Population growth in Europe

Question 1

What was the demographic regime in Europe prior to industrialisation?

Answer 1

• High fertility
• High mortality
• -> so lots of births and deaths

Question 2

What does the Malthusian Trap refer to?

Answer 2

• Proposed by T.R. Malthus in his ‘Essay on Population’ (1798)
• Malthus believed there were 2 fixed and eternal essential determinants of human existence: food & attraction between the sexes.
• The 2 were related in that greater availability of food would entail a higher birth rate.
• BUT: According to Malthus, the supply of food grows arithmetically (e.g. 1,2,3), while population grows geometrically (faster pace than arithmetically, e.g. 2,4,8)
• So claims that population size would soon outstrip the availability of sufficient food to support it.

Question 3

How did Malthus first classify the checks on the growth of human population?

Answer 3

Malthus first classified the checks on the growth of human population into two broad categories: positive and preventative checks.

• The positive checks =active in nature, and included such things as disease, war, and the most powerful check of all, famine.
• Preventative checks = idea that a human can look ahead to the possibility of future difficulties, perhaps choosing not to have children rather than simply reproducing blindly, is the basic form of the preventative check.

Question 4

What were the solutions proposed by Malthus to combat his theory?

Answer 4

1. Within a short period of time, scarce resources (especially food) would have to be shared out among a growing number of people leading to ‘positive checks’ on population growth.
2. BUT: the positive checks might be avoided if people voluntarily limit the size of their families to suit the rational expectations about earning potential and the quality of life they wished to enjoy.

Question 5

What does Malthus’ idea of ‘homeostatic equilibrium’ refer to?

Answer 5

• Idea that people will reach an equilibrium somehow.
• E.g. things will fail such as harvest failure, rise in food prices due to lack of food, rising death rate, decreasing birth rate and thus a decrease in population, supposedly back to a suitable size for the amount of available food.
• Then the cycle would begin again when resources became scarce again.

Question 6

Why is Malthus’ theory flawed?

Answer 6

• Based his ‘laws’ on what had happened until that point in history & what he projected would happen in the future.
• 2 key developments marked his theory as invalid:
  1. European marriage patterns changed (partly implements preventative checks)
  2. Death rates declined substantially, esp. after 1800 so people living longer.

Question 7

How did European marriage patterns change?

Answer 7

Hajnal thesis by John Hajnal

• Believed there was unique set of choices in North-Western Europe, unique to that area of the world:
• late marriage in women (24-26)
• large % never marrying (10-25%)
• high fertility within marriage = population growth but not massive as large % women not marrying.

Question 8

What were the fertility rates before 1790?

Answer 8

• Hard to decipher as no census records (had to use church records etc.)
• North-western Europe saw similar ages in women first marrying (mid 20s)
  Higher birth rate in France & Belgium as had larger % of married women than Scandinavia & England.

Question 9

Why did death/mortality rates decline?

Answer 9

• Differs between countries
  1. Improved nutrition
  
  • better farming practices
  • technological developments due to studying & education (e.g. seed drill in 1701 - 1 person can do much more i.e. plant more seed, people beginning to design & build)
  • new ways of transporting foodstuffs (canals & eventually railways)
  • people eating better = survive longer
  • food more accessible (last major famine in Scottish highlands, Germany & Ireland in early-mid 19th century & 18th century in France)
    2. Decrease in major epidemics
  • better sanitation
  • more and better medical knowledge & practitioners (vaccinations becoming more available, e.g. small pox vaccination after 1800)
  • last outbreak of plague in early 18th c. France
  • people more educated on disease (e.g. discovering that cholera was water born so able to tackle root of problem)
    3. Few major wars, esp. after 1815
  • between European states
  • no generalised European conflict so Europe as who relatively peaceful

Question 10

What were some the results of a declining death/mortality rate?

Answer 10

• Europe’s population more than doubled from 18th c. to 19th c. & continued to rise = sustained population growth.
• However, people migrating to industrialising countries results in decline in some countries (e.g. France between 1850-1900)
• improved living standards
• agricultural revolution (food supply outpaced population growth after 1700)

Question 11

In general, what was the prime reason for a increased population growth?

Answer 11

Falling death rates.

Question 12

What are the key factors that serve to break the Malthusian trap?

Answer 12

• Changing marriage patterns
• Declining mortality rate
• Agricultural revolution

Question 13

Is there any correlation between population growth and economic growth?

Answer 13

• Weak association