Population Studies

A Journal of Demography

ISSN: 0032-4728 (Print) 1477-4747 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rpst20

What we can and cannot learn from the history of

world population

Massimo Livi-Bacci

To cite this article: Massimo Livi-Bacci (2015) What we can and cannot learn
from the history of world population, Population Studies, 69:sup1, S21-S28, DOI:
10.1080/00324728.2014.975909

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00324728.2014.975909

Published online: 26 Apr 2015.

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Population Studies, 2015
Vol. 69, No. S1, S21–S28, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00324728.2014.975909

What we can and cannot learn from the history of world

population

Massimo Livi-Bacci
University of Florence

Mankind is passing through an exceptional phase of accelerated population growth that generates anxiety
about the future. How many billion people will share the limited resources of our globe a century from
now? What will be the consequences of globalization for human behaviour? How will individuals react to
emerging new constraints? What will be the consequences of climate change for human society? Obviously
enough, history cannot offer operational answers to these crucial questions. Nevertheless, history offers
some interesting insights into demographic behaviour experienced in the past that could be replicated in
the future, with the variations and adaptations dictated by the changing contexts. In other words, there are
constants and structures in human behaviour, and there are robust mechanisms in the functioning of
demographic systems that are of some help in preparing us to deal with the future.

Keywords: historical demography; geodemography; Africa; America; Eurasia; population cycles;

population crises; extinction; globalization; migration policies

Introduction thunderstorm, but who can weather its consequence

In any field of study concerned with the history of
mankind, the question of the relevance of the past for
the exploration of the future emerges forcefully.
Population is no exception, and particularly so in
this historical phase of maximum acceleration of
growth and the anxious questions it raises about the
future. How many billion people will share the fixed
resources of our globe a century from now? What will
be the consequences of globalization for human
behaviour? How will individuals react to emerging
new constraints? What will be the consequences of
climate change for human society? Obviously enough,
history cannot offer operational answers to these
crucial questions. However, the observer of the past,
assuming a less ambitious role, may try to assess some
aspects and paradigms of population history that
could be replicated in the future, with the variations
and adaptations dictated by changing contexts. In
other words, there are constants and structures in
human demographic behaviour, and there are robust
mechanisms in the functioning of the demographic
systems that are of some help in preparing us to deal
with the future. Thus, the observer of the past
can be like the navigator who cannot foresee the
with the help of a compass.
The considerations that follow emerge from the
author’s own research experience, limited in scope,
and driven more by his personal curiosity and
interests than by a systematic view of the past.
Population cycles yesterday and today
Researchers who dig deeply in their own chosen field
often forget to consider the wider picture. In popula-
tion studies, one element very relevant for the
interpretation of major social, economic, and political
forces is the changing pattern of the geodemography
of the world; that is, the demographic characteristics
and distribution of people according to their geo-
graphical location. For a long time this aspect has
been neglected, in part in reaction to the pronatalist
policies in fashion during the first half of the past
century, and to the consequential adage that ‘number
is power’, in all its possible variations.
However, to ignore the impact that the profound
variation in the relative weights of human popula-
tions has had on the ‘world order’ is tantamount to
depriving oneself of a powerful tool of

© 2015 Population Investigation Committee

S22 Massimo Livi-Bacci
interpretation, as Michael Teitelbaum also discusses
elsewhere in this special issue (Teitelbaum 2015).
History is rich in examples of the changing geo-
graphical distribution of population that arise from
diverging demographic cycles taking place in various
continents, regions, and countries. Cycles in popula-
tion are apparent notwithstanding the relative stabi-
lity of demographic systems and their consequent
relatively low rates of change. Natural fertility pat-
terns once prevailed everywhere. Survival was pre-
carious, constrained as it was by the poverty of
resources paired with the poverty of knowledge, and
migration streams were of limited intensity for
logistical among other reasons. Of course, these are
generalizations, because in many populations of the
past—before the onset of the modern demographic
transition in the eighteenth century—voluntary fer-
tility control was not unknown, but it was limited to
small sectors of the population with only marginal
effects at the aggregate level. On the other hand,
expectation of life at birth was almost everywhere
below 40 years. England, which enjoyed a level of
survival higher than Continental Europe, surpassed
this level only sporadically in the three centuries
following 1541 (Wrigley and Schofield 1981). How-
ever, even small differences in rates of growth may
generate large differences in population if sustained
long enough. Examples abound, even if we confine
ourselves to a cursory look at continents and regions.
Take the case of the American continent. Conser-
vative estimates put its population at about 9 per cent
of world population at the time of the continent’s first
contact with Eurasia, 500 years ago. In spite of a
massive (for the times) immigration from Europe and
from Africa, America’s share fell to 2 per cent in
1800, before climbing back to 13 per cent in 1950
(Biraben 1979). In America’s case, the European
intrusion was the indirect cause of the demographic
catastrophe of high mortality during colonial times,
while European immigration was a major factor in
the recuperation in the nineteenth and early twentieth
century. Africa is credited with 20 per cent of the
world population in 1600 (Biraben 1979), a share that
declined to 8 per cent by 1850, and increased to
15 per cent by 2010. In Asia, China accounted for
23 per cent of world population in 1700, reached a
peak of 37 per cent in 1820, and fell back to 24 per
cent a century later (Maddison 2003). In Western
Europe, Germany and the UK accounted for about
one-third of the population of the region in 1820;
just before the First World War their share had
increased to 43 per cent (Biraben 1979).
The demographic transition and its timing, span-
ning over two centuries, coupled with greatly
increased potential for growth, produced power-
ful changes in geodemography. Essentially, these
changes were the consequences of the different timing
of the transition in the various continents, regions,
and countries of the world. Where this began earlier,
as in Europe, the share of world population rapidly
increased: from 16 per cent in 1820 to 19 per cent
50 years later. Where the transition began later, as in
Africa, the share of the continent in world population
increased even faster—the potential for growth being
higher than in nineteenth-century Europe: from 9 per
cent in 1950 to an astounding projected 25 per cent
in 2050.
Will (demographic) history end, once the trans-
ition cycle has completed its course everywhere?
Will nations, regions, and continents converge to a
common population pattern? Will fertility hover
around replacement, will survival reach an unmova-
ble biological maximum, and will migration ripen
the fruits of globalization, assuming the role of
ironing out local fluctuations and imbalances caused
by contingent inequalities? Moreover, as a con-
sequence, will geodemographic distributions achieve
stability? Very likely not, as will be argued at the
end of this paper.
Extinction
Many prophesies hold that mankind will become
extinct. Pessimists believe that extinction might
happen soon; for the optimists the end of mankind
is inevitable, but will occur in the indeterminate
future. We know very little about the patterns
and causes of the extinction of past populations.
Many became extinct because of fragmentation and
isolation that led to communities falling under a
minimum sustainable size. We may speculate that
this mode of extinction might have happened with
relative frequency in hunting and gathering societ-
ies, organized in small and dispersed groups. In an
interconnected and densely settled world such as
ours, this cause of extinction is highly improbable.
Other populations disappeared because of natural
or man-made catastrophes: an island’s population
destroyed by the explosion of a volcano, a group
settled along the coastline wiped out by a tsunami, a
village destroyed by an earthquake, a faction
slaughtered in a war, a religious or an ethnic group
annihilated in a genocide. Events of this kind may
happen in the future. If mankind is better equipped
than in the past to withstand natural events, it is
probably more vulnerable to man-made disasters.
Another group of causes of extinction relate to what

has been defined as ‘demographic suicide’, or a
continuous and structural imbalance between births
and deaths. The extinction of the native populations
of the Caribbean in the sixteenth century, and of the
Tasmanians or the Fuegians in the nineteenth, are
fitting examples, although one may argue that their
decline was the consequence of disruption caused by
contact with the Europeans. In our times, Germany,
Spain, Italy, Russia, South Korea, and Japan have
been often described as countries attempting ‘demo-
graphic suicide’, with reference to the excess of
deaths over births (Pritchett and Viarengo 2013).
However, if migration is taken into consideration,
extinction appears to be a very unlikely possibility,
even in the case of persistent negative natural
growth.
Populations disappeared also because they ‘lost’
their identity through mixing with other groups. In
this case, it is a social, cultural, or linguistic extinc-
tion, not a demographic one. In a globalized world,
where migration and intermarriage are expected to
increase, mixing will probably become a major force
in shaping societies, determining changes of identit-
ies or even wiping out the distinctive features of a
population.
Erratic mortality
Before the onset of the demographic transition—
in the late eighteenth century in Europe, much later,
in the nineteenth and twentieth century elsewhere—
the powerful driving force of population change
was mortality. As argued in the following pages,
fertility has always been an extremely robust and
resilient characteristic of past populations. Patterns
of mortality in the past have been heavily affected
by crises, generally of short duration, but with a
profound impact on population growth. However,
mortality has also undergone deep cycles, owing to
the continuous modification of the system of pathol-
ogies. The system evolves because of genetic muta-
tions and drift, and social inheritance through
changing interactions between humans, microbes,
animal vectors, and the environment. New diseases
appear, old ones re-emerge, others lose or increase
their virulence, some vanish. Sweating sickness and
other fevers, typhus, malaria, smallpox, plague (and
many others)—each has its own and often myster-
ious origin and history, and has had a variable
impact on general mortality. Finally, it appears that
the association between the standard of living
(nutrition) and mortality—except in situations of
deep deprivation and famine—has been relatively
World population history S23
weak. In many pre-modern populations, before the
nineteenth century, no relevant differences in mor-
tality have been found between the well-fed elites
and the rest of the population; or in populations of
the same origin and culture, but living in areas
differently endowed with land and food, such as the
populations of European stock living on the two
sides of the Atlantic.
Does the history of survival provide some guide-
lines for the future? Certainly, the occurrence of
crises produced by natural causes and typical of the
naturally caused ancien régime crises is improbable,
but the twentieth century offers many examples of
horrible man-made famines, such as those that
plagued Ukraine–Russia, China, or North Korea
(Ó Gráda 2009).
Aside from man-made disasters, two major factors
could, however, jeopardize the enormous advances
of survival achieved during the last century, or
cripple future progress. The first is any unforeseen
modification of the system of pathologies—as out-
lined above—through the emergence of new deadly
diseases, as well as the resilience of old diseases
caused by, for instance, unforeseen resistance to
antibiotics. The emergence and rise of HIV infec-
tions, and the costly struggle to contain its conse-
quences, should be kept in mind as a symptom of the
mutability of the biological sphere. The same can be
said of the Ebola virus. The other factor is the
possible economic unsustainability of modern health
care systems, threatened by rising costs and demo-
graphic ageing. Inasmuch as rising costs produce a
retrenchment of public health care and restricted
accessibility to health services, more inequality and
more vulnerability may be generated, with negative
consequences for survival.
Rebound and adjustment
Deep crises, or precipitous negative phases in the
demographic cycle, are almost always followed by
‘rebounds’ or by ‘adjustments’ of the demographic
system. Rebounds typically follow the ‘ancien régime’
type of crisis: plague, smallpox, or cholera, for
instance. Other precursors of a rebound include a
rise of cereal prices because of adverse weather,
a pernicious parasite that destroys a main staple, a
man-made event like a war followed by a major
epidemic of typhoid fevers, and typhus or other
diseases. A crisis explodes, mortality rises, marriages
are dissolved by widowhood, fewer new marriages
are concluded and conceptions and births fall, and so
does the population. The burning out of the epidemic
S24 Massimo Livi-Bacci
is followed by a recuperation of marriages, by higher
marital fertility, lower mortality, and higher natural
growth. In a relatively limited number of years
(depending on the gravity of the crisis), the negative
consequences of the crisis are wiped out and the
system returns to its normal equilibrium. The
mechanisms and profiles of rebounds have been
studied in numerous ancien régime crises, but also in
several crises of the last century: after the First and
Second World Wars, after the forced collectivization
in Russia–Ukraine in 1932–33, and of the ‘Great
Leap Forward’ in China in 1959–61.
Adjustment or response after a crisis or cata-
strophe implies convergence towards a different
demographic system. Some scholars would rather
define this process as homoeostatic, but that term
implies the existence of an inner, almost automatic,
capacity of the demographic system to adapt to
changing external constraints. The process of adjust-
ment, on the other hand, may or may not take place,
according to specific circumstances. Adjustment
generally requires time, and unlike rebounds, whose
mechanisms are relatively clear, adjustment factors
are complex and variable. In general, population
growth and a growing pressure on the available
resources are viewed as forces that put in motion
responses tending to minimize and contain the
negative outcomes. These responses may be of a
general economic nature (advances in technology
and productivity, investment in new land, etc.) or
demographic (adjustment of the demographic system
leading to a lower rate of growth), or any combina-
tion of the two. In general, it is rather problematic to
isolate the specific factors of the process of adjust-
ment since these are of mutable force and impact.
There are, however, many historical cases of well-
identified crises that have triggered almost immedi-
ate responses and altered in a (relatively) permanent
way the system itself. For instance, in many Euro-
pean populations the great plague cycle of the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries brought about
many profound changes in the economy (lower
density, more land available, more extensive cultiva-
tion) and in the demographic setting (restructuring
of families in larger and more complex units, higher
fertility, changes of the marriage pattern). Popula-
tion was restored to the position before the crisis
after a century-long period of growth (Blockmans
and Dubois 1997; Livi-Bacci 2000). In Japan, the
long cycle of population growth of the early Toku-
gawa period terminating in the first decades of the
eighteenth century was followed by a period of
quasi-stagnation until the second third of the nine-
teenth century, through marriage control and
infanticide (Hayami 2009). A textbook case is that
of Ireland after the Great Famine, with the ensuing
modifications of the marriage pattern (high celibacy,
high age at marriage) and mass emigration (Mokyr
and Ó Gráda 1984).
Rebounds would certainly happen in the future as
a response to catastrophic events, although probably
with less force than in the ‘high pressure’ systems of
the past. If we turn to modern, post-transitional
societies, we may speculate about the nature of
possible future processes of adjustment. A central
issue is the extremely low fertility of many countries
in Europe and Eastern Asia. There is a (tepid)
consensus that current low fertility will give way to a
gradual recovery: this is the view of many institu-
tions and researchers and authors of demographic
projections and forecasts. Last century’s baby boom,
initiated during the years of the Second World War
and under the most unfavourable circumstances, still
awaits a convincing explanation. However, it shows
that declining fertility, possibly leading to unsustain-
able population decline, may be redressed, though
the factors of the adjustment in that case were
numerous and probably could not be replicated
under different historical circumstances. Why a new
upturn should take place in the future is not clear.
Some argue that since very low fertility generates
damaging negative economic externalities, states may
react by channelling more resources to couples and
families, inducing them to have more children. The
problem is, however, that of resolving the conflict
between the negative externalities produced by low
fertility and the economic benefit—for the parents—
of having one child instead of two, or two instead of
three, etc. (see Paul Demeny’s proposal, in this issue:
Demeny 2015). Another possibility is countries
becoming open to immigration even though strong
public sentiment about national identity has so far
prevented such a move; Japan, for instance, may in
the future change its restrictive stance.
Robust fertility
Low fertility, below the level of replacement, has
been a rather exceptional occurrence in the past.
Only the destruction of the foundations of fertility
(a lack of mating opportunities; forcible separation of
couples; loss of libido, decrease of fecundity because
of infections, hunger, or stress; or high mortality that
raised the bar of ‘replacement’) ever resulted in a
seriously diminished and insufficient reproductive
capacity. In England, fertility remained below
replacement level for the better part of the century

of high mortality following the beginning of the
plague cycle in 1348 (Hollingsworth 1969). However,
the mortality of the plague period was exceptional
and has been unmatched in Europe since that time.
Indeed, in England fertility hovered above replace-
ment in the following centuries. Fertility fell below
replacement—and barely below—in only 6 out of the
67 five-year periods between 1541 and 1875 (Wrigley
and Schofield 1981). There is evidence of fertility
below replacement in the Caribbean islands after
contact with Europe: their native populations became
extinct during the sixteenth century because the
‘natural’ foundations of reproduction were compro-
mised by the European newcomers. This arose
through the displacement of families and communit-
ies, the separation of couples, and the inclusion (more
or less forcible) of their women into the reproductive
pool of the conquerors. There is also some indirect
evidence of very low fertility in Mexico in the same
century (Livi-Bacci 2008).
However, again, below-replacement fertility was a
rare event. Even during exceptional periods of
distress, fertility has shown remarkable resilience,
as can be illustrated by the following example from
Southern America. During the catastrophic period
between 1733 and 1767, marked by wars, smallpox
epidemics, and displacement, the Guaranì of the
30 missions of Paraguay maintained a very high
fertility, with a total fertility in the vicinity of eight
children per woman (Livi-Bacci 2008). Populations
of the past, before the modern demographic trans-
ition, were certainly endowed with fertility levels
that were high, robust, and resilient.
Selection and fitness
‘Man has spread widely over the face of the earth,
and must have been exposed, during the incessant
migration, to the most diversified conditions. The
inhabitants of the Tierra del Fuego, the Cape of
Good Hope and Tasmania in the one hemisphere,
and of the arctic region in the other, must have
passed through many climates, and changed their
habits many times, before they reached their present
homes’ (Darwin 1871, pp. 135–136). The human
species described here by Charles Darwin in The
Descent of Man originated in equatorial Africa, and
its methods of survival, ways of life, and habits had
to evolve continually in order to make settlement
possible in those more extreme corners of the two
hemispheres. Since the invention of agriculture,
most migration flows have developed in a wavelike
fashion in territories unpopulated or with large open
World population history S25
spaces: schematically, the first wave would settle in a
convenient area, producing a demographic surplus
that generated further waves settling farther on, and
so on. This model of migration had two primary
features. The first was the ability to move and adapt
to a wide range of environments, including surpris-
ingly challenging ones. The ability to adapt was
undoubtedly tied to the sum of communal experi-
ence and knowledge and the possession of techno-
logy and material resources: the greater the
migrants’ overall resources, the greater their ability
to make the most of the new lands. The second
feature was the ability of those families and settle-
ments at the front of the wave to generate a
demographic surplus adequate for further expan-
sion. In other words, migrants had a high reproduct-
ive fitness and a high rate of growth as a group. Both
of these features would come to define the ways in
which potential migrants were selected. There is
historical evidence that those people who chose to
migrate were not a random sample of the general
population: age, health, strength, stamina, and a
willingness to face new experiences were character-
istics that often set migrants apart from those who
stay put. With an ample supply of land for agricul-
ture, large families with many children, and there-
fore generating their own labour force, had the
demographic features required for a successful
economy. This paradigm fits well the late medieval
German eastward migration in Europe (Drang nach
Osten), the settlement of Europeans in North
America and of Russians in Siberia, and the Chinese
migration to Manchuria (Livi-Bacci 2012).
In urban and industrial settings, selection and
fitness worked in a different direction; now the
migrant had to be mobile, adaptable, and flexible.
Travelling alone, or with small families, and moder-
ating fertility once settled, was probably to the
advantage of the migrant group. It favoured integ-
ration and upward mobility. If the reproductive
advantage of the first-generation immigrants over
the native population was still relevant—particularly
when immigrants came from countries with high
fertility—that of the succeeding generations was
instead almost zero, since typically there was a rapid
convergence of the reproductive patterns of immi-
grants and natives.
Mobility is not driven mainly by natural factors, as
are fertility and survival. The interference of policies
and regulations, particularly after the rise of nation-
states, has become very strong and, today, is at its
maximum historical level. Questions for the future
are whether migration will select those individuals
S26 Massimo Livi-Bacci
that are most likely to be successful, and if so, how
that will come about.
Migration policies
Migration policy can be defined as a planned
intervention of the state or nation in order to
stimulate, direct, control, select, and organize mobil-
ity and migration flows. The ability to move is a
fundamental component of human capital and most
migrations were of individuals, families, and groups
moving mainly on their own initiative. However,
even before the emergence of modern nation-states,
there were examples of organized migration, such as
the foundation of Greek settlements in the Mediter-
ranean, the forced migration of settlers (mitima) by
the Inca empire to distant places, in order to
consolidate newly conquered lands, and the east-
ward German migration and settlement organized
and financed by princes, bishops, or chivalric orders.
It is with the rise of the nation-states, however, that
norms regarding citizenship were created, borders
were drawn, and long-distance migration (‘interna-
tional migration’ in contemporary parlance) was
organized. Modern policies were born and had a
plurality of objectives, including the selection of the
inflows or outflows of migrants in such a way as to
maximize the utility of immigration or minimize the
losses caused by emigration. In many cases, the
interests of the sending and those of the receiving
countries were in conflict.
Migration policies are always selective, sometimes
in an open and transparent fashion, sometimes in a
hidden fashion. Selection attempts to increase the
fitness of migrants, in order to improve their chances
of success, be this demographic, social, or economic.
History provides cases of success and failure.
For instance, the immigration of German farmers
promoted by Catherine II into Russia in 1762–65
was extremely successful; the farmers were well
endowed in terms of knowledge of agricultural
techniques, tools, animals, and land. The newly
founded communities thrived, demographically and
economically. Similar attempts, in the eighteenth
century, to settle immigrants in depopulated areas in
Italy and Spain met with disaster, either through
poor planning or choice of the wrong criteria of
selection. Other examples occurred in other parts of
the globe (Livi-Bacci 2012). An important question
for policymakers is whether the state is any good at
devising the criteria for selecting migrants—either
incoming or outgoing—or whether it should abstain
from this function. If the latter, migration policies
should have a regulatory role, but should be neutral
as to the characteristics of the migrant. The great
transatlantic migration from Europe to America has
been a successful mass movement (successful for the
Europeans rather than for the American natives)
that was, by and large, free from state interference.
Moreover, it has been successful both for the
countries of origin and for the countries of
destination.
In our times, policies are increasingly selective, in
an effort to maximize the utility of the immigrants
and their fitness for the new environment. Age,
education, skills, adaptability, and financial endow-
ment are among the qualities selected for. However,
crucial sets of questions for policymakers have
emerged, the first being whether the state is a good
judge of the criteria to be used in the selection
process, and whether it is capable of applying its
chosen criteria effectively. The questions in the
second set refer to the time horizon: What should
be the time horizon against which the selection
criteria are chosen? Is it the span of the ongoing
economic cycle, the duration of a generation, or
should a secular perspective be adopted? Different
time horizons imply different strategies and different
policies. The questions in the third set are the most
intriguing and difficult to answer: what is the impact
on the societies of origin of the selection criteria
employed by the state of destination? Is it possible
to reconcile and balance the interests of the sending
and of the receiving countries? Which of the two,
the interests of the former or of the latter, are in the
best interests of the migrant? This third set of
questions calls for an international governance of
migration.
Globalization and mixing
In the past, the cycles of globalization have deter-
mined an intensification of the flows of migrants, and
have brought about a mixing of ethnicities. Ethnic
groups that formerly lived apart, or in isolation, have
become closer, and the ensuing contacts have led to
unions and children. This process has not been a
primary concern of demographers, who have left the
subject to geneticists, anthropologists, and sociolo-
gists. From a mostly transatlantic perspective, three
cycles of globalization can be recognized. The first
phase was early colonialism, during which the Amer-
icas became firmly connected with the rest of the
world. The second phase—from the mid-nineteenth
century to the First World War—coincided with the
spread of the Industrial Revolution. The third phase

began with the end of Second World War and
continues to the present day. Globalization involves
the exchange of capital, goods, and labour—that is,
people—and increases the rate of ethnic mixing.
In the three centuries following contact with
Europeans, a numerous mixed or mestizo group was
formed in the Americas. In the opinion of the anthro-
pologist Aguirre Bertrán (1943), perhaps 1 per cent
of the Mexican white criollos (Spaniards born in
America) were ‘pure Europeans’ (itself a rather dubi-
ous expression), all others having some Indian or
African blood in their veins. It is impossible—short of
systematic studies—to measure the extent of mixing
involved in the second globalization that brought
about the mass migration between the two borders of
the Atlantic. Similar considerations apply to the third
phase of globalization that we are still witnessing
today, although this has been characterized more
by the free movement of goods than of people,
movement of the latter having been kept more in
check. In all three phases, however, many obstacles—
juridical, religious, social—have been raised in order
to limit the mixing of different groups.
Are we moving towards a fourth globalization, this
one more social than economic in nature? Although
current migration policies around the globe have
tended to become more restrictive, mobility is on
the increase. On the move, and in increasing num-
bers, are travellers of all kinds, students and research-
ers, tourists, professionals and technicians, and
workers in multinational enterprises, international
organizations, and non-governmental organizations.
They establish social and affective relations, some
transient, some durable, and some ending in stable
relationships, unions, marriages, and parentage. Will
this web of interrelations become more dense and
envelop the world in a network ‘over’ and not
‘through’ the national frontiers?
Into the future
Let us return to where we started. There has been a
startling consensus (although recently challenged)
among scholars and institutions that the powerful
wave of growth initiated in the second part of the
nineteenth century will be over 100 years from now
and that world population is slowly, but firmly,
converging to a stationary or semi-stationary state.
There is little scientific basis for this opinion: the
slowdown of the pace of growth is firmly on its way,
but we do not know the long-term implications. Will
the rate of growth become negative—as is expected
to happen in China and Europe—and give way to a
World population history S27
cycle of decline? Alternatively, will the rate remain
positive so that world population will continue to
grow, albeit at a slower speed? Or will the popula-
tion of the globe alternate phases of decline with
phases of growth? History is of little use for those
wishing to predict the future two, three, or more
generations from now, and consensus on any given
outcome is written on water.
We have seen, at the beginning, that diverging
population cycles in history have changed the
geodemography of the world. Profound changes
took place also before the demographic transition,
in spite of a reduced potential for growth, because
fertility performance was only weakly checked by
voluntary control, and mortality levels were con-
strained by natural and environmental factors. Dur-
ing the demographic transition, the different timing
of fertility and mortality decline in the different
parts of the world promoted global geodemographic
instability. However, what will happen once the
transition is over? According to the latest United
Nations (2013) projections, by the year 2100 net
migration for each individual state of the world will
be zero, the number of children per woman will be
everywhere (except in a score of countries) between
1.8 and 2.2, and life expectancy will be between 70
and 95 years (a much narrower gap than today’s).
Therefore, is the world going to stabilize around
homogeneous parameters? Is this the end of cycles?
Is geodemography to become immutable? To assume
so is to adopt an illusion, and for various reasons,
the most obvious of which is that demography is not
independent of external constraints (natural, eco-
nomic, social, political) and there are no reasons to
believe that in the future these will be less variable
than those of today. Globalization will probably
make the world less poor—on average—but will
make it also more equal?
Note
1. Massimo Livi-Bacci is Professor of Demography at the
University of Florence and the Department of Statist-
ics, Informatica, Applicazioni ‘Giuseppe Parenti’, Viale
Morgagni 59, 50134 Firenze, Italy. E-mail: livi@disia.
unifi.it
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