Demographic responses to famine.

It is helpful in considering the demographic effects of famine to distinguish between short- and long-term responses. Short-term responses are primarily mediated through biological process and the long-term responses involve behavioral adjustments to the crisis. A hypothetical famine of half-year duration is used to illustrate short-term demographic response in the typical famine-prone developing nation. The analysis reveals that the famine provides little in the way of a check to population growth in the short run. The effects of famine-induced mortality are followed by a compensatory (biologically determined) excess in the birth rate and a deficit in the death rate for some years following the famine. Net excess famine mortality is rapidly made up as normal population growth rates resume. The…