Demographic studies in different settings have shown that there are no fixed indicators for the decline of mortality and fertility. Vital rates have fallen in different circumstances. While broadly speaking, one may say that some minimum level of change in the standard of living is required before people start thinking of planning family size, but it is not possible to fix any particular value of the indicators which sufficiently predicts the onset of fertility decline. Moreover, there is also no agreement regarding which variables must be given top priority in applying threshold hypothesis. The question is not easy to answer: Is it education, income, urbanization, age of marriage, women's empowerment or what that determines the beginning of demographic transition or a combination of all of them?
CONCLUSION
Like Marx, it can be said more confidently today that there is no law of population that applies to all societies. Trends in vital rates and their causes are all shaped greatly by the socio-economic, political and cultural milieus as well as human intervention. Thus the search for a universal law is in vain. At the same time we cannot forget the warning given by Malthus that unrestrained population could lead to underdevelopment, especially in the context of developing countries which require a more balanced and an optimum approach to fertility and mortality. We must pay particular attention to migration, the process which was ignored by demographic transition theory as well as many other theories. |
