1. Summary
- What is demography?
Demography is a study of the dynamics of population. This population movement can serve as a sociological indicator. Through this, we can see how people cope with death or disease. Human can also prepare for future risks through similar past experiences.
Demography is rooted in the sociological development that accompanies the science and industrial revolution. Some early mathematicians developed primitive forms of life tables, which are a sign of life expectancy. These were for insurance and pragmatic purposes. Another demographic tool, the Census, was mainly used for political purposes. For example, as a basis for taxation or political tendencies.
Demography depends on huge amounts of big data coming from census and registered statistics. These data are collected over a long period of time and analyze their trends. However, reliable data is still difficult to obtain.
2. Interesting contents
- Malthus's population theory
Malthus is the first full-time economist to be a UK demographer. He created a great wave through his book, Quantum Theory. The key issue of population theory was the outcome of his argument with his father. His father had the idea that as an optimist, population growth should be encouraged because of virtue. Malthus, however, argued that this population growth would lead to a vicious cycle of poverty.
"Population grows exponentially (if it is not restrained) and food increases arithmetically." This means that human beings tend to give birth to as many offspring as possible, so if they neglect it, catastrophic events will inevitably occur because food production can not catch up with population growth. Malthus argued that since the population doubled every 25 years, the ratio between population and living material would be 256 to 9 after two centuries, to be 4096 to 13 after three centuries, and that the difference after 2000 would be almost impossible to calculate.
However, Malthus's claim was missed. He could not precisely predict that as the economy grows, people's income and education levels rise and the number of women who participate in economic activities declines. Recently, Korea and other developed countries have suffered from a very low birth rate and a declining population aging population, contrary to Malthus' s claim. In addition, the development of science and technology and the rate of increase of industrial productivity were much faster than the expectation of Malthus. As a result, the production of many products, including food, has risen by more than the rate of population growth. These Malthus's arguments teach that humanity must constantly seek ways to conserve resources and achieve sustainable growth, even though it has not been predicted correctly.
3. Discussion
What are some ways to keep populations at the right numbers?
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