Unit II
Theories of Growth
a) Malthusian Theory
b) Demographic Transition Theory
a) Malthusian Theory of Population
Introduction
It is one of the pioneer theories in human geography, which talks about demography; the
study of population and its interlinkages with available resources.
Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834) was an English cleric, scholar and influential
economists in the fields of political economy and demography. During later 17th century,
Thomas Robert Malthus had an opinion very different than most on human population.
He (Thomas Robert Malthus) was the first person to publicly predict the limits if the
human population and, how population and well-bring are connected.
In 1798, Malthus wrote An Essay on the Principle of Population, which explained his
prediction and changed the view of people.
Malthus had the 2nd edition of his book published in 1803, modified some of his views
from the first edition, but his original thesis didn't change.
Malthusian Trap
Humans had a propensity (attitude) to utilize abundance for population growth rather than
for maintaining a high standard of living.
His theory of population supported capitalist system of economics and
Deterministic approach to geography.
Principles of Population
Malthus was the first economist to propose a systematic theory of population. He
proposes the principle that
i. Human populations grow exponentially and
ii. Food production (resources) grows at an arithmetic rate
The food output was likely to increase in the arithmetic progression like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,
8, 9, 10 and so forth.
1
The population was capable of increasing in the geometric progression means 1, 2, 4, 8,
16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512 and so forth.
On the basis of increase in food production in arithmetic proportion and human
population in geometric proportion, Malthus predicted a future when humans have
no resources to survive.
To avoid, such catastrophe, he urged to control on population growth.
Population
Population/Quantity
Resources
Point of Crisis
Food Supply/Time
Fig. Growth of Population and Food Supply
Malthus hypothesized that unchecked population growth would quickly exceed
carrying capacity, leading to over-population and social problems.
Population will grow faster than the food supply that leads to a shortage of food.
Checks on Population
a. Positive or Natural Checks
Malthus believed that natural forces will correct the imbalance between food supply
and population growth through natural disasters including floods, earthquakes
(Nepal) and anthropogenic actions like wars and famines.
Positive or natural checks to population growth reduce human life spans due to poor
living and working conditions resulting low resistance to
▪ Disease (COVID-19)
▪ Famine (Bengal Famine of 1943 more than 3.8 million people died)
▪ War (World War I and II)
If population exceeds food supply, then is kept in check by disease, famine and war
and finally drops below food supply.
Natural checks increase death rate as he believed that the fear of famine was a major
impetus to reduce birth rate.
2
He indicates that potential parents are less likely to have children when they know that
their children are likely to starve.
b. Negative/Preventive Checks
Malthus suggested preventive measures to control the growth of population to correct
the imbalance.
He explicitly demanded artificial means of birth control and suggested as an
alternative that birth rate be decreased through preventive measures such as
▪ Family planning
▪ Late Marriages
▪ Abstinence (संयम)
Malthus suggested the chief preventive/negative check as moral restraint.
It was seen as a deliberate decision by men to refrain from pursuing the dictate of
nature in an early attachment to one woman.
Marry later in life had been usual. Marriage is to be entered only when a woman or
man is fully capable of supporting a family.
He was strongly opposed to birth control within marriage.
Fig. Malthusian Theory of Population
3
He didn't suggest that parents should try to restrict the number of children born to
them after their marriage.
Malthus was religious and worked as clergyman in the churn of England, considered
birth control and homosexuality to be vices (evils) and inappropriate.
Malthus argued that positive and preventive checks are inversely related to each other.
Positive checks are very effective while preventive checks are relatively less effective and
vice-versa. However, in all societies some of these checks are in constant operation with
varying magnitude of effectiveness.
Criticism
✓ Population Growth
• The gloom and doom forecasts put forward by Malthus have not played out.
• In Western Europe, population have grown not the rate Malthus predicted and food
production has risen due to technological advancements.
✓ Food Production
• Thanks to many technological advancements, food production has dramatically
increased over the past century.
• For example, India once a net importer of food grain, now India is the exporter of
food grains in the world due to the advancement in the production technology
particularly after green revolution.
✓ Global Trade and Globalisation
• One of the reasons for the limited supply of food grains is unavailability of land.
• However, the amount of food supply in several countries has increased due to
increased globalization.
• Through, globalisation we can trade goods and services for food, which increases
the amount of food a country can consume.
✓ Calculations
• Malthus didn't provide calculations for the geometric growth of population and
the arithmetic growth of food supply.
• Experts have pointed out that the growth rates are not consistent with Malthus's
predictions.
4
Applications
The Malthusian doctrine may not be applicable to Western Europe and England, but its
principal tools have become the part and parcel to the people of these countries.
In fact, the people of Europe were made wiser by Malthus who forewarned them of the
evils of population explosion or over-population and they started adopting measures
toward it off.
India is one of the first countries in the world to adopt family planning on the state
level to control the population.
Malthusian doctrine may not be applicable now to its place of origin (Western
Europe), but its influence spreads over 66% of the world. Except Japan, the whole of
o Asia
o Africa
o South America comes under its purview.
Positive checks like floods, wars, droughts, diseases (COVID-19 pandemic) and so
forth are happening across the globe.
Birth and death rates are quite high in different parts of the world.
Hence, Malthus theory is fully applicable to underdeveloped/developing countries like
India.
5
Demographic Transition Theory (DTT)
Introduction
Demography is the systematic study of population. The term is originated from two Greek
words, demos (people) and graphein (describe), implying the description of people.
Demography studies trends and processes associated with population including – changes in
population size such as Patterns of
▪ Birth
▪ Deaths and
▪ Migration
and structure and composition of population like relative proportions of
▪ Women
▪ Men and
▪ Different age-groups.
Demographic transition theory (DTT) can be used to describe and predict the future
population of any area.
Demographic transition theory studies relationship between economic development and
population.
Demographic transition theory throws light on changes in birth rate and death rate and
consequently on the growth rate of population. The theory of demographic transition
(or population stages or population cycle) has many versions.
It has been propounded by American demographers W.S. Thompson (1929) and
Notestein (1945). They explain the theory in three stages.
Later, C.P. Blacker's five stages of population growth added in this model.
❖ According to Thompson (1929) and Notestein (1945), 3 Stages
Rural Demographic Urban
Agrarian Industrial
Transition
Fig. 3 Staged Model of Demographic Transition Theory
The theory tells us that population of any region changes from high births and high deaths
to low births and low deaths as society progress from rural agrarian and illiterate to urban
industrial and literate. These changes occur in stages which are collectively called
Demographic Cycle
6
Fig. 5 Stages of Demographic Transition Theory (Thompson and Notestein)
1. The First Stage: has high fertility and high mortality results slow and fluctuating
population growth was possible in pre-industrial society.
Several reasons are as follows–
▪ People reproduce more to compensate for the death due to epidemics and variable
food supply.
▪ The population growth is slow and most of the people are engaged in agriculture
where large families are an asset.
▪ Life expectancy is low, people are mostly illiterate and have low levels of
technology.
▪ Lack of family planning and religious beliefs.
▪ Widespread of diseases, famine, dearth (lack) of clean water and sanitation, health
care facilities.
▪ War, illiteracy, competition for food from predators such as rats.
During first stage, the society evolves in accordance with Malthusian Paradigm, with
population essentially determined by food supply. Any fluctuations in food supply (either
positive, for example due to technology improvements, or negative due to droughts and pest
invasions) tend to translate directly into population fluctuations.
7
This stage is characterized by primary activities such as small fishing activities,
farming practices, pastoralism and petty businesses. 200 years ago, all the countries of the
world were in this stage (first stage).
2. Second Stage: Early expanding, population begins to rise rapidly. Fertility remains
high in the beginning of the second stage, but it declines with time and accompanied
by reduced mortality rate.
Several reasons are as follows–
▪ Improvements in food supply brought by high yields in agricultural practices.
▪ Better transportation of food grains reduce death due to starvation.
▪ Improved food production and storage, and water supply.
▪ Agricultural improvements include
o Crop rotation
o Selective breeding
o Seed drill technology
o Chemicals fertilizers
▪ Several medical breakthroughs such as the development of vaccination for smallpox
leads to decline in mortality
▪ Improvements in sewage, food handling, general personal hygiene and sanitation.
▪ Improvements in public health reduce mortality, particularly in childhood.
▪ Decline infant mortality rate.
▪ Improved educational and social status of mothers.
▪ These net addition to population is high due to these gaps.
This stage leads to fall in death rates and an increase in population. The changes leading
to this in Europe were initiated in the Agricultural Revolution of 18th century and were
initially quite low. In 20th century, the falls in death rates in developing countries tended to
be substantially faster.
Countries in this stage include (developing) Yemen, Afghanistan, Palestinian
territories, Iraq and much of Sub-Saharan Africa.
3. Third Stage: Both fertility and mortality decline considerably. The population
increase slows down.
Several reasons are as follows–
8
▪ In rural areas, continued decline in childhood death means that at some point
parents realize, they need not require so many children to be born to ensure a
comfortable old age (Change in mind-set).
▪ As childhood death continues to fall and income increases, parents can become
increasingly that fewer children will suffice to help in family business and care for
them in old age (deliberately controls family size).
▪ Increasing urbanization changes the traditional values placed upon fertility and the
value of children in rural society.
▪ Urban living also raises the cost of dependent children to a family.
▪ The cost of children to parents is exacerbated by the introduction of compulsory
education acts and increased need to educated children so they can take up a
respected position in the society.
▪ The population has high technical know-how.
▪ Working women have less time to raise children; this is an issue where fathers
traditionally make little or no contribution to child-raising such as Southern
Europe and Japan.
▪ Valuation of women beyond childbearing and motherhood becomes important.
▪ Improvements in contraceptive technology are now a major factor.
▪ Fertility decline is caused as much by changes in values about children and gender
as by the availability of contraceptives and knowledge of how to use them.
Countries include Malaysia.
India has entered in this stage (third) where death rate is declining faster than the birth
rate due to better medical facilities and family measures of the government.
4. Stage Four: this occurs where both birth and death rates are low, leading to a total
population stability.
Several reasons are as follows–
▪ Low rates of diseases and higher food production.
▪ Birth rate is low because people have more opportunities to chose if they want
children; this is made possible by improvements in contraception or women gaining
more independence and work opportunities.
Demographic transition model is only a suggestion about the future population levels of
a country and not a prediction. Countries at this stage (2 < Total Fertility Rate < 2.5 in
9
2015) include India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar,
Maldives and so forth.
According to C. P. Blacker, 5 Stages
Fig. 5 Stages of Demographic Transition Theory (Blacker)
5. Stage Five: The original demographic transition model has four stages, but additional
stages have been proposed.
▪ Some countries have sub-replacement fertility which is below 2.1–2.2 children per
woman. India's fertility rate is 2.13 births per woman in 2023.
▪ Replacement fertility is slightly higher than 2 both because boys are born more
often than girls in nature and to compensate for deaths prior to full reproduction.
▪ Many European and East Asian countries now have higher death rates than birth
rates.
▪ Population aging and decline may eventually occur, assuming that fertility rate
doesn't change and sustained mass immigration doesn't occur.
▪ Development promotes fertility decline at Human Development Index (HDI) levels
below 0.9 but further advances in HDI cause a small rebound in birth rate.
▪ HDI is a composite of
10
o Life expectancy
o Income and
o Level of education
▪ In many countries, very high levels of development, fertility rates are now
approaching two children per woman – although there are exceptions in countries,
Germany, Japan and Italy.
Criticism of Demographic Transition Theory
The theory is based on the empirical observations or experiences of developed
countries (particularly Europe, America and Australia).
Sequence of stages are not uniform. For example, in some European countries, and
particularly in Spain, fertility rates declined when mortality were high.
It doesn't provide time frame for a country to move from one stage to another.
The theory fails to give fundamental explanations of decline in birth rates in Western
Countries.
In fact, the causes of decline in birth rate are so diverse that they differ from country
to country.
It doesn't hold good for developing countries, which have recently experienced
unprecedented growth in population due to drastic decline in the death rates.
Thus, the theory of demographic transition is a generalization and not a theory.
Conclusion
This shows that human beings are very flexible and are able to adjust their fertility. In the
current scenario, different countries are at different stages of demographic transition.
Demographic transition theory is the most acceptable theory of population growth. It is
superior to the optimum theory which lays an exclusive emphasis on the increase in per
capita income for the growth of population and neglects the other factors influence it.
The biological theories are one-sided because they study the problem of population
growth from the biological angle. The demographic transition theory is based on actual
population growth trends of the developed countries of Europe. Almost all the European
countries have passed through the first three stages of this theory and are now in the fourth
stage.
11
