Demographic Transition Essay

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RAPHIC TRANSITION Demographic transition Introduction “ Demography is the study of the size, growth, age and geographical distribution of human populations, births, deaths, marriages, and migrations” (Webster Dictionary 2009). In demography, demographic transition theory was introduced in the 1940s to provide a description and explanation of the main lines of European and American population history. In this theory, societies progress from a pre-modern regime of high fertility and high mortality to a postmodern regime of low fertility and low mortality. Transition is said to be sought in the reduction of the death rate by controlling epidemic and contagious diseases. With modernization, children become more costly and cultural changes weaken the importance of children.” The increasing empowerment of women to make their own reproductive decisions leads to smaller families” (Thomas 2007). There is a change in values, emphasizing the quality of children rather than their quantity.” The fertility transition is becoming a universal phenomenon, in which every country may be placed on a continuum of progress in transition”. (Pearse 2006) There are four stages of demographic transition that will be discussed in this paper. Stage One Stage one being the most primitive of the demographic transition is where there is a high fluctuating birth and death rate. All human populations are believed to have had this balance until the late 18th century, when this balance ended in Western Europe. In this pre-industrial society, death rates and birth rates are both high and roughly in balance, and fluctuate rapidly according to natural events, such as drought and disease. Most countries have moved away from this stage but some tribes or groups still do suffer from this stage, these tribes have very basic living standards such as those in the Amazon rainforest where they
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