Demographic Transition: Concepts and Relevance to
Commonwealth Countries
by
Dr. K. Srnivasan
Honorary Professor,
Institute of Social & Economic Change (ISEC),
Bangalore, India
Paper Commissioned by
United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) – India
55, Lodi Estate, New Delhi – 100 003
Demographic Transition: Concepts and Relevance to Commonwealth
Countries.
K. Srinivasan•
1. Introduction: Demographic Transition
In this paper we review in brief the concepts of demographic transition,
demographic dividends and the second demographic transition as they have evolved from
the studies on the growth of populations in a number of countries and study their
relevance and utility in the study of populations specifically in the Commonwealth
Countries (CWC).
Studies on demographic transition, probably, occupy the largest segment of the
literature on demographic research. The term ‘demographic transition” connotes the
transition of a human population from a high mortality –high fertility situation to a low
fertility- low mortality situation over a period of time. In such a transition, generally the
mortality rates start declining first on a secular basis and the fertility rates decline after a
time lag. In the basic model of such a transition (DTM), there are four stages observed:
first, is the pre-transition stage when both fertility and mortality rates are high and
population growth rates are very low which has been the condition of human population
for millennia; second, when mortality rates decline with fertility remaining almost
constant or even rising a little bit or declining more slowly than the fertility rates (during
which period the growth rates of the population keep rising fast); third, after a time lag
fertility rates start a faster down-ward trend than mortality when the growth rate slows
down and finally, in the fourth stage when both the fertility and mortality levels are low
•
Honorary Professor, Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore and former Director,
International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai
at or below replacement level. While in the first stage the crude death rates fluctuate, in
the fourth stage the crude birth rates fluctuate. (Thompson- 1929) (Refer Chart-1).
There are many elaborations on the basic version of the DTM some identifying five
stages and some even six. The differences between these models are essentially in the
conceptual delineation of the last stage when the birth and death rates are low, below
replacement levels of fertility. In the five stage model, this stage is viewed as made up of
two segments; in the new stage 4 both the birth and death rates are low with the birth
rates oscillating around the replacement level when the population growth rates are low
but positive; and in stage 5 the birth rates continue to fall below replacement and death
rates rise because of the aging populations when the growth rates are negative and the
populations can even fear extinctions unless padded up by fertility rise or large scale
immigrations. The Second Demographic Transition is an elaboration of this specific
situation of stage 5, which will be discussed in a subsequent section.
Before the onset of transition around 1800, in the pre industrial era in the developed
countries and until the early decades of the twentieth century in the developing countries,
the mortality rates tended to be very high because of famines, epidemics and wars and
varied widely from time to time because of the unexpected impacts of these calamities.
Only when these were brought under reasonable control did secular declines in mortality
occur. In this process in some segments of the population the declines occurred at a faster
pace and the differentials in mortality among socio economic groups widened. The
nobility and the wealthier groups experienced faster declines in their mortality rates than
the poor and underprivileged. Later with continuing declines in overall mortality rates
such differentials tended to narrow down though they continue to persist, in a smaller
magnitude, to this day. Similar phenomena happened in the fertility transition that
occurred at the second stage. Widening and narrowing of socio economic differentials in
fertility and mortality is a hall mark of demographic transition
Before the onset of secular declines in mortality, the fertility rates were close to the
natural fertility levels (levels in which there are no deliberate control by the couples to
limit or space their children). Louis Henry (1961) estimated the natural fertility levels of
the French populations between 9 and 11 children per woman. Though such high levels
were observed in special groups such as the Hutterites in Canada, for most of the
populations, in the pre transition stage the total fertility rates hovered around 6 to 7
children per woman.
There are still large uncertainties as to precisely when, where and how the
demographic transition started. The trigger for declines in mortality seems to have been
caused by the industrial revolution in Europe in the late seventeenth century. Studies
based on available data and using indirect methods, by the Princeton group of scholars
concluded that the secular declines in mortality started around 1800 first in France and
spread to other countries of northern Europe and after a few decades fertility rates started
to decline mainly because of use of condoms (called French leather) and coitusinteruptus. This transition spread rapidly to all the European countries and to the other
countries with immigrants of European origin and the transition seems to have been
completed by the mid 20the century, when most of these countries have achieved
replacement or below replacement levels of fertility. Among the non European
populations Japan was the first to start its demographic transition almost five decades
later, by 1850, but by 1950 has completed the transition. The low-mortality –low fertility
situation is prevailing in these countries for over four decades now, with the population
growth rates in many of these countries being negative and the prospects of continuing
loss of population in many of these countries have become a matter of serious concern for
the policy makers.
Among the other developing countries the transition seems to have commenced almost
a century later, possibly first in India by 1920 when the secular declines in mortality
commenced followed by other developing countries and in many of these countries such
as China, Cuba, South and North Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia and Sri Lanka In
these countries the transition however occurred at an accelerated pace. Because of very
rapid declines in mortality and time lags in the declines in fertility, the world has seen
historically high increase in human population growth during the past two centuries, and
the common figure quoted is that it increased from about 1 billion in 1800 to 6.1 bill a
billion in 2000 and is expected to rise 9.5 billion by 2100. While it took centuries or even
millennia for the humans to raise their size to the first billion, in recent times a billion is
added every 12 years. The population base has become so large that even with small
growth rates large increases in populations occur. The annual population growth rate
increased from 0.50% .around 1800 to 1.80% around 1950 and is steadily declining
thereafter to 1.22 in 2000 and expected to decline to 0.33 by 2050 and to 0.04 by 2100. In
the less developed countries the transitions occurred at a faster pace and at present 90%
of the additions to the population are due to the developing countries. (See Table 1)
In the developing countries the mortality declines have occurred at a much faster pace
than in the developed world because they had the benefit of the technological
developments already made in the west and also because of national programmes of
public health and family planning implemented by them with the support of the
international organizations as the United Nations, WHO and the UNICEF. It took almost
a century for Europe to reach an expectation of life of 45 years from a level around 25
years in 1800 or an increase of 0.2 year per year. On the other hand in India life
expectancy increased from 24 years in 1920 to 67 years in 2008 or an increase of an
increase of 0.48 years per year and in China the increase in life expectancy was higher
from 41 during 1950-55 to 73 during 2005-10 or an increase of 0.58 years per year.
Similar declines in the fertility rates were also observed because of availability of modern
contraceptive methods and the implementation of national programmes of family
planning by the governments in the developing world have achieved replacement levels
of fertility within 3 to 4 decades, compared to what was achieved over a century and a
century and a half in the developed counties. (See Table 2 and Chart-2)
From Table 2 it can be seen that during the 60 year period 1950-2010, the population of
the world as a whole increased from 2529 million to 6908 million or by 2.73 times; the
increase during the same period in the “more developed countries” was from 812 million
to 1237 million or by 1.52 times compared to from 717 million to 5671 million or by 7.90
times in the “less developed countries”. The population growth during the second half of
20th century is essentially due to growth of population in the “less developed countries’’.
During 1950-55 the TFR and life expectancy of females in the Less Developed Region of
the world were 6.0 and 41.8 years compared to 2.82 and 68.4 years, a surplus gap 3.18
children and a deficit in female life expectancy 26.6 years; by 2000-05 this gap came
down to 1.31 children and 13.4 years and by 2045-50 ,according to ‘medium variant’
projections by the United Nations, this gap between the more developed and less
developed regions will further be reduced to 0.25 child per woman and 9.1 years in life
expectancy. There is no doubt that the human race as whole is rapidly converging to a
uniform demographic condition of fertility and mortality and will be in third stage of
transition globally. There may questions on the time span but the process is in action.
II. Factors underlying demographic transition
The first comprehensive statement of the possible factors underlying the demographic
transition in the developed world was given by Notestein (1949). The underlying causal
mechanisms that triggered and sustained the declines in mortality and fertility, though not
yet fully understood, are generally referred to as forces of “industrialization”,
“modernization”, or “development” These terms include modern education especially
of women, transformation of an agricultural society to an industrial society, rise in
percapita income, personal hygiene, improved nutrition and provision of public health
and medical services and a secular view of life. In the developed societies the declines in
mortality occurred with development of various vaccines and drugs on the basis of germ
theory on the causation of diseases and various innovations in the society as a part of
industrialization including the use of soap for cleaning and washing and had very little to
do with the governments of the time.
. The declines in fertility followed after a time lag because of the perceived higher
survival chances of children either by avoiding pregnancies or terminating them if
unavoidable. Governments of the time had no role in this transition and if at all, did
condemn use of any form of contraception or abortion on religious grounds. The role of
public policies, especially on the provision of organized public health and family
planning services were not included in the earlier set of factors contributing to
demographic transition became vital only in the developing countries
But later, in the developing countries, such as the countries in the commonwealth, after
they have achieved political independence from the colonial rule, the newly formed
national governments assumed dominant roles in the development of their populations
and launched various governmental policies and programmes for the betterment of the
economic and health conditions of their people. As a part of their developmental strategy
they started various public health programmes and even started national programmes of
family planning. India was the first country to launch such a programme of birth control
as early as 1951. High population growth rates were considered as one of the key hurdles
in economic developments. Though China launched its development strategy on the
Marxian lines and though Marxian theory considered population as an asset and was
against state measures to reduce the population growth rates China took an aggressive
population policy route, first through the policy of Wan, Ki, Shu (later, longer and fewer)
for births for couples started in 1972 and later with one child policy in 1979. Because of
these policies it succeeded in reducing its fertility levels by half, from a total fertility rate
of over 5.8 children in 1970 to 2.7 in 1980 and to 1.6 in 2010.
While in most of the developed countries and in a number of developing countries the
demographic transition is completed by the turn of the twentieth century, many other less
developed countries are still in the second stage and they are yet to enter the final stages,
but they will eventually in the next few decades. Public policies and government
programmes for reduction of fertility and mortality assisted financially and technically by
the bilateral donor agencies and international organizations have become major driving
forces behind such an accelerated transition.
III. Demographic Dividends
This demographic transition made significant changes not only in lengthening life,
reducing fertility levels, increasing and later reducing population growth rates but also
altered the age distribution, especially the ratio of economically productive population to
dependent population enabling diversion of household and public expenditures from
consumption related items to savings and investment leading to accelerated economic
growth. The first major empirical study on the effects of high dependency ratios on the
savings and investments at the household and the governmental level was made by Coale
and Hoover (1954) in their study on the effects of population growth in economic
development in India and Mexico (Coale and Hoover, 1952). They empirically but more
intuitively, proved in their study that reduction of fertility through national programmes
of family planning would contribute to overall economic development by increasing
savings and investment at the household and national levels. Their study paved the way,
by providing economic justification for the launch of the national programmes of family
planning in India and later in a number of other developing countries as a part of .their
developmental strategy. They did not use the term “demographic dividends”, which came
into use later in 1990’s.
The necessity of more systematic studies on the effects of changes in the dependency
ratios on the economy arose in the ‘nineties because of what was considered as an
economic miracle of the East Asian countries, especially China, Korea and Taiwan,
during the late ‘eighties and the ‘nineties after these countries have experienced very
rapid declines in their fertility and mortality levels earlier. Their economic dependency
ratios declined faster and the impacts of these on their high economic growth had to be
disentangled, leading to what is termed as “demographic bonus”, “demographic
dividend”, “window of opportunity” etc. (Bloom and Williamson, 1998). While Coale
and Hoover justified launch of national programmes of family planning in the ‘fifties, in
the developing countries as programmes that would contribute to economic development,
the later authors measured the contribution of such programmes to economic
development because of reductions in dependency ratios. These terms are also used to
connote the period of time when the dependency ratio in a population started to decline
because of earlier declines in their fertility levels, until such time when it started to rise
again because of the rise in the proportion of older persons caused by continuing declines
in fertility and increasing longevity. The second rise in the dependency ratios was due to
the fact that the pace of rise in the old age dependency ratios was more than to
compensate for the declines in the youth dependency ratios. Usually this period of
demographic bonus was dependent on the pace of decline in the fertility levels of a
population. If the switch to small families is fast, the demographic bonus can give
considerable push to development as it happened in China, beginning the early ‘eighties
with the rapid declines in the fertility levels of the population because of its one child
policy.
Many studies have empirically shown that the sheer fact of reduction in the child
dependency ratios in a population, just by reducing the consumption expenditures at the
household level and at the national levels contributed to 10 to 20 % of the increase in the
percapita incomes of the populations of East Asia and South Asia that have grown
economically fast during he past three decades.
If the period of ‘demographic bonus’ is considered a “window of opportunity” and if
public investments during this period is made wisely in health care and secular education
with emphasis on skill development of the population as happened in the East Asian
countries, the contribution of this reduction in dependency ratios could be higher. The
Republic of Korea, for example, increased net secondary school enrolment from 38 to 84
percent between 1970 and 1990 while more than tripling expenditure per secondary
pupil. Countries, which failed to make such investments during the periods of
‘demographic bonus’, did not record such high economic growth rates.
It is estimated
that even up to 40 percent of the growth of percapita income can be derived as
demographic dividend as was in China and South Korea during some. During 1965 1990, GDP per capita in East Asia grew annually by an average of 6.1 percent; the
changes in the age structure contributed an estimated 0.9 to 1.5 percentage points.
Changing demographic structures now present similar opportunities and challenges in the
South Asian countries and there is evidence that they years are also poised for similar
growth in the coming decades. Table 3 presents data on the reductions in the total
dependency ratios (TDER)- ratio of number in ages 0 to 14 and 60+ combine to number
in the age group 15-59 - in different states in India between 1961 and 2001 and the
reductions in TFR values between 1956 and 2008. For the country as whole the TDER
declined from 87.5% in 1961 to 75.1 in 2001, a decline of 12.4 percentage points. On the
other hand in Kerala state the TDES declined from 94.1 to 57.6, a decline of 36.5
percentage points. The TFR in the country as whole declined from 6.03 during 1951-61
to 3.43 children in 2008 a decline of 2.6 children per woman while for Kerala the decline
was from 5.5 to 1,73 , a decline of 3.8 children per woman. This decline in TDER values
has significantly contributed to larger developments in Kerala and other similar states
compared to other states where the fertility levels have not declined that fast. Based on
an econometric analysis studying the effects of changes in the age structure of the
population on the Indian economy in recent years James (2008) concludes “The empirical
analysis vividly exhibits the positive impact of the working age population boom on
economic growth. This is despite the fact that the educational achievements and the
health conditions of the people are far from adequate and employment creation is below
the required level”
IV. Second demographic transition
The countries that have completed the demographic transition, those that are at or below
replacement levels of fertility are faced with the prospect of negative population growth
rates in addition to rapid aging of their populations. The originally stated theory of
transition implied that human beings when modernized and industrialized would prefer to
marry, have children within marriage (Malthusian desire), have two children (one son
and one daughter) as a biological desire to replace themselves in the next generation. In
the fourth stage of demographic transition, it was implicitly assumed that the fertility
levels will fluctuate but around the replacement level of fertility with population growth
hovering around zero (stationary) or slight positive growth as in the pre transitional
phase but at much lower levels of mortality and fertility. The intellectual basis of this
assumption was given by Aries in 1962 and Easterlin in 1973. The innate value of a child
to the parents and the cyclical nature of the wages in labor markets based on supply and
demand factors were supposed to underlie the fluctuations behind fertility below and
above replacement levels in the fourth and final stage of transition. But what has
happened during the post transitional stage in many of the developed countries is that
fertility levels are continuing to decline well below replacement and the population
growth in many European countries of the white populations are negative. Theories have
been advanced to explain why their fertility levels continue to fall, and why there is a
decreasing value of children in societies, preceded by declining rates of marriage and
increasing proportions of children born outside wedlock This phase was termed “the
second demographic transition” Van de Kaa and Ron Lesthaeghe in a paper in 1986.
They argued that the value of marriage and children declines because the adult population
tends to pursue higher goals than materialistic pursuits, mainly self actualization, as
postulated in Maslow’s theory of hierarchy of needs. In the first and second stages,
parents beget children for lineage according to natural fertility, (as God’s gifts). In the
third and fourth stages of transition, the parents desire to have better quality children, in
terms of education and health, and fertility regulation methods are adopted in the tradeoff
between quantity and quality. This desire to have better quality children is seen to the
main motivating factor behind contraceptive use and family limitation. With rising
individualism and disenchantments with materialism in the Western societies, children
lose their importance in the lives of adults, with the need for self actualization becoming
more important for many individuals. Along with religiosity, marriage, as a scared
institution within which procreation and child rearing is expected to take place are losing
their hold on the populations. (Lesthague 2010 and see Chart 3). In many of the
western societies which have achieved low fertility, the percentage of births outside
marriage is rising sharply and marriage as an institution of procreation and continuation
of lineage, is losing its hold on the people and it is predicted that this trend will envelope
the whole human race in the coming decades. In the United kingdom in 2005, more than
40% of the births were extra marital births and in many European countries this was
higher and rising. On the other hand in many Asian societies having low fertility the
percentage of women remaining unmarried during until 35 have dramatically increased,
between 1970 and 2000, from 7.2 to 26.6 in Japan, 8.1 to 16.1 in Thailand; from 1.4 to
10.7 in Korea; from 11.1 to 21.6 for Singapore Chinese and from 9.5 to 18.2 for
Malaysian Chinese. While births outside marriage are still rare among the countries of
Asia, an increasingly higher proportion of women chose to remain unmarried till the end
of their reproductive periods. It is difficult to predict as to how these changes will evolve
over time and hence the future course of fertility and the Second Demographic Transition
will take shape across the world.
V. Commonwealth Countries.
Demography of the Commonwealth Countries
The Commonwealth Countries (CWC) is an intergovernmental group of 54 countries
that were earlier colonies of Great Britain, and choosing to remain, even after their
political independence, as an association of independent nations including the United
Kingdom, working for their common welfare. They are unique in the sense that all of
them (excepting the colonizer, the United Kingdom) were colonized for many decades, if
not for centuries, and after independence have set up strong national governments for the
development of their populations. These 54 countries (See Annex 1 for full list with
current population) include 18 in Africa, 12 in Asia, 12 in America, 10 in Oceania and
2 in Europe. According to the World Population Prospects: the 2008 Revision of the
United Nations, in 2010, the CWC is home to a population of 2.162 billion within a land
area of 27 million sq.kms, while the total population of the world is placed at 6. 908
billion in 135 million sq.kms. The average population density in the CWC whole was 125
persons per sq km, more than three times the density in the rest of the world, the global
density being 48 persons per sq km. The commonwealth countries, as a whole, are a
densely populated group.
The CWC is characterized by extreme diversities in the various demographic,
economic and health parameters of the population living in different countries across the
globe with India with a population of 1.214 billion at one end and the island of Tuvalu in
Oceania with a population of 10,000 at the other end. ( Note: India’s population estimates
and projections by he United Nations have been consistently overestimated compared to
the Indian censuses and official projections by the Government of India) The total
population of CWC in 2010 is estimated at 2162.389 million. There are four countries in
CWC with population of over 100 million including India 1214 million; Pakistan 185
million; Bangladesh 164 million; and Nigeria with 158 million: there are 28 countries in
the population range 1 to 100 million and the remaining 22 countries are mostly island
countries with very small population in Oceania with a population less than a million.
Thus India’s population is more than half the population of CWC and the demographic
trends in the four large countries of the CWC are likely to determine the demography of
CWC as a whole.
Table 4 provides the list of countries classified according to their TFR values
estimated for the period 2005-10, into four groups , less than 2.1( replacement levels), 2.2
to 3.5, 3.5 to 5 and 5+.There are 15 countries below replacement levels with a total
population of 132 million(or 6% of the total population of CWC for which TFR data
were available), 12 countries with a total population of 1488 million with TFR between
2.2 and 3.5 ( 69% of the population), 10 countries with TFR between 3.5 and 5 with a
total population of 279 million (13% of the population)and 8 countries with a total
population of 262 million with a TFR greater than 5( 12% of the population).There are 9
countries with a total population of 1 million for which estimates of TFR values for 200510 period are not available. A pie chat of the countries grouped according to TFR is also
given (Chart 4)
The figures given in group 2 above i.e. TFR between 2.2 and 3.5 is misleading because
this group includes India with total population of 1261 million and a number of states
within India, 7 of them with a total population of 350 million (30% of the country’s
population) have already reached replacement or lower levels of fertility and if this is
added to the first group in CWC then the percent below replacement jumps to 25%.. This
is not done we have taken countries as the unit of analysis in this paper. The India states f
classified according to their TFR levels based on the recent data available from the
Sample Registration System are presented in Table 3.
The United Nations has classified the countries of the world ad “More Developed
Countries” (MDC) and “Less Developed Countries” (LDC)
for
purposes of
demographic and socio economic analysis and following this definition there are six
developed countries in CWC, Australia, Canada, Cyprus, Malta, New Zealand and United
Kingdom and the remaining 48 countries are LDCs and they are classified further into
three groups : large countries with over 100 million population (4 countries) (LDCL);
medium size countries (1 to 100 million population) with 24 countries (LDCM), and
small countries with less than 1 million population with 20 countries (LDCS). In the next
section we will provide an overview of the demographic conditions, recent trends and
future prospects of the region largely confining our findings to the macro level of the
nation-state, with brief illustrations of the variations that exist within a state, realizing
fully the enormous differentials that exist within a country particularly in India, Pakistan,
Bangladesh and Nigeria at the state, district, city and village levels.
VI. Population size, structure, distribution and growth
We will study the present demographic conditions of the commonwealth countries
separately in the four groups of countries as described above. The .data compiled and
analyzed from the United Nations publication “World Population Prospects- as assessed
in 2008” are presented in Table 5.
A. Most Developed Countries (MDC)
Among the six countries in this group, Cyprus and Malta are small island states in Europe
(with less than million population in each), and Australia and Canada have land areas
much more than that of India .The total population in this group is estimated at 122.9
million for 2010, comprising only 6% of the total population of the 54 countries in the
CWC. During the period 2005-10 the average annual growth rate of this group was
0.76% ranging from 0.37% in Malta to 1.07% in New Zealand. The growth rate in New
Zealand in recent years has been increasing because of permitting a larger number of
immigrants in the country.
The total fertility rate (TFR) of this population during 2005-10 is estimated at 1.77
ranging from 1.26 and 2.02; the crude birth rate is estimated at 11.9 ranging from 9 to
13.8; the expectation of life at birth at 80.2 years ranging from 79.7 to 81.5; the infant
mortality rate (IMR) at 4.7, ranging from 4.5 to 6.3 and the percentage urban at 82%
ranging from 70 to 95%..The percentage of the total dependent population (children aged
0 to 14 and older persons aged 60+ ) is estimated at 37.8% ranging from 35 to 38%.. The
Human Development Index estimated by the UN for 2010 is 0.87 (in 0 to 1 scale) ranging
from 0.8 to 0.9. It can be seen from these data for the six countries that the six countries
in the MDC group are in the fourth stage of demographic transition, are quite
homogenous and are uniformly developed economically and socially. Socio economic
and demographic convergence seems to have occurred in this group.
B. Less Developed Countries – Large ( LDCL)
In this group are included the four large developing countries, Bangladesh, India,
Nigeria and Pakistan and in 2010 they have a combined population of 1722 million or
80% of the total population of CWC., ranging from 164 million in Bangladesh to 1214 in
India.. As stated earlier, India alone accounts for more than half the population of CWC.
During the period 2005-10 the population of this group grew at 1.59% per year (almost
twice the rate of growth in the MDC group) ranging from 1.42 in Bangladesh to 2.33 in
Nigeria.. The growth rate in Nigeria is thus 70% higher than in Bangladesh..
The total fertility rate (TFR) of the population in LDCL during 2005-10 is estimated at
3.09 ranging from 2.36 to 5.32; the crude birth rate is estimated at 25.2 ranging from 21.6
to 40.1; the expectation of life at birth at 62.6 years ranging from 47.8 to 66.3; the infant
mortality rate (IMR) at 63 ranging from 44 o 109 and the percentage urban at 32%
ranging from 28 to 50%..The percentage of the total dependent population (children aged
0 to 14 and older persons aged 60+) is estimated at 41.28% ranging from 40 to 48%. The
Human Development Index estimated by the UN for 2010 is 0.48 (in 0 to 1 scale) ranging
from 0.0.41 to 0.49. While there are considerable variations in the demographic
conditions of the populations among these four countries they seem to be more
homogenous in their low levels of human development.
All these countries are , as a whole are in the third stage of demographic transition
,going to the fourth, though there are states or provinces within each country that have
actually reached the fourth stage of transition reaching the replacement levels of fertility.
Since these are very large countries it can be expected that the demographic conditions
would vary widely within different regions and socio economic groups during this stage
of transition; but they are all progressing to stage 4 and will reach replacement levels of
fertility by 2025. It is however .questionable whether they will experience an increasingly
higher proportion of births outside marriage as is happening in Europe, Australia,
Canada, New Zealand and Japan and enter into the Second Demographic Transition as
described above. If not the existing theories of transition with regard to their relevance
for all countries uniformly have to be reconsidered. Just to illustrate the extent of
variations that exist within a country as large as India, the levels trends in the TFR of four
states are given in Chart 4. The demographic levels and trends of this group will largely
determine those of the CWC and the world as a whole, and their behavior will require a
revisit to the existing theories on demographic transition.
C. Less Developed Countries_ Medium Populations (1 to 100 million) - (LDCM)
There are 24 countries of the Commonwealth in this group ranging from a population of
1.3 million in Swaziland to 52 million in South Africa. Population data are not available
from the recent UN sources for Tanzania included in this group. The total population in
this group of 23 countries, excluding Tanzania, is 313.4 million, or 14.5% of the total
population of CWC. During the period 2005-10 the average annual growth rate of this
group was very high at 2.08% ranging from 0.38% in Trinidad and Tobago to 3.27% in
Uganda. The high growth rate in Uganda is largely due to very high fertility levels still
prevailing in the country even in the context of falling mortality rates. Uganda is typical
of a country still in the second stage of demographic transition, a handful of such
countries in the globe.
The total fertility rate (TFR) of this population during 2005-10 is estimated at 4.21
ranging from 1.27 in Singapore and 6.38 in Uganda; the crude birth rate is estimated at
32.51 ranging from 14.1to 46.3; the expectation of life at birth at 56.25 years ranging
from 45.2 to 80.3; the infant mortality rate (IMR) at 68, ranging from 3 to 95 and the
percentage urban at 40% ranging from 14 to 100% in Singapore..The percentage of the
total dependent population (children aged 0 to 14 and older persons aged 60+) is
estimated at 44% ranging from 32 to 54%.. The Human Development Index estimated by
the UN for 2010 is 0.44 (in 0 to 1 scale) ranging from 0.27 to 0.83. It can be seen from
these data for the 23 countries that they are indifferent stages in demographic transition
with Singapore, probably in the Second Demographic Transition and Uganda in the first
stage of the of the first demographic transition. They are a very heterogeneous group but
the processes of demographic homogenization have been set in motion.
D. Less Developed Countries with Small populations less than a million (LDCS)
There are 20 countries in this group, all of them small island states in the Pacific with
total population of 4.75 million or 0.22 percent of the CWC population. They are small
countries ranging from a population of just 12,000 in Tuvalu island to 761000 in Guyana.
The demographic parameters of many of these countries are not estimated by the United
Nations, since these are affected largely by migration. From the data available for 13
countries it is found that during the period 2005-10 the average annual growth rate of this
group was 1.23% ranging from 0.0% to 2.46%.
The total fertility rate (TFR) of this population during 2005-10 is estimated at 3.21
ranging from 1.53 and 7.62; the crude birth rate is estimated at 22.46 ranging from 11.2
to 30.8; the expectation of life at birth at 74.8 years ranging from 66 to 77; the infant
mortality rate (IMR) at 27, ranging from 6 to 44 and the percentage urban at 43% ranging
from 19 to 100%..The percentage of the total dependent population (children aged 0 to 14
and older persons aged 60+) is estimated at 38.12% ranging from 32 to 45%. The Human
Development Index estimated by the UN for 2010 is 0.54 (in 0 to 1 scale) ranging from
0.4 to 0.8. It can be seen from these available data for small countries that their
demographic conditions are far better than the other developing countries with over 1
million population mostly because they are influenced by large number of migrants from
western countries visiting them for extended time on vacation or permanent settlement
there and the western demographic patterns and trends influence the behaviour of the
populations in these islands..
A graphic presentation of the differences in various demographic parameters of the four
groups of countries in the CWC is presented in Charts 4 to 12.
VII. Demographic Trends of six selected countries from the groups
In the above sections we studied the current demographic scenario of the 54 CWC
grouped into four categories as MDC, LDCL, LDCM and LDCS circa 2010. Though we
have compiled time- series data available on various indicators for each of the countries
from 1990 to 2030 from the UN Demographic Year Books, for the sake of brevity and
drawing of lessons on the nature of demographic transition among countries we selected
six countries, viz. Australia from the MDC group, India and Pakistan from the LDCL
group, Botswana and Ghana from the LDCM group and Guyana from the LDCS group
and the data are presented in Table 7. The time series data on the data on the Growth
rates, TFR, e(0), total dependency ratios and HDI values are presented in different panels
in the table. The table shows that in all demographic parameters excepting in HDI there is
a convergence in the values and narrowing of the existing gaps between developed and
less developed countries. On HDI though there is an improvement in all the six countries
the less developed countries are not able to close the gap in development in the next 20
years.
For example, Panel A of Table 6 provides the TFR values estimated for the for
quinquennial periods 1990-95 to 2005-10 and the projected values for the quinquennia
from 2010-15 to 2025-30 for the six selected countries. The slopes of the fertility curves
for each country as estimated from the data on TFR values from 1990 to 2010 are also
given in the last column of the table. It can be seen that the slope is negative for all the
countries and the higher the initial fertility rates, as for Pakistan at 5.67 during 1990-95,
the larger is the pace of decline at -0.111 in TFR per year. Same is true for Ghana and
Botswana. The pace of decline is much less for India and Guyana where the initial
fertility
levels are already low relatively. The pace of change is close to zero for
Australia and the TFR values had hardly changed during the past 20 years and there is a
declining trend example, upto 2005 and due to increased quota on immigration, it
increased between 2005 and 2010 and the value is planned to be kept constant at that
level at 1.85. Increased immigration and the higher fertility levels of the immigrants are
supposed to play a key role in jacking up the fertility rates and the growth rates of the
Australian Population in the coming years. What is interesting to note from this panel and
the other panels is that the fertility rates of all countries however divergent their initial
fertility levels may be are converging to replacement or below replacement levels of
fertility However the panels on life expectancy and HDI reveal that the significant
differentials that exist at present between the more developed and less developed
countries are likely to persist for many more decades because of large differentials in the
percapita incomes between these two groups of countries and the reductions in old age
mortality rates that the developed countries are continuing to make.
VIII. Conclusions
The 54 countries of the commonwealth have an estimated population of 2162 million
in 2010 and include only six developed countries and Singapore and Malaysia that can
also be included in the more developed category on the basis of their “Human
Development Index” and these eight countries together have only 7.5% of the population
of the CWC, and the remaining 46 less developed countries account for 92.5 % of the
population. The demographic characteristics of India that accounts for 56% of the
population of CWC (population of 1214 million) tend to determine the overall
demographic characteristics of the CWC. As a whole the region is poor, poorer than the
populations of LDCs outside the commonwealth. The silver lining is that they are all
rapidly controlling their mortality and fertility rates during the past four decades. During
2005-10, across all the countries the average values were 25 for CBR, 3.2 for TFR, 40 for
IMR, 65 years for expectation of life at birth and
0.59 for HDI. The mortality and
fertility rates of the 48 less developed countries in the CWC are declining quite rapidly
largely due to the efforts of the national governments through their various national
developmental programmes especially their public health and family planning
programmes.
There is no country in the first or the pre transition stage of demographic transition,
implying that in all the countries mortality rates have commenced their steady downward
trend, though in Botswana and South Africa, in the eighties and ‘nineties there was an
increase in death rates because of higher mortality due to HIV/ AIDs related diseases but
the declining trend has since been restored. Fifteen countries with a total population of
132 million are in the fourth stage ( TFR <2.1), 12 countries with 1488 million ( that
includes India) are in the final phases of the third stage ( TFR 2.3 to 3.5) and only eight
countries with a total population of 262 million have TFR over 5 during 2005-10.
What was achieved over more than a century in the developed world in terms of
increase in longevity and reductions in fertility have been achieved in many countries of
the region within a span of three decades. For example within India in 2008, 9 states with
a total population of 445 million or 43% of the population of the country have already
achieved replacement or low levels of fertility ( TFR<2.1) and this is almost four times
the population of the six developed countries of CWC. The gap in the various
demographic parameters between the more and less developed countries of the region is
rapidly disappearing and by 2030 the differentials in TFR and growth rates are expected
to be insignificant.
The differentials in the life expectancy and Human Development Index (HDI) seem to
persist because of large differences in percapita incomes even after adjusting for price
differentials across countries. The differentials in old age mortality rates and educational
attainments especially for females between the developed and developing countries seem
also to persist.
It has to be recognized that development is a relative term. Compared to the progress
made in the less developed countries outside the commonwealth, the 46 less developed
countries of CWC (excluding the six developed countries and Singapore and Malaysia)
are in general economically poorer and the pace of progress is slower, especially in HDI.
The remarkably better progress made in the “less developed countries” outside the
commonwealth is mostly due to the outstanding progress made by China with 1.4 billion
people in demographic transition and in the “human development index’. The total
population in the less developed region in the world as a whole works out to 82%,
compared to 94 % in the commonwealth group. Part of this relatively lower development
can be attributed to the long years or decades of colonization and exploitation that they
have suffered under the colonial rule; and partly, it can also be attributed to the
parliamentary form of governance that they have inherited from Great Britain. In the
CWC, the countries as Sri Lanka, Singapore and others that have adopted the Presidential
form of governance have recorded greater progress in improving expectations of life and
the Human Development. Similarly outside the Commonwealth, Brazil, China, Cuba,
South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and the Philippines that have adopted other systems of
governance have achieved greater progress in reductions of mortality and increase in HDI
values. It is a valid and useful research question for the political scientists and
demographers to examine based on a meta-analysis of the progress of the different
countries in demographic transition and human development in relation to the forms of
governance that they have adopted whether the political system and forms of governance
have in any way contributed to the differentials in the pace of social and economic
development of the countries.. The pace of demographic transition and HDI in the
coming decades is likely to be more influenced by the public policies and programmes in
the fields of education, health and social security adopted by the governments of these
countries than on the economic growth per se.
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