Population and Development Review · 1976 · 990 citations · 0 references
FertilityDevelopment EconomicsSocial ChangeFamily PlanningDemographic Transition TheoryPublic HealthPast Population MovementsDemographic ChangePopulation HistoryDemographic ProcessRural DepopulationHuman Population PlanningDemographic TransitionSociologyBusinessAnthropologyDemographyHuman PopulationImmigration
Population transition theory has guided interpretations of past movements and future trends, yet it has not been updated and researchers have obscured the distinction between the origins of fertility decline and the demographic history of societies experiencing such decline. The paper contends that an inadequate understanding of the initial decline in birth rates has caused premature pessimism about family planning success and misjudged long‑term population size, and argues that only two fertility regimes exist—one with no economic incentive to restrict fertility and one with such incentive—and that the shift between them is driven by social change. The authors explain that economically unrestricted fertility is reinforced by economic modernization and specific social changes, and they classify societies into primitive, traditional, and transitional types to illustrate this process. They find that unlimited fertility eventually collapses in transitional societies, and this collapse, along with its precursors, is unrelated to subsequent reductions in family size.
Interpretations of past population movements and expectations about future trends rest primarily on the transition However over the years there has been a failure to update the theory. Subsequently researchers have tended to obscure the important distinction between the origins of fertility decline and the demographic history of societies experiencing such decline. This paper argues that an inadequate understanding of how birth levels first begin to fall has led to a premature gloom about the success of family planning programs and unnecessary hysteria about the likely long-term size of the human population and to antagonisms between countries at different stages of demographic transition. It is the contention of this paper that there are only two fertility regimes: one in which there is no economic gain to individuals from restricting fertility and one in which there is economic gain from such transition. Furthermore the author posits that the transition of a society from one with economically unrestricted fertility to one with economically restricted fertility is a product of social change. The forces sustaining economically unrestricted fertility are strengthened by economic modernization accompanied by specific types of social change. Three types of societies are discussed: primitive traditional and transitional societies. Lastly the author maintains that unlimited fertility eventually crumbles in transitional societies and such crumbling as well as its preconditions is unrelated to reductions in family size subsequently occurring in transitional societies.