Three Demographic Theories with Predictive Power: Demographic Metabolism, Demographic Transition, and Demographic Dividend

Lutz, W. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7975-8145 (2025). Three Demographic Theories with Predictive Power: Demographic Metabolism, Demographic Transition, and Demographic Dividend. IIASA Working Paper. Laxenburg, Austria: WP-25-004

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Abstract

The discipline of demography has an ambivalent relationship to theory despite of the widely acknowledged view that every self-respecting scientific discipline needs to have a body of foundational theories. Based on Popper’s definition of a theory as containing predictive power and the definition of demography as studying changing population size and structures, this paper considers as demographic theories in the strict sense of these definitions theories that can predict population size and structures, i.e. focus on macro-level outcomes. The theory of demographic metabolism (a notion introduced by Norman Ryder) captures the essence of social change through cohort replacement in addition to transitions over the life cycle of cohorts and can deliver quantitative predictions in the context of multi-dimensional demographic modelling. The theory of demographic transition is the oldest and most prominent demographic theory, although its predictive power is limited to its irreversibility. Finally, the theory of a demographic dividend has probabilistic predictive power through the prediction that a relative increase of the more productive proportion of a population increases the chance of economic growth and improvements in wellbeing generally. In a final effort these three theories are combined towards a Unified Demographic Theory.

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