Demographic Transitions and Familial Change: Comparative International Perspectives

Abstract

This chapter deals with the way demographic transitions throughout the world have proved to be an important source of social, economic and familial change. The chapter has different parts. After an initial overview of the role played by the family in social organization and continuity in the past, as well as of the basic dynamics of the demographic transition, the different ways in which demographic change triggers medium-and long-run social and economic change will be assessed. Age structures, migration trends, reproductive efficiency and familial strategies as well as adult health are all ways in which the transformational effects of demographic transition are felt. The end result of these changes hinges in part on the rate of change of vital rates, which has been far faster in the developing world. This chapter discusses the way the demo-graphic transition leads to significant change in the role of the family in those countries undergoing the historic transition as well as the likelihood that this sort of pattern of social change will spread to countries where the demographic transition started not so long ago. In the final section of this chapter, plausible scenarios for the future are mentioned, including the possibility of future population stagnation or decline, the potentially conflictive pattern of familial and social change in parts of the world characterized by strong religions and equally strong family systems, and the overall duration of the grand cycle of the demographic transition throughout the world.