Unit 2 Vocab

Carrying Capacity

The number of people an area can support on a sustained basis

Medical Revolution

Improved medical practices that has eliminated many of the traditional causes of death in poorer countries and enabled more people to live longer and healthier lives.

Transition Model

A focus on each distinctive health threat in each stage of the demographic transition

Demographic Museum

Despite a falling fertility rate, a country with a large percentage of young people will usually experience continued population growth

Demographic Transition Model

A tool demographers use to categorize countries population growth rates and economic structures

Industrial Revolution

A series of improvement in industrial technology that transformed the process of manufacturing goods

Zero population growth

The goal of leveling off the worlds population in order to insure that the earth would be able to sustain it’s inhabitants.

Population explosion

the trend toward rapid population increase

doubling time

the number of years needed to double a population, assuming a constant rate of increase

natural increase rate

the percentage growth of a population in a year, computed as the crude birth rate minus the crude death rate

literacy rate

the percentage of a countrys people who can read and write

sex ratio

the number of males per 100 females in the population

crude death rate

the total number of deaths in a year for every 1000 people alive in the society

population pyramid

a bar graph that represents the distribution of population by age and sex

life expectancy

the average number of years an individual can be expected to live, given current social, economic, and medical conditions

dependency rate

the number of people under age 15 and over age 64 compared to the number of people active in the work force

infant mortality rate

the total number of deaths in a year among infants under one year of age for every 1000 live births in a society

total fertility rate

the average number of children a child will have throughout her childbearing years

crude birth rate

the total number of live births in a year for every 1000 people alive in the society

overpopulation

a situation in which the number of people in an area exceeds the capacity of the environment to support life at a decent standard of living

physiological density

the number of people per unit of area of arable land

ecumene

the population of earths surface occupied by a permanent human settlement

arable land

land suitable for agriculture

arithmetic density

the total number of people divided by the total land area

agricultural density

the ratio of number of farmers to the total amount of land suitable for agriculture