However, the difficulties can often be overcome.
 According to the Recommendations, “the act of being inscribed in a population register or country
other than their own, being granted a permit to reside in country, or declaring intention of staying
for at least one year, are all ways of making the concept of change of usual residence measurable.”
 This means countries can use different methods to determine duration of stay, which further
complicates data comparability at the international level.
 SOURCES OF MIGRATION STATISTICS

Main traditional sources:

 Population censuses
 Administrative records
 Sample surveys

(1)

(2)
 (3)

(4)

Sample surveys:

1. household sample surveys (Specialized international migration surveys)

 Strength: wealth of information they collect compared with other data sources, which allows for in
depth analysis of the likely causes of international migration or its consequences for the persons
involved.
 Weakness: low percentage of international migrants present in most countries→ the sample size of
the survey needs to be reasonably large to identify enough migrants for meaningful analysis.
2. passenger surveys administered at the border (face to face interview/ Good for Island countries)

Data Gaps and Challenges: Undocumented Migrants:

Undocumented migrants may be partly or totally excluded from data collection.

Administrative registrations, such as those conducted as part of regularization programs or the registration
of irregular migrant worker apprehensions by police or administrative records with the ministries of labor
or ministry of employment

Surveys and qualitative (ethnographic) fieldwork focused on “irregular migrant workers” population can
elicit information about how irregular migrant workers enter and participate in the labor markets in
destination countries.

Key challenge in data gathering: migrants in irregular situations are not willing to be included in censuses or
registries, for fear of detection and deportation.

WHAT ARE THE MAIN INNOVATIVE DATA SOURCES OF MIGRATION STATISTICS?

1. Cellular calls, texts, transfer activities (namely, communication services (calls and text messages)
and financial services (mobile money transfers).)
2. Internet-based activity (including from cell phones): information services (use of search engines,
repeated logins to a website), communication services (use of e-mails and social media), and
financial services (online money transfers).

Definition of Big DATA

Anonymized data inadvertently created and stored—usually in private companies’ databases—every time a
mobile phone call is made, a text message sent, an Internet search run, or a social media update posted
(Latouzé 2012).

Main characteristics of big data are usually referred to as the three “Vs.”

 The first is the “volume” of data available, which is of unprecedented size due to the diffusion of
mobile devices, web-based tools, and social media worldwide.
 The second characteristic is the “velocity” at which such data are generated, basically in real time.
 “Variety” or complexity is its third characteristic, since big data is made up of structured data (for
example, online payment records), and unstructured data (for example, social media content).

HOW BIG DATA CAN BE USED TO MEASURE MIGRATION-RELATED PHENOMENA?

 Forced displacement due to environmental disasters, conflict, and post-conflict situations

 Remittances (Денежные переводы ) or patterns of mobile money transfers
 Estimation and prediction of migration trends (flows and rates), notably patterns of internal
migration, which are usually more difficult to track through traditional data sources
 Human trafficking, as the information collected from phone calls or text and e-mail messages
exchanged with victims can be used to understand trafficking trends as well as to provide targeted
and timely assistance to victims

MOBILE PHONE-BASED SOURCES

 Call detail records (CDRs): anonymized digital records that are passively collected by mobile
network operators every time a network subscriber makes a call.
  Such records include information about the location of the calling and receiving ends,
approximated by the location of the cell tower to which the subscriber identity module (SIM) card
connects during a mobile phone call (the tower in closest proximity).
 CDRs could help to fill knowledge gaps in areas where data collected through traditional sources is
porous, namely, internal and temporary or circular migration.

Internet Based Sources

 Anonymized search query records of certain terms can be used for various purposes, such as
estimating the number of foreign nationals in a country.
 Social media-> geolocation->interaction, commenting on social media