IGNOU HISTORY NOTES : History Of Modern Europe (Mid 18th to 20th Centuries)- DEMOGRAPHY

IGNOU HISTORY Study Notes for IAS, UPSC Exams

History Of Modern Europe Mid 18th to Mid 20th Centuries

DEMOGRAPHY

Structure

12.0 Objectives
12.1 lnuoduction
1 ? .2 Approaches
12.3 Sources
12.4 Population Trends 1750 - 1850
12.4.1 Migration
12.5 Fertility and Nuptiality
12.6 Changes in Marriage Patterns
1 2.7 Mortality
12.8 Population and Resources - 1
12.9 Population and Resources - I1
12.10 The Late 19th Century and Beyond
12.10.1 Mortality
12.10.2 Aye Structure
12.10.3 Wars and Migration
12.10.4 Urbanization
12.11 Let Us Sum Up
12.12 Key Words
12.13 Answers to Check Your Progress Exercises

12.0 OBJECTIVES

After reading the unit you should be able to:
identify the various approaches towards understanding demographic transitions in Europe between 1750 - 1850;
identify the sources used for constructing this demographic history;
understand how variables like fertility, nuptiality or mortality assume different significance in different periods; and
understand how different writers have made different kinds of linkages between population and economic growth.

12.1 INTRODUCTION

This Unit looks at the demography of Europe in the two centuries beginning from 1750. During this period the population of Europe continuously expanded though at varying rates. Tlie
changing rates of population growth, its determinants and its relation to social and econo~iiic
conditions forni the subject of this Unit. At the most basic level the interplay between births,
deaths and migration subjects every population to a continuous process of changes over time.
Changes in fertility and mortality were themselves the result of interrelated demogripliic and
nondeniograpluc phenoniena. It must be kept in mind that the niechanisms and deterininants
of population change varied greatly in time and across the different regions of Europe.

12.2 APPROACHES

Tlie leading approach in deinography until tlie mid- 1970 was based on tlie delilographic transition tl~eory. This partdescription, part-theory posited a tripartite transition composed of a
pre-transitional pliase of high fertility lugh niortality and consequently a slow population b~owtli:
a tra~isitional pliase of falling mortality and constant or not falling fertility leading to rap~d
populat~on growth and a third phase of low vital rates with slow or no growth. This class~c
trans~tion theory, a version of niodernization theory. argued for a unilinear progression froin
primitive to advanced societies, fuelled by the forces of industralization and urbatiizarion.