Evaluate the effectiveness of the DTM as a means of predicting future population

Demographic transition refers to the transition from high birth rates and death rates to low birth and death rates as a country develops from a pre-industrial to an industrialized economic system. This is typically demonstrated through a demographic transition model. The theory is based on an interpretation of demographic history developed in 1919 by the American demographer Warren Thompson. Thompson observed changes (transitions) in birth and death rates in industrialized societies over the previous 200 years. Most developed countries are in stage 4 of the model; the majority of developing countries have reached stage 3. The major (relative) exceptions are some poor countries, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa and some Middle Eastern countries, which are poor or affected by government policy or civil strife, notably Pakistan, Palestinian Territories, Yemen and Afghanistan.

The DTM was first observed in the two centuries preceding 1950 in what are today’s economically developed countries. Prior to this, these developed countries experienced high death rates matched by high birth rates, resulting in a stable population size. But then improving living standards and public health measures, such as the public health acts, caused death rates to drop, followed by a gradual drop in birth rates, which by the 1970s matched the death rates again. Between the decline in the death rates and drop in birth rates, population surged in developed countries, actually quadrupling the population. But the original 4 stages are over, and most developed countries are now projected to experience population shrinkage in the future. This historical evidence has proved so far that countries that have experienced industrial change have gone through the stages of the DTM; these countries are mainly in Europe and