Urbanization-Industrialization and the Theory of Demographic Transition

Abstract

An effort is made in this analysis to overcome the weaknesses in transition theory in regard to its description of demographic history and its lack of information on future demographic change and industrial development. Some demographic generalizations about the relationship between the historical decline in fertility rates and the concurrent processes of urbanization and industrialization are presented. The inadequacies of transition theory are best resolved by looking beyond the demographic variables by introducing the intervening variable of urbanization/industrialization. In this analysis a number of hypothetical statements about this decline in fertility are presented in order to integrate the thinking on the issue. 4 phases are proposed which seek to interrelate the historical process of demographic change with the historical processes of urbanization and industrialization. In the 1st phase preurban and preindustrial societies have introduced certain social behaviors which have been tempered by the influence of purely biological processes. As societies gradually develop agricultural expertise and sophistication - the 2nd phase - they are better able to feed existing and future populations. The availability of food surpluses and better nutrition thus assist in the reduction of mortality rates. Population increases as the death rate decreases and as agricultural surplus continues to be available setting up preconditions for the process of urbanization. This increasing population density provides the impetus for the initiation of the industrialization sequence. Once established this urban-industrial sequence sets the stage for the subsequent decline in fertility rates the 4th phase. Fertility rates begin to decline a decline that sociologists and demographers have hypothesized to be due to variations in the following factors: 1) declining economic usefulness of children 2) characteristics of urban life 3) lower mortality rates 4) the nature of urban migrations and 5) the movement of the new urbanites to the middle-class.