Читать книгу Demographic Dynamics and Development - Yves Charbit - Страница 19

The earliest reference to the consequences of a decline in birth and death rates was first described as a “demographic revolution” by Rabinowicz in 1929 (Adeev 2011, p. 9). Landry chose this reference as the title for his famous work (Landry 1982). Notestein introduced the term “transitional growth” as a reference to the moment when mortality declined, provoking strong population growth, followed by a decline in fertility² (Notestein 1945, p. 46). For Notestein, the demographic transition was associated with modernization, urbanization and industrialization; the development of education and public health; increased living standards; fertility control and the adoption of new values (Notestein 1945, p. 57). Davis would in turn publish an article called The World Demographic Transition in 1945. According to Chesnais, the original theory of demographic transition, in its European (Landry) or North American (Davis, Notestein) versions, was achieved by 1953 (Chesnais 1986b, p. 1061).

Demographers agree to evoke the “passage from a demographic situation characterized by high mortality and high fertility with a ‘high’ quasi-equilibrium to a situation of low mortality and low fertility with a ‘low’ quasi-equilibrium” (Meslé et al. 2011, p. 482) and significant population growth between the two phases. The first demographic transition took place as early as the 18th century, in north-western Europe, when the fight against major epidemics and infant mortality spread toward the whole continent (Meslé and Vallin 1995). In turn, fertility fell from a level of more than five children per woman to about two children per woman. The case of France is an exception, since the reduction in fertility began in the mid-18th century, whereas in other European countries, it started in 1870 (Vallin 2003). It should be noted that, on average³, the European population multiplied by four in 150 years (Chesnais 1986a; Vallin 2003, pp. 28–30).

By analyzing 67 countries between 1720 and 1984, Chesnais wanted to show that the demographic transition is a general theory, “reduced to a few central empirically testable propositions and [which] can be enriched on certain points that the history of facts deems essential for the understanding of the mechanisms at work” (Chesnais 1986b, p. 1061). He further mentions:

[T]hree paradigms, which can be drawn from the founding texts: the principle of antecedence in the decrease in mortality; the two-phase reproductive transition module (limitation of marriages, and consequent limitation of births); and the influence of the access to modern economic growth (in the sense of Kuznets) on the triggering of the secular decline in fertility. (Chesnais 1986b, p. 1061)

In addition, he stresses:

[T]he insufficiencies of the original theory and therefore the necessary amendments [which] concern, for their part, three aspects: the concept of pre- and post-transitional balance, the absence of international openness and the exclusive focus on fertility, considered as a dependent variable. (Chesnais 1986b, p. 1061)

He mentions the role of international migrations in controlling strong population growth (like the massive flows from Europe to the Americas in the 19th century) and the differences in periods and in the speed of national transitions, across time and space (Chesnais 1986b, p. 1061).

Since the publication of Chesnais’ book (Chesnais 1986a), empirical observations have called into question these postulates: in Europe fertility may have declined at the same time or before mortality (Coale and Cotts Watkins 1986; Vallin 2003). However, in Africa, Asia and Latin America, the differences are even greater in the timing and speed of demographic changes, as well as in the underlying factors (Guzmán et al. 2006; Attané and Barbieri 2009; Koba et al. 2019). In Latin America, the three-phase reproductive transition pattern did not occur in the same form, in that order, or at the same speed (Cosio Zavala 2011).

Below, we will present the various changes in world population, which have been determined by the history of demographic transitions.