Economic and Social Implications of the Demographic Transition

DaviD S. ReheRin its original formulations, demographic transition theory was a detailed description of the mechanisms of change in mortality and fertility with considerations on how this would affect the demographic development of the world in the future (notestein 1945;davis 1945;Chesnais 1986).From the outset, research has seen the transition as a byproduct of a larger process of social and economic change.ansley Coale's pioneering paper on the dynamics of fertility change and its causes was pivotal for this line of research (Coale 1973).an underlying purpose of the Princeton european Fertility Project was to see fertility change as the consequence of social and economic change (see, for example, Coale 1986).even though the results of these efforts were not conclusive and have led to often contradictory explanations of fertility change, the effort to explain fertility change as the result of social change continues to be the subject of myriad publications in the field of historical demography.the reason for this ongoing interest is wholly understandable given that at the same time the demographic transition was taking place, europe, and the west at large, were undergoing a massive process of social and economic transformation.living standards and educational levels were rising, society was becoming increasingly urban, the industrial and services sectors of the economy were surpassing agriculture both in production and in social relevance, time off was becoming an expected compensation for jobs, consumer society was beginning to emerge, and women were about to the enter labor market en masse.it was arguably the most important social and economic change to take place in europe in centuries.it is only natural that students of the demographic transition would want to see it as part of the larger process of economic and social modernization, with demographic change largely guided by social and economic change.rather less attention has been given to the demographic transition specifically as a cause rather than as a consequence of this process of change.ultimately, historians and social scientists tend to 17284457,