A Comparative Study of Population and Agricultural Change in Some Countries of the ECAFE Region

In countries where in recent decades populations have been increasing rapidly and where the extent and rate of industrialisation have not been notable, the interrelations between population change and agricultural change assume enormous importance. Is there, in such countries, any systematic association between changes in demographic variables such as fertility, mortality (or the resulting natural rate of population change) and migration on the one hand and changes in total and per capita agricultural output on the other? Beyond this, can the causal relations, if any, between these be identified? These crucial questions were the focus of the comparative study of population and agricultural change carried out in three countries of Asia —Japan, India and Sri Lanka—by the Population Division of ECAFE. The study was with reference to subnational area units, such as districts or prefectures, in order to bring in the variegated patterns of change in this field that were usually smothered in national aggregates. In Japan the 46 prefectures were studied for the period 1900–40. In India only two provinces were covered; 12 districts in the Punjab were studied over the period 1911–71 and 13 in Orissa during 1951–71. The 22 districts of Sri Lanka were studied over the period 1946–71. Taiwan, not included in the ECAFE study, is included here.