Demographic transition

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In demography, demographic transition is a phenomenon and theory referring to the historical shift from high birth rates and high death rates to low birth rates and low death rates as societies attain more technology, education (especially of women), and economic development.^[1] The demographic transition has occurred in most of the world over the past two centuries, bringing the unprecedented population growth of the post-Malthusian period, then reducing birth rates and population growth significantly in all regions of the world. The demographic transition strengthens economic growth process by three changes: (i) reduced dilution of capital and land stock, (ii) increased investment in human capital, and (iii) increased size of the labor force relative to the total population and changed age population distribution.^[2] Although this shift has occurred in many industrialized countries, the theory and model are frequently imprecise when applied to individual countries due to specific social, political, and economic factors affecting particular populations.^[1]

However, the existence of some kind of demographic transition is widely accepted in the social sciences because of the well-established historical correlation linking dropping fertility to social and economic development.^[3] Scholars debate whether industrialization and higher incomes lead to lower population or whether lower populations lead to industrialization and higher incomes. Scholars also debate to what extent various proposed and sometimes interrelated factors such as higher per capita income, lower mortality, old-age security, and rise of demand for human capital are involved.^[4] Human capital gradually increased in the second stage of the industrial revolution, which coincided with the demographic transition. The increasing role of human capital in the production process led to the investment of human capital in children by families, which may be the beginning of the demographic transition.^[5]