A Critical Review of Timothy Dyson, 2001, A Partial Theory of World Development: The Neglected Role of the Demographic Transition in the Shaping of Modern Society, International Journal of Population Geography, vol. 7, no. 2, pp 67-90.
Introduction
As the title and the author indicated, the role of demographic transition may not be attached much weight comparing with economic transition in recent researches that discussed and analyzed different factors of the modernization process in the world (Dyson, 2001). In this circumstance, Dyson, a professor from population studies, composed this article to argue the central position of the demographic transition, and to emphasise its neglected role which usually been underestimated in the world modernization process. The author organised his argument by discussing and linking these three key elements —— mortality decline, fertility decline and urbanisation. The internal connection of these three elements is that the sustainable and stable mortality will cause fertility decline and urbanisation, and then urbanisation within different types of migration lead to complex social structural transformation and fertility decline stimulate …show more content…
Dyson used these examples to show that although different context would cause unequal changing time-depths and various transformation ways to demographic transition, the demographic transitions in different place and timing have the same basic rule —— the mortality declines first; the fertility declines later; and population grow in this gap. As he mentioned, the examples of some backward developing countries, such as Chile and India, the change may be slow and take long-run period, however, the rule of demographic transition is mainly
Introduction
As the title and the author indicated, the role of demographic transition may not be attached much weight comparing with economic transition in recent researches that discussed and analyzed different factors of the modernization process in the world (Dyson, 2001). In this circumstance, Dyson, a professor from population studies, composed this article to argue the central position of the demographic transition, and to emphasise its neglected role which usually been underestimated in the world modernization process. The author organised his argument by discussing and linking these three key elements —— mortality decline, fertility decline and urbanisation. The internal connection of these three elements is that the sustainable and stable mortality will cause fertility decline and urbanisation, and then urbanisation within different types of migration lead to complex social structural transformation and fertility decline stimulate …show more content…
Dyson used these examples to show that although different context would cause unequal changing time-depths and various transformation ways to demographic transition, the demographic transitions in different place and timing have the same basic rule —— the mortality declines first; the fertility declines later; and population grow in this gap. As he mentioned, the examples of some backward developing countries, such as Chile and India, the change may be slow and take long-run period, however, the rule of demographic transition is mainly