Demographic Transition Theory

Transition theory was explained around half a century ago and is becoming a vigorous topic of discussion lately. One of the major factors affecting the economic development is the demographic transition. The theory of demographic transition has proved a little successful to predict the demography of some developing countries. The policy makers and social scientists still need to understand the more complex nature of demographic transitions and have more and detailed information for policy formulation.

2.1 Review of Literature:

1. Feedbacks in Economic and Demographic Transition
Author(s): Harald Frederiksen
Source: Science, New Series, Vol. 166, No. 3907 (Nov. 14, 1969), pp. 837-847
Published by: American Association for the Advancement

This paper is aimed at showing the difference in the village since then and tries to relate it to the socio-economic change in the society. The study showed that the use of contraceptives has risen in Manupur. Although the labour value of children is still high in Manupur there has been some changes since 1972 to 1980 like enrolment of boys and girls to school has increased, remunerative work by children has reduced and the work time of children has also reduced. The value of children as a support of old age had also reduced to a great extent. No specific reason can be attributed to the decline of the value of children but it can be said that Manupur has a better introduction to agricultural technology, institutional innovations and expansion of formal education. Many other places also have seen a decline in fertility in India and the reasons can be numerous like the increased availability of non-farm employment, fragmentation of land, recent increase in educational facilities etc. But fragmentation of land is not a major reason of decrease in the economic value of children n Manupur and other areas of Punjab and Delhi. Seeing this pattern it can be hoped that population will decrease in

Areas of Western Europe are examples of such a situation. Irene Taeuber believed that the theory of demographic transition is applicable in Japan but recent developments have questioned this belief but we cannot jump to the conclusion that this theory is not applicable in Japan because of the small sample of the study, under-reporting etc. In this study the researcher’s study show that the birth and the fertility rate have gone down since the world war. The researcher found out one of the reasons of declining fertility rate to be socio-economic changes. The passing of the National Eugenics Law 1948 can also be a reason of falling fertility rate. Declining infant mortality rate was also a reason for less desire of more children. Different researchers have given different reasons for the decline of the fertility rate like industrialization, urbanization, increasing involvement of women in jobs in secondary tertiary sector, desire of high standard of living, decrease in the cost of family planning methods etc. This shows that there can be different factors affecting the demography of different