Set 2 - Population Dynamics, Demographic Theories, Policies, and Migration

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering Malthusian and Boserup theories, population policies, female demographic shifts, and migration causes and types based on AP Human Geography lecture notes.

Carrying Capacity

The amount of population that a location can support without harming the environment, often used by geographers to describe overpopulation.

Malthusian Theory

The theory proposed by Thomas Malthus in 1798 claiming that human population grows exponentially ($2, 4, 8, 16$) while food output grows arithmetically ($1, 2, 3, 4$), leading to a point of crisis marked by food shortages and famine.

Boserup's Theory

The theory proposing that food supply is directly impacted by population growth, asserting that as population increases, humans develop new technologies to expand food production.

Neo-Malthusians

Modern theorists who emphasize sustainable environmental use, arguing that Earth's finite resources cannot support unlimited population growth and warning of resource strain, overconsumption, water insecurity, desertification, and famine.

Pro-Natalist Population Policies

Government programs (also known as expansive policies) designed to increase fertility rates and accelerate population growth, commonly implemented in Stage 4 and Stage 5 countries facing aging populations or labor shortages.

Anti-Natalist Population Policies

Government programs (also known as restrictive policies) designed to lower fertility rates and slow population growth, typically utilized in Stage 2 countries to reduce overpopulation and resource strain.

Sterilization Campaigns

Medical methods of birth control used in anti-natalist policies, involving surgical or nonsurgical procedures for males or females that intentionally render a person unable to reproduce.

Migration

The permanent or semipermanent relocation of people from one place to another.

Immigration

The movement of individuals into a new location.

Emigration

The movement of individuals away from or exiting a location.

Push Factors

Negative circumstances, conditions, or events present in a location that cause people to move away.

Pull Factors

Positive conditions or circumstances of a location that attract people to move there.

Intervening Obstacle

An economic, environmental, social, or political barrier that holds migrants back from continuing their journey.

Intervening Opportunity

A favorable economic, social, political, or environmental opportunity encountered during travel that causes migrants to voluntarily stop traveling.

The Bracero Program

A World War II treaty between the United States and Mexico to supply agricultural and transportation laborers, leading to the migration of $4.6\text{ million}$ Mexican workers to the United States.

Ravenstein's Laws of Migration

A series of empirical generalizations stating that most migration is short-distance, occurs in steps, targets urban areas, generates counter-migration, is primarily driven by economic factors, and that young single adult males are more likely to migrate internationally than females.

Voluntary Migration

Relocation driven by personal choices rather than direct coercion or immediate threats to survival.

Involuntary (Forced) Migration

Relocation where people are forced to move due to fears of violence, persecution, war, or threats to survival.

Refugees

People who have been forced to flee their home country due to persecution, war, violence, or environmental disasters, and who receive official refugee status prior to arrival in a host nation.

Asylum Seekers

Individuals who flee their home country, travel to a host country independently via a visa or port of entry, and apply for asylum by proving a well-founded fear of persecution.

Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs)

Individuals forced to flee their homes due to conflict, violence, or disasters who remain within their home country's borders without crossing an international boundary.

Enslaved Persons

Individuals subjected to forced relocation and involuntary servitude, historically illustrated by the Atlantic Slave Trade ($10\text{--}12\text{ million}$ people) and modern human trafficking (estimated at $21\text{ million}$ people by the United Nations).

Transhumance

A traditional form of seasonal voluntary migration where pastoral nomads move livestock between higher elevations in summer and lower elevations in winter.

Transnational Migration

Voluntary movement from one country to another where migrants maintain strong cultural, emotional, and financial ties to their country of origin.

Remittances

Money earned by transnational migrants and sent back to family or community members in their origin country, representing a major global economic flow.

Internal Migration

Movement of migrants within the borders of a single nation, occurring far more frequently than transnational migration due to distance decay.

Distance Decay

The principle that as the spatial distance between two locations increases, the level of interaction and likelihood of migration between them decreases.

Chain Migration

A pattern of migration where individuals move to a specific location based on recommendations from or reunification with family members, friends, or community members who previously settled there.

Step Migration

Migration that occurs incrementally through a series of smaller moves, such as moving from a rural village to a town, then to a city, and ultimately to a major metropolis.

Guest Worker

A temporary labor migrant who travels internationally to work short-term jobs that cannot be filled by the host country's domestic workforce.