Geography Unit 4: Topic 2 Global Population Change

Population Momentum

Explains why a population can continue to grow even if replacement declines to below 2.1 as there is still a large portion of women who are in the child-bearing years (I5-49).

It can be negative or positive, but if the population decreases, it will continue to decrease.

Constrictive Population Pyramid

Declning population indicating below-replacement birth rates and an aging population, fewer children, more elderly, natural decrease/ negative population momentum without immigration.

Characteristic of Stage 5 of DTM

Stationary Population Pyramid

Stable population with balanced death and birth rates and reoughly equal youth and elderly populations.

Characteristic of Stage 4 of the DTM

Expansive Population Pyramid

Growing population, youthful population, high birth and death rates

Seen in developing, low-income countries with lack of access to contraception and medical services and cultural norms and agricultural lifestyles promoting child-bearing

Characteristic of Stage 2 of DTM

Dependency Ratio

Measures the pressure on a productive workforce comparing the number of dependents (under 15 and 65+) to working age adults (15-64)

Higher ratio means more strain on workforce for services (e.g. pensions, health care)

Lower ratio means a more robust economy (more tax)

Fertility Rate

The average number of children per woman of child-bearing age (usually 15-49) in her lifetime.

If the rate falls below 2.1 (total replacement fertility rate) it will lead to population decline. This rate factors in extra male births and infant mortality.

Rate of Natural Increase (RNI)

The birth rate minus the death rate expressed as a percentage

More births than death leads to a population increase and vice versa, however it does not take into account emigration and immigration

A positive RNI indicates Stage 2 of the DTM

A negative RNI indicates Stage 5 of the DTM

Net Migration Rate

The number of immigrants minus the number of emigrants per 1000 people.

NMR = i-e/ mid-year population x 1000

Age/ Sex Structure

The composition of a population by age (e.g. 0-4 years, 5-9 years etc.) and sex (male, female), often represented by a population pyramid.

Life Expectancy

The average number of years a newborn infant is expected to live, given the mortality rate at their time of birth.

Infant Mortality Rate

Ratio of children under the age of 1 that die in their first year compared to the total number of live births that year, expresed as a rate of 1000 live births.

IMR = deaths among children <1 year/ number of live births x 1000

Death Rate

Annual number of deaths per 1000 people.

Deaths/ 1000 = deaths per year/ total population x 1000

Birth Rate

Annual number of live births per 1000 people.

Births/ 1000 = births per year/ total population x 1000

GNI per capita ($US PPP)

• Stands for the “Gross National Income in Purchasing Power Parity” measuring a country’s relative wealth in current international dollars

Amenity

Refers to the desirable features or facilities of a place including shops, employment, health care, transport, culture, leisure activities, and green spaces.

Environmental amenity includes quality of environmental goods such as clean air and water.

Remittances

Sending money home to families but also supports the country their family is in

Forced Migration

People forced to move internally are an Internally Displaced Person (IDP), people forced to migrate internationally are a refugee and a refugee without documented status of ‘refugee’ are an asylum seeker.

Drivers include push factors such as violent conflict and military intervention, structural exclusion based on attributes such as race, religion, or gender, an elitist economy leading to economic exploitation, poverty, and unsustainable development leading to flooding, desertification, limited services and opportunites.

Voluntary Migration

A person who chooses to resettle in a new region due to pull factors such as education, family reunification, lifestyle, governance, or economic opportunities

Impacts of migration on places of origin

• Reduction in taxable income leading to less services (e.g. health care, education)

• Loss of familial ties

• Less competition for resources

• Remittances (in cases of ecomonic migrants)

• Declining populations and gender imbalance

• Decline in agricultural production as the workforce declines

Impacts of migration on places of destination

• Community hostilities (discrimination, racism)

• Ghettoism (extreme forms of residential concentration by culture, religious belief or ethnicity accounting for most of the area’s population)

• Increased government revenue due to more taxable income leading to more services

• Manages demographic change for example bringing more youth to balance an elderly population

• Increased competition for resources and services leading to pressure on housing and other infrastructure (e.g. longer wait times for medical services, increased traffic and transit blockages)

• More innovation due to an increased number of skilled workers (e.g. technology)

• Overcrowding and poverty (note this is dependent on the rate of migration)

Migration Rate

Immigration number minus emigration number per 100 people

Pull factor

Something that draws someone to an area

Push factor

Something that causes someone to move away from an area

Zelinsky’s Model Stage 1

Pre-modern Society

• Aligns with the first stage of the Demographic Transition

• Natural increase is low and limited mobility to nomadic movements in rural areas

• No option to migrate

Zelinsky’s Model Stage 2

Early Traditional Society

• Rising population and dramatic increase in rural to urban migration as a result of rapid industrialisation and urbanisation

• Migration flows to settlement frontiers and overseas also occur

• Displacement towards regions with economic opportunities

Zelinsky’s Model Stage 3

Late Traditional Society

• New areas developed

• Slackening rate of frontierand overseas migration

• Rural populations begin to fall and rural to urban migration is replaced by inter-urban and intra-urban migratio

Zelinsky’s Model Stage 4

Advanced Society

• Rate of natural increase flattens

• Decrease in rural-urban migration.

• Increase in interurban and intraurban migration as urban centres merge

• Counter-urbanisation begins to emerge in response to urban diseconomies and lifestyle-based movements

Zelinsky’s Model Stage 5

Super-Advanced Society

• Significant levels of interurban and intraurban migration and temporary short-term migratory movements for education, employment, and quality of life.(circular mobility)

• Mobility influenced by environmental and technological factors.

Zelinsky’s Model

Describes migratory processes in industrialised countries over time showing how mobility evolves with socio-economic development

Demographic Transition Model (DTM)

Describes how changes in population growth respond to relative differences in birth and death rates, which themselves change over time 

Stage 1 of DTM

• high birth and death rate

• Natural increase is close to zero

• Tent-shaped

Stage 2 of DTM

• Early expanding stage where population begins to rise

• High birth rate and rapidly falling death rate

• Rapid increase in natural increase

• Pyramid-shaped

Stage 3 of DTM

• Late expanding stage

• Birth rate decreases whilst whilst the death rate remains low

• Population continues to increase but not as quickly as Stage 2 as low births and deaths are at an equilibrium

• Natural increase is still positive

• Door-shaped (think more opportunities)

Stage 4 of DTM

• Low stationary phase

• Low birth rates, while death rates start to increase

• Natural increase is close to zero

• Bubble-shaped

Stage 5 of DTM

• Birth rates remain low whilst the death rate increases

• Countries with a negative NIR decrease in population due to fewer men and women in child-bearing years

• Tear-drop shaped

Reasons for high death rate

• High levels of disease

• Lack of health care

• Lifestyle diseases

• Less youth to work in health care

• Lack of education

• Competition for food

• War

Reasons for high birth rates

• Lack of family planning or contraception

• high infant mortality rate putting babies in the ‘bank’

• Religious or cultural beliefs

• Workers needed in agriculture

Reasons for decreasing death rates

• Improved health care, hygiene and sanitisation

• Improved food production and storage

• Decreased Infant Mortality Rates

Reasons for decreasing birth rates

• Family planning and birth control available

• Increased living standards and resources

• Changing status of women (more in the workforce, marrying later, education)

• Fewer children having children

Wallerstein’s World Systems Theory

Explains the evolution of feudalism to modern day capitalist countries and trade, focusing on the flow of resources between core nations (high-income), semi-periphery (moderate income, manufactured goods), and periphery nations (low income, cheap labour, and raw materials.

Core nations exploit periphery and semi-periphery nations to maintain wealth using economic and political power to force a colonial relationship.

Core Nations

• Describes the advanced economic core of a country of region surrounded by the less economically developed periphery  

• E.g. the United States which exports capital intensive products to the semi-peripheral and peripheral regions 

Semi-Periphery Nations

• Second-tier industrialised countries 

• E.g. Brazil which is not as advanced as those of the core 

Periphery Nations

• Agricultural countries 

• E.g. countries in Africa which export labour and commodities to the core and semi-periphery nations 

Rostow’s Model

Explains how after initial capital investment countries emnark on an evolutionary process (approx. 60 years)

Stage 1 of Rostow’s Model

Traditional Society

• Labour intensive agrarian economy, relatively static population with limited technology

Stage 2 of Rostow’s Model

Pre-Conditions for Take-Off

• Western development aid and investment assist improvements in agriculture and economic infrastructure and encourage further overseas investment

• Improvements in life expectancy and declining death rates

Stage 3 of Rostow’s Model

Take-Off

• Short industrialisation period of rapid economic growth

• New urbanised entrepreneurial and middle class

• High demographic growth and rural-urban migration

Stage 4 of Rostow’s Model

Drive to Maturity

• Long period of increasing standards of living

• A diversifying economy leads to social chnages such as later marriage and slowing population growth

Stage 5 of Rostow’s Model

High Mass Consumption

• Highly urbanised consumer economy

Limitations of Rostow’s Model

• Driven by investment/ development not social factors such as local governance, social inequality and wealth distribution

• Linear bias, assuming a rigid path/ trajectory with no option to bypass stages