Demographic transition

Demographic transition is the long-term shift from high birth and death rates to low birth and death rates as societies change. It commonly unfolds as mortality falls before fertility, producing a period of rapid population growth.

Demographic transition model: A framework describing how birth and death rates change as a society develops. It organizes the transition into stages, while real countries often follow varied paths.
Warren Thompson: An American demographer whose 1929 article compared population growth patterns across countries. His comparative account helped establish the empirical basis for the transition model.
Demographic dividend: Potential economic growth produced when the working-age share of a population rises relative to dependents. Falling fertility can create a temporary workforce advantage if jobs and institutions support it.
Second demographic transition: A theory describing later changes in family formation, partnership, and fertility in affluent societies. It addresses cultural and family changes beyond the classic shift in birth and death rates.
Fertility below replacement: A fertility level lower than that needed for a population to replace itself over generations, absent migration. Some societies continue beyond transition-era stabilization into sustained population decline.
Epidemiological transition: The long-term shift in dominant causes of illness and death from infectious diseases toward chronic conditions. Changing disease patterns help explain why death rates fall early in the transition.
Frank W. Notestein: An American demographer who developed and popularized the demographic transition framework in the mid-twentieth century. He connected changing mortality and fertility to social and economic transformation.
Population aging: An increase in the median age or older population share of a population. Low fertility and longer lives shift societies toward older age structures.
Demographic metabolism: The process by which population change replaces one age cohort with another over time. It emphasizes cohort replacement and cultural change rather than a fixed sequence of national stages.
Pronatalist policy: Government measures intended to encourage people to have more children. Policy responses to low fertility raise questions about how much births can be influenced.

Linked from 40 pages