ABSTRACT

The concept of the human species is a very old one, of course, and one which contemporary biology gives an ever more specific understanding and meaning to. However a specifically demographic understanding of the global human population, understood as an integrated population system, has until very recently never been more than a strictly theoretical proposition. Soloway and in the early decades of the twentieth century many national demographies joined in the battle for higher fertility in the professional or ‘fitter’ classes, or for stronger population growth than that of rival states. Meanwhile, demographic transition theory became virtually the only analytical framework for academic demography, helped on its way by its formulation in economic terms by the Household Economics of Becker and Robinson. Demographic transition, but the initial reaction to falling mortality and fertility was more often the fear that low fertility might lead to a stationary or even declining population.