Demographic catastrophe

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Demographic catastrophe describes an extremely drastic decline in population with long-term effects on the social, economic and cultural structures of a population up to the depopulation of larger areas or up to the complete or almost complete collapse of a population.

The term “demographic catastrophe” is to be distinguished from phenomena of simple population decline. It is often used in a slogan and judgmental manner, e.g. B. in the discussion about the decline in the birth rate in western industrial nations. It would be more appropriate to use the less dramatic term “ demographic crisis ” because a number of historical events had a much larger dimension.

causes

In today's research, the prevailing opinion is that, in the event of large-scale permanent population declines, one must start from a multitude of complementary factors, which extend to areas as diverse as social structure, economic method, settlement method, climate, resource use, diseases, addiction, persecution, etc. . In many cases, a long-term population decline on a large scale is only brought about by the prolonged effect of the factors over a certain period of time. For example, studies on the impact of the great plague epidemics in the 14th century have shown that it was the repeated plague affliction that led to a permanent population decline. The decisive factor for a long-term population decline, however, is less a single epidemic than a change in the absolute realized reproduction numbers .

Examples

Population development in Ireland (green) and Europe (blue): from 1845 onwards there was a sharp decline in Ireland due to the consequences of the Great Famine

Well-known examples of demographic disasters in history:

• The decline of the Roman population in the late phase of the Roman Empire
• The population decline during the time of the Mongol storm , mainly caused by the destruction of the rural and partly urban livelihoods of the population in the affected areas
• The population decline in Europe in the 14th century caused by the plague
• The population decline in America after the discovery by Columbus, caused by diseases such as smallpox, measles and flu, partly exacerbated by poor treatment by the Spanish conquerors - probably the largest mass death in numbers. In the 16th century, Mexico's population declined by 90%.
• The population decline in Central Europe at the time of the Thirty Years War , caused, among other things, by epidemics and food shortages (the latter also due to the requisition , a new form of soldiers' care)
• The Great Famine in Ireland (from 1845) with long-term effects on population numbers. About a million Irish died and two million emigrated to the USA, England and the British colonies.

See also

• Population history
• Demographic transition
• Demography of Germany

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Klaus Bingler, Gerd Bosbach: No cause for fear and panic: facts and myths about the “demographic catastrophe”. In: Deutsche Rentenversicherung (Ed .: Verband Deutscher Renten-Versicherungträger) 11-12 (2004), pp. 725–749. For a more dramatic assessment, see Herwig Birg: Die demographische Zeitenwende: The population decline in Germany and Europe. 3. Edition. Beck, Munich 2003.
2. ^ R. Acuna-Soto et al .: Megadrought and Megadeath in 16th Century Mexico . In: Emerging Infectious Diseases , 2002, pp. 360–362, PMC 2730237 (free full text)