Impact of Industrial Revolution on population

Whoever painted animals on cave walls lived in a world with very few people. For thousands of years human numbers barely changed. World population probably did not reach 1 billion until around 1800, so for most of history the planet was far from crowded. Great civilisations such as the Egyptians and the Minoans grew powerful and then collapsed, yet none of them caused the kind of rapid growth seen in the last two centuries.

The slow growth came from a balance between two rates, the birth rate and the death rate. These rates are defined in the lesson on population trends.

Before 1800 the birth rate was very high. Families often had between four and eight babies. The death rate was also very high, and babies were the most at risk. Many children died very young, so infant mortality was high and life expectancy was short compared with today. With so many deaths cancelling out so many births, the total population hardly grew.

Farming was one early development that did push numbers up. Growing crops and raising animals supported more people, which allowed larger and more complex societies to form. Those societies later made advances in health that helped population grow further. Growth still stayed slow, though, until the Industrial Revolution.