Changes In Demographic Behaviour Research Articles

Modeling and Forecasting Population Reproduction in Russia with Regard to Changes in Demographic Behavior during COVID-19 Pandemic

The article provides models and forecasts built on their basis dealing with population reproduction in the Russian Federation up to 2050 with due regard to changes in demographic behavior during COVID-19 pandemic. Three scenarios of demographic behavior are studied: optimistic, realistic and pessimistic. Possible changes in age and gender structure of the population were analyzed and a conclusion was drawn that the principle population growth up to 2050 will be achieved at the expense of labour migration, mainly from CIS countries. Prospects of the DemProg of the ‘Spectrum’ system for implementing forecasts in the field of population with regard to interaction between demographic behavior indicators and impact of social and demographic policy steps were demonstrated. The author put forward a model of population reproduction that took into account the excess death rate due to COVID-19.

Population and development in the Amazon: A longitudinal study of migrant settlers in the Northern Ecuadorian Amazon.

This paper examines changes over time for a full generation of migrant settlers in the Northern Ecuadorian Amazon (NEA). Data were collected from a 2014 household survey covering a subsample of households surveyed previously in 1990 and 1999. We observed changes in demographic behavior, land use, forest cover, and living conditions. As the frontier develops, human fertility is continuing to decline with contraceptive prevalence rising. Meanwhile, out-migration from colonist households, largely to destinations within the region, persists. More households have secure land tenure than in 1999, and are better off as measured by possession of assets. There is continued growth in pasture, largely at the expense of forest. Farms still serve as an important livelihood source for families, though growing cities in the NEA are creating more non-agricultural economic opportunities. Our findings provide a snapshot of demographic, economic, land use, and livelihoods changes occurring in the NEA during the past quarter century, providing useful information for policymakers seeking to balance economic and environmental goals in order to promote sustainable development as well as protect biodiversity.

An interpretation of the changes in demographic behaviour at a sub‐national level using spatial measures in post‐socialist countries: A case study of the Czech Republic and Slovakia

AbstractThe transformation of fertility and family behaviour in post‐socialist countries was quick and the changes were striking. An account of the changes is the subject of dispute and the mechanisms have still not been explained in a fully satisfying manner. Relatively little attention has been paid to the changes in spatial aspects concerning the broadening of changes in family behaviour. The aim of this paper is to answer the question as to whether changes spread stochastically in post‐socialist countries or if there are obvious spatial patterns. The study tries to answer the questions whether there are any cores of changes which may be understood as innovations, if there is any spatial clustering and if the extent is hierarchically arranged.

The demographic revolution is changing the reproductive strategy of Homo sapiens


 The demographic revolution (demographic transition) is changing the reproductive strategy of the species Homo sapiens. The whole evolution of life on Earth, including social evolution since the beginning of human society, has led to this triumph of theK-strategy of reproduction. This universal revolution has a crucial importance for the present stage of human history. The cause-and-effect relationship between economic, social and demographic changes is discussed, the interpretation of changes in the mass reproductive or family behavior as primarily a direct consequence of economic, social or cultural shifts is contested. Such explanations are redundant since the main changes in demographic behavior are a response to the necessity of restoring the demographic equilibrium upset by an unprecedented decline in mortality. At the same time, such explanations lead to an underestimation of the impact of demographic change on economic, social and cultural dimensions of the development of modern societies.
 The demographic transition theory in its present form hinders the vision of this transition as an integral stand-alone process that has its own internal determinants and at the same time has a powerful impact on all social processes, including processes at the global level. The global logic of demographic transition theory is opposed to the widespread local logic, according to which this theory must be justified by the experience of each state.
 An attempt is made to overcome the current fragmentation in the description of the demographic transition and its splitting into multiple “transitions” and “revolutions”, and to consider it as a cohesive process, that is, a sequence of inevitable major stages of a single global “chain reaction” initiated by an enormous decline in mortality.

150 years of official population statistics in Italy

The paper contains an overview of the different stages of Italian history underlying the relations between official population statistics and the changes in demographic behaviour since 1861. A crucial point is the role played by institutional organisations and their specific choices in terms of the production of official statistics. The analysis is divided into five different historical periods: from Italian unification to the First World War; the period between the two wars, from World War II to the Sixties; the Seventies; and the last thirty years. In the first decades after unification, the institutional structure led to the enhancement of “political arithmetic” as a tool for the administration of the new state. This perspective was strengthened between the two World Wars, the period of Fascism. After World War II, the availability of institutional data focused mainly on economic dynamics. The subsequent major transformations in the field of family and fertility behaviour pushed for further developments in population studies. Starting in the Seventies, methodological and scientific progress led to a rethinking of the creation of data. Following the line traced by the paradigm shift (from macro to micro), a new phase of data collection started with the implementation of national socio-demographic sample surveys. In the last 30 years, behavioural changes have been further accelerated. However, at the same time, advances in scientific research have led to new explanatory approaches and data collection methods. Roberto IMPICCIATORE, Resercher, Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods, Milan University, Milan, Italy. E-mail: roberto.impicciatore@unimi.it . Rosella RETTAROLI, Professor of Demography, Department of Statistical Sciences, Bologna University, Bologna, Italy. E-mail: rosella.rettaroli@unibo.it .

Explaining Attitudes Towards Demographic Behaviour

In recent decades, Europe has witnessed dramatic changes in demographic behaviour manifested by postponement of childbearing, cohabitation replacing marriage together with increased divorce rates. It is often argued, especially in the demography literature, that these new behaviours are driven by fundamental changes in attitudes and value orientations. This article uses data from the third round of the European Social Survey to assess the drivers behind attitudes to demographic behaviour. There are large differences across countries, and we find that economic development is indeed a strong predictor for modern attitudes. However, attitudes towards demographic behaviour correlate with many other country-specific characteristics, some challenging popular wisdom in the demography literature.

The Black Death and the origins of the 'Great Divergence' across Europe, 1300-1600

One important recent theme emerging from the literature on early modern Europe is that some of the key structural and institutional changes that are responsible for the increases in incomes may have taken place rather early, in the late medieval period or in the era of the Black Death. This study makes use of the recently compiled real wage evidence for different parts of Europe and the eastern Mediterranean to gain further insights into this period. The era of the Black Death witnessed a series of important long-term changes in demographic behaviour, in agriculture, in manufacturing, trade and technology. Real wage series reflect the productivity increases from these changes. They also suggest the Low Countries and England were able to resist to a greater extent the general tendency for wages to decline during the second leg of the demographic cycle that began with the Black Death. A wage gap thus began to emerge between the northwest and the rest of the continent after 1450. The last section of the article explores the reasons for this divergence.

Recent Work in Belgian Historical Demography, Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries. Edited by Isabelle Devos and Muriel Neven. Revue Belge d'Histoire Contemporaine / Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Nieuwste Geschiedenis 31, 3–4, Antwerp, 2001. Pp. 311–647. €34.

Ten articles and a rich selective bibliography demonstrate the vitality of Historical Demography research in Belgium. In the introductory article, the editors sum up the main progress of the discipline in Belgium since 1981 and present an updated impressive commented bibliography. Belgian researchers have broken down many stereotypes. For instance, the process of industrialization in mid-nineteenth-century Belgium did not affect the traditional urban network in a spectacular way. Old-established cities and towns like Ghent, Leuven, Verviers, and Charleroi—that receive a special attention in this volume—continued to be important urban centers as they were well before the Industrial Revolution. The stereotype of a massive rural exodus generated by the industrialization is definitively overcome. By adopting a micro-research approach, Katleen Dillen shows that migration was mostly a positive choice and less disruptive than usually considered because it took place in a dense and vivid social network (“From One Textile Centre to Another: Migrations from the District of Ghent to the City of Armentières (France) During the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century,” pp. 431–52). This absence of dramatic change in migration pattern during the industrialization—which is therefore opposite to the situation observed in the Ruhr during the same period—explains why there was no difference in fertility intensity and calendar between migrant people and the sedentary population of the industrial area of Charleroi. Interestingly Flemish migrants to Charleroi adopted the same demographic behavior as the native Walloon people. So, according to Thierry Eggerickx, the main determinant of fertility behavior is the living conditions at the place of arrival rather than the geographical and cultural origin. Eggerickx also emphasizes that the beginning of the demographic transition coincided with the economic crisis of 1873–1892. However, until now the relationship between changes in demographic behavior and economic upheaval remains unclear (“The Fertility Decline in the Industrial Area of Charleroi During the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century”). The social network should probably have played a key role during that period of economic crisis. Indeed, the importance of a dense social network clearly appears as far as the illegitimate fertility in Leuven during the economic crisis of the mid-nineteenth century is concerned. Jan Van Bavel demonstrates that the risks of pregnancy before age 26 and subsequent marriage chances did not result from isolation in town (Leuven), but that sexual activity of unmarried women of courtship age was, on the contrary, a sign of integration within the local community. However what was the role of the economic crisis on the behavior of these women? (“Malthusian Sinners: Illegitimate Fertility and Early Marriage in Times of Economic Crisis: A Case Study in Leuven, 1846–1856”). Leuven's urban society in the nineteenth century is also the place to explore the relation between age homogamy and the increasing importance of romantic love. Bart Van de Putte and Koen Matthijs question Shorter's theory by demonstrating that romantic love did not involve the lower classes. The only clear cultural change in Leuven was the spread of what is today called “a conservative model of marriage life” in which the patriarchal tradition was mixed with new family centered values (“Romantic Love and Marriage. A Study of Age Homogamy in Nineteenth Century Leuven”). This model of marriage behavior seems to correspond to the Catholic Church's doctrine on matrimonial matters. The Belgian Catholic Church managed quite well to adapt itself to social changes of the nineteenth century (Paul Servais, “The Church and the Family in Belgium, 1850–1914”). Mortality has attracted fresh research. Michel Oris and George Alter explore the relationship between migration to the city and mortality pattern. In industrial towns, migration had a positive impact on mortality in the short-term, because the newcomers were healthier than natives of the same age. However, the place of arrival—the new industrial milieu—rapidly affected the children of the migrants who were disproportionately exposed to urban epidemiological conditions. Alter and Oris stress the existence of a "epidemiological depression" between 1846 and 1880, which will need further investigation. Moreover, migration to the industrial cities was at the origin of a specific pattern of mortality: high level of infant and child mortality, lower level of adult mortality (“Paths to the City and Roads to Death: Mortality and Migration in East Belgium During the Industrial Revolution”). The persistent high level of infant mortality at the turn of the twentieth century is confirmed by Marc Debuisson's enquiry covering the whole territory of Belgium (“The Decline of Infant Mortality in the Belgian Districts at the Turn of the Twentieth Century”), meanwhile Jeroen Backs observes an increasing discrepancy between upper classes and poor people in front of death. The inequality results from a growing infant and child mortality (“Mortality in Ghent, 1850–1950: A Social Analysis of Death”).

Without maps and compass? Towards a new European transition project.

During the mid-1960s most European societies experienced an unexpected demographic change. Several investigations into this transition have been conducted and findings have been enviable both in terms of quality and quantity. However uncertainties about the role of mortality decline about the extent of the practice of coitus interruptus and about the degree of variation and similarity found between societies still remain. In view of this a new joint European effort to clarify points of discussion confusion and controversy is proposed. The basic aim of this large-scale European Transition Project would be to establish whether the dramatic changes in demographic behavior in industrialized countries of the 20th century should be interpreted as a temporary phenomenon of little long-term consequence or as a reflection of a new stage in Western civilization. The topics to be addressed include multiculturalism gender equity generational solidarity labor demand and supply in which all are directly influenced by the trajectories of the components of population growth. Hence the initiative for such a program should be taken by researchers and by funding bodies.

Czech and Slovak Families in the European Context

During the past two decades most of the developed countries of Europe have witnessed changes in such family-related demographic phenomena as nuptiality, divorce, and fertility. For the time being, the Czech and Slovak Republics continue to exhibit patterns established earlier in history. Marriage is universal and is contracted at young ages. Children are born to young parents and at short childbirth intervals. The proportion of childless women is below ten percent, which is comparatively low. The eight percent of children born out of wedlock is comparatively low by European standards. Longitudinal indicators are characterized by great stability. As a result of recent profound political, social, and economic changes, it is reasonable to expect changes in demographic behavior as well. The first of these may be a marked decline in fertility along the lines already experienced by southern European countries.

The post-demographic transition in East and South East Asia: similarities and contrasts with Europe.

During the past 15 years spectacular changes in demographic behaviour have occurred in parts of east and south-east Asia. In this paper these changes are examined and contrasted with those that have taken place in parts of Europe at the corresponding period. Although it was to be expected that the Asian transitions would have been much shorter than in Europe, it is surprising that the transition in Asian countries has in many respects caught up with and even overtaken that in the European countries where it occurred much earlier.

The Causes of Demographic Change in Rural South India: A Micro Approach

Study to explain changes in demographic behavior observed in a small area of rural Karnataka over the last third of a century. An anthropological approach was employed with the authors living in villages several months per year learning by participant observation. Censuses and surveys were also employed. Among the demographic changes observed are declining mortality rising age at female marriage reductions in fertility and shortened periods of postnatal female sexual abstinence and lactation. These demographic changes are products of massive social and economic changes including growth of nonagricultural employment; expansion of exchange at the expense of home production and consumption and increasing monetization and commercialization of exchange; the provision of schools; establishment of a dense network of health care centers and doctors; and attempts to implement land reform. Resistance to sterilization virtually the only family planning option offered in this area is strong due to doubts about the reality of economic and social gains and fears of physical consequences.