Geography with Sandeep Sir

Malthusian, Marxian and Demographic transition models

In any geographical area population is an important aspect. This is because
population always determines many things in a given area such as development level and
employment level. So population refers to a number of human beings occupying a certain
geographical area (Clark 1977). Population is never static rather it is dynamic. It changes over
time and space, and for this matter we have population dynamics. Factors that determine
population dynamics or changes are fertility, mortality and migration. Population of an area
normally increases through fertility and in-migration and may decrease through mortality and
outmigration.

Apart from population to be dynamic also population has its components which
are sex, age, marital status, socio-economic status, size and composition of household and
family, ethnicity, race and nationality. However age and sex are the most characteristics of any
population composition. In other literature do term population study as demographic study. So
demography is the study of population size, territorial distribution, and composition of
population changes there in and the components of such changes which may be identified as
fertility, mortality, territorial movement (migration) and social mobility (change of status).

The theorizing about population (population size and change) has remained an
important subject since time immemorial. Many of the ancient philosophers like Confucius
(China), Kautilya (India), Ibn Khaldin (Arab), Plato (Greece) and modem thinkers like Adam
Smith, David Richard and others, either directly or indirectly, have said somewhat significant on
population issues. For instance, Kautilya, a contemporary of Plato, had written in his
Arthashastra that ‘a large population is a source of political, economic and military strength of a
nation’. Similarly, the 14th century Arab historian, Ibn Khaldin maintained in his theory of ‘rise
and fall’ that the growth of dense population is generally favourable to the maintenance and
increase of imperial power. The Chinese philosopher, Confucius argued that a numerical balance
be maintained between population and environment. Thus, he was not in favour of unchecked
growth of population. He was the first who gave the concept of optimum population level. In
ancient Greece, the earliest thinkers favoured the expansion of population, but Plato was a
restrictionist who advocated as absolute limit of population.

One of the earliest demographers Edmond Halley (1656-1742) was the first
scientist to use death statistics in different age groups to determine a person’s likelihood of death
as he or she passed through each age group (Population Today, 1986). But, as a science, it
emerged only in the last 250 years. The systematic compilation of data was first begun on a large
scale in the 19th century Europe.

Modern population theory is considered to have started with writings of Malthus

in the 18th century. Basically the Malthus population theory is pivoted on two postulates. He

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argues that the power of population to reproduce is greater than the power of the land to produce

food. He argues that if human population is unchecked, it will increase by geometric progression

while food production will increase by arithmetic progression (Malthus 1798).

Malthusian Theory

Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834) was the key figure to analyse the population
statistics. His formulation on population was a landmark in the history of population theories. He
generalized the relationship between population factors and social change. In his Essay on the
Principle of Population (1798) Malthus argued that because of the strong attraction of the two
sexes, the population could increase by multiples, doubling every twenty-five years. He
contended that the population would eventually grow so large that food production would be
insufficient.

Human capacity for reproduction exceeded the rate at which subsistence from the
land can be increased. Malthus further wrote ‘Population when unchecked increases in a
geometrical ratio, Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio.’ Malthus contended that the
world’s population was growing more rapidly than the available food supply. He argued that the
food supply increases in an arithmetic progression (1, 2, 3, 4, and so on), whereas the population
expands by a geometric progression (1, 2, 4, 8, and so on).

According to him, the population could increase by multiples, doubling every

twenty-five years. He said the gap between the food supply and population will continue to grow
over time. Even though food supply will increase, it would be insufficient to meet the needs of
expanding population. Moreover, the famine and other natural calamities cause widespread
sufferings and increase the death rate, which is nature’s check against population.

In brief, Malthus theory states that:

1. Population is necessarily limited by the means of subsistence.

2. Population invariably increases where means of subsistence increased, unless
prevented by some very powerful and obvious checks.
3. These checks, and the checks which repress the superior power of population and
keep its effects on a level with the means of subsistence, are all resolvable into moral
restraint, vice and misery.

Malthus based his above arguments on man’s two basic characteristics essential to the
maintenance of life:

1. The need for food, and

2. The passion between sexes.

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It was the second which led people to marry at a relatively early age and would result in such a
large number of births that the population would double itself in few years if unchecked by
misery and vice.

Malthus referred to two classes of checks which kept population down:

1. Positive means: He spoke of famine (hunger), disease or war, pestilence and vicious customs
about women.

2. Negative means: He explicitly demanded artificial means of birth control and suggested as an
alternative that birth rate be decreased through preventive measures such as late marriage
(postponing marriage until later age), moral restraint, and chastity (abstinence). He contended
that without such restraints the world would face widespread hunger, poverty and misery.

The ‘positive’ and ‘preventive’ checks which occur in human population to

prevent excessive growth relate to practices affecting mortality and fertility respectively. Malthus
saw the tension between population and resources as a major cause of the misery of much of the
humanity. He was not, however, in favour of contraceptive methods, since their use did not
generate the same drive to work hard as would a postponement of marriage.

Malthus argued that the positive and preventive checks are inversely related to
each other. In other words, where positive checks are very effective, the preventive checks are
relatively less effective and vice versa.

However, in all societies, some of these checks are in constant operation although
in varying magnitude of effectiveness. Malthus believed that despite these checks, the inability
of increased food supply to keep abreast of population increase always results in some kind of a
situation of overpopulation.

Criticism:

Malthus’ views have been widely challenged on many grounds. The main criticisms about
his theory are as under:

1. The validity of his two sets of ratios has been questioned by his critics. It is argued that
population has rarely grown in geometrical proportion and means of production have
rarely multiplied in arithmetic progression.
2. Malthus overemphasized the ‘positive’ checks and did not visualize the role of
‘preventive’ checks like contraceptives and family planning. Neo-Malthusists argued for
the adoption of birth control within marriage. Human inventions in the fields of birth
control, health and nutrition and agriculture have helped to a great extent to strike a
balance between human reproduction and food supply.
3. Malthus was also severely criticized for ignoring the role of changing technology and the
consequent transformation in socio-economic set-up of a society. He did not fully

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appreciate the extent to which improved agricultural technology and crop fertilization
could sustain large population.
Neo-Malthusians agree that there are absolute limits on food supply,
energy and other resources. Furthermore, they suggest that the problem is intensified by
the disproportionate consumption of such resources by so-called developed
(industrialized) actions. This formulation has been challenged by other researchers. Yet
none would deny that starvation is a very real fact even in 2012. According to
International Food Policy Research Institute, out of 79 countries 65 come under the
category of alarming level of hunger. Burundi, Ethiopia, Chad, Eritrea and Timor have
been categorized as the five hungriest countries in the world. Around the world, we read
many reports of starvation death and malnutrition. With such images in mind, a
representative of the World Bank stated in 1981 that the ‘ghost of Malthus is not buried
yet’. Ironically gains in food supplies do not always lead to progress in the fight against
starvation. It puts pressure on food prices that makes it more difficult for the poor to buy
the food they need.
4. Both the positive checks of hunger and disease referred to by Malthus do not operate
today, except the terrible disaster sometimes caused by Tsunami, Katrina, Rita and floods
or rains in desert areas like Banner and Jaisalmer in August 2006. But catastrophe of this
nature in any part of the world is immediately rushed to the affected place from surplus
areas all over the world. A marked decline in the death rate even in the developing
countries is a significant factor in the context of the population spurt.
5. Moreover, natural calamities referred to above have occurred in under-populated areas
also and thus there was no causal relationship between positive checks and
overpopulation.
6. Malthus also failed to realize even the biological limitations that a population cannot
grow beyond a certain limits.

It’s Applicability:

Despite these weaknesses, the Malthusian doctrine contains much truth. The
Malthusian doctrine may not be applicable to the Western Europe and England but its principal
tools have become the part and parcel of the people of these countries. If these lands do not face
the problems of over-population and misery, it is all due to the bogey and pessimism of
Malthusianism. In fact, the people of Europe were made wiser by Malthus who forewarned them
of the evils of over-population and they started adopting measurers toward it off. The very fact
that people use preventive checks, like late marriage and various contraceptives and birth control
measures on an extensive scale proves the vitality of the Malthusian law.

Even famous economists like Marshall and Pigou and sociologists like Darwin
were influenced by this principle when they incorporated it in their theories. And Keynes,
initially overawed by the Malthusian fears of over-population, later wrote about “Some

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Economic Consequences of Declining Population.” Is it not the fear of Malthusianism which has
created the problem of declining population in France?

The Malthusian doctrine may not be applicable now to its place of origin, but its
influence spreads over two-third of this universe. Excluding Japan, the whole of Asia, Africa and
South America come under its purview. India is one of the first countries to adopt family
planning on state level to control population. Positive checks like floods, wars, droughts,
diseases, etc. operate. The birth and death rates are high. The growth rate of population is about 2
per cent per annum.

The real aim of population policy is, however, not to avoid starvation but to
eliminate poverty so as to raise output per head in an accelerated manner. Thus the Malthusian
theory is fully applicable to underdeveloped countries like India. Walker was right when he
wrote: “The Malthusian theory is applicable to all communities without any consideration of
colour and place. Malthusianism has stood un-shattered, impregnable amid all the controversy
that has raged around it.”

Marxian Theory

Karl Marx, the famous author of Das Kapital, did not propound any specific
theory of population like Malthus. However, he rejected the Malthusian theory as completely
imaginary and false. He did not accept Malthus’s view that population increases in geometrical
progression and means of subsistence in arithmetical progression. Marx’s views about population
growth are based on his theory of surplus value.

According to him, the problem of population arises only in a capitalist society

which fails to provide jobs to all workers because the supply of labour is more than its demand.
As a result, there is surplus population. But there is no surplus population in a socialist society
where the means of production are in the hands of workers. All able bodied workers are
employed and there is no surplus labour. So there is no need to check the growth of population in
a socialist country.

Main assumptions of his theory are pointed out as follows:

i. There is no universal law of population; hence population laws are

determined by the social and economic conditions prevailing in the society
at different stages of development.
ii. Each specific mode of production has its own peculiar law of population
historically valid within its limits.
iii. Population cannot be controlled by limiting population growth but
changing the structure of the society.
iv. Over population became a problem only in capitalist mode of production.
This is because it is the result of shortcoming of inherent capitalist order.

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Capitalism, according to Marx, is divided into two classes – the workers who sell
their ‘labour-power’ and the capitalist who own the ‘means of production’ (factories). Labour-
power is like any other commodity. The labourer sells his labour for its value. And its value, like
the value of any other commodity is the amount of labour that is required to produce labour-
power. In other words, the value of labour-power is the value of the means of subsistence (i.e.,
food, clothing, housing, etc.) necessary for the maintenance of the labourer.

This is determined by the number of hours necessary for its production. But the
value of commodities necessary for the subsistence of the labourer is never equal to the value of
the produce that labourer produces. If a labourer works for ten hours a day, but it takes him six
hours’ labour to produce goods to cover his subsistence, he will be paid wages equal to 6 hours’
labour. The difference worth 4 hours’ labour goes into the capitalist pocket in the form of profit.
Marx calls this unpaid work “surplus value”.

According to Marx, this surplus value leads to capital accumulation. The

capitalist’s main aim is to increase the surplus value in order to increase his profit. He does so by
“the speeding up of labour”, which means increasing the productivity of labour.

When the productivity of labour increases, the labourer produces the same
commodity in less hours, say 4 hours, or he produces more (two) commodities, say in 6 hours.
This raises the surplus value and hence the capitalist’s profit. The increase in the productivity of
labour requires a technological change that helps in increasing total output and lowering the cost
of production. He introduces labour-saving machines which increase labour productivity.

This process of replacing labour by machines creates an industrial reserve army

which increases as capitalism develops. The industrial reserve army is the surplus population.
The larger the industrial reserve army, the larger the surplus population and the worse are the
conditions of the employed labourers. This is because the capitalists can dismiss dissatisfied and
troublesome workers and replace them from the ranks of the reserve army. Capitalists are also
able to cut down wages to a semi-starvation level and raise more surplus value, while the surplus
population increases.

The Marxian theory of surplus population is explained in Fig. where the labour
force is taken on the horizontal axis and the wage rate on the vertical axis. DD is the demand
curve for labour and SS is the supply curve of labour. At the wage rate OW, there is increase in
the industrial reserve army or surplus population equal to RA (=LL1). As the industrial reserve
army expands, the capitalists start adopting labour-saving machines in order to increase the
surplus value and hence profits. Consequently, the supply curve of labour SS starts sliding
towards the right and becomes horizontal at S1. The capitalists also start reducing the wage rate
simultaneously to the minimum subsistence level OM in order to have more surplus value and
profits. Now at this wage rate, the horizontal supply curve MS1 equals the demand curve for

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labour at point E1. Thus at the subsistence wage rate OM the entire working population
OL1becomes the surplus population.

Marx explains his surplus theory of population thus:

“It is the working population which, while effecting the accumulation of capital also produces
the means whereby it is itself rendered relatively superfluous, is turned into a relatively
surplus population, and it does so to an ever increasing extent. This is a law of population
peculiar to the capitalist method.”

Criticisms:

Marx’s theory of surplus population has been criticised on the following grounds:

(1) Unrealistic Theory: The Marxian theory is unrealistic because it is based on the theory of
surplus value. The concept of surplus value has not been accepted even in socialist countries
since it is unrealistic. Therefore, the very basis of his population theory does not exist.

(2) Not Applicable to Socialist Countries: Marx’s contention that there is no population
problem in a socialist country has been proved wrong. China, the largest socialist country of the
world, has been faced with the problem of population growth. It has been trying to control it by
adopting “one-child” norm.

(3) Technological Progress reduces Industrial Reserve Army: According to Marx, with
increasing technical progress the industrial reserve army expands which, in turn, leads to surplus
population. This is an exaggerated view because the long run effect of technical progress is to
provide more employment.

(4) No Explanation of Determinants: Marx does not explain the determinants of population
growth like birth rate, death rate, migration, etc.

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Thus Marx’s explanation of population growth is not a theory in the true sense but simply a
view.

Theory of Demographic Transition:

Demographic transition is a term, first used by Warren S. Thompson (1929), and

later on by Frank W. Notestein (1945), referring to a historical process of change which accounts
the trends in births, deaths and population growth that occurred in today’s industrialized
societies, especially European societies. This process of demographic change began for the most
part in the later 18th century.

Demographic transition should not be regarded as a ‘law of population growth’,

but as a generalized description of the evolutionary process. In simple terms, it is a theory which
attempts to specify general laws by which human populations change in size and structure during
industrialization. It is frequently accepted as a useful tool in describing the demographic history
of a country.

The theory postulates a particular pattern of demographic change from a high

fertility and high mortality to a low fertility and low mortality when a society progresses from a
largely rural agrarian and illiterate society to a dominant urban, industrial, literate and modern
society.

It is typically viewed as a three-stage process:

(i) That the decline in immortality comes before the decline in fertility,
(ii) That the fertility eventually declines to match mortality, and
(iii) That socio-economic transformation of a society takes place simulta-
neously with its demographic transformation.

The demographic transition theory is characterized by conspicuous transition stages.

Stage 1 (Pre-transition):

This is the longest period of population growth, which started with human
civilization and continued till recent past. The principal characteristics of this stage are high birth
rate as also high death rate. In this stage, net population growth remains low due to
underdeveloped state of the economy; bulk of the population remains uneducated and poor and
lacks even the simple amenities of civic life.

The per capita income remains very low and economy remains stagnant. In this
stage, though both the birth rate and death rate are high, they are highly unpredictable. Because
of highly changing death rate due to social (war etc.), medical (epidemics etc.) and economic
(poor agriculture) reasons, growth rate of population is very low. Most of the under development
countries are going through this stage.

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Stage 2 (Early transition):

This stage starts with the improvement of economic condition and living standard
of the people. Due to introduction of better medical facilities, improved sanitation, death rate is
gradually going down but birth rate remains same. Therefore, population growth rate registers
new high with sudden increase of population. This stage is generally visible in the developing
economy. Despite high population growth some of the developing countries may be able to im-
prove economic growth through the rise of per capita income.

The continued second stage results in further decline of the mortality rate. The
life-expectancy of the people goes up. Industrialization and urbanization gets priority.
Developing countries are going through this stage.

Stage 3 (Late transition):

In this stage, death rate declines steadily and birth rate also registers significant
decrease. Due to improvement of economy, increase of per capita income and massive growth of
urbanization, development of urban-industrial society occurs. In society, large families disinte-
grate, small-unit families spring up, number of children are few, infant mortality goes down. The
classical example of third stage demographic transition is Western Europe.

Here urbanization- industrialization-modernization factors together resulted in

lowering of the birth rate, and lowering of the death rate too. Much of Western Europe, Russia,
Australia, Japan, Canada and U.S.A. are going through Stage 3.

Stage 4 (Post-transition):

This stage has been added by famous demographer Prof. Sax. In this stage, birth
rate and death rate both go down. Population growth registers zero, and even negative! Birth rate
may be less than the death rate resulting in net decrease of population.

Only in a highly developed economy this can be possible. Very few countries—
Sweden, Norway and Switzerland — are passing through Stage 4. So, in the fourth stage of
demographic transition, fertility rate and mortality rate change markedly.

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Stage 1: Birth rate and death rate are both high and about same. In this stage, population growth
rate is very low.

Stage 2: The gap between birth and death rate curves

increases as population growth rate is much higher than
death rate.

Stage 3: Birth rate goes down and curves of both birth

and death rate come very close—population growth is
very low.

Stage 4: Birth rate curve goes down more than death rate
curve. Net population of the region decreases.

Stage 5

The model was designed to only incorporate four stages; however, in recent years there has been
call for a fifth stage to be added to the model. At this stage the birth rate falls below the death
rate and this result in a negative population increase.

An example of a country at this stage is Italy. Italian women are deciding that a career is more
important than a family and many decide to not have children at all by being sterilised. Death
rates remain low and the population begins to rapidly age.

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Criticism:

Although the theory of demographic transition has been appreciated widely by the
demographers, it has been criticized on many grounds also. There are even critics who have gone
to the extent of saying that it cannot be called a theory.

The main points of criticism are:

 Firstly, this theory is merely based upon the empirical observations or the experiences of
Europe, America and Australia.
 Secondly, it is neither predictive nor its stages are segmental and inevitable.
 Thirdly, the role of man’s technical innovations cannot be underrated, particularly in the
field of medicine, which can arrest the rate of mortality.
 Fourthly, neither does it provide a fundamental explanation of the process of fertility
decline, nor does it identify the crucial variables involved in it.
 Fifthly, it does not provide a time frame for a country to move from one stage to another.
 Finally, it does not hold good for the developing countries of the world, which have
recently experienced unprecedented growth in population due to drastic decline in death
rates. The model failed to predict the falling birth rates in many MEDC countries.

In spite of these criticisms and shortcomings, the demographic transition theory does
provide an effective portrayal of the world’s demographic history at macro level of
generalizations. As an empirical generalization developed on the basis of observing the
demographic trend in the West, the transition process for any country can easily be understood.

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