How to Understand the Demographic Transition Model

Five stages of the Demographic Transition Model.

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The Demographic Transition Model explains the transition from high birth rates and high death rates to low birth rates and low death rates as a country's economy develops from pre-industrial to industrialized. The model is characterized by five stages. It is useful in demography and population geography. Social scientists use the model as a tool for examining population development in countries and regions around the world.

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Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

Population Geography or Demography textbook
Image or chart of the demographic transition model

Step1

Stage 1: High birth rates are balanced by high death rates. Common of pre-industrial societies.

Step2

Stage 2: Death rates drop rapidly while birth rates remain high. Common of developing countries. The death rates drop due to advances in sanitation, food supply, which improves health levels and health care, and increases life spans. Because birth rates remain high while death rates decline, a country in this stage experiences a high increase in population growth.

Step3

Stage 3: Birth rates begin to decline due to increasing urbanization, increasing wages, access to contraception, a reduction in child labor, greater equality between men and women including better education for women, and additional social changes. The population begins to head towards equilibrium again in this stage.

Step4

Stage 4: Low birth rates are balanced by low death rates, and the population becomes stable. Characteristic of highly developed countries.

Step5

Stage 5: The traditional model only has four stages, but some social scientists argue that a fifth stage is needed in the model to illustrate what occurs in countries that have deindustrialized and transitioned from a manufacturing and industrial based economy to a post-industrial service oriented economy. Scholars believe that this stage is characterized by populations reproducing below their replacement levels, which means they are not reproducing often enough to replace their parents' generation in a particular country.