12. Demographic Transition

Question 0

Malthus and other classical economic thinkers wrote at the start of the nineteenth century, when accelerating ____ and ____ growth were raising demands for food faster than English agriculture could respond.

Answer 0

population and industrial

Question 1

Thomas ____ (1766-1834) Essay on Population, first published in 1798.

Answer 1

Malthus

Question 2

Their argument was that limited productive land as well as limits of the supply of capital and labor would determine how many ____ could be supported by a nation.

Answer 2

people

Question 3

Malthus turned these arguments upside down. He argued that since “sexual passion was a constant” human population would increase ____ (in his words. “geometrically”), while the supply of land, food, and material resources would increase arithmetically.

Answer 3

exponentially

Question 4

Thus, instead of limited natural resources (land) and labor causing limits to population growth, Malthus believed that population growth caused resources to be overused and the market value of labor to decline. ____ ____ rather than lack of resources and labor produced poverty and human misery.

Answer 4

Population growth

Question 5

Malthus argued that this cycle was a “____ ___” of population: Each increase in the food supply only meant that eventually more people could live in poverty.

Answer 5

natural law

Question 6

Malthus was aware that starvation rarely operates directly to kill people, and he thought that war, disease, and poverty were ____ ____ on population growth.

Answer 6

positive checks

Question 7

Although he held out the possibility of deliberate population controls (____ checks) on population growth, he was not very optimistic about their effectiveness.

Answer 7

preventative

Question 8

Malthus argued that poverty is an eventual ____ of population growth. Such poverty, he argued, is a stimulus that could lift people out of misery if they tried to do something about it.

Answer 8

consequence

Question 9

So, he argued, if people remain poor, it is their own ____. He opposed the English Poor Laws (that provided benefits to the poor) because he felt t would actually serve to perpetuate misery by enabling poor people to be supported by others.

Answer 9

fault

Question 10

One of the most universally observed but still not clearly explained patterns of population growth is termed the ____ ____.

Answer 10

demographic transition

Question 11

This model of population change has three stages: (1) ____ social organization where mortality and fertility are relatively high; (2) ____ social organization, where mortal ity declines, fertility remains high, and population shows a high rate of natural increase and (3) ____ social organization, where mortality and fertility stabilize at relatively low levels, and near stationary population is possible.

Answer 11

primitive, transitional, modern

Question 12

_____ transition refers to changes in birth or death rates and the impact on the size and nature of a population. It has four phases.

Answer 12

Demographic

Question 13

In phase 1. ____ cultures have both high birth and high death rates. During this phase, the population size does not increase very fast at all.

Answer 13

pre-industrial

Question 14

Phase 2 is called the ‘____ ____’. Death rates drop due to the improved health of the population, including that of infants. The end of phase 2 and the beginning of phase 3 have the highest net growth rates (that is, birth-death rates).

Answer 14

mortality transition

Question 15

Phase 3 is also called either the industrial stage or the _____ ____. This phase sees the decrease in births that is correlated to a variety of factors.

Answer 15

fertility transition

Question 16

Phase 4 represents the _____ stage. Populations in this phase have low net growth rates, leading to net zero population growth, and in some cases, a negative net growth rate.

Answer 16

post-industrial

Question 17

First, ____ upgraded both manufacturing and agricultural productivity so that the economic base could support much larger populations

Answer 17

industrialisation

Question 18

Second, ____ ____ in the control of epidemic disease and improvements in public services like urban sewerage, water systems, and garbage disposal contributed to improved health and reduced mortality rates.

Answer 18

medical advances

Question 19

Third, as populations became increasingly urbanized, ____ changes occurred. The children of rural peasants are generally an economic asset: They eat little an and from an early age contribute substantially to the family farm and household. But urban children become more of an economic burden than an asset.

Answer 19

family

Question 20

Industrialization was also coupled with opportunities for women to work outside the family and eventually improved the ____ of women.

Answer 20

status

Question 21

Industrial modernisation had, in other words, a variety of incentives that promoted ____ ____.

Answer 21

smaller families

Question 22

the demographic transition process has meant that beginning with social and economic modernisation, ____ rates declined, followed after a time interval by declining ____ rates.

Answer 22

death, birth

Question 23

But between these events was a period of ____ ____ when birth rates remained high but death rates rapidly declined. That transitional growth period is what the population explosion since the beginning of the industrial era is all about.

Answer 23

transitional growth

Question 24

When applied at a global level, the demographic transition model provides reasons for expecting world population growth to eventually ____.

Answer 24

stabilise

Question 25

There are at least two other limitations of the demographic transition model. It is ____ in assuming that historic processes of demographic change in MDG are being repeated in the LDCs, when in fact the historical, political, and economic circumstances in which they entered the modern world differ importantly.

Answer 25

ethnocentric

Question 26

Related to this criticism is another - that the model has not been capable of precisely ____ levels of mortality, or fertility, or the timing of fertility declines at national, much less at global, levels.

Answer 26

predicting

Question 27

Today most MDCs are far along the path toward population ____, well into stage 3 of the demographic transition. They exhibit declining birth rates and low rates of growth. Many are coming to the equilbrium or replacement rate of fertility, which would result in population growth.

Answer 27

stabilisation

Question 28

In LDCs, the story is very different. Their rapid transitional growth came later in the twentieth century without the benefit of _____ ____ -that is, without the relatively unpopulated land or colonies to absorb the pressure of population growth.

Answer 28

territorial expansion

Question 29

In addition, they have birth rates and levels of mortality much higher than European MDCs. As a result, LDC populations are ____ rapidly, especially in the poorest of the poor nations.

Answer 29

growing

Question 30

At the turn of the year 2000, the world was adding about __ million people per year, and at least 90% of this growth happening in the LDCs.

Answer 30

86

Question 31

Even so, ____ ____ - with its widespread improvement in living standards, improved education and opportunities for women, incentives for smaller families, and the establishment of national social security systems - has not kept pace in the poorest LDCs. Cultural and religious norms favoring large families are still powerful.

Answer 31

economic development

Question 32

Often economic growth has been literally “____ ___” by exploding populations.

Answer 32

eaten up

Question 33

In LDCs both rural and urban populations are ____ ____, pressures on natural resources are increasing and economic and technical resources are often overwhelmed as local and national governments try to provide employment for increasing labor forces and infrastructure for expanding cities, like electricity, clean water, and waste disposal.

Answer 33

growing rapidly