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• Thomas Malthus


  First population theorist that perceived population growth pessimistically
• Thomas Malthus: '"Prophet of Doom"'
• Perfection


  Living at ease, achieving happiness, experiencing comparative leisure, and having no feelings of anxiety regarding subsistence
• Malthus' basic arguments/postulates

  • Food is necessary to the existence of men
  • Passion between the sexes is necessary and will remain nearly in its present state
• Malthus' arguments


  1. Power of the population is indefinitely greater than the power of the earth to produce subsistence for men

  2. Population when unchecked increases in geometric ratio, while subsistence increases in an arithmetic ratio
• Arithmetic growth


  • 1, 2, 3, 4 (land size remains the same size and can only be divided into general sizes)
• Geometric growth


  • 2, 4, 8, 16 (human population keeps on multiplying)
• How to balance production and reproduction

  • Positive checks: Misery (Do not live too long! Die early!), Vice (Availing prostitution and Use of Birth Control)
  • Preventive checks: Virtues (Celibacy, Late Marriage, Abstinence)
• Poor Laws of England

  Introduced to combat the widespread poverty on the streets of England and to provide relief to the poor
• Malthus is against the Poor Laws of England. He believed that it spreads more evil. For him, the poor should feel pain.
• The Poor Laws of England is not a solution because it promotes dependency and it encourages poor men to marry and procreate
• Continuous increase in the population lowers the price of labor (the poor is desperate for jobs)
• Criticisms of Malthus' theory

  • Population has not increased as rapidly as predicted by Malthus
  • Production has increased tremendously because of the rapid advances in technology
  • Living standards of the people have risen instead of falling as was predicted by Malthus
• Demographic Transition Theory (DTT)


  Describes four stages of population growth, following patterns that connect birth and death rates with stages of development
• Stage 1: Pre-Industrial


  • Characterized by high birth rates, and high fluctuating death rates
  • Population growth was kept low by Malthusian "positive" (famine, war, pestilence) checks
  • Family planning and contraception were virtually non-existent; therefore, birth rates were essentially only limited by the ability of women to bear children
  • Majority of deaths are concentrated in the first 5–10 years of life
• Stage 2: Early Industrial


  • Birth rates start to decline due to enhanced economic conditions, expansion in women's status and education, and access to contraception
• Stage 3: Late Industrial


  • Post-Industrial societies have low birth and death rates, leading to a total population stability
  • Death rates are low primarily because of lower rates of diseases and higher production of food
  • Birth rates are low because women have more opportunities: empowerment, prioritizing career over the creation of a family, opting to delay pregnancy due to improvements in contraception, among others
• Stage 4: Post-Industrial


  • The original Demographic Transition model has just four stages, but additional stages have been proposed. Both more-fertile and less-fertile futures have been claimed as a Stage Five.
  • Recent studies show that in many countries with very high levels of development, fertility rates are now beginning to increase— although there are exceptions, notably Germany, Italy and Japan.
• The population is still growing because in terms of fertility, there are still so many countries who are in the first and second stages of the Demographic Transition
• Epidemiological Transition Theory (ETT)


  A phase of development witnessed by a sudden and stark increase in population growth rates brought by improved food security and innovations in public health and medicine, followed by a re-leveling of population growth due to subsequent declines in fertility rates
• Stages 1 to 3 of the ETT

  • Stage 1 (Pre-Industrial): The Age of Pestilence and Famine - Mortality is high and fluctuating, precluding sustained population growth, with low and variable life expectancy (between 20 and 40 years)
  • Stage 2 (Early Industrial): The Age of Receding Pandemics - Mortality progressively declines, with the rate of decline accelerating as epidemic peaks decrease in frequency. Average life expectancy increases steadily from about 30 to 50 years. Population growth is sustained and begins to be exponential.
  • Stage 3 (Late Industrial): The Age of Degenerative and Man-Made Diseases - Mortality continues to decline and eventually approaches stability at a relatively low level. Mortality is increasingly related to degenerative diseases, cardiovascular disease (CVD), cancer, violence, accidents, and substance abuse, some of these due primarily to human behavior patterns.
• Stage 4: Post Industrial

  • The Age of Hybristic Diseases - Birth rate declines as lifespan is extended, leading to an age-balanced population. Socioeconomic, ethnic, and gender inequalities continue to manifest differences in mortality and fertility.
• Stage 5: Post-Post Industrialization

  • The Age of Aspired Quality of Life with Persistent Inequalities - Differences in the quality of life between the developed and the developing nations reflect in their mortality and fertility statistics.