THE CONTEMPORARY

WORLD

By:

MOHAY, JERRY
BULOGUEY, LEILA
TORRES, IAN
AWAT, MARCIAL
 About the author (2017)
Massimo Livi-Bacci is Professor of Demography at the
University of Florence. A former president of the
International Union for the Scientific Study of
Population, his extensive research interests include
contemporary demography as well as the history of
population. He has taught and held fellowships at
universities all over the world, including Princeton
University, the University of California at Berkeley, the
Collège de France, and the Colegio de México. His many
publications include Population and
Nutrition (1991), The Population of Europe: A
History (Blackwell, 1999), Conquest: The Destruction of
the American Indios (2007), and A Short History of
Migration (2012).
 Learning Goals:
The students should be able to:
 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.
…10 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
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.
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
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.