Unit 2- Population and Migration

Arithmetic population density

The population of a country or region expressed as an average per unit area. The figure is derived by dividing the population of the areal unit by the number of square kilometers or miles that make up the unit.

Physiological population density

The number of people per unit area of arable land

Population distribution

Description of locations on the Earth's surface where populations live.

Agricultural population density

The number of farmers per unit area of arable land.

Carrying capacity

The largest number of people that the environment of a particular area can sustainably support.

Megalopolis

Large coalescing super cities that are forming in diverse parts of the world; the U.S. example - Boston-Washington corridor.

Census

A periodic and official count of a country's population

Total fertility rate

The average number of children born to a woman during her child bearing years.

Dependency ratio

A measure of the number of dependents aged zero to 14 and over the age of 65.

*Doubling time

The time required for a population to double in size

Zero population growth

A state in which a population is maintained at a constant level because to the number of deaths is exactly offset by the number of births.

Crude birth rate

The number of live births yearly per thousand people in the population

Crude death rate

The number of deaths yearly per thousand people in the population

Natural increase

Population growth measured as the excess of live births over deaths. Natural increase does not reflect (emigrant/immigrant movements)

Malthusian theory

The theory of exponential population growth and arithmetic food supply growth.

Stationary population level

The level at which a national population ceases to grow.

Population composition

Structure of a population in terms of age, sex and other properties such as marital status and education.

infant mortality rate

A figure that describes the number of babies that die within the first year of their lives in a given population.

Child Mortality Rate

A figure that describes the number of children that die between the first and fifth years of their lives in a given population

life expectancy

A figure indicating how long, on average, a person may be expected to live

Pronatalist/Expansive population policy

The policy or practice of encouraging the bearing of children, especially government support of a higher birthrate.

Antinatalist

Policies that discourage people from having children (China's One Child Policy)

Eugenic Population Policy

government policy designed to favor one race over another

One Child Policy

A program established by the Chinese government in 1979 to slow population growth in China.

Remittances

Money migrants send back to family and friends in their home countries, often in cash, forming an important part of the economy in many poorer countries

Cyclic Movement

Movement - for example, nomadic migration - that has closed route and is repeated annually or seasonally

Migration

Form of relocation diffusion involving permanent move to a new location.

push factors

a factor that causes people to leave their homelands and migrate to another region

pull factors

A factor that draws or attracts people to another location

Transhumance

A seasonal periodic movement of pastoralists and their livestock between highland and lowland pastures

Emigration

movement of individuals out of an area

Immigration

Migration to a new location

Forced Migration

Human migration flows in which the movers have no choice but to relocate.

Voluntary Migration

Movement of an individual who consciously and voluntarily decides to locate to a new area- the opposite of forced migration

human trafficking

the illegal movement of people, typically for the purposes of forced labor

Laws of Migration (Ravenstein)

Developed by British demographer Ravenstein, five laws that predict flow of migrants

Gravity Model

A model that holds that the potential use of a service at a particular location is directly related to the number of people in a location and inversely related to the distance people must travel to reach the service.

step migration

Migration to a distant destination that occurs in stages, for example, from farm to nearby village and later to a town and city

intervening opportunity

The presence of a nearer opportunity that greatly diminishes the attractiveness of sites farther away.

Chain Migration

pattern of migration that develops when migrants move along and through kinship links

Colonization

The expansion of countries into other countries where they establish settlements and control the people

Islands of development

Place built up by a government or corporation to attract foreign investment and which has relatively high concentrations of paying jobs and infrastructure.

Refugees

People who are forced to migrate from their home country and cannot return for fear of persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, membership in a social group, or political opinion.

asylum

a place of retreat or security

Internal displaced persons

People who have been displaced within their own countries and do not cross international borders as they flee.

Repatriation

A refugee or group of refugees returning to their home country, usually with the assistance of government or a non-governmental organization.

Genocide

the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular ethnic group or nation.

selective immigration

process to control immigration in which individuals with certain backgrounds are barred from immigrating