Geofile no.

507 Sept 2005 Demographic Change and Population Policy in India

and China

Explain why the UK’s death rate is higher than China’s and India’s.

Looking at data in figure 1 it is easy to see that the population in the UK is on average older
than that in China. The median age in the UK is 38.7, close to a whole seven years older than
that in China. Whereas only 7.5% of people in China are aged 65 and above this proportion in
the UK is more than double that at 15.7%. All these statistics support the idea that more
people per 1000 of population die in the UK each year.

What is cause and what is effect in the relationship between economic

development and demographic maturity?

As any population increases will bring added pressures on that county’s resources. At its
simplest an increased population will require additional food. That food could be grown by the
country’s own population or obtained through the trade of other additional resources.In terms
of agricultural output the main resource is land. If the area of land cannot be increased that
yield from the land can be driven up through technological improvements. In terms of trade
any additional increase in the labour supply could ultimately result in more production and
greater trade. Economic development may in fact facilitate economic development or indeed
it may be a seen as result of it. As a consequence of economic development and associated
increases in wealth and medical provision death rates would start to fall. Notestein who
devised the DTM in 1945 stated that economic development is the driving force that causes
countries to shift through the four stages.

Two famous theories touch on the importance of economic development and the changes it
drives.

Malthus expressed this relationship in a pessimistic way in his “Essay on the principle of
Population” in 1798. He stated that because human populations grow geometrically (1, 2, 4, 8,
16…..) and food production grows arithmetically (1, 2, 3, 4, 5…) the shortage of food and the
famines and wars that it will cause would be a limiting factor on population growth.

This theory was countered much more recently in 1965 by a Danish economist, Esther
Boserup, who believed that the increase in demand for food would finance the developments
in food technologies and production techniques.

Simply by looking at these two famous theories (at least in the world of demographics) it is
clear that economic development may in fact facilitate economic development or indeed it
may be a seen as result of it.

Like the DTM Rostow’s stages of economic growth is based on changes in North America and
western Europe. His model is divided into 5 stages, the conditions required for each closely
correlate with those that drives the stages in the DTM.

Is the Demographic transition an inevitable progression or a general tend shaped

by policy and circumstances?

Compare the experiences of those original countries studied by Notestein to countries such as
India and China where government population policies have been very influential in
determining structural change in population. Also are some countries in danger of not
progressing into stage 4 and 5 – is economic development being stunted?
Geofile no.507 Sept 2005 Demographic Change and Population Policy in India
and China