Alice Reid & Romola Davenport
The world’s population has exploded since the 18th century, from perhaps 1 billion in 1800 to over 8 billion today. The usual story is that this extraordinary growth was caused by dramatic falls in mortality. But research at Campop has shown that, at least in England, fertility has actually played a larger role than mortality in regulating population growth.
Romola Davenport
‘Malthusianism’ is widely used to describe the belief that (1) human populations grow faster than the resources on which they depend, and (2) that the main way in which population is prevented from outstripping resources is by the ‘positive check’ of mortality, resulting in the most extreme circumstances in ‘Malthusian crises’ (famine and war).
© 2025 University of Cambridge
The Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure