The local demography of resource economies: Long-term implications of natural resource industries for demographic development in sparsely populated areas

At the small settlement level, demographic change can be dramatic and rapid even without 'black swan' (Taleb, 2007) or unusual but substantial events (Carson et al., 2011). Attributing demographic change to particular causes is therefore a difficult task. In some cases there may be clear causal links between an event and a demographic outcome - rapid population growth may be almost completely ascribed to a new business which imported a large number of workers to the town, for example. However, the causes of some demographic events are harder to identify - was the business activity (and the demographic change it\caused) responsible for changing fertility rates over the following generation? While sparsely populated areas are said to be unusually dependent on external factors shaping their human geography, they are also dependent on their own histories and the demographic 'paths' that have emerged over time as a result of the complex interplay of human behaviours (Barnes et al. 2001). Given this context, it is not a straightforward task to identify the demographic consequences of particular classes of events for settlements (particularly small settlements) in sparsely populated areas. While the primary aim of this chapter is to investigate what we know about the demographic consequences of natural resource developments, the limits to what we can know must also be acknowledged.