Demographic Changes

Abstract

According to Professor Rosling,^† in the 1950s the world did indeed consist of two broad sets of countries: the developing countries where families tended to be larger with between five and eight children per woman and life expectancies at birth of between 30 to 50 years; and the developed nations with between two to four children per woman and longer life expectancies of 55 to 75 years old. The world was very much us and them.

“The old mindset is one of ‘us’ and ‘them’… the Western world as a long life in a small family and the developing world as a short life in a large family…Size of family is really about the bedroom; whether a man and woman decide to have a small family… Length of life is about the bathroom and the kitchen — if you have soap, water and food you can live long.”

Hans Rosling, Professor of International Health, Karolinska Institute, and Chairman of the Gapminder Foundation¹

Demography is the study of size, structure and distribution of populations, and changes in them in response to birth, migration, aging and death. Social demography also analyzes the relationships between economic, social, cultural and biological processes influencing a population.