Economics · Ch 2 — Population and Human Resources Development
Theory of Demographic Transition
Theory of Demographic Transition
The Theory of Demographic Transition explains how birth rates and death rates change as a country moves from a traditional, agrarian economy to a modern, industrial one, and how population growth rate itself rises and then falls across that journey. It is one of the most frequently asked essay topics in this chapter of the Andhra Pradesh Board Intermediate Economics paper.
The theory describes three stages (a simplified version of the classical four/five-stage model, matching the depth expected at the Intermediate level):
| Stage | Birth Rate | Death Rate | Population Growth | Typical Economy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stage 1 – High Stationary | High | High | Low / near-stagnant (the two roughly cancel) | Pre-industrial, agrarian, low literacy, poor health care |
| Stage 2 – Early Expanding | Remains high | Falls sharply (better medicine, sanitation, food supply) | Rises rapidly — the "population explosion" phase | Economy beginning to develop, health improving faster than fertility habits change |
| Stage 3 – Late Expanding / Low Stationary | Falls (urbanisation, education, family planning, rising cost of raising children) | Stays low | Growth rate slows and stabilises at a low level | Developed / rapidly developing, high literacy, wide access to health and family-planning services |
Where does India stand? India has been moving from Stage 2 towards Stage 3: the death rate fell decisively across the twentieth century due to public-health measures, while the birth rate has been falling more gradually — this gap is exactly what produced the large population additions of the 1960s-1990s. The steadily falling decadal growth rates noted in the previous section (23.9% → 21.5% → 17.7%) are the statistical signature of this transition continuing. …
The number of live births per 1,000 of population i …
The number of deaths per 1,000 of population i …
The historical shift of a population from a state of high birth and death rates to one of low birth and death rates, passing through an intermedi …