DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITIONREFERENCES
Allison, Paul D. 1984 Event History Analysis. Beverly
Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications.
Bennett, Neil G., Ann K. Blanc, and David E. Bloom
1988 ‘‘Commitment and the Modern Union: Assess-
ing the Link between Premarital Cohabitation and
Subsequent Marital Stability.’’ American Sociological
Review 53:127–138.
Bennett, Neil G., and Lea Keil Garson 1983 ‘‘The Cente-
narian Question and Old-Age Mortality in the Soviet
Union, 1959–1970.’’ Demography 20:587–606.
Bennett, Neil G., and Shiro Horiuchi 1981 ‘‘Estimating
the Completeness of Death Registration in a Closed
Population.’’ Population Index 47:207–221.
Bloom, David E. 1982 ‘‘What’s Happening to the Age at
First Birth in the United States? A Study of Recent
Cohorts.’’ Demography 19:351–370.
———, and Neil G. Bennett 1990 ‘‘Modeling American
Marriage Patterns.’’ Journal of the American Statistical
Association 85 (December):1009–1017.
Coale, Ansley J. 1972 The Growth and Structure of Human
Populations. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Universi-
ty Press.
——— 1971 ‘‘Age Patterns of Marriage.’’ Population
Studies 25:193–214.
———, and Paul Demeny 1983 Regional Model Life
Tables and Stable Populations, 2nd ed. New York:
Academic Press.
Coale, Ansley J., and James Trussell 1974 ‘‘Model Fertili-
ty Schedules: Variations in the Age Structure of
Childbearing in Human Populations.’’ Population In-
dex 40:185–206.
Cox, D. R., and D. Oakes 1984 Analysis of Survival Data.
London: Chapman and Hall.
Menken, Jane, James Trussell, Debra Stempel, and Ozer
Babakol 1981 ‘‘Proportional Hazards Life Table Mod-
els: An Illustrative Analysis of Sociodemographic
Influences on Marriage Dissolution in the United
States.’’ Demography 18:181–200.
Peters, Kimberley D., Kenneth D. Kochanek, and Sherry
L. Murphy 1998 ‘‘Deaths: Final Data for 1996.’’
National Vital Statistics Reports, vol. 47, no. 9. Hyattsville,
Md.: National Center for Health Statistics.
Preston, Samuel H., and Ansley J. Coale 1982 ‘‘Age
Structure, Growth, Attrition, and Accession: A New
Synthesis.’’ Population Index 48:217–259.
Rogers, Andrei, and Luis J. Castro 1981 ‘‘Model Migra-
tion Schedules.’’ (Research Report 81–30) Laxenburg,
Austria: International Institute for Applied Systems
Analysis.NEIL G. BENNETTDEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION
The human population has maintained relatively
gradual growth throughout most of history by
high, and nearly equal, rates of deaths and births.
Since about 1800, however, this situation has
changed dramatically, as most societies have un-
dergone major declines in mortality, setting off
high growth rates due to the imbalance between
deaths and births. Some societies have eventually
had fertility declines and emerged with a very
gradual rate of growth as low levels of births
matched low levels of mortality.There are many versions of demographic tran-
sition theory (Mason 1997), but there is some
consensus that each society has the potential to
proceed sequentially through four general stages
of variation in death and birth rates and popula-
tion growth. Most societies in the world have
passed through the first two stages, at different
dates and speeds, and the contemporary world is
primarily characterized by societies in the last two
stages, although a few are still in the second stage.Stage 1, presumably characterizing most of
human history, involves high and relatively
equal birth and death rates and little
resulting population growth.
Stage 2 is characterized by a declining death
rate, especially concentrated in the years of
infancy and childhood. The fertility rate
remains high, leading to at least moderate
population growth.
Stage 3 involves further declines in mortali-
ty, usually to low levels, and initial sustained
declines in fertility. Population growth may
become quite high, as levels of fertility and
mortality increasingly diverge.
Stage 4 is characterized by the achievement
of low mortality and the rapid emergence of
low fertility levels, usually near those of
mortality. Population growth again becomes
quite low or negligible.