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COMPARATIVE SOCIOLOGY
Lecture
COMPARATIVE DEMOGRAPHY- Week 5
Outline:
- Basic concepts in demographic research.
- Major demographic developments.
- Demographic transition theory.
- The fertility decline since SWW.
- The mortality decline since SWW.
- Changes in age structure: the ongoing population aging.
Why should we care about demography?
The demographic outlook is a structural feature of any society. It has its source in the entrenched relations btw generations and intimate links to personal problems. E.g. risk of death, unmet ideal of family size.
Consequences of demography in the population composition:
- Reflects changes in life decisions: reproduction or nuptiality.
- Has important electoral effects (e.g. aging).
- Has important effect in public policy (e.g. fertility decline).
- Has important economic effects (e.g. population and economic boost).
The science of Demography
Demography: analysis of the volume, geographical distribution and composition of the population, its changes and the elements of such changes, that can be identified like fertility, mortality, geographical movements and social mobility. Demography is the study of human populations.
In Europe, the interest in population characteristics and trends is something specific of late modernity. Until the18th and 19th century, they discovered the characteristics of population (rates, etc). Humans haven’t always been aware of these trends (common persistence patterns like fertility, mortality, etc.).
Narrower focus: concerned with the description of the size and structure of the “population”. Discovery of the “population” is an invention of modernity. Debate about demographic crisis.
Empirical bases: population censuses.
Diff btw censuses and surveys:
- The content of the q differs.
- Censuses don’t use statistical samples, they cover the whole population.
Basic concepts in Demography
- Population size is an outcome of three elements: fertility, mortality and migrations.
- Global population equation:
P 2 = P 1 + B – D.
Migration obviously does not figure into the equation when the focus is on the world.
- Natural population increase equation:
N pop inc= births - deaths
- Net migration equation: Net migr= immigrants - migrants
- Mortality rate.
Deaths/
Why rates? Because we are comparing very different population sources. This way, it is a reliable comparison controlling for the level of population, it is comparable and not influenced by the total population of the country.
- Life expectancy: number of years a newborn (or someone at a certain age) is expected to live.
- Crude birth rate (CBR):
CBR=number of births/1000 women.
- Total fertility rate (TFR): the average number of children a hypothetical cohort of women would have at the ends of their reproductive period if
Malthus
Malthus explains that population growth can be explained through the inner drives of individuals that lead them to procreate.
Marxism
Marx explained that population growth can be explained through the process of industrialisation and capitalism establishment. It is functional and happens because it is permitted and tolerated by the bourgeoisie class. according to Marx, population grew because the bourgeoisie were interested in this increase as it benefited them.
DTT
DTT was first developed by Warren S. Thompson (1929) and Frank W. Notestein (1945). The theory proposes four stages of mortality and fertility change that occur in the process of societal modernisation. It is the most prominent explanation of population change in demographic analysis. It is not an explanatory theory. It is mostly descriptive process. It doesn’t formulate the cases for the dynamics. It describes stages that countries go through but doesn’t study the causes leading them towards those stages.
All countries have undergone a process of “demographic modernisation”. This modernisation is defined by a transition from high mortality and fertility rated to low mortality and fertility rates.
Four main stages:
- Pre-modern/ pretransitional or preindustrialisation stage.
It lasted for thousands of years when the world was characterised by high birth and death rates and stable population growth. It shows high rates of fluctuating mortality and high fertility. These fluctuations and death rates were high because of the positive checks of plagues, famines, wars, and poor living conditions. Generally, populations had high birth rates so as to compensate for the high death rates. The relative instability of the mortality rates means that during this stage, there were some periods of natural increase and some of natural decrease, but that over the longer period, there was very little change in population size. Because of its high birth rates, it is also referred to as the stage of high growth potential because of the great potential for population growth if mortality were ever to fall.
- Industrialisation/ first transitional stage. There was rapid population growth , but only in Western Europe (in the rest of countries, death and birth rates remained high until WWII) because mortality began to decline in many countries of the world. With the onset of industrialisation and modernisation, many societies transitioned to lower death rates, especially lower infant and maternal mortality, but maintained high birth rates (mentality takes a long time to change); Thus, during stage 2, population growth was intense.
- Post-industrialisation/ decreasing population growth. Decreasing population growth was due to lower death and birth rates. Death rates remained equally decreasing, but fertility rates started to fall.
- Stabilisation/ incipient decline. Both fertility and mortality are very low. Populations grow only when there are increases in fertility , such as in the baby boom in the US after WWII. During this stage, hwv, there are slight fluctuations in fertility; thus, both natural increase and decrease will occur owing to these fluctuations.
The term incipient is used because it is not really possible to determine how low fertility will go. In recent years, fertility has fallen so low in many European countries and in Japan that the number of deaths exceeds the number of births. This suggests that, perhaps, that there could well be yet another stage, stage 5, one of population decline.
- “Second demographic transition”. Population growth decline. This stage is just a prediction of the future.
*Natural growth: gap btw fertility and mortality. The size of this area explains the population growth explained earlier. Natural increase is produced from the excess of births over deaths.
- Traditional gender norms must be undermined. The incorporation of women to the labour market delayed and decreased births.
- With the decrease in deaths and the increase in life expectancy, families took into account that children have more chances to survive (they before had more children because they knew that not all of them would make it), so they had to decrease the number of children they had (i.e. fertility decline). However, for this mentality to change, long time had to pass. E.g. now, people want to have two kids. Actually, they have one.
- Less inertial decisions. People had to account for their actions and if they really wanted to have more children.
- Reproduction as human choice (individual decisions).
- Diffusion info on contraceptives.
DTT is agnostic about causes of mortality and fertility decline. It has descriptive (not causal) objectives. Evidence in support for DTT is mixed. Is it helpful to explain long-term fertility patterns in European countries?
TOTAL POPULATION SIZE
- All western European countries have finished the “first demographic transition”. All European countries are at the last stage.
- Total population size varies. The result is that the population growth has stabilised.
- Unbalanced distribution of population across states that characterises Europe.
- Total population size (density)= accumulated population growth / territorial expansion.
- Large inequalities in population size across European countries. Heavy concentration in 6 countries:
Influenza> SCW; Spain consistent w/ DTT
GLOBAL EFFECTS OF THE DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION
Countries differ in the demographic stage:
- Europe is at 4th stage.
- The demographic transition in most-less developed countries is not yet complete:
a. Latin America, Africa and South-East Asia in 2nd or 3rd stage b. Most African countries and the Middle East are early in stage 3 of the transition, with falling death rates and high, though falling, birth rates. c. Some countries in Latin America are moving toward the stage of incipient decline but are not there yet (they are yet in stage 3). This is also true of the US.
Natural population growth varies substantially by country and region:
- Highest growth in Africa, Asia, Latin America.
- Stagnation or decline in Europe. Big shift in global population distribution
These variations in demographic transition btw the more-developed and the less-developed countries are resulting in some interesting changes in population distribution. The next figure shows population growth in the more- developed and in the less-developed countries of the world, from 1950 to 2050. The next figure also projects that the share of population living in the less- developed countries will increase further during the 21st^ century, given the very low fertility rates in the developed nations. Today, about 82% of the world´s population (5.4b) lives in the less-developed countries and only 18% in the
more-developed countries (1.2b). Not only has population growth been enormous in the 20th^ century, it has also led to a complete reversal of population distribution with the poorer regions gaining and surpassing the richer sections in the process. Europe and other developed countries lose relative weight (Fahey 2010: 420).
Less-developed countries the percentage that these countries have in representing the total world population is increasing.
parents, plus a "third of a child" to make up for the higher probability of boys being born and early mortality prior to the end of their fertile life. It is a total fertility rate (TFR) that (if sustained) leads to each new generation being less populous than the older.
- Slow decline in TFR between 17th century and 1950s.
- TFR decline stopped in US in 1950s and continued in Europe. Some developed countries have managed to keep fertility rates up. E.g. US.
- Extremely consequential.
World sub-replacement fertility rate: 2.1: there is a decline in the nº of children. The proportional weight of children is going to decline.
Within the 4th^ stage we see cross-national differences. The stages can only be explained with both fertility and death rates.
European countries have arrived at the “sub-replacement fertility rates” (there aren´t enough births to replace the previous generations) in different decades:
- Northern-Western and central countries: 1960s & 1970s
- Southern Europe: 1980s
- Eastern Europe: 1990s. In the communist era, fertility rates were kept above the replacement level, but in the post-communist transition, the majority of the former communist state quickly dropped into the critically low region of 1.3 or less, and in doing so took over from Italy and Spain as the weakest fertility performers in Europe.
- Looking at Europe as a whole, very low fertility could be said to have arrived in the north-west and centre in the 1960s and 1970s, to have spread to southern Europe in the 1980s and to have swept into eastern Europe in the 1990s.
Important variations within Europe
- Recovery in TFR in Scandinavia + France
- Germany “stands out in Europe as a major example of very low fertility that has persisted for at least a full generation”.
- Very low fertility too in Southern Europe and Eastern Europe.
- Europe is not actually in demographic decline. Because some countries make up for others: France has stabilised birth and death rates while other countries, such as Germany, that have substantial difficulties (low death and birth rates).
Why relevant low fert rate in most eu countries.
Why have fertilit y rates fallen son much in Europ e?
- Chan ging habits: prioriti es btw men and women have changed. Tempo effect: couples are formed later, and nuptiality and birth are postponed until stabilised economic position. Not parity in economic growth, job opportunities especially for women and precarious work.
- Education expansion: more time studying, children will come after.
- Government policies (childcare and leaves).
- Main factor: low economic growth. Insufficient employment opportunities and income= adults refuse to have children. It still depends mostly on the woman wanting to have the child.
MORTALITY DECLINE SINCE WWII
- There has been a parallel clear decline in mortality levels, which is a major civilizatory success of European countries.
- The fall in mortality rates affects life expectancy rates (they enlarge): All European countries have undergone long-term increases in life expectancy.
- Convergence in mortality patterns: catching-up of Spain, Poland and other Mediterranean and Eastern European countries towards _____
There has been a dramatic change in the age structure across Europe:
Reasons why Europe is aging:
- Decline in old-age mortality rates.
- Decline in fertility rates. Europe is undergoing either the 2nd^ stage of the 4th^ phase or beginning the 5th one. Europe is undergoing low mortality and fertility rates. “Virtually no country in Europe has escaped considerable population ageing (Fahey)”. Countries vary in the extent and speed of population aging, at which countries can arrive through different ways (time or speed fertility and longevity decline).
Modal group: Children (lack of 5-9 due to WWII and 30-34 due to WWI)
Modal group:
15-29. Baby boom.
Modal group:
45-59. Baby boom. Much less children.
Modal group:
Elderly ppl. Much less children.
Why in Demography do we use percentages and rates?
Demography does not use whole numbers not because we cannot compare populations between countries (we can), but because what it is important to Demography is the comparison between the percentage of representation of the age groups of a country and the other. For instance, it does not matter whether Germany has 1m more of elderly people, than Spain, if Germany has enough youth to compensate the elderly, and Spain doesn´t. It is not about the age groups size, but about its value and proportion within their population. It is not commensurate: a value of age means the same to another country. This way, we keep constant the population growth: we will not care about how much the population size of a country is changing, but about how this pop growth is affecting the distribution of age groups, in order to compare them with other age groups of other countries.
Modal group: the most common group.
It is the decline in fertility because we can see that since population started to age in 1960, though both life expectancy (inc) and fertility rates (dec) have changed, fertility has changed significantly more than the life expectancy. The decline in fertility is bigger than the change in mortality and life expectancy.
GAP PERCENTAGE OF
Fertility = [(tfr1960-2015)/ 1960] x 100 BTW 1960-2015 IS LARGER THAN
Life expectancy = [(1960-2015)/ 1960] x
https://youtu.be/QwfH1gYkXTw
All industrialised or post-industrialised countries are undergoing a process of population aging. The expansion of the group aged +80 is particularly intense. However, we can identify variations of level achieved and speed: the largest degree of current aging can be found in Southern Europe, former communist countries and German-speaking ones.
Why? Because they ended their DTT stages earlier.
