GEOG 102 – Population, Resources, and the Environment

Professor: Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue

Topic 3 – Population Theory

A – Demographic Transition
B – Malthusianism
C – Neo-Malthusianism
D – Creative Pressure
A Demographic Transition

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

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

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

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

Degenerative and Man-made Diseases

Low Fertility 70 years

Low Mortality
 Survivorship of the British Population, 17th and 20th
1 Centuries

100

90

80

70
17th Century
60
1999 (M)
50 1999 (F)

40

30

20

10

0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85
1 Demographic Transition Theory

Stage I Stage II Stage III Stage IV

Birth Rate
Population
Demographic
Death Rate Growth

1700 1800 1900 2000

1 Crude Birth Rates, Western Europe, 1751-1991

45

40

35

30 Britain
Ireland
25 France
20 Sweden
Germany
15 Italy

10

0
51

71

91

11

31

51

71

91

11

31

51

71

91
17

17

17

18

18

18

18

18

19

19

19

19

19
1 Crude Death Rates, Western Europe, 1751-1991

45

40

35

30 Britain
Ireland
25 France
20 Sweden
Germany
15 Italy

10

0
51

71

91

11

31

51

71

91

11

31

51

71

91
17

17

17

18

18

18

18

18

19

19

19

19

19
1 Stages in Demographic Transition
Stage I
High birth rates
No or little Family Planning
Parents have many children
because few survive
Many children are needed to
work the land
Children are a sign of virility
Religious beliefs and cultural
traditions encourage large
families
High death rates
Disease and plague (e.g.
bubonic, cholera,
kwashiorkor)
Famine, uncertain food
supplies and poor diet
Poor hygiene, no clean
water or sewage disposal
Stage II Stage III Stage IV
High birth rates Falling birth rates Low birth rates
Family Planning used Children as liabilities instead
A lower infant mortality rates of assets
Industrialization means less
need for labor
Increased desire for material
possessions and less desire
for large families
Emancipation of women
Falling death rates Low death rates Low death rates
Improved medicine
Improved sanitation and
waters supply
Improvements in food
production in terms of
quality and quantity
Improved transport to move
food
A decrease in child mortality
1 Fertility Declines, Real and Projected (1950-2050)

6
(2.1 = no population growth)

5
TFR

1
1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 2030 2040 2050

Developing Developed Africa Asia South and Central America

3 Geographical Variations

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

0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Ni
ge 8
ria
Ph
ilip
pi
ne
s

Eg
y pt
Ba
ng
lad
es
h

In
di
a

Me
xic
o
In
do
ne
s ia

Br
az
il

Ch
in
a
So
ut
h Ko
re
Fertility Transition in some Countries, 1962-2000

a
2000
1990
1982
1962
3 Geographical Variations

■ Will demographic transition occur all around the world?

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

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

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

■ The “Malthusian crisis”

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

t3

Quantity t2
Technological Innovation
t1

Resources

Population Overexploitation

Time
2 The Malthusian Crisis

■ The Malthusian Crisis has not occurred

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

■ The Malthusian crisis today

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

■ Relevance of the Malthusian theory

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

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

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

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

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

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

■ Example of using the commons

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

Village 1 2 3 4
Cattle 3 3 3 3
Village
4 1
Commons 14 – 12 = 2

Commons
(sustain 14) Cattle (+1) (+1) (+1) (+1)
4 4 4 4

2 Commons 14 – 16 = -2 (overgrazing)
3

Cattle (grazing)
Benefits: +1 each
Costs: -1 each
2 The Commons

■ The tragedy of the commons

• Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all.
• All the resources will be used.
■ Solutions
• Private property:
• Removes some of the Commons from access.
• Encourages conservation and wise management.
• Vested interest in maintaining it for future use.
• Collective property:
• Parts of the Commons not possible to divide into private segments -
atmosphere, oceans, etc.
• Collective (global) ownership.
• Taxation and coercive laws as the primary means of preservation.
2 World Fish Catch per Capita, 1950-1999

20

18

16

14

12

10

0
1950 1953 1956 1959 1962 1965 1968 1971 1974 1977 1980 1983 1986 1989 1992 1995 1998
 Commercial Harvests in the Northwest Atlantic of
2 Some Fish Stocks, 1950-95 (in 1,000 metric tons)
250 2000

1800
200 1600

1400

150 1200

1000

100 800
600

50 400
200

0 0
1950 1960 1970 1980 1990

Flatfishes (flounders, halibuts, etc.) Haddock Red hake Atlantic cod

 Carbon Emissions from Fossil Fuel Burning, 1751-
2 2001
7000

6000

5000
Millions of tons

4000

3000

2000

1000

0
1751 1771 1791 1811 1831 1851 1871 1891 1911 1931 1951 1971 1991
3 Neo-Malthusianism and Human Reproduction

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

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

■ 1. Concept and Issues

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

Demographic ■ Concept
• Opposed to the Malthusian and

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

Productivity
growth
1 Concept and Issues

■ Technological innovation and agriculture

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

■ Limits of food production by environmental factors

• Soil exhaustion and erosion.
• Evolutionary factors such as the development of greater
resistance to pesticides.
• Climate change.
• Loss of productive soils due to land use conversion to other
purposes, such as urbanization.
• Water shortages and pollution.
■ Limits by technology
• May be available but not shared.
• Maybe too expensive for some regions (e.g. desalination).
3 Creative Pressure vs. Neo-Malthusianism

Carrying capacity

Environmental
Neo-Malthusianism degradation

21st century

Creative
pressure
Resources

Malthusianism 19th-20th century

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