The Contemporary World

Lesson 10

Global Demography
Chapter 10
Global Demography

Introduction
When couples are asked why they have children, their answer is almost always about their
feelings. For most, having a child is symbol of a successful union. It also ensures that the family
will have a successor generation that will continue its name. The kinship is preserved and the
family’s story continues. A few, however worry how much strain a child can bring to the
household as he/she “competes” for the parents’ attention, and, in reverse, how much energy the
family needs to shower its love to an additional member. Viewed from above, however having or
not having children is mainly driven by economics. Behind the laughter or the tears lies the
questions: Will the child be an economic asset or a burden to the family?

Rural communities often welcome an extra hand to help in crop cultivation, particularly during
the planting and harvesting seasons. The poorer districts of urban centers also tend to have
families with more children because the success of their “small family business” depends on how
many of their members can be hawking their wares on the streets. Hence, the more children, the
better it will be for the farm or the small by-the-street corner enterprises.

Urbanized, educated, and professional families with two incomes, however, desire just one or
two progenies. With each other partner tied down, or committed to his/her respective
professions, neither has the time to devote to having a kid, much more to parenting. These
families also have their sights on long-term saving plans. They set aside significant parts of their
incomes for their retirement, health, care and the future education of their child/children.

Specific Objectives:
At the end of the lesson, the students should be able to:
1. Explain the theory of demographic transition as it affects global population
2. Explain the role of women in the issue of globalization.

Duration: 3 Hours
Lesson 10: The Demographic Transition
Demography as the Study of Population
The Perils’ of Overpopulation
The Theory of Demographic Transition
Women and Reproductive Rights
The Feminist Perspective
Lesson Proper
Global Demography

10.1 Demographics – is the study of a population based on factors such as age, race and sex.
Government, corporations and non-government organizations use demographics to learn more
about a population’s characteristics for many purposes, including policy development and
economic market research.

10.2 Demography as the Study of Population

The word population refers to the number of persons occupying a certain geographic area,
drawing subsistence from their habitat, and interacting with one another. The scientific study of
population is called demography, and the person who specializes in the study of population is a
demographer. He gathers data about the size, distribution, composition, and change in population
in order to describe them. He also analyzes the structure of population in terms of factors such as
age, gender, race, ethnicity, and some other demographic variables.

The size, distribution, and composition are three components of the population. Size refers to the
number of people while growth refers to the changes in number of people over time.
Composition, on the other hand, describe the characteristics of people comprising the
population, their age, sex, educational attainment, economic activities, ethnicity, religion, etc.

The term distribution refers to how the population is distributed in a given geographic area. This
is best measured in terms of population density.

The change in the population size is determined by three demographic processes namely:
fertility, mortality, and migration. Fertility refers to the amount of reproduction among women
of reproductive ages. This is usually expressed in terms of number of children born by women in
ages 15-49. Mortality refers to the number of deaths in a given population. According to
demographers, declining mortality, not the rising fertility, is the root cause of current world
population growth. This is because overtime, man is able to bring mortality under control that
most of the people are able to take and enjoy a long life. Finally, migration refers to the
relatively permanent movement of people with the purpose of changing their residence.

10.3 The ‘Perils” of Overpopulation

 The need to study population lies on the fact that a change in population size constitutes
some of the important features of social transition and change. Like the introduction of
new forms of technology, increase or decrease in population can also be a catalyst for
social change.
 Development planners see urbanization and industrialization as indicators of a developing
society, but disagree on the role of population growth or decline in modernization. This
lengthy discussion brings back ideas of British scholar Thomas Malthus who warned in
 his 1798 “An Essay on the Principle of Population” that population growth will
inevitably exhaust world food supply by the middle of the 19th century. Malthus
prediction was off base, but it was revived in the late 1960’s when American biologist
Paul Ehrlich and his wife, Anne, wrote “The Population Bomb”, which argued that
overpopulation in the 1970’s and the 1980’s will bring about global environmental
disasters that would, in turn, lead to food shortage and mass starvation. They proposed
that countries like the United States take the lead in the promotion of global population
control in order to reduce the growth to zero.
 By limiting the population, vital resources could be used for economic progress and not
be diverted and wasted to feeding more mouths. This argument became the basis for
government “population control programs” worldwide.
 Advocates of population control contend for universal access to reproductive
technologies (such as condoms, pills, abortion, and vasectomy) and, more importantly,
giving women the right to choose whether to have children or not. They see these tools as
crucial to their nation’s development

10.4 The Theory of Demographic Transition

The theory of demographic transition can be viewed as one way to explain how the world today
experienced the rapid population growth. It is a global demographic phenomenon whereby the
population growth has experienced a pattern of transition from the high birth rate and high death
rate, to a modern pattern of low birth rate and low death rate. Using a historical approach, the
demographers found out that the world population is continuously undergoing a series of
transition in death rates and birth with the transition identified as follows:

Stage 1: Pre-Transition
Characterized by high birth and death rates with little population growth

Stage 2: Early Transition

Declining death rate, primarily the result of reduction in infant death, along with medium
fertility - resulting to significant population growth

Stage 3: Late Transition

Low birth and death rates with little population growth

 In stage 1, the world is characterized by high birth rate. However, because of the
corresponding high death rates, there is only little population growth - thus, a stable
population. In this stage, health remained relatively poor, that is why the way to maintain
a relatively stable population is to desire for a large number of children. In stage 2, the
mortality rate drastically declined because of the improvement of health, which resulted
to a decline in infant death. However, there remains high birth rate, thus resulting to rapid
population growth. In stage 3, the low birth rate is almost comparable to that of the low
 death rate. This is because of the effort to curtail fertility, thus resulting to low population
growth.

10.5 Women and Reproductive Right

 Reproductive rights supporters argue that if population control and economic
development were to reach their goals, women must have control over whether they will
have children or not and when they will have their progenies, if any. By giving women
this power, they will be able to pursue their vocations-be they economic, social, or
political- and contribute to economic growth.
 This serial correlation between fertility, family and fortune has motivated countries with
growing economies to introduce or strengthen their reproductive health laws, including
abortion. High-income First World nations and fast-developing countries were able to
sustain growth to reproductive technologies.
 Opponents regard reproductive right as nothing but a false front for abortion. They
contend that this method of preventing conception endangers the life of the mother and
must be banned. The religious wing of anti-reproductive rights flank goes further and
describe abortion as a debauchery that sullies the name of God; it will send the mother to
hell and prevents a new soul, the baby, to become a human. This position was a
politically powerful one partly because various parts of developing world remain very
conservative.

10.6 The Feminist Perspective

Feminist approach the issue of reproductive rights from another angle. They are, foremost,
against any form of population control because they are compulsory by nature, resorting to a
carrot-and-stick approach (punitive mechanism co- exist alongside benefits) that actually does
not empower women. They believe that the government assumptions that poverty and
environmental degradation are caused by overpopulation are wrong. These factors ignore other
equally important causes like the unequal distribution of wealth, the lack of public safety nets
like universal health care, education, and gender equality programs. Feminist also point out that
there is very little evidence that point to overpopulation as the culprit behind poverty and
ecological devastation.

Governments have not directly responded to these criticisms, but one of the goals of 1994 United
Nations International Conference on Population and Development suggests recognition of this
issue. Country representatives to that conference agreed that women should receive family
planning counseling on abortion, the dangers of sexually transmitted disease, the nature of
human sexuality, and the main elements of responsible parenthood. However, the conference
also left it to the individual countries to determine how these recommendations can be turned
into programs. Hence, globally, women’s and feminist arguments on reproductive rights and
overpopulation are acknowledged, but the struggle to turn to them into policy is still fought at the
national level. It is the dilemma that women and feminist movements face today.
References

Deocampo, Felix Jr. R., Ramos, Bernardo F., and Llonora, R. L. (2019). Globalization in
Contemporary World. Plaridel, Bulacan: St. Andrew Publishing House
Lesthaeghe, Ron. (2010). “The Unfolding Story of the Second Demographic Transition.
“Population and Development Review 36(2): 211-251.

Lisandro E. Claudio and Patricio N. Abinales. (2018). The Contemporary World. Quezon City: C
& E Publishing, Inc.
Livi-Bacci, Massiomo. 2005. “What We Can and Cannot Learn from the History of World
Population. Population Studies: A Journal of Demography 69(S1): S21-S28.
Castle, Stephen. 2000.” International Migration at the Beginning of the Twenty First Century:
Global trends and Issues”. International Social Science Journal 52 (165): 269-281.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/demographics.asp

https://populationeducation.org/what-demographic-transition-model/