Reference sheet submission

• Submit your reference sheets on MyCourses by 11:59pm tonight (Feb 19)
• Only one member of each group needs to submit
• Assignments ➧ Midterm reference sheet upload

Reference sheet participation

• Many students have not participated in planning or creating the exam reference sheets
• If only one or two group members contributed to the reference sheet, please let me know in a private message
• The creation of the reference sheets will be reorganized for the final exam

Population pyramids
(a.k.a. age pyramids)

• Ubiquitous visual tool in demography
• Picture of the ‘shape’ of an entire population
• Shows size of a population at different ages
• Can compare sub-populations on right and left
  (traditionally gender binary)

Population pyramids
(a.k.a. age pyramids)

• Ubiquitous visual tool in demography
• Picture of the ‘shape’ of an entire population
• Shows size of a population at different ages
• Can compare sub-populations on right and left
  (traditionally gender binary)

Global population

• Increased from about 1.6 billion in1900 to about 6 billion in 2000
• 7 billion in 2012
• 8 billion in 2022
• Continuous growth since 14th century

Malthusian theory (18th–19th century)

• Based on Thomas Robert Malthus’ (1766–1834) ideas about the capacity of the earth for human populations
• Food, violence, and disease create “positive checks” on population
• Low fertility provides “preventive checks”
• Predicted a cycle of growth and decline of human population

Theories similar to Malthus' are common

• Ecological theories of resource limitations
  Formal models of populations in resource-scarce environments
• Either cyclic (as in Malthus’ theory) or predict slow decline in population growth
  “Sigmoid” or “logistic” growth
• Still, global population continues to grow
  Though growth rate peaked in the early 1960s

Demographic transition theory

• By far the most widespread theory of population change in social sciences
• Aims to explain the empirical observation that birth and death rates have both dropped significantly over the past few hundred years
• Major claim:
  Changes associated with industrialization and modernization cause subsequent changes in mortality and fertility

Demographic transition in four “stages”

Demography and politics

• In groups of 2 or 3, come up with a few examples of the ways that fertility rates are discussed in political contexts (e.g. discourse around immigration, education, healthcare, aging, …)