Huwelijksleeftijd, gezinsgrootte en geboortedaling

Samenvatting

The sociological approach to changes in the birth and death rate is known as 'transition theory'. The pattern which has generally been discerned is that the death rate slows, causing a rapid increase in population. This is followed by a decrease in the birth rate and the population growth leveling off. It has been demonstrated recently that this chain of events does not always correspond to reality in the European situation and is even less applicable to developing nations. Changes in the birth rate tend to be more difficult to explain than changes in the death rate. This is because the birth rate is influenced by marriage age, marriage frequency, and fertility. Western Europe is distinct from much of the rest of the world in that people tend to marry older and there is a significant number of people who do not marry at all. In the Netherlands there is a definite tendency toward younger marriages, which is tied to a greater frequency of marriage, although couples want less children than is the case in the us, (nonetheless, the birth rate in the us, which formerly was higher than that of the Netherlands, has been lower since 1965, showing that the situation is starting to change). In third world countries these tendencies are also becoming apparent, meaning that there marriage frequency is decreasing, whereas in Western Europe it is increasing. 1 table. P. Tiersma.