Demographic transition-theory-optimum-population-1

Demographic Transition Theory & Optimum

Population By

Gargi SunilKanishk Singh

Yogesh BudharamVishnu T.S.

What is demography?

• Demography is the statistical study of human populations.• It encompasses the study of the size, structure, and

distribution of these populations, and spatial and/or temporal changes in them in response to time,birth, migration, aging, and death.

Demographic Transition Theory

• Demographic transition (DT) refers to the transition from high birth and death rates to low birth and death rates as a country develops from a pre-industrial to an industrialized economic system.• It suggests all countries go through 4 – 5 stages of

development

Stage One : Pre-Industrial Society• In stage one, pre-industrial society, death rates and birth rates

are high and roughly in balance• Population growth is typically very slow.• Young population with short life span.• Population is dependent on rapid fluctuations such as droughts

and diseases.• Every present day country has gone past this stage.

Stage Two : Developing Country

• Rapid drop in death rate while birth rate remains high.• Large increase in population .• Decrease in infant mortality and increased life spans.• Improvements in food supply and public health and agriculture.• Yemen, Afghanistan, the Palestinian

territories, Bhutan and Laos and much of Sub-Saharan Countries.

Stage Three : Post-Industrial

• Fall in birth rates ,start to balance the lowering death rates.• Birth rates fall due to access to contraception, increases in

wages, urbanization , etc.• Lower Infant Mortality Rate hence smaller families.• Increased female literacy and employment• Demographic Dividend ; increase in the ratio of working age to

dependent population.• India, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Myanmar,

Bangladesh Nepal, Pakistan and UAE

Stage Four :Stabilization Period• Both low birth and death rates.• Population growth stabilized ; population may start shrinking.• Low death rate :- Lower rate of diseases and higher

production of food.• Low Birth rate:- More independence for women and work

oppurtunities.•  United States, Canada,Argentina, Australia , New

Zealand ,most of Europe,etc.

Stage Five

• There are few countries like Germany, Italy and Japan, in which the death rate is higher than birth rate resulting in the decrease of population.• Due to this, additional stages have been proposed depending

on the fertility rate in the country.

Drawbacks of DTT

• DTM has a questionable applicability to less economically developed countries (LEDCs), where wealth and information access are limited.• DTM has been validated primarily in Europe, Japan and North America where

demographic data exists over centuries, whereas high quality demographic data for most LEDCs did not become widely available until the mid-20th century. • Eg:DTM does not account for recent phenomena such as AIDS- a leading source

of mortality. Some trends in waterborne bacterial infant mortality are also disturbing in countries like Malawi, Sudan and Nigeria. The DTM did not include government interventions (population control e.g. one child policy of China).

Optimum Population

• Theoretically, there is for any given state or the arts and any given supply of available natural resources, together with a given supply of capital instruments and a given social organization, a certain size of population which can operate these resources to the best advantage and produce the largest per capita income of consumers' goods possible under the given conditions

Properties• The optimal world population has been estimated by a team co-

authored by Paul R. Ehrlich. End-targets in this estimation included:• Decent wealth and resources to everyone• Basic human rights to everyone• Preservation of cultural diversity.• Allowance of intellectual, artistic, and technological creativity• Preservation of biodiversityBased on this, the estimation of optimum population was to be roughly around 1.5 billion to 2 billion people.

Demography Transition - India

• India too is following the pattern but with a late beginning and slower pace• The death rate began to fall after 1920 but the birth rate remained high up to

the 1960s opening up a gap and consequent population growth .• The birth rate began to fall much later, after 1960s but the death rate

continued to decline continuing population growth .• The gap seems to have narrowed in the last decade with a small decline in the

population growth rate• India is moving from the middle transitional stage to the late transitional stage

Stage One: IndiaBefore 1920High Birth Rate : • Lack of knowledge of birth control• Children were considered workers and as an

investment• To counter very high IMR.High Death Rate:• Poor Health Care & living conditions• Lack of Hygiene

Stage Two : India• 1920-1985• Population Explosion• Birth Rate > Death Rate.• Being a British colony led to

improvements in healthcare and sanitation.• IMR & Death rate fell.

Birth Rate

Death Rate

Stage Three : India

• Since 1985• Death rate levelling off• Birth rate starting to decline.• India currently in the latter

half of stage 3.

Birth Rate

Death Rate

• As a result of the ongoing transition, India’s population has increased from 238 million in 1901 to 1210 million in 2011, more than quadrupled.• Pace was slow up to 1921.• Accelerated after 1951, with decadal increase rising to 20 percent.• Some slowing down of the pace was noticed after the 2001 census

with the decadal growth still over 20 percent.• The latest census has shown a clear fall, to a decadal growth of 17.6

percent and annual rate of 1.62 percent.• India’s trajectory of growth has turned downward though the

population trajectory continues to be upward

Age Structure : India

• Dependency ratio has fallen, from 92 percent to 65.• The broad age group 15-59 generally labelled as working ages has

increased from 52% to 60% from 1971 to 2001.• The old ages (60 and above) have also gained but only marginally, from6.0 to 8.6 %.• The population pyramid was wide at the bottom narrowing steeply over

age some time ago but by 2001 there occurred clear shrinking at low ages with the bulge moving upwards suggesting recent fall in fertility.

Demographic Dividend : India

• The window of demographic opportunity has already opened and will remain so for some more decades.• The extent to which India can capitalize on this depends on

how well the workers can be employed.• Over time, the large bulge of population will move from

working ages to old ages raising old age dependency,• This would then call for developing mechanism to provide old

age support

Conclusions

• India has entered the phase of falling fertility thereby reducing natural growth• Though uncontrolled population growth is no longer an issue,

population is still on the rise and we will overtake China by 2030.• Mortality & IMR has fallen in India , but level continues to be

higher than other developing countries.

Thank you