GLOBAL DEMOGRAPHY
migration.
Demography provides the necessary
concepts and basic understanding of
issues related to population and the
consequences it entails for a highly
integrated and interconnected world.
Demography is defined as the
quantitative or statistical study of
populations. Hauser and Duncan in
1959 define demography as the study of
the size, territorial distribution and
composition of a population, changes
therein, and components of such
changes, which may be identified as
natality, mortality, territorial movement
(migration), and social mobility (change
of social status). According to Anderson,
this definition situates demography as
the basis for all the social sciences.
American demographer Frank Notestein
first coined the term in the mid-twentieth
century. Notestein’s work would become
the foundation of other scholar’s work
on the matter. According to Anderson,
demography studies the following:
1. Population Size – the number of
people in a country, a state, a
city, a region, or the world at a
given time.
2. Population Growth or Decline –
changes in the number of people
in a given geographic area over
time.
3. Population Processes – fertility,
mortality, and migration.
4. Factors Related to Population
Processes – diseases and
socioeconomic characteristics
related to mortality, family
formation, labor force
participation, government policies
related to fertility, the difference
in income and opportunities in
various areas, war and
immigration policies, and
economic conditions motivating
5. Population Distribution –
geographic distribution, such as
among states or between rural
and urban areas.
6. Population Structure – age and
sex composition, the growing
proportion of the population at
advanced ages, the sex ratio at
birth, and the increasing
proportion of the population that
is female with increasing age.
7. Population Characteristics –
education, income, labor force
participation, marital status, and
race or an ethnic group
membership – anything that has
a value for each member of the
population and does not have the
same value for everyone.
Much of today’s works on demography
focus on estimates and projections of
the size and characteristics of the
population and the components of
population change. According to
Anderson, there are two ways of
thinking about population change:
Aggregate and Causal or Micro-
behavioral Approach.
The Aggregate Approach looks at the
components of population change. This
is where the importance of population
processes comes in. The components of
population change, such as the roles of
births, deaths, and migration in
population size, are dealt with in this
approach. It deals with macrosocial
demographic processes. It studies how
the levels of child-bearing, mortality, and
population movement impact the growth
or decline of a population. Anderson
explains that this perspective alerted the
world to the rapid population growth of
developing countries in the 1960s and
1970s due to high birth rates and low
death rates. This scientific knowledge
would lead scientists and concerned
agencies to deal with the situation by
developing what we know today as
contraceptives.
The Causal or Micro-behavioral
Approach asks the following questions:
What are the causal factors or
behavioral mechanisms that lead to
people's decisions? What behaviors do
individuals adopt to implement their
decisions? This approach investigates
why people have children, their
motivations, or the factors that led them
to such a decision. Could it be cultural
or social factors such as expectations
from family or the ability to project
manhood or womanhood? In the same
manner, this approach acknowledges
that behavior not only influences
decisions leading to natality or birth
rates, the number of annual births per
one thousand people; it also affects
mortality or death rates, the number of
annual deaths per one thousand people.
Anderson argues that although most of
us would wish to live longer, decisions
to cultivate habits that tend to shorten
human life explain why the mortality rate
is sometimes high. Vices such as
cigarette smoking, alcohol consumption,
and drug addiction have a telling impact
on one’s mortality.
THEORIES ON DEMOGRAPHY AND
POPULATION GROWTH
View on population had already been
developed in the early history of
humanity. Confucius in 500 BC
explained that when the population was
too small, there were very few to till the
land and taxes were not paid. To
Confucius, a large population is helpful
for a productive society. A society that
would work well if the people were
educated and trusted their rulers. He
added that when the population was too
large, poverty and hardships followed.
He recommended that the government
maintain a balance between the
population and resources through
government-enforced migration.
The ancient Greeks also had their views
on demographics. Plato, in 400 BC,
argued that the population should not
grow or shrink rapidly, as the rapid
population could lead to social
disruption. He suggested that the
population's quality is more important
than its quantity and recommended that
only fit men should have children.
Another Greek philosopher, Aristotle,
suggested that the population should be
limited and have moderate growth. If the
population is too large, it could disrupt
democratic governance. To Aristotle,
infanticide and abortion could be
necessary to limit population growth.
Mercantilism was an economic doctrine
that was popular during the 16th until
the 18th century in Europe. Mercantilism
was informed by an economic principle
influenced by the actions of kingdoms,
later powerful nation-states, competing
to consolidate colonies to their regional
power centers through warfare.
European kingdoms and nation-states
were also reliant on foreign trade and
economic growth that favored European
countries by exploiting its colonies’
resources and monopolizing their
economies. From this economic theory
came the belief that countries needed to
increase their population if they would
have enough soldiers and colonists.
Therefore, mercantilism considered a
high population growth rate as vital.
1. Malthusian Approaches to
Population Growth – refer to
Thomas Malthus, an 18th-century
minister, who maintained that
although the population grows
exponentially, food supply grows
linearly. Malthus explains that
poverty results from population
growth outstripping the
availability of resources,
especially food. He believes that
the source of high population
growth was the lack of moral
restraint due to man’s natural
tendency to reproduce. He
argued that the only acceptable
ways to limit fertility was
refraining from premarital sex and
postponing marriage until the
couple can support their
offspring, referring to these as
preventive checks to population
growth, otherwise known as
moral restraint. Malthus added
that if preventive checks were not
observed, positive checks or
increased mortality could be
employed. Positive checks refer
to phenomena or events that lead
to premature deaths such as
epidemics or pandemics, famine,
war, natural calamities, etc. The
Malthusian standpoint has
influenced many societies in
terms of their marriage and child-
rearing practices until today.
2. Neo-Malthusianism – considered
a belief system and movement in
favor of population control
programs to ensure resources for
future generations. Contrary to
Malthus’ focus on poverty. Neo-
Malthusians, who are informed by
a heightened sense of
environmentalism, are more
concerned with widespread
famine and environmental
degradation, such as greenhouse
accumulation due to production in
favor of a growing population’s
needs results of uncontrolled
population growth. Aside from
influencing birth control and
family planning programs,
Malthus also inspired the
development of eugenics, a
science that deals with the
improvement of hereditary
qualities of a breed or a race, for
example, through the control of
human mating or human sexual
activities.
DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION
THEORY
Frank Notestein developed the
Demographic Transition Theory, which
discusses the history of demographic
change globally. It is based on repeated
observations of consistently similar
population growth patterns in various
countries as their economies developed.
The demographic transition theory is a
generalized description of the changing
patterns of mortality, fertility, and growth
rates as societies or groups of people
move from one demographic stage to
another across historical periods. The
demographic transition model identifies
four, sometimes five, stages in studying
demographic trends. The stages of the
demographic transition model (DTM) are
the following:
1. Pre-Industrial Society – The
death and birth rates are very
high and are imbalanced. In this
stage, when the levels of
technology and medicine are still
low, the population growth is kept
in check through preventive and
positive checks. Several factors
 explain the short life expectancy
of people in this stage. The death
rates are high due to a poor diet,
poor sanitation and hygiene, and
lack of appropriate medical care.
2. Early Transition – During this
period, death rates are
significantly reduced. Modern
medicine and an improved food
supply, specifically for children,
and better education reduce the
number of deaths caused by
diseases and malnutrition. At the
same time, the high birth rate is
maintained due to lack of
contraception, which causes
rapid population growth. At this
stage, people have a longer life
expectancy.
3. Late Transition – At this stage,
birth rates start to fall with
advances in medicine and
contraception methods and
increased awareness through
health education. While birth rate
decline is attributed mainly to the
use of contraceptives, changes in
values and motivations
surrounding childbirth are
beginning to shift. Women begin
to assume roles beyond the
raising of children and
maintenance of households.
Women are educated and
eventually assume economic and
social roles.
4. Post-Transition – At this stage,
the birth and death rates are both
low. Wealthier societies tend to
achieve this phenomenon
resulting in a more stable society.
Countries with prosperous
economies, family planning,
better healthcare systems, high
levels of education, and higher
social and economic
enfranchisement for women tend
to maintain low birth and death
rates. However, when birth rates
drop to a level that limits society’s
ability to supply future workers
and leaders for society's
economic and political survival,
there are alarming economic and
political consequences.
Other political scientists have argued
that the assumptions of the first model
of Demographic Transition did not really
predict the present demographic status
of the world. The authors of the Second
Demographic Transition (SDT), Ron
Lesthaege and Dirk van de Kaa argue
that the projected equilibrium in death
and birth rates under Stage 4 of the
DTM did not take place and that fertility
decline to a sub-fertility level or the level
below the expected number of births
that can sustain activities necessary for
the survival of society. Van de Kaa
argues that these shifts have been
broadly linked to the following changes:
● Structural Changes –
modernization, the growth of the
service economy and the welfare
state, the expansion of higher
education.
● Cultural Changes –
secularization, the rise of
individualistic values, the
importance of self-expression,
and self-fulfillment.
● Technological Changes – the
adoption of modern
contraception, the advances in
assisted reproduction, the
explosion of new information
technologies.
Lesthaege and Van de Kaa discussed
that fertility decline was influenced by
advances in healthcare and
contraception and the weakening of
traditional heterosexual marriage and
family structure. Traditional marriage
and family structures have given way to
pluralistic forms characterized by the
following:

1. increasing age at first marriage

2. increases in pre-marital
cohabitation (live-in)
3. increases in instances of divorce
4. practice and acceptance of
same-sex marriages
5. increase in the rate of childbirth
outside marriage

All of these contribute to a greater

decline in the rate of childbirth. Further,
couples or individuals have moved from
preventive contraception to self-fulfilling
contraception. According to Lesthaege
and Van de Kaa, during the first
demographic transition, the issue was to
adopt contraception to avoid pregnancy.
However, in SDT, an individual decides
to stop taking contraceptives to start a
pregnancy. Lesthaege states that the
different phases of SDT are
characterized as follows:

● Phase I (1955-1970) –
characterized by increasing
divorce rates, a decline in fertility,
older age of marriage, and the
contraceptive revolution, meaning
more effective contraceptives and
change in use.
● Phase II (1971-1985) – features a
rise in premarital cohabitation
(live-in) and non-marital childbirth
(single parents or childbirth
during live-in).
● Phase III (1985-present) – shows
a stagnating divorce rate, fewer
remarriages, and a rise in fertility
rate.