THE CONTEMPORARY

WORLD
 Learning Goals:
 Define demography and its
processes;
 Formulate knowledge and create an
understanding on the history of
world population cycles.
 Activity
Instruction:
 Predict the trend of the future
population. How will it affect
globalization?
...Illustrate your answer.
…5 minutes.
 Demography
-It is defined as the
scientific study of human
population, focusing
attention on readily
observable phenomena.
 Demography
Demography
World Population-is the total
number of human currently living.
The world population was
estimated to have reached 7.6
billion as of December 2017. The
United nations estimates it will
further increase to 11.8 billion by
year 2100.
Demography focuses its attention
on three readily observable
phenomena:
• Change in population size

• Change the composition of the

population

• The distribution of population in

space
5 demographic processes

Fertility Mortality Marriage

Migration Social Mobility

DEMOGRAPHIC CYCLE
High
Stationary

Early
Decline
Expanding

Low Late
Stationary Expanding
TYPES OF DEMOGRAPHY
 Erratic Mortality
Mortality
 is the powerful driving force of population
change in the late eighteenth and nineteenth
century.
Causes of Erratic Mortality are:
1. Man-made disasters
2. Emergence of new deadly diseases
3. Resilience of old diseases caused by
4. Unforeseen resistance of antibiotics
5. The emergence and rise of HIV infections
 Population would usually “rebound” or “adjust”
after it suffers deep crises
 Rebounds typically follow the ancien regime’ type
of crisis: plagues, smallpox, cholera, rise of food
prices due to adverse weather, parasites destroying
main staple and man-made event like war
followed by epidemic of diseases such as typhoid
fever, etc.
 Crisis means that the mortality rises, marriage are
dissolved by widowhood, no new marriages
leading to fall of conception, lowering population
 Rebound and Adjustment
 Rebound means these crises are followed by
recuperation of marriages, higher marital
fertility, lower mortality, and higher natural
growth
 In a relatively limited number of years the
negative consequences of the crisis are
wiped out and the system returns to normal
equilibrium
Ex: WW 1 & 2, Great Leap Forward
 Rebound and Adjustment
 Adjustments or response after a crisis means
a convergence towards a different
demographic system.
 Implies the existence of an inner capacity of
the demographic system to changing
external constraints
 Requires time and are complex and variable
 Reponses tend to minimize and contain
negative outcomes of population growth
 Rebound and Adjustment
 These responses are economic in
nature or demographic or both
 Historical cases of well identified crises
in the world that lead to recovery:
• The great plague of the 14th and 15th
centuries
• Tokugawa period in Japan
• Great potato famine in Ireland
 Rebound and Adjustment
 Rebounds would surely happen in the future
as a response to catastrophic events but not
as “high pressure” as in the past
 There is little enthusiasm that low fertility
will lead to recovery
 Declining fertility leading to unsustainable
population decline may be redressed but the
factors of the adjustment were numerous
and could not be replicated under different
historical circumstances
 Decline in fertility leads to negative
economic externalities
 Rebound and Adjustment
 States may react to these decline in fertility
by:
• channelling more resources to induce
them to have more children.
Ex: Singapore
• Countries may open itself to
immigration even under a strong public
sentiment about national identity.
Ex: Japan
 Robust Fertility
 Low fertility, below the level of replacement, has
been an exceptional occurrence in the past
 Foundations of fertility:
• Lack of mating opportunities
• Forcible separation of couples
• Loss of libido
• Decrease of fecundity due to infection, hunger
or stress
• High mortality
 Robust Fertility
 Only the destruction of these ever resulted in a
seriously diminished and insufficient
reproductive capacity
 Examples in History:
• England in 1384
• Caribbean islands after contact with
Europeans
 Below replacement fertility was a rare event
 Population in the past were endowed with
high, robust, and resilient fertility levels
 Selection and Fitness
“Man has spread widely over the face of the earth,
and must have been exposed, during the incessant
migration, to the most diversified conditions. The
inhabitants of the Tierra del Fuego, the Cape of Good
Hope and Tasmania in the one hemisphere, and of
the arctic region in the other, must have passed
through many climates, and changed their habits
many times, before they reached their present
homes”
– Charles Darwin
 Selection and Fitness
 Migration flows have developed in a wavelike fashion
in territories unpopulated or with large open spaces
 The first wave would settle in a convenient area,
producing a demographic surplus that generated
further waves settling farther on, and so on.
 Two primary features of this model of migration:
• Ability to move and adapt
• Ability to generate a demographic surplus
 Along with land, these features lead to economic
success
Ex. European migration to America, Chinese migration
to Manchuria
 Migration policies
 Migration policy- a planned intervention of the state
or nation in order to stimulate, direct, control, select
and organize mobility and migration flows.
 Modern policies were born and had a plurality of
objectives, including the selection of inflows or
outflows of migrants in such a way as to maximize
the utility of immigration or minimize the losses
caused by emigration.
 Migration policies are always selective. Selection
attempts to increase the fitness of migrants, in order
to improve their chances of success, be this
demographic, social or economic.
History provides cases of success and failure
 The immigration of German farmers
promoted by Catherine II into Russia in
1762-65 was extremely successful.
 Attempts, in the eighteenth century, to
settle immigrants in depopulated areas in
Italy and Spain met with disaster, either
thru poor planning or choice of the wrong
criteria of selection.
 The great transatlantic migration from
Europe to America has been a successful
mass movement.
Crucial Sets of questions for policy-makers
1. Whether the state is a good judge of the criteria to be used in
the selection process, and whether it is capable of
applying its chosen criteria effectively.
2. What should be the time horizon against which the selection
criteria are chosen?
Is it the span of the ongoing economic cycle, the duration
of a generation, or should a secular perspective be
adopted?
3. What is the impact on the societies of origin of the
selection criteria employed by the state of destination? Is it
possible to reconcile the balance the interests of the sending
and of the receiving countries? Which of the two, the interests
of the former or of the latter, are in the best interests of the
migrant?
 Globalization and mixing
Three cycles of globalization from a transatlantic
perspective:
 First phase- early colonialism, during which the
Americas became firmly connected with the rest of the
world.
 Second phase- from the mid-nineteenth century to the
First World War coincided with the spread of the
Industrial Revolution.
 Third Phase- began with the end of Second World War
and continues to the present day
Globalization involves the exchange of capital, goods, and
labor- that is people- and increases the rate of ethnic
mixing.