World Development Report 1984

scious control of family size, probably by abortion only in an arithmetical ratio." Population growth,
and infanticide. If it is assumed that parents did he suggested in his first essay, could be checked
not report the births of infants killed, birth rates only by a shortage of food and a resulting increase
may have been higher than measured. Baby girls in deaths. The proposition rested on two assumpwere
probably the main victims, since there is evi- tions: technological change could not increase food
dence that more boys than girls survived. supply faster than population, and population
Compared with Europe and Japan, North Amer- growth (at least of the poorer classes) would not be
ica, rich in natural resources and with good eco- limited by fewer births, only by more deaths. On
nomic opportunities, experienced faster popula- the second assumption, Malthus later modified his
tion growth in the nineteenth century. Fertility views; universal education, he noted in later ediwas
relatively high, mortality was low; these con- tions of his Essay, could give people the foresight
ditions, together with heavy immigration from to limit childbearing, and improved living stand-
Europe, boosted the rate of population growth ards could lead to "new . . . tastes and habits"
well above 2 percent in the early years of the cen- before rising income induced a self-defeating rise
tury. But fertility began to decline earlier than in in population. His first assumption also proved
Europe, so the population growth rate fell well incorrect. The Industrial Revolution, beginning
below 2 percent by the early twentieth century. just before Malthus wrote, brought to Europe, and
About one-third of total growth in population dur- later to other economies, a new age of technologiing
1850-1910 came from immigration of working- cal change, geometrical increases in agricultural
age people. and industrial production, and what has come to
The demographic situation of today's developed be called the "demographic transition": the transicountries
in the nineteenth century differed from tion from high to low fertility and mortality rates.
what is happening in today's developing countries What are the lessons for developing countries in
in several other respects. During the nineteenth what caused fertility to decline in today's develcentury
rural population growth in today's devel- oped world, especially in what encouraged couoped
countries averaged less than 1 percent a year. ples to choose smaller families? Three decades ago
By 1850 fewer than half of England's population the reasons fertility declined in today's developed
lived in rural areas. By the 1880s Japan's agricul- world might have been stated quite simply. With
tural labor force was already declining. In contrast, economic growth, living conditions improve, so
the rural population in most parts of Asia and mortality begins to fall. Contrary to what Malthus
Africa today is still growing by more than 2 percent feared, fertility responds to falling mortality and
a year, despite substantial migration to towns and adjusts downward, eventually producing the
cities. Technology was less advanced in the nine- slower rate of population growth that prevailed
teenth century, so people did not need to be well before economic conditions started to improve.
educated (as they now do) to work in the modern There is a lag between falling mortality and falling
economy. Nor did technology displace labor, as it fertility, but one follows the other quickly enough
now tends to do, especially if it is supplied by the so that economic gains are not eaten up by a larger
capital-intensive developed countries. Where pop- population, and real incomes rise continuously.
ulation growth was most rapid, in North America, In fact the story is not so simple. In Europe, and
land was plentiful. later in Japan, the pattern of declining mortality
All these factors-combined with low birth rates, and fertility was not so orderly-nor is it today in
death rates that declined slowly as a consequence developing countries. In a few places fertility
of economic and not merely medical advance, and decline preceded mortality decline; in others, ferthe
safety valve of emigration, at least for Europe- tility did not start falling soon after mortality did.
meant that population growth never represented And economic growth-if narrowly perceived as
the burden that it now does for developing industrialization, urbanization, and the shift from
countries. family to factory production-was neither necessary
nor sufficient for demographic transition.
The transition to lozvfertility In England fertility within marriage did not
begin to fall until the 1870s, almost 100 years after
In 1798 the English parson Thomas Malthus wrote the start of the Industrial Revolution and at least as
in the Essay on Population his now-familiar proposi- long after a sustained decline in mortality had
tion that "Population, when unchecked, increases begun. Why the delay? Average real incomes rose
in a geometrical ratio . . . Subsistence increases by more than 1 percent a year in the nineteenth
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