Try any textbook on economic development. This is the classic "demographic transition." For that matter try any textbook on demography. Or any textbook on economic geography.
All I could find quickly on my shelf is the rather-out-of-date but once widely used, _Economic Development_ by Benjamin Higgins, 1968, W.W. Norton. On p. 45 there is a diagram of the "demographic transition" with the death rate dropping first and the birth rate dropping later. This pattern was documented earlier in Kingsley Davis, "The Amazing Decline of Mortality in Underdeveloped
Areas," _American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings_, May, 1956, p. 314.
A quick glance at the latest World Development Reports suggests that the pattern holds as I scan data on individual countries. It is such an entrenched fact that nobody even bothers to remark on it anymore. Barkley Rosser On Sat, 28 Nov 1998 17:48:19 -0600 "John K. Taber" <jktaber at onramp.net> wrote:
>
> Barkley Rosser wrote:
> Date: Sat, 28 Nov 1998 13:20:37 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)
> From: "Rosser Jr, John Barkley" <rosserjb at jmu.edu>
> Subject: Re: statistical fallacy of aging population?
>
> Michael Pollak,
> Sorry, but you are simply wrong. The classic pattern
> of the demographic transition is for the death rate to drop
> first, thus increasing the numbers of the elderly, and then
> for the birth rate to drop later. That has held true in
> pretty much every nation in the world. I am not aware of
> any exceptions to that generalization (although there are
> some where the birth rate has yet to decline, and others
> where the death rate has gone back up again either due to
> wars or AIDS epidemics).
> Barkley Rosser
>
> John Taber:
> I heard it just the other way. First the fertility rate
> declines, then the population ages. I also heard that
> both lower fertility rate and aging population are
> functions of a society's economic well being.
>
> Since this is a question of importance to me, I would
> appreciate getting it straight.
>
> Does anybody else have comments?
>
> There is Mountain View Research and a demographics group
> at Berkeley called CEDA I think.
>
> Also, the Social Security Administration has a lot of
> demographic studies that might help.
>
> I'm hoping an lbostist can set me straight so that I don't
> have to go searching.
>
>
>
-- Rosser Jr, John Barkley rosserjb at jmu.edu