This is a normal, not abnormal trend in more developed countries
like Singapore.
It shows that Singapore is a normal country.
Most stable
and primitive societies, such as the American Indians before 1492
or medieval Europe, have no great population problem because the
birthrate is balanced by the death rate.
In such societies both of these are high, the
population is stable, and the major portion of that population is
young (below eighteen years of age). This kind of society
(frequently called Population Type A) is what existed in Europe in
the medieval period (say about 1400) or even in part of the early
modern period (say about 1700).
As a
result of the increased supply of food in Europe after 1725, and of
men's increased ability to save lives because of advances in
sanitation and medicine after 1775, the death rate began to fall,
the birthrate remained high, the population began to increase,
and the number of older persons in
the society increased.
This gave rise to what we have called the demographic
explosion (or Population Type B). As a result of it, the population
of Europe (beginning in western Europe) increased in the nineteenth
century, and the major portion of that population was in the prime
of life (ages eighteen to forty-five), the arms-bearing years for
men and the childbearing years for women.
At this point the
demographic cycle of an expanding population goes into a third
stage (Population Type C) in which
the birthrate also begins to fall.
The reasons for this fall in the birthrate have never
been explained in a satisfactory way, but, as a consequence of it,
there appears a new demographic condition marked
by a falling birthrate, a low death rate, and a stabilizing and
aging population whose major part is in the mature years from
thirty to sixty.
As the population gets older because of the decrease in
births and the increase in expectation of life, a larger and larger
part of the population has passed the years of hearing children or
bearing arms. This
causes the birthrate to decline even more rapidly, and eventually
gives a population so old that the death rate begins to rise again
because of the great increase in deaths from old age or from the
casualties of inevitable senility.
Accordingly, the society passes into a fourth stage of
the demographic cycle (Population Type D). This
stage is marked by a declining birthrate, a rising death rate, a
decreasing population, and a population in which the major part is
over fifty years of age.
It must be confessed that
the nature of the fourth stage of this demographic cycle is based
on theoretical considerations rather than on empirical observation,
because even western Europe, where the cycle is most advanced, has
not yet reached this fourth stage.
However, it seems quite likely that it will pass into
such a stage by the year 2000, and already the increasing number of
older persons has given rise to new problems and to a new science
called geriatrics both in western Europe and in the eastern United
States.
As we have said, Europe
has already experienced the first three stages of this demographic
cycle as a result of the Agricultural Revolution after 1725 and the
Sanitation-Medical Revolution after 1775.
As these two revolutions have diffused outward from
western Europe to more peripheral areas of the world (the
lifesaving revolution passing the food-producing revolution in the
process), these
more remote areas have entered, one by one, upon the demographic
cycle.
This means that the demographic explosion (Population
Type B) has moved outward from western Europe to Central Europe to
eastern Europe and finally to Asia and
Africa.
By the middle of the twentieth century, India was fully
in the grasp of the demographic explosion, with its population
shooting upward at a rate of about 5 million a year, while Japan's
population rose from 55 million in 1920 to 94 million in 1960.
A
fine example of the working of this process can be seen in Ceylon
where in 1920 the birthrate was 40 per thousand and the death rate
was 32 per thousand, but in 1950 the birthrate was still at 40
while the death rate had fallen to 12.
Before we examine the impact of this development on
world history in the twentieth century let us look at two brief
tables which will clarify this process.
The demographic cycle may
be divided into four stages which we have designated by the first
four letters of the alphabet. These four stages can be
distinguished in respect to four traits: the birthrate, the death
rate, the number of the population, and its age distribution. The
nature of the four stages in these four respects can be seen in the
following table:
The Demographic Cycle
Stage A B C D
Birthrate High High Falling Low
Death
rate High Falling Low Rising
Numbers
Stable Rising Stable Falling
Age
Many
young Many in
prime Many
Middle-aged Many old
Distribution (Below
18) (18-45) (Over
30) (Over
50)
The consequences of this
demographic cycle (and the resulting demographic explosion) as it
diffuses outward from western Europe to more peripheral areas of
the world may be gathered from the following table which sets out
the chronology of this movement in the four areas of western
Europe, central Europe, eastern Europe, and Asia:
Diffusion of the Demographic Cycle
Areas
Western Central Eastern
Dates Europe Europe Europe Asia
1700 A A A A
1800 B A A A
_______
1850 B
| B A A
|________________
1900 C B
| B A
|________________
1950 C C B
| B
|____________
2000 D D C B
In this table the line of
greatest population pressure (the demographic explosion of Type B
population) has been marked by a dotted line. This shows that there
has been a sequence, at intervals of about fifty years, of four
successive population pressures which might be designated with the
following names:
Anglo-French
pressure, about 1850
Germanic-Italian
pressure, about 1900
Slavic
pressure, about 1950
Asiatic
pressure, about 2000
This diffusion of
pressure outward from the western European core of Western
Civilization can contribute a great deal toward a richer
understanding of the period 1850-2000. It helps to explain the
Anglo-French rivalry about 1850, the Anglo-French alliance based on
fear of Germany after 1900, the free-world alliance based on fear
of Soviet Russia after 1950, and the
danger to both Western Civilization and Soviet Civilization from
Asiatic pressure by 2000...
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