Week 2 Demographic perpsectives Flashcards
Outcomes
- understand the successive phases of modernity and global integration
- understand how European system of nation states supported modernization?
- Understand the central ideas and values of the Enlightenment thought
Pre-modern societies
- non-industrial civilisations
- hunter-gathers
- low levels of social inequality
- cooperative
- division of labour was among sex lines
Pastoral and settled Agrarian societies
- limited hunting-mainly kept live stock
- limited social inequality- some based on size of livestock kept
Modern societies
- large manufacturing sector
- institution of private property protects private ownership of enterprises
- centralised states based (liberal and democracy ideology blend) and legitimised authority (armies)
Europe was set apart from rest of world cause they thought about most efficient
Pre-modern societies
- p50-51 the role of religions- Christianity and Islam
- tend to be very homogenous (race, ethnicity, education)
- share a strong moral identity
- few specialised jobs
- very equal society
- only few industries around which the community is based
- limited social mobility
- significant change in the makeup and identity of these types of communities is slow and happens over generations
Capitalist modernity: European foundations
rationality-territory-innovation-science-state-citizenship-bureaucracy
> nexus of features
Modernisation concentrate on 5 elements:
- the emergence of nation states
- the rise of a body of universal secular thought- the Enlightenment
- growth of rationality
- the emergence of modern capitalism
- outward spread of European societies which resulted in colonialism
Religion made us rest on Sundays but with science we start moving away from religion and to make more profit - you should also work on Sundays
Europe became centre and marginalised others
Capitalist modernity: why is it called capitalist/ p51-52
- work changed- from home to factories situated near energy sources
- weakening of close working relationships- breaking of traditional values, believes and customs characteristic of agarian life
- occupation specialisation
- stronger link between standard living and type of work
- weakened traditional importance of family life- not the central setting for work, learning and religious worship anymore
- production centres around factories and machine generated material goods
What is a nation state
- system of organisation in which people with a common identity live inside a country with form borders and a single government
thus
- it is a system political, geographical and cultural organisation
- held together by physical boundries, its government and the fact that people believe they are connected to each other
Nation states in europe and modernisation
- Emergence of the European nation-state system is viewed by as many as the single most crucial force accounting for the rise of successful capitalism in W-Europe
- Why
1. the number and proximity of iets neighbours
2. dangerous times and hopes of independance requires a strong state
How did the system of nation states support modernisation
- strengthened and deepened its beaurocratic reach
- increased power/status of wealth via mercantilism
How did the state strengthen its beurocratic reach
- increasing tax revenues
- improving communication
- centralising the nation by suprresing regional identities
- monopolising the most efficient means of violence for conducting wars
- encouraging and subsidising technological and craft development
- investing in naval and army strength
European Enlightenment thought (briefly)
- Enlightenment was an intellectual movement in Europe during the 18th century that led to a whole new world view.
- Consisted of the belief that the expansion of knowledge, the application of reason, and dedication to scientific method would result in the greater progress and happiness of humankind.
- Brought about new ways of thinking about the world, about rights, liberty, freedom, justice and government – directly challenged the power of monarchs and the church
- Religion, tradition, and superstition limited independent thought
- Accept knowledge based on observation, logic, and reason, not on faith
The shift to modern globalization: Four phases
- The establishment of the Bretton Woods world financial system under the USA leadership (IMF, WB & GATT-WTO)
- Decolonisation of the most Third World countries
- The emergence and consolidation of the Cold War era of East-West rivalry
- The ‘golden age’ of economic growth and Keynesian economic policies (Europe vs Japan)
Demographic perspective
- What is a demographic perspective? Weeks pp68
- To consider the relationship between and what is going on in societypopulation factors
- Consider the demographic consequences of events
- Two levels to population theory
1.Technical side, mathematical and biomedical analysis that considers changes in demography’s biological component: fertility, mortality, population distribution by age and sex.
2.Theories that relate demographic processes with real events in the social world
- To develop a demographic perspective we need to answer 2 questions:
- What are the causes of population growth/change?
- What are the consequences of population growth/change?
Malthusian Perspective
Malthus condemned the utopian ideas set forth by philosophers such as Condorcet & Godwin. He writes: (pp77)
“I think I may fairly make two postulata. First, that food is necessary to the existence of man. Secondly, that the passion between the sexes is necessary, and will remain nearly in its present state.
Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio . . .By the law of our nature which makes food necessary to the life of man, the effects of these two unequal powers must be kept equal.” (Malthus, 1798)
Core idea
Population grow exponentially and food production only grows arithmetically (hectare at a time.
Population growth will outstrip food supply and the lack of food will put a stop to the increase of people.
Malthusian Perspective Causes of population growth:
- Core argument: Population trends to grow faster than food supply can increase. Thus, population growth will outstrip food supply and the lack of food will stop the increase of people.
- Starvation rarely kills people, something else normally steps in that kills people before they die of starvation.
- I) Positive checks (moral or physical) that weaken/destroy the human frame (war, famine, disease causes a lot of deaths etc.)
- II) Preventative checks, such as birth control, celibacy, late marriage, abortion etc.
- # Moral restraint (only acceptable means to prevent a birth) – “postponing marriage” would lower the dignity of human nature”)
Malthusian Perspective How can the consequences be avoided?
- Education
Suggested that a well-educated, rational person would perceive in advance the pain of having hungry children/poverty and would thus avoid having too many or any children…pp79
- Middle-class values
If everyone shares middle-class values, the problem would solve itself.
“BUT that was impossible since not everyone has the talent to be a virtuous, industrious, middle-class success story, but if most people at least tried, poverty would be reduced considerably” (Weeks, 2012:81)
- Material success
As a consequence of the human ability to plan rationally will result in people having fewer children.
Thus, the Malthusian perspective blamed the poor for their own poverty since they did nothing to get out of poverty. This stands in contrast to Godwin & Condorcet who attributed poverty as created by unjust human institutions.
Critique of Malthusian perspective pp82
- The assertion that food production cannot keep up with population growth
- The conclusion that poverty was an inevitable result of population growth
- The belief that moral restraint was the only acceptable preventative check.
- He failed to acknowledge that technological progress was possible and that its end result was a higher standard of living, not a lower one.
Neo-Malthusians … pp84
- Rejected his insistence on moral restraint while accepting many of his other conclusions
- Favoured contraception rather than reliance on moral restraint
Marxian Perspective on Population Growth
- Arose from writings from Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels in reaction to Malthus’s theory
- Did not disagree with Malthus on why populations grew however they were sceptical about the thesis that population tend to outstrip resources.
- Argued that each society at each point in history has its own law in population that determines the consequences of population growth.
- For capitalism – population growth results in poverty
- For Socialism – population growth will be absorbed into the economy with no effect
- Rejected the notion that poverty can be blamed on the poor. Poverty is the result of a poorly organised society – especially in capitalist societies
Marxist View of Development
- Emphasizes Mode of Production - elements and activities necessary to produce and reproduce real, material life
- Capitalist (market economy) mode depends on wage labour whose labor power produces a surplus which is accumulated and appropriated by the employer-result is often class conflict in capitalist societies
Prelude to the DTT
- Marxian & Malthusian perspectives developed in the midst of a particular context of economic, social and demographic change in 19th-century Europe - particularly England
- A number of participants entered the debate of which the following 3 made important contributions:
- John Stuart Mill pp88
Ideal state of a society – where all members are economically comfortable. Towards this goal, an increase in the standard of living is required for the poor. Higher standard of living will allow productivity to outdistance population growth. Fear of social slippage motivated people to limit fertility.
- Arsène Dumont pp89
Desire of people to rise on the social scale in wealth and individuality (social capillarity), requires sacrifices, like having fewer children.
- Emile Durkheim pp90
Population growth results in greater societal specialisation, to counter the struggle for existence in growing societies.
Theory of Demographic Transition
- Began as a description of demographic changes that had taken place in the advanced nations over time, describing the transition from high birth and death rates to low birth and death rates.
- Emerged from work by Warren Thompson when collecting data on selected countries for the period 1908-27. His thesis:
- Saw countries falling into 3 groups:
Warren Thompson 3 groups
- Group A, Northern and western Europe and rhe united states: moved from having very high rates of natural increase to haveing very low rates of increase, and will shortly become stationary and start to decline in numbers
- Group B, Italy, Spain and the “Slavic” people of central Europe: Thompson saw evidence of decline in birth and death rates but suggested that the death rate will decline rapidly or even more rapidly than the birth rate for some time yet. Condition of group B is very much same as group A 30-50 years ago
- Group C, the rest of the world: he saw little control over their birth and death rates
- Thompson felt that group C (70-75% of world) would continue to have their growth largely determined by oppertunities they have to increase their means of subsistence
- his work was at time of little worry of over population
- group C had low rates of growth due to high mortality
- by 1936 birth rates in europe an dunited states were low= against Malthus, worry of underpopulation
- 16 years after Thomson’s work, Frank Notestein picked up the threads of his thesis and provided labels for A, B and C
- A= incipient decline, B= transitional growth, C= high grwoth potential
- Davids, population explosion= refers to phase that Notestein called transtional grpwth
- thus born term demographic transition, process of noving from high birth and death rates to low birth and death rates, from high growth potential to incipitent decline
Critique to the Demographic Transition Theory
- Theory is based on the experience of Western countries during the various stages of their industrial and economic development (ethnocentric)
- Not all these countries share the same experience, thus the theory is only a broad generalisation
- Does not provide fundamental explanations of fertility decline nor does it identify the crucial variables involved in the process of the fertility decline. Thus have no predictive value.
- Crucial question – can it be applied to developing countries?
- In the strictest sense of the term the theory of demographic transition is not a theory, though it does provide a satisfactory framework and means for wider empirical generalisations.
