Gérard-François Dumont
Professor of Economics and Political Geography. Université de la Sorbonne, Paris
The easiest way to understand the demographics of the population as a science is to make a step back in time, considering first the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, to go back to the beginning of ' Christian era, to the centuries preceding the history of civilization. Only after this analysis, which includes a period of rather large, you can specify the method used by the population, before talking about the special relationship that this scientific discipline has over time. Finally, it will be convenient to clarify the key demographic trends of thought, showing above all that many statements on the increase in population have too often been inspired by ideology rather than a serious analysis of demographic questions (see Dumont, 1997).
I. What is demography: definition and historical origins
1. Science from a very ancient . In 1855, the French Achille Guillard published a work entitled Elements of statistics comparative with the subtitle: Demographics compared. Since the appearance of this book, the term 'population' is used to indicate a scientific discipline that was previously called "political arithmetic." Paradoxically, the book of Achille Guillard quality is not very scientific. Already more than a century before a researcher had made the first scientific study on the demographics, the date can be established with certainty, where the birth rate is one of the core areas of research: it is January 25, 1662, when they are printed by a publisher London the natural and political observations classified according to the index following bulletin mortality. This book, written by John Graunt, by simply adding "citizen of London," on the cover showed the following caption: "In relation to the government, religion, trade, growth, the environment, disease and the various changes that town."
The complete reading of this cover gives already implicit in the definition of population according to John Graunt, as it is, considering the mortality rate to assess the relationship of these factors with the reality and the political, economic, geographical. The book, which still had a great editorial success, was just one of the fields of demography: mortality. This is not they wanted to not ignore other aspects, but remember that we are in 1662: mortality, since the beginning of human history until the nineteenth century, will dominate the reality that the pace of demographic regimes, the death is, therefore, the key event and the question of prime importance in people's lives.
sources demographics are prior to the first scientific work that dealt with the subject: history teaches that many civilizations, in different continents, they resorted to the census. In China, the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) establishes the principle of the decennial census. Around the same time, in America, the Inca civilization in organizing XIV and XV of very detailed surveys. More than a thousand years before the Christian era began with a census, the most famous of humanity, on the orders of Caesar Augustus in the Roman Empire. The Gospel according to St. Luke states: "In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that a census should be of the whole earth. This first census took place while he was governor of Syria, Quirinius. All went to be enrolled, each to his city. Even Joseph, who was of the house and lineage of David, from the town of Nazareth in Galilee for Judaea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, to be enrolled with Mary his betrothed, who was pregnant ( Lk 2:1-5).
before the Christian era, the idea of \u200b\u200bmaking a count of the population is already present. In the Old Testament, the Second Book of Samuel explains how God is interested in the number of elected members: during the reign of David, "the anger of the LORD burned against Israel and urged the new David and the people in this way:" On , is' a census of Israel and Judah "(2 Sam 24.1). After nine months and twenty days of investigation, from Tyre to Sidon, which were Canaanite in the land, even to Beer-Sheba, Joab the commander of the army, he returned to report, "there were in Israel eight hundred thousand warriors wielding the sword, five hundred thousand in Judah (2 Sam 24.9). In the Old Testament are mentioned in chapter 26 of the Book of Numbers , that Moses received from God, a year and a month after escaping from Egypt, the order of counting every family in the community of the children of Israel. This interest in the numbers present in the Old Testament, follows the practice of all great civilizations, as they did in Athens at the time of Pericles, at or before the Sumerians or Assyrians.
The practice of making observations demographically useful, therefore, is much older than science itself. The contemporary demography of many benefits of inheritance census techniques, although their results have disappeared with the decline of these civilizations. In fact, the Roman practice of the census will not be practiced regularly on European lands until the nineteenth century.
2. Some definitions competitors. If we take account of this long history, as is proper to define the demographics? The recurrent question is to ask whether this science must be limited to purely quantitative or consider that his true calling is to try to combine some essential knowledge of numeric type with qualitative aspects.
Historically, the first definition of this science, not yet known by the name of demography, appears in 'Encyclopedia (1751-1772) of Diderot and d'Alembert: "The political arithmetic is a discipline whose remarks are intended for research relevant to the art of governing peoples, such as the number of men who live in a country, the amount of food they should consume, and the work they can do, and the fertility of the earth, the frequency of flooding, etc... "
This definition includes two key concepts, the 'number of men who live in a country "and" the time they have to live, "that is, their effective life and their life expectancy, two concepts related to the conditions life (food, work, resources, accidents, natural hazards, etc.).. The term "arithmetic" sums up the numerical aspects of the discipline, while the term 'political' points out that the data arithmetic must be resolved by politics and should serve as a reflection of its action.
Recently several definitions have focused on the quantitative aspect. The Trésor de la langue française (1978) uses the word "statistics" to define the population as "a science that has as its object the statistical study of human society in its basic structure, social, intellectual, etc..." The Petit Robert , alphabetical dictionary of the French language, gives the following definition of demography, "the statistical study of the human community." On the contrary, the definitions developed by demographers do not give reason only of the statistical aspects. In fact, the Dictionnaire de Démographie (cable glands, 1979) does not include the word "statistics" in its definition of demography, there referred to as the "study of human populations." Similarly, the Multilingual Thesaurus de population demography offers a rather broad definition of "science, having as its object the study of populations in all respects in relation to their size, structure and evolution" ( Population Information Network, New-York-Paris 1984, p. 44).
These definitions go beyond the idea that the demographic data would be considered inaccessible, since they consist only of digits in an avalanche ever more indigestible. Now, restrict the population to strictly quantitative analysis it means to fall, according to Pierre George, a "logomachy the number." In this case the population would, in the words of Alfred Sauvy (1959) in his lecture at the College de France, "a simple branch of mathematics, set theory renewed." This would limit it to a mere 'counting of men "(see Sauvy, 1976).
It's easy to settle for men to consider how to study the books of a library or flowers of a garden, that is, as a whole and not individually. But the 'homo demographicus exists as the' homo economicus , ie as an object invented by some economists to construct theories that allow to rule their whims, mood swings, changes in behavior of the real man. When you examine the population as a whole, its behavior respond to logic, especially culture, which often exceeds the knowledge that each of us to live according to this logic. The population can not analyze the causes and consequences regardless of the political, economic, sociological, historical, geographical ... Of course: there is no population figures, since these are the basis, as an instrument of measurement data, each its analysis. The numerical data is a necessary means for understanding the demographic, but not an end in itself.
II. The method of demography in the world of social science
study of its definition leads to the conclusion that demography is part of the social sciences, since this discipline has as its subject certain aspects of human society. In this sense, the population uses a method that can be divided into six points.
1. The observation of the basic demographic events. The first is to observe the realities and developments of the population. This is to reflect the basic demographic events: births, marriages, deaths and migration. This exercise needs to have been civilians, and censuses in countries better organized, population registers, which expose the continuous updating of the population of the territory. It should be recorded that in many countries, even those in more developed instruments for the registration of events basic demographics are sometimes lacking or deficient. These difficulties can result from several factors. For example, the methods used by the U.S. census are subject to periodic criticism, while France may not have a permanent administrative body that can measure the migration. The demographics used, as a result, indirect methods for assessing the migration, but can have only an estimate, rather than a measure of the intensity of immigration and emigration. May resort to the use of less direct demographic sources, such as are the files of social welfare organizations or students of a school.
In most the countries in the developing, knowledge of demographic events is only partial censuses very old or unreliable, incomplete marital status, etc.. The actual population figures and demographic trends are then by calculations that depend on estimates or extrapolations. The Population Reference Bureau, in its report on world population (World Population Data Sheet ) published every year, the country code according to the quality of their demographics. This information is from "A" for the countries with the "full statistics and a national survey conducted during the last ten years" (or a permanent record) to 'D' for the countries for which there are "little or no information available, and therefore the estimates are based on fragmentary data or demographic models. The observation of reality is often difficult also because of the falsity of official information are sometimes provided.
to these difficulties there have been delays in the counting of civilians, the censuses and surveys, and France, for example, has the birth numbers by regions and departments, only three or four years after their registration in the state civil . When the results of a given census appear several years after its development, the information offered, presented as new, have in fact, a historical value than perhaps a reality that has already changed. Overall, knowledge of demographic events have difficulties similar to those of economic reality. Yet, more often, there has been a minor delay in the publication of economic data, as the figures relate to the use or production compared to the delay with which the figures are announced on the birth rate, mortality and migration.
2. The breakdown of the basic observations . The second stage of the demographic method is to decompose the observed reality. The four basic demographic events, ie births, marriages, deaths and migration, we just say something global and remain insufficient for a thorough knowledge of demographic trends, their causes and their consequences. We must therefore break down these observations to benefit from an approach allowing a better understanding of reality. As for the birth, to know the address of the mother is important because many of them give birth in maternity wards of large cities, which are also the places where the birth is registered away from home. Other issues on the birth rate, as for example the sex of the child or the mother's age, possible to calculate the rate of fertility in general or in relation to age, nationality, social status of membership of the new born. It is also useful to distinguish the number of births within marriage than outside it. The study of mortality must also take into account other factors to discriminate, such as the possible difference between the place of death and domicile of the deceased, the person's sex, age and nationality of death and the cause of death itself.
As for the marriage breakdown of the information is needed to study the different characteristics: the age of the spouses, their geographic origins, their socio-professional categories, their nationality, whether it is for each spouse , an initial marriage or after marriage, if they are legitimate or not children born before their marriage. The evolution of the number of marriages may also depend on legislative changes or new social attitudes. The study of marriage is also generally supports the examination of its opposite, that the divorce, which implies the consideration of the regulation and the points already mentioned above (age of divorced persons, class of divorced, number and ages of children at time of divorce ) or other complementary elements: how many years the marriage lasted, the type of divorce, the origin of the application for divorce, the role of factors external to the divorce.
migration requires a breakdown of data that refer to events even more diverse (see Dumont, 1995). Primary issues that we can ask ourselves (gender, age, occupation and nationality of migrants, geographic origin, geographic destination) are the specific characteristics of migration: temporary or permanent migration, internal to a country or international, main reason for migration (decision a company to send an employee to a foreign branch, an individual's decision to join his family, hoping to find better living conditions, force majeure caused by a foreign army or a militia, establishment of a new regime political), due to general migration (economic, political, economic, political, demographic).
The actual presence of a population in a territory, it deserves to be seen as questioning on seniority of the population, distinguishing age and sex of the population. This allows you to build a "pyramid of age", which is what the demographics of an area are the papers for geography: a sort of double histogram that represents the population by sex and age at some point, registering all demographic events over a century. Further breakdowns of the effectiveness of a population to distinguish its distribution geographical, socio-professional, by nationality, to distinguish the urban from the rural population, etc..
3. The study of the frequency of events . Once this work of observation of events and basic demographic analysis or breakdown of data according to their nature has been carried out, a third stage can help to treat their frequency and amplitude, thanks to an essential characteristic of demography: its power interpretation, since the population allows us to extract general interpretations from individual behavior.
The choice of a birth usually depends on the desire a pair. Similarly, the choice to marry (at least in Western countries) is not imposed by society, but the result is usually a personal decision. As for death, although it is inevitable, it occurs in different ways and times and the unpredictable: it can kill a baby, a child may be involved in an accident, an adult may succumb to an illness, an elderly person died of heart disease. All these individual demographic events appear to lack any logic or consistency. However, they lead to understand that if the lifespan of a person belonging to a certain generation is quite uncertain to be collected, you can determine the life expectancy of the generation that person belongs. So demographic events and their causes direct detect individual behavior or decisions of couples (chosen to migrate, to marry, to have a baby, to put an end to their day ...), and the sum of these various events reveals the logic of ' all of which should be taken into account. The sum of individual demographic events of a generation or more, is part of a logic that is repeated several times in several years. For example, the average life expectancy of people who are older than 50 years, unless radical structural changes, a figure expected.
Demography thus allows, taking into account the sum of individual behavior, to measure the overall behavior of a population. For this purpose we will use various statistical methods, calculating rates or indexes that help to provide the state and the lives of people, comparisons over time and compare with other populations: birth rates, mortality, infant mortality, natural growth , growth, migration, marriage, reproduction, fertility rates, divorce, birth of the relations between men and women, life expectancy at birth and at different stages of life (see Dumont, 1992).
4. Development of schemes of interpretation . The analysis of the frequency of demographic trends (interest rates, indices, reports, etc..) allows, in a fourth stage, to propose schemes of interpretation.
One of the most popular schemes, although sometimes presented in a manner not entirely correct, is that the "demographic transition" (see Chesnais, 1986). You want to indicate that this transitional phase in which the peoples of today have passed or are still going through, from birth rates and high mortality to low fertility and mortality. Apart from the diversity of ages and intensity, the location of the different populations within such a transition is similar. In the first stage of demographic transition, economic progress and health leads to a rapid decline in mortality, while the birth rate remains relatively high. So the increasing difference between births and deaths for an increase in the rate of population growth. Then, in a second phase, the birth rate adapts to new conditions of mortality. Couples understand that to have the desired number of children able to survive, can also lower their fertility as infant mortality and adolescent has fallen sharply. Then the growth rate decreases until the full completion of the transition. Another scheme is to comply with the previous finding of a report, as opposed to first set out, including birth and infant mortality: countries with high infant mortality rate also generally have a high fertility or vice versa. The level of fertility can thus be explained by the "conditions" of mortality.
Other diagrams show that, in some populations, it can ask the exact relationship between the number of births out of wedlock and the number of marriages that legitimize the child: "regularization" increase according to the increase of births outside marriage. As for the relationship between fertility and marriage, since the fertility out marriage is weaker than that of married women, in general, any decrease in marriage due to a decrease in fertility. Another explanatory scheme is what distinguishes the age in which they marry girls than in boys in the contract. In some populations the curves of the two trends are often parallel, as if men ever get married at the age of three or four years more than women, regardless of the time evolution of the average age of marriage.
All these examples are just explanatory diagrams and can not be regarded as the true laws with respect to their characteristics: schemas are descriptive, interpretative and have a prospective character, but not predictive, does not apply in the same way in all populations, the fees are only reference to observe, analyze and understand the evolution of a given population. So the pattern of demographic transition as to verify the demographic dynamics of contemporary populations, to interpret the differences between the schema and the actual measurements, to imagine the possible development of a population of a developing country, but does not allow specify a priori the intensity and rhythm of this time evolution.
5. The wording of laws . Following his method, demographics, like any science, is looking for even more stringent rules that are based on laws, possibly drawn from these patterns of interpretation. For example, given that medicine can not determine with accuracy the ability of a woman to be fertile, demographics can lead to investigations that allow to relate the decline in fertility with the years and concluded that a universal law, permanent which will be valid until a future drug therapy will allow women over forty years of having the same fertility as those who have twenty.
Another law highlighted the demographic character is practically a fixed rate of male births, in every society and every period of this figure is virtually identical: they are born one hundred and five males per hundred females. The permanence of this relationship is that the German demographer Süssmilch Johann Peter (1707-1767) titled one of his demographic The divine order, whereas the rules of discovery were so extraordinary that it can be considered divine. In addition, highlighting the highest birth rate of males is completed by the law of higher mortality of the same, except in dealing with people in a socially different males and females. It is as if nature, creating a gender imbalance at birth would put a remedy to the future with this imbalance of mortality. Demographic analysis can also highlight other laws: in all countries that have achieved a high level of health, mortality is less than ten per thousand and life expectancy of females is higher than that of men, another example: Every Unlike economic causes migration to countries that have a strong economic creativity.
Equally important are the laws by studying the demographic transition. Although the demographic transition is neither a theory nor a law, an examination of the facts highlights certain regularities in the population dynamics and thus the existence of laws that can be drawn from that. As the primary law, the demographic transition corresponding to the decrease in mortality can not be endogenously, if not within a population which has reached a certain level of organization and can afford to make technical advances both in agriculture, both in 'industry, and generate a real economic impetus. As the second law, when the demographic transition is closed by a decrease in endogenous mortality, resulting from the importation of medical resources have been developed and validated in other countries, longer life and lower mortality are not possible without a parallel economic take-off to allow a real development, which implies, in particular, the reduction of illiteracy and schooling benefits for both sexes.
Another law is that lowering the death rate appears to be a necessary condition for there to be a lowering of fertility. The latter may, in fact, decrease only if its reduction is justified by an improvement in the survival rate of infants and children, that is, through a significant reduction in child mortality and the adolescent. It takes a continuous decline in the mortality rate of up to make it unlikely that the death of all children in the household takes place before that of the parents, not hinder a corresponding decline in fertility. The decrease in fertility during the second stage of demographic transition resembles a feedback in the process of transition in response to declining mortality. The feedback is much more alive than the process being facilitated by changes in their society (education, education of women, rising age of marriage, etc.)..
Numerous laws so compiled should not be generalized systematically, they may change over time and space. For example, laws on mortality in the second half of the twentieth century in Europe are totally different from those that prevailed in the second half of the eighteenth century. Sub-Saharan Africa, the analysis about the deaths were changed radically after the onset of AIDS since 1980. The same is true for mortality from 20 to 40 years in Europe. As for geographical differences, the laws that govern the mortality in a western country by the better health conditions present there, while the laws that may be made by the mortality data from an African country in the developing world, would just for that same reason, very different. The constants in the life of a population often refer only to a certain place or time.
6. Demographic trends . The last aspect of the demographic method is the ability to make projections about the future. The knowledge of patterns and interpretation of laws authorizing it to make short-term forecasts and projections in the medium and long term, the latter assume a variety of scenarios that are based on several assumptions.
Indeed, demographic projections can determine whose purpose is to estimate what will be the status of a population considered at a given time interval. The projections allow, not only do statistics "looking back", but it also "looking forward" to clarify the choices and consequences that involve the future. Demographic projections are very useful for the work entrusted to the government, and this in all fields, including many sectors of economic life. It is important to provide, for example, the number of children from schooling, to accommodate students from universities, pension contributions paid for the maintenance of older people.
Unfortunately, the instrument of population projection is sometimes separated from its object, leaving rather be guided by assumptions that depend from ideological (For example, use linear growth rates thus ignoring the lessons arising from the pattern of demographic transition) or in an irregular manner by limiting the range of assumptions. The projections should, in fact, be submitted under the name "conditional perspective," although the term is somewhat 'redundant, and that for those who have this outlook remain, always, totally dependent on assumptions made at the outset.
III. The temporal dimension in the demographics
After the method we consider the specific elements of demographics within the social sciences, specificity, which take into account the temporal dimension.
1. A time-based work sufficiently extensive . The study population demands, very often, the use of drive time to work, that is a base period for its analysis of the difference between two generations, about twenty-five or thirty years. If you want to examine the behavior of very limited fertility or birth of a population, should focus on the logic of people's lives. As everyone knows, fertility corresponds to a period of a woman's life that lasts about thirty years. Similarly, the period of marriage more complete for proper demographic analysis concerns the marriage of women during this same period of fertility.
This range of elemental analysis is also reflected in the computation of the "working population". The input values \u200b\u200bin this population in a given year depend on the birth occurred some twenty years earlier and the number of people who have received higher education. The number of births in a given year depends on the behavior of fertility and the actual generation in the age of procreation. For the analysis of the latter must be taken into account in particular of births occurred thirty years before.
As another example, income in retirement age of a given year are a direct function of income in the population of the forty years earlier. The study of the impact on the demographics of immigrant children in a certain area requires the consideration of immigration of young adults occurred in the previous generation. In countries which provide for compulsory military service, the actual number of conscripts are usually analyzed as a function of birth recorded twenty years earlier. An understanding of demographic phenomena requires, therefore, very often, which has a basis of time whose duration is equivalent to the difference between two generations.
2. A logical long-term . In demographics, the need for sufficient "time basis" is added another feature, that of a "logic" of much longer duration. The budget law voted by Parliament is developing a strategy for a period of one year, the decision of a company or an individual entrepreneur to make an investment in the short term cover the length of time that same investment. In demography, the observed data at a given time have consequences for long periods. Since it takes almost a century to complete overhaul of a population, demographic analysis should be able to consider a very long time and not be moved by a spirit that is otherwise just a specialist in short-term events.
Science of the population is therefore a very special situation. Forcing the image, could be considered as a sort of "crystal ball" scientific, since it allows to reason and make good predictions even beyond the short term. If we ask what will become of the land in half a century, you might get the impression that it is almost impossible to answer this question. Who can predict the political, economic developments, social attitudes than half of the twenty-first century? Now, knowledge of current populations leads to the partial responses. In fact, all men who in 2050 will have more than fifty years can be properly registered, they are necessarily those born in the years prior to 2000 and, according to the mortality assumptions considered, it is possible to predict with some accuracy the number, since can also be calculated more accurately in the light of various developments relating to individual behavior, advances in medicine, conflict, natural disasters.
Demography is one of the few scientists who may, for the corresponding periods in the distant future, the outlook is not totally absurd or random, subject to rule any hypothesis inconsistent with the known demographic logic. This ability to project into the future and the importance of long-term effects tend to "deadweight", in this fundamental science.
It should not conclude that the demographic changes are necessarily long. Instead, they can grow very quickly: sudden death due to war or an epidemic, falling birth rates linked to the absence of the men left for the front, rapid decline in mortality linked to the introduction of new means of combating infectious diseases and parasitic diseases, increased fertility due to a change in behavior of a company, reduced fertility under the influence of a demographic revolution regime, as occurred in southern Europe in the early eighties (see Zurfluh, 1992).
Moreover, this logic of long duration in which there are the consequences of demographic events should not mask the fact that the time of their cause may have had a short duration. An important specificity of the population is therefore that of its relationship with time, the length of its logic. When couples decide to raise their families, often have completed their decision in a relatively short time, even a few month. On the contrary, the consequences of this decision - the newborn baby - undoubtedly exert their effects throughout the course of a life on their babies and also throughout the lives of his descendants, ie during a period that is at least as extensive the life of a man, or could even be immeasurable.
So there is a paradoxical relationship between the short time in which occurs the primary cause and long-term effects, as expressed by that, especially so in demography, "our actions follow us." For example, the first World War, with the deficit of births and the number of young adult deaths he has caused had a duration of five years. Its consequences, however, due to the inherent logic of demographic phenomena, were felt over a much longer time in an inescapable. The age pyramid, the immediate effects of high mortality, are added those of birth, and this at least throughout the century to come. The logical drive in demography is at least the duration of the life of a man, a little less than a century. We must insist on this apparent paradox, that between the rapidity with which events may occur, and long period during which these phenomena exert their effects.
IV. The main currents of thought demographic
The scientific method of demography unfortunately is not always respected (see Dumont, 1995): it happens to be made of the wrong paths of observation (use of censuses were civilians or of poor quality, without critical), which replaces the numbers observed with "official" figures that do not correspond to reality (the example of Stalin), to be developed consistent patterns - like that of Malthus that quote later - for example by failing to take into account the great diversity of population dynamics in time and space. Similarly, testing on real cases of the hypotheses is sometimes forgotten.
addition, a large number of demographic trends of thought are expressed without regard to reality or the pursuit of truth, but rather in terms of ideological assumptions, sometimes argued from the wrong demographic reasons. There is, therefore, very often, a long distance between the teachings of the science of population and the population thought the latter, however, has a great importance as part of the "power of the word."
thinking population can be divided into three main schools: the first aims to create a state order that requires an order or demographic controls, whereas the man first and foremost as a citizen of the state and the second shows the "fear of limits", seeking to impose constraints on creativity Human; only the third focuses on the search for truth and deserves to be classified as scientific.
Although demography as a science, is relatively recent, the "population thinking" is pretty old. Through the centuries, with a question, to what the desirable number of men on earth, will remain alive and will result in conflicting responses. You strange to see that progress of science of the population have not edited these contrasts.
1. The state controller of an order population. The idea of \u200b\u200bthe necessity of a state population policy is developed in detail in both Plato and Aristotle. According to Plato (427 to 347 at. C.), the population of a territory can not be left to chance. Consequently, the State must regulate the lives of individuals, thus speaks of married couples: "You, therefore, the legislator, as chosen men choose women also trying to sort as much as possible similar nature" (The Republic , lib. V). Similarly the education of children depends entirely on the State , as Socrates says in a dialogue of Timaeus Plato: "We have taken steps to ensure that no one will ever recognize her as the baby's born?". Stating again his notion of the state, Plato lays down a precise population figures, stating that the city "must match the number of households cinquemilaquaranta" and that "the number of families that we already made and distributed, and many must always be never to grow by one unit, or a fall "(Read , lib. V). The figure reported is not random but is chosen because divisible by all numbers from 1 to 12 (except for 11), which facilitates the administration and military organization of the city.
Plato is not content to define the objectives, but also specifies the means that the state should use to maintain order population: quantitative monitoring of births, but also "quality", with the elimination "of individuals of lower 'and one of the other sex. " Platonic thought does not leave much room for individual choice, considering the man as a small particle of a collectivist state.
without reference to the thought of Plato, the statements of contemporary accord with this principle are numerous: the average often cite one or the other statement explaining that it is unthinkable that a country will accept more than a given number of inhabitants without suffering adverse consequences.
Aristotle (384 - 322. C) also adheres to the idea of \u200b\u200bpopulation policy. He writes thus in policy, "a population that reaches too high a figure may not lend itself to an ideal order of population." In this sense we can not hesitate to "impose restrictions on procreation to ensure that the birth rate does not exceed a certain figure." Among the means used to achieve this goal, There is generally an abortion that "will be practiced before life and sensitivity come in the embryo." Aristotle thought that the human soul was introduced into the generative process from the outside, several months after fertilization.
reading of Plato and Aristotle as modern looks strangely refers to many contemporary debates: to set a maximum number of inhabitants, birth control, abortion, eugenics. Such a thought, based on a population policy concern, has inspired in some periods, different enforcement policies of the twentieth century in many countries, especially China and India. These policies have failed and some have caused negative effects because they were opposites, both to the human truth both to the demographic reality of logic (see Dumont, 1996).
2. The Malthusian pessimism and demographic . Plato and Aristotle thought propose a ranking based on a conception of life in society that favors the State, contrary to establishing a healthy "principle of subsidiarity". But these authors did not have a pessimistic thought: any greater quantity of their target demographic is just as serious as the failure to reach in this case it was necessary to encourage the birth or, as the last bank, to appeal to immigration.
demographic pessimistic thinking, by contrast, adheres to the idea of \u200b\u200ban inevitability of nature against man. Expressed in the course of history by various authors, it is very clearly systematized by Robert Malthus (1766-1834) in his book Essay on the Principle of Population (1798): "Considering the global population with any real point of departure , a thousand million, for example, the human species would increase as the sequence 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, etc.. and subsistence as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, etc.. In two centuries and a quarter the ratio of the populations with the means of subsistence would be 512 to 10, in three centuries of 4096 to 13. " According to "the law of Malthus on population, the means of subsistence can only grow in an arithmetic progression, while the population, which is not stopped by any obstacle," doubles every twenty-five years according to a geometric progression. " As a result of this double fatality, Malthus essentially proposes to apply a "moral obligation" and discard all the solutions considered vices (homosexuality, adultery, abortion).
But even before Malthus, and after the first edition of his book, the human and demographic developments have permanently denied this claim, which is based on wrong assumptions, lack of uniformity, which express a fundamental pessimism about the capacity of free to invent, renew, create, adapt. In spite of his conviction by the facts, reasoning, the initial amount of Malthus, delivered before the spread of the industrial revolution, the development of demographic transition and the considerable technical advances of recent centuries, has not ceased to be taken in a completely different world . This served to some of our contemporaries, such as the so-called Club of Rome, to replace "geometric" with "exponential." So, with Malthus, these authors concluded that the growth of world population, announced as the exponential, is a threat and justify such expressions as "demographic bomb" or "demographic explosion", expressions that result, however, totally inadequate to meet the scientific analysis population (see Dumont, 1993). What it is rather to require developing countries population control, while also good, the officers, that such control even in developed countries.
The neo-Malthusian derive from their postulates, a large number of applications far removed from moral commitments of Pastor Malthus as provide "moral obligation" with coercive state policies, and sometimes with the rejection of all morality in human relationships. As demonstrated by Michel Schooyans (1995 and 1997), in this issue are two intertwined ideological discourses: the first is typically Malthusian, and is to repeat endlessly that any decrease in population growth becomes a better development. The second speech, contrary to the thinking of Malthus, it's kind of hedonistic, pleasure individual is privileged over the mission of man, thus justifying all those behaviors that would lead to this end.
The pessimism of the neo-Malthusian population responds to a conception of man is certainly different from that of the Bible , not considering the human person as the center of creation. Treated as a building block in other ecosystem, the man does not deserve any special consideration. Such thinking is clearly shown, so anecdotal, in some European countries with the aim of replacing the sheep with the wolves in the mountains. Man is but one factor among many others, and often an unpleasant factor, which would take away half of the ecosystem willingly: so said so appreciated the commander Cousteau UNESCO Courier (November 1991): "It's terrible to say, but that the world population should stabilize, and for that, you should eliminate 350,000 people per day. "
The ideologists of this neo-Malthusianism, the demographic that instead of doing it should perhaps be said to have made the "show-demographics (see Dumont, 1999), celebrated October 12, 1999 in Sarajevo the birth of the six billionth person , but they have never admitted their mistakes or rule on a number of demographic realities. Thus a projective estimate of the population of Nigeria was lowered by 34 million in 1991, and even 8 million in 1999, making these revisions, however, pass over in silence. Similarly, the progress of the demographic, in a Europe that records of births over deaths, was never mentioned or analyzed (see Dumont, 1994). No trace of either the rapid deceleration of population, which could lead to a real crash population (see Schooyans, 1999). The demographic pessimism, based on "fear of limits" is therefore a genuine ideology that systematically fails to practice the teaching of methodological demographic systematized by Claude Bernard.
3. Objectivity of science and faith in man . After John Graunt, demographics has to its credit numerous works carried out in more detail using the scientific method, with the sole aim of improving knowledge. This absolutely does not prevent that those involved in population has, as a human being, just a thought, living or proposes values. In fact, the completeness of knowledge requires both science and doctrine (ie, a set of values). Science tends to divide inevitably reality, to know her better, but this form, in truth, something unitary.
The doctrine is therefore a necessary complement, since it binds also to facilitate the reality in its own way, knowledge: an interpretation of life is integrated into a larger whole in which all components are resolved in each other. Science vision of the human population and are not exclusive, but complementary. Objectivity, as a scientific virtue, does not prevent to propose a way of thinking that allows the unit to move forward, beyond the results of their scientific work towards a more complete reality capable of nurturing a positive reflection.
summarize his teachings on the research on the population of France, Jean-Baptiste Moheau ( Recherches et Considerations sur la population de la France , Paris, 1778) stressed the importance of humanity as a whole met in a meditation recalled the two "infinite" Blaise Pascal: "the time, space, the multitude, all brings us back to the feeling of our weakness, but when you consider the men as a whole, it is then that our being takes a character of dignity. "
Moheau insists on the limits of the isolated man and the forces of men gathered. All this would apply to any development project, proposed by individuals or by all the actors of a territory: the "progress on human habit which makes us stop the eye and weakens our admiration, are the work of the people gathered and if it loses, it loses its action. [...] When men are together, every century, every year, every day brings something to their physical or intellectual wealth. "
While Malthusian approaches argue that scientific research can impose limits to population pressure, Esther Boserup (1970) shows, on the contrary, it is population pressure to boost scientific research. In fact, a low population density is generally accompanied by a too extensive land use. If this low-intensity persists, nothing will justify a more intensive use, ie more efficient soil. Just as population growth, multiplying needs, can create conditions that require a change of cultural methods and giving off a process of economic development. Population growth exerts pressure forcing innovative companies (and providing them the means, through the influx of new workers) to change the amount of work and their productivity, ie the fundamental modes of production (see Cantoni, 1997).
Through his research, Julian L. Simon (1985) confirms the previous analysis. By examining different sets encrypted, he notes that the population pressure creates the conditions which can explain the spirit of invention and the scope for technological progress. It should be noted that this author, like many before him anti-Malthusian of the nineteenth century, had a previous training Malthusian. By changing his point of view with the analysis of the facts, he shows that "people in surplus produce, in fact, more than they consume." And he concludes: "The population growth has positive effects over a long period, despite occasional short-term costs" illustrating this with a quote from Richard Frank ( Northern Memories , 1694), "Necessity is the mother of ' invention.
For his part, Alfred Sauvy, without doubt the greatest of the twentieth century demographer, has studied the importance of relations between technical progress and the working population. In his book La montée des déséquilibres démographiques (1984), concludes that "the general view too often has a micro-economic and does not receive the positive effect of technical progress on the general economy. The arguments put forward today against the computer, because they take jobs, are exactly the same as those used two centuries ago against the machines of the time, the body or the needle to spin "(p. 37). In another text, state that the company is to divert young people from work and once you have them removed, expelled, accused them of being too much.
Sauvy accuses Malthusianism noting: "Never at any time, any place, there was a happy outcome in a country with a weak demography. " He relies on examples from economic history (see Sauvy, 1986). Thus, during the nineteenth century, population growth areas in higher (Flanders, Britain, Germany) have experienced improvements in production and productivity much faster than countries where the population did not increase at all (Wallonia, Gascony, France).
Although not referring to religious principles, and if some of them are considered agnostics, these researchers found, through science, the hope present in the heart of the religions of the Book, which also leads to reject any fear of too many great men, given that every man is created in the image of God In principle, the precise Genesis, from the very first sentences of Sacred Scripture, "the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the abyss" (January 1.2). For the beauty of the earth God creates creation requiring the presence of gardeners, and created man on the sixth day "God created man in His own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them" ( January 1.27).
Why men can be gardeners of the earth that must be numerous, as stated in the sacred text: "God blessed them and said to them:" Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth '"(January 1.28). A little 'later, again in Genesis after the Flood is written: "God blessed Noah and his sons and said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. The fear and dread of you in all the wild animals and all cattle, and all the birds in the sky. What creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea are placed in your power '"(January 9.1 to 2).
If, on the first day, "darkness covered the abyss" is also because the land was not treated for lack of human beings who could deal with it. Indeed there is a need for men to break up or fix wetlands. So Burgundy, land of briars and bushes, covered with vermin, had no agricultural resources. Major land reclamation of the Middle Ages, encouraged, and sometimes organized by the Cistercian monks, made this earth and fun. Along some swamps and wetlands along the coast, man invents, later, the technique of polders, making welcoming land inhospitable. Men have also not been able to work a few arid lands, placing on terraces or paddies.
Among the other major religions humanity, none is explicitly anti-birth. The Qur'an presents the fertility as a blessing and a duty. A hadith (saying of the Prophet) states: "Get married, be fruitful and multiply, because I'm proud of you before the nations on the Day of Judgement" (XXIV, 33). In our day should be mentioned the initiative of the Catholic Church to set up the Pontifical Council for the Family (1994), whose task, among other things, to address the demographic problems in light of the needs of human ethics and morality of the Gospel. It is the duty of the Church and Christians to point out the obstacles, set stakes and above layout.
Believers call, so, demographers scientific objectivity and they hope that the scientist, believer or not, is engaged in the direction of demographic research that will improve our knowledge.
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