Demographic transition
MCAT glossary · Psychological, Social & Biological Foundations of Behavior
Definition
4 stages: high birth/death → declining death → declining birth → low birth/death; explains population growth dynamics.
Demographic transition in plain English
This is the story of how a country's population changes as it develops, told in four stages. In Stage 1, both births and deaths are high, so the population stays roughly flat (lots of babies, but many people die young). In Stage 2, better food and medicine cut the death rate first, so the population booms because births are still high; in Stage 3 birth rates finally drop as families choose to have fewer kids; and in Stage 4 both are low again, so the population levels off. It's like a bathtub: in Stage 2 the drain (deaths) closes while the faucet (births) stays wide open, so it overflows fast — until the faucet finally gets turned down too.
Practice Demographic transition
According to the demographic transition model, what is the expected population trend?
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