Questions and comments from Kate

Questions and comments from Kate

by Kate Chirikova -

"The causes and consequences of demographic transition" by D. Canning

  1. In his paper Canning challenges different existing arguments about the causes and consequences of demographic transition. For example, in relation to urbanization transition, there is a view that excess labor pushes people from rural areas while industrialization and high wages pull people in the cities. But Canning notes that there are cases (e.g. Africa) where we see no evidence of such mechanism. Or how there are various possible causes for the fertility transition, such as decrease in child deaths, economic growth, contraception, shift in social norms. But Canning challenges these mechanisms as well. In this context Canning mentions difficulty to establish causality when drawing a link between some factor and demographic transition, in part because of possible reverse causation bias. I wonder if there actually exist appropriate instruments to infer causality in such big picture processes, such as demographic transitions in different countries? Or maybe all we can do is detect associations and build plausible theories based on that?
  2. I’m a little confused by the use of the words “exogenous” vs. “endogenous” processes. What do they mean in the context of this paper? Does exogenous mean that demographic transition happens on its own, with no particular factor causing it?
"The idea of demographic transition and the study of fertility change: a critical intellectual history" by S. Szreter

  1. Very interesting to read about the history of demography embedded in the political, economic, and social context of the USA. It looks like for many years demography was holding dearly to the idea of demographic transition, or fertility transition, and trying to adjust the world to its theoretical model. In the conclusion Szreter encourages a more empirical approach in demography. He encourages applying a wider range of analytical tools to study fertility change in particular communities. This sounds very similar to epidemiology. And I guess this could be the answer to my question about causality in demographic studies (addressed to Canning paper). If we want to study causal questions, we need to move from overarching big theories to empirical studies of specific populations and communities.

Re: Questions and comments from Kate

by Nadia Diamond-Smith -
Great comments and thoughts Kate. To answer your question about terminology, yes, the use of exogenous here means the theory is that mortality decline occurs on its own, unrelated to say fertility decline, as opposed to fertility decline and mortality decline influencing each other in more of a feedback processes (or endogenous). Another way to think of it is that it is driven by external factors, rather than those related to other demographic processes.

Re: Questions and comments from Kate

by Leah Koenig -
Hi Kate,

In response to your comment about the Szreter article, I enjoyed reading the paper and appreciated how he tied the history of the study of fertility control to Western geopolitical interests.

In addition to arguing for a wider range of analytic tools to understand fertility decline, I also wish he had addressed the issue of who is conducting the research. Research designed by researchers from the communities under study (who are divorced from those interests) will likely better serve Szreter's goal of understanding the "intra-national factors that might produce observable and manipulable variation in fertility behavior within a single cultural regime".

Szreter's article also raised for me the question of whether fertility decline is still a relevant objective to study at all? Especially given the ambiguous causal relationship between fertility decline and economic development, and contemporary understanding that the Global North is disproportionately responsible for environmental degradation.

Re: Questions and comments from Kate

by Kate Chirikova -
Hi Leah,

Thank you for bringing up the question of whether fertility decline is a relevant objective to study. I wonder if I understood your thoughts correctly. Do you mean that since "controlled" fertility doesn't really help environment and fertility decline doesn't really translate into economic development, then why should we care about setting particular objectives for fertility numbers in the world? This is an interesting thought! Especially in relation to my impression of what currently happens in Russia in terms of the fertility policy -- looks like they are aiming for the increase in fertility, e.g. by giving monetary incentives to families with multiple children or restricting legal abortions.