Demographic Transition - Assignment Example

DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION s A gradual change from a high birth and mortality rate to a low birth and mortality rate is known as demographic transition. In fact, this model theory is immensely popular in human population studies nowadays. “The demographic transition has enabled economies to convert a larger portion of the gains from factor accumulation and technological progress into growth of income per capita” (Galor, 2010), which helps stabilize the overall economy of the nation. Primarily, a demographic transition model consists of four different stages.

Each of the stages has different population and growth related characteristics. There is a noticeable difference between Stage I and Stage IV, which show almost opposite features. Stage I represents the state of pre-industrialized countries where both the Crude Birth Rate and the Crude Death Rate are high, while Stage IV is the last stage mostly depicting the population state of developed countries, where the Crude Birth Rate and the Crude Death Rate are low. Several factors are responsible for this discrepancy.

The most important contrast between the two is the availability of modern healthcare facilities. In countries in Stage I, the facilities of healthcare is lacking. There are not enough hospitals, nursing centers, modern medical equipments or medicinal facilities and thus there is a rise in death rate. Another factor contributing to this is the lack of modern transport facilities. Thus patients do not have access to transportation during emergency thereby increasing the death rate. Compared to this, Stage IV countries have a lower death rate because of increased availability of modern health facilities and medical technology, better healthcare facilities and medicines.

They also have access to modern forms of transportation which helps them seek immediate medical attention. Moreover, improved nutrition and food availability in Stage IV countries has rapidly decreased the CDR.” Famine mortality was reduced by improvements in storage and transportation that permitted integration of regional and international food markets, smoothing across local variations in agricultural output” (Lee, 2003), thus these well-nourished population have greater life expectancy.

But, the Stage I countries have no modern technologies or economy to provide the population with ample nutrition. Individuals in these countries have a less nourished immune system and fall prey to fatal diseases leading to high CBR in Stage I nations. Parents of Stage 1 countries look upon children as mere assets and are of the opinion that greater number of children would lend economical help to the family, thus there is an increase in fertility rate too which contributes to the increased Birth Rates in these countries.

The primaries reason behind this the economic instability of these countries where the daily wage of a person is not enough for a family. Therefore, a larger family means greater income. Another phenomenal dimension is the infant mortality rate. In Stage I countries, infants die owing to several factors; hence the parents keep on producing children to fulfill their want of a larger family. In contrast to Stage I countries, people in developed countries do not look upon children as assets nor an added economical advantage.

These countries are economically stable and the per capita income is high. They are well aware that giving birth to children automatically means increased responsibility of bringing them up and looking after them. Thus, these parents do not indulge in producing increased numbers of children thereby lowering the birth rate of Stage IV countries. Literacy in both men and women is also important. “Literacy levels considerably influence income and employment” (Jackson, 2010), thus, literate people earn more and are less likely to depend on children for additional income.

Wide-spread knowledge concerning population and family planning among women also contributes massively in high and low birth rates. While women in the Stage IV countries are well aware of options like contraceptives, women in the Stage I nations do not have any knowledge about them. Thus, it is clearly visible that Stage IV countries have a low CBR as well as low CDR, which means that the population increases and the rate at which successful births take place is not stabilized by the number of deaths.

However, in Stage I countries both CDR and CBR are high but the population is in equilibrium and is much less than a Stage IV nation because the number of successful births is equalized by the number of deaths owing to all of the factors discussed before. Hence, the population of a Stage IV nation is much higher than that of a Stage I nation. REFERENCES Galor, O. (2010). The demographic transition: Causes and consequences. Brown University Journal. Jackson, A. (2010). Demographic transition.

 School of Doctoral Studies (European Union) Journal, 148-163. Lee, R. (2003). The Demographic transition: Three centuries of fundamental change. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 17(4), 167-190.