The Demographic Transition

Today in class we got our religion tests back. I got a 96% on the test and the one I thought I got wrong was wrong. Now that I think about it, it is not that hard of a question, but we never went over it in class. While we were looking over the tests Griffins shadow Avery from Fallston middle answered a lot of the questions correctly. He told us how his teachers do no like him because he talks too much. I am also watching NFL rewind and think it's really cool how a punter threw the football to the kicker for a touchdown. In class we learned that we will have a test on the demographic transition Monday, and we will have an essay due after all of our exams. The demographic transition is a process of change in a society's population from high crude birth and death rates and low rate of natural increase to a condition of low crude birth and death rates, low natural increase, and higher total population. For most of human history we were in stage one of the demographic transition, but now no country is in that phase and have moved to stage two. The first countries to stage two were Europe and North America and they got there after 1750, as a result of the industrial revolution, which involved major improvements in manufacturing goods and delivering them to market. The rest of the world like Africa, Asia, and Latin America did not enter until 1950 and this was because of the medical revolution. Medical technology invented in Europe and North America has diffused to developing countries. Improved medical practices have eliminated many of the traditional causes of death in developing countries and enabled people to experience longer and healthier lives. There   are also stages 3 and 4 of the demographic transition. I did not say this before but stage 1 had a very high CBR, very high CDR, and very low NIR. Stage two had a high CBR, rapidly decling CDR, and very high NIR. Stage three has a rapidly declining CBR, moderatley declining CDR, and moderate NIR. In stage three the population still grows but not as much as stage 2 because the gap between CBR and CDR narrows. Stage 3 societies induce people to have fewer children because people are more likely to live in cities where it costs more to have children and there is not as much room there as there is in the country side for kids. By the way CBR means crude birth rate, CDR means crude death rate, and NIR means nautral increase rate. Stage 4 has a very low CBR, low or slightly increasing CDR, and zero or negative NIR. I will talk more about stages 4 and 5 in the next blog (maybe).