Editing Demographic transition (section)

==Critical evaluation==

Because the DTM is only a model, it cannot necessarily predict the future, but it does suggest an underdeveloped country's future birth and death rates, together with the total population size. Most particularly, of course, the DTM makes no comment on change in population due to migration. It is not necessarily applicable at very high levels of development.<ref name="Nature"/><ref name=":1" />

DTM does not account for recent phenomena such as [[AIDS]]; in these areas HIV has become the leading source of mortality. Some trends in waterborne bacterial infant mortality are also disturbing in countries like [[Malawi]], [[Sudan]] and [[Nigeria]]; for example, progress in the DTM clearly arrested and reversed between 1975 and 2005.<ref>{{Citation | url = http://www.populationaction.org/resources/researchCommentaries/Nov06_AgeStructure.htm | contribution = Nigeria: Reversal of Demographic Transition | title = Population action | date = November 2006 | access-date = 2007-02-09 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070411045257/http://www.populationaction.org/resources/researchCommentaries/Nov06_AgeStructure.htm | archive-date = 2007-04-11 | url-status = dead }}.</ref>

DTM assumes that population changes are induced by industrial changes and increased wealth, without taking into account the role of social change in determining birth rates, e.g., the education of women. In recent decades more work has been done on developing the social mechanisms behind it.<ref name=Caldwell>{{cite book|last=Caldwell|first=John C.|author2=Bruce K Caldwell |author3=Pat Caldwell |author4=Peter F McDonald |author5=Thomas Schindlmayr |title=Demographic Transition Theory|publisher= [[Springer Science+Business Media|Springer]]|year= 2006 |location=Dordrecht, The Netherlands|isbn=978-1-4020-4373-4 | page = 239}}</ref>

DTM assumes that the birth rate is independent of the death rate. Nevertheless, demographers maintain that there is no historical evidence for society-wide fertility rates rising significantly after high mortality events. Notably, some historic populations have taken many years to replace lives after events such as the [[Black Death]].

Some have claimed that DTM does not explain the early fertility declines in much of Asia in the second half of the 20th century or the delays in fertility decline in parts of the Middle East. Nevertheless, the demographer [[John Caldwell (demographer)|John C. Caldwell]] has suggested that the reason for the rapid decline in fertility in some [[developing country|developing countries]] compared to Western Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand is mainly due to government programs and a massive investment in education both by governments and parents.<ref name=Caldwell10/>

DTM does not well explain the impact of government policies on birth rate. In some developing countries, governments often implement some policies to control the growth of fertility rate. China, for example, underwent a fertility transition in 1970, and the Chinese experience was largely influenced by government policy. In particular the "later, longer, fewer" policy of 1970 and one birth policy was enacted in 1979 which all encouraged people to have fewer children in later life. The fertility transition indeed stimulated economic growth and influenced the demographic transition in China.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Carl-johan|first1=dalgaard|last2=pablo|first2=selaya|date=2015|title=Climate and the Emergence of Global Income|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26160242|journal=The Review of Economic Studies|volume=83|issue=4|pages=1334–1363|jstor=26160242 }}</ref>