Toward A Restatement of Demographic Transition Theory

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.