Population Density

Arithmetic Density: Total number of people in an area (MOST COMMONLY USED)

• Population divided by land area (What most people mean when they talk about population density)

  • Says little about population distribution

    • Does not take into consideration internal clustering of people in a country

  • Simply an average of people overall in an area

  • Does not take into account whether the land is habitable or not

    • May indicate that places are far less crowded than they are

• Country can lower its arithmetic density by limiting the size of its population

Physiological Density: Number of people supported by a unit area of arable land or land suitable for agriculture

• More reflective of population pressure on arable land

• Provides insights into relationship between the size of population & availability of resources in a region

• Useful to determine carrying capacity – number of people the area can sustain or support

  • Depends on available space, but available technology, wealth, climate & ability to bring in resources from other areas for support

  • Infrastructure can increase carrying capacity

Agricultural Density: number of farmers per unit of arable land

• Low density, in developed countries or MDC, suggest the presence of larger farms or more mechanized farming technology

• Very high density, in developing countries or LDC, means many farmers are on each piece of farmland

Population Composition

Population Dynamics

Countries population changes as a result of 4 conditions:

• Births, Deaths, emigration & immigration

Factors that determine a population’s growth & decline:

• Mortality Rate or (Crude Death Rate (CDR): number of deaths per year per 1000 people in population)

  • Highest is in Sub-Saharan Africa strongly influence by AIDS

• Fertility Rate or (Crude Birth Rate (CBR): number of births per year per 1000 people in population)

  • Countries with high CBR & CDR has a board base population pyramid

• European & U.S. decline in CBR was the result of the effects:

  • Industrialization, urbanization, modernization, birth control & woman’s education, as well, entrance into the workforce

    • At present rate of birth & deaths in the world , we are adding about 85 million people every year

Total Fertility Rate (TFR): average number of children born per woman in a society

• # of births needed to keep a population at a stable level without immigration, requires a TFR of 2.1

Life expectancy: number of years the average person will live.

• Europe LE is 80, in LDC, such as, Sub-Sahara Africa LE is less than 50

Infant Mortality Rate (IMR): the number of children who die before their first birthday

• Since declining the most important factor increasing life expectancy

  • Lowest is in Japan

  • Highest is central Africa or Sub-Saharan Africa

Migration Rate: the percentage gain or loss of population due to migration

Geographers use to explain population growth & decline

• Rate of natural increase (NIR)

  • NIR exceeds 2.0% in most countries of sub-Saharan Africa

    • Highest NIR are found in countries that are in stage 2 of the DTM

• Population-doubling time

  • World’s NIR is currently 1.2% at which rate the world's population is projected to double in about 54 years

  • World population double is increasing (meaning taking longer to double)

Other factors that led to population growth

• Better food production & nutrition

• Advance in public sanitation

• Improvement in healthcare

Epidemiological Transition Model (ETM)

Malthusian Theory

In 1798, predicted that the earth's population would eventually outgrow the food supply

Food supply increases arithmetically (1,2,3,4), while population increases geometrically (1,2,4,8)

• Conclusion: Geometrically growing population would outgrow an area’s food supply, thus causing people to die off or leading people into poverty.

J-Curve shows how population grows slowly and then skyrockets

Neo Malthusians (Agree with Malthus) or Ehrlich Theory

• Believed population will outstrip resources, widespread famine by 2050.

• Created the S-Curve (logistic model) to show how at higher population densities

• Limited resources lead to competition & eventual end to population growth

  • Did not foresee Green Revolution & drop in fertility rates

• Neo Malthusians advocated for population control programs to enough resources for current & future populations

Critics of Malthus

• Esther Boserup Theory criticize his theory that pop growth causes problems

  • Explained how population increase necessitates increased inputs of labor & technology to compensate for reductions farming

Cornucopian Theory

• Suggests human invention & innovation will help expand food supply

Marxists Critics of Malthus

• Frederic Engels criticized Malthus as being “capitalist”

• If the worlds resources were shared evenly among all, then there would be plenty & poverty/hunger could be avoided

Malthus Theory vs Reality

• In the last half-century:

• Human population has grown at its most rapid rate ever

  • Population grown more than 22x from the year 1000 to 2000.

  • In 1000, 275,000,000 people & in 2000, 6,145,006,989 people on Earth

• World food production has grown consistently faster

Population Policies

Types of population policies include those that promote or discourage population growth:

Population Policies are laws enacted by the government to influence the size & structure of a country’s population

Pro-natalist- An attitude or government policy that encourages childbearing or increase fertility rate

• Help keep economy vibrate

• Instituted in France, Sweden, Poland & Japan

  • Paid time off for mothers (Maternity Leave)

  • Tax breaks

  • Cash incentives

  • Free childcare

  • Discount for government services

  • Free college tuition

  • Restriction on birth control & abortion

Anti-natalist– Gov’t control the number of children they have

Policies discourage growth with the use of contraceptives/ abortions/ disincentives

China’s approach to reduce population

1970 – gov’t encouraged "Later, longer, fewer" policy

• Later births, longer space between births, and fewer births

1979 - One Child Policy - couples were only allowed one child

• Only in certain situations couples were allowed more than one child

Policy WAS successful

• Birth rate has fallen, population growth has slowed

• 400 million possible births prevented

• Some rural areas & ethic groups (such as Han Chinese) allowed 2nd child

Policy WAS NOT successful

• Policy not popular in rural areas, more children needed for farming

• Men are family carrier, so girls were aborted or terminated

  • Causing a gender unbalance with 30 million more men than women

• China now facing an ageing population that costs the government & family more money

  • Projected shortage of working-age people to care for the rising elderly population, resulting in an increase in the cost of living for older people

India’s Population Policies

Gov’t spends several hundred million dollars annually on various family-planning programs

• Including the distribution of birth-control devices & abortions

India’s most controversial family-planning program was the establishment of sterilization camps

• In 1970’s, government of India used forced sterilization of males as a method to reduce the population

• Opposition to the sterilization camps because the thought that eventually sterilization would be forced

Immigration Policies

Policies Encouraging Migration

• Guest worker policies

• Family reunification policies

• Other policies the include allowing refugees

Countries with aging population attempt to stimulate economic growth to lessen the effects of rising medical and retirement cost by promoting immigration

Policies Discouraging Migration

• Immigration laws

• Quotas

Women and Demographic Change

TFR is dropping worldwide & one of the factors that has the biggest effect on it is the role of women in society

Changing social values and access:

• Education & Employment

  • Woman obtain more schooling, expand their job opportunity

  • Longer they stay in school, fewer children they will have.

  • Or having children later in life

• Healthcare

  • Better health care led to a lower infant mortality rate

  • Higher life expectancy

• Family Planning/ Contraception

  • Couples having children later in life

    • Resulting in less children

  • Fewer unintended pregnancies

Ravenstein detailed gender & family-status patterns in his migration laws:

• Adult Males are more mobile, migrate farther, have more economic opportunity & income than females

Migration shift:

• High percentage of females in the workforce of developed countries attracts a high percentage of female immigrants

  • Since the 1990s, largest group of unauthorized immigrants from Mexico to the U.S. are female

• Some developed countries have allowed wives to join husbands who have already immigrated

  • Not present in developing countries, male immigrants still outnumber female ones

Aging Populations

Increase in the ageing population aging:

• Better food

• Advance in public sanitation

• Improvement in heath care

Causing a decrease in CBR & CDR with increase life expectancy

• 110 years ago, it was 34

• Today nearly 70

“Graying” population places a burden gov’t of develop countries to meet the needs of their elderly population

• Must receive adequate income & medical care

• Fastest growing population is now over the age 80

  • Highest L.E. in Japan

  • Lowest L.E. in Sub-Saharan Africa

Dependency ratio is the number of dependents (people aged 0-14 & over age 65) compared with the working population (age 15-64)

• No countries has a dependency ratio higher than 100

  • Meaning more nonworking age people than working aged people

• Traditionally, LDCs have higher dependency ratio because of high birth & death rates

  • Democratic Republic of the Congo, has a ratio of 97 as of 2017, above the world average of 54.

• Lately, some MDCs have been trending with high aging populations

  • Japan is currently up to 68, mostly older.

Consequences: Aging populations are likely to support cuts to education, increased pensions & support of crime legislation

Causes of Migration

Push/Pull Factors

Economic Factors

• Push: Lack economic opportunities (Less jobs)

• Pull: available economic opportunities (more jobs)

  • Most important pull factor for migrants to N. America today

  • Roughly 42 million (2015), about 1 million additional people arriving annually

• #1 reason why people from the developing world move to the developed world

Social Factors

• Push: Discrimination & persecution because ethnicity, race, gender or religion

• Pull: Cultural Safety

Push/Pull Factors

• Political Factors:

  • Push: Face persecution, arrest & discrimination

    • War in Syria, over 5 million to flee the country according to the UNHCR (UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees)

  • Oppression causes people to leave their country (Unfortunately people are persecuted throughout the world)

  • Some are persecuted for…

    • Their religion (Christians in Sudan)

    • Speaking out against their government (journalists jailed in Myanmar)

    • The ethnicity or race (black people in South Africa under apartheid)

  • Pull: Support political view or better political climate or giving asylum

• Environmental Factors

  • Push: hazardous regions, adverse physical conditions, such as natural disasters or most common - water condition (Lack of w/ drought or to much w/ flooding)

    • Natural disasters & /or environmental reasons can cause people to move

      • Ex: Population of New Orleans dropped by over a quarter of a million people since Hurricane Katrina in 2005

  • Pull: physically attractive regions – Florida the “Sunshine State”

    • Ex: "Snowbird" (individuals who reside in the north during the summer & move south in the winter).

Intervening opportunities/obstacles

• Environmental obstacles: physical features like deserts, oceans, mountains, or logistical problems like traveling long distances

• Political obstacles: could be proper documentation (Visas or Passports), or getting past man-made obstacles like an exclusion wall

• Cultural obstacles: Citizens the country people are migrating into are afraid their unique culture will be lost.

  • Immigrants sometimes get blamed for unemployment, high welfare rates, or crime

• Demographics leaving an overpopulated country

  • Also, reason cannot enter a country

  • Some have quotas on how many people of certain countries are allowed to come in

    • Number is met no more people cannot migrate there

• Economic

  • Many developing countries have corrupt systems that make applying for visas or passports very expensive & difficult to receive

  • Coming into a country can be expensive & deter people from entering

• Sometimes migrants traveling to a specific country find intervening opportunities then moving to a destination they did not intend to originally

  • Ex: Syrians set out to migrate to Germany, but ended up in Serbia

    • Found a supportive government & warm welcome from the Serbians

Ravenstein's Laws of Migration

1. Majority of migrants do not move far away from their homes.

2. Every migration generates counter-migration or a return.

3. Migrants who choose to move far go to cities with more opportunity for jobs.

4. People from rural areas are more likely to migrate than people from urban areas.

5. Young adults are more likely than families to migrate internationally.

6. Majority of migrants are adults.

7. Cities tend to grow by migration and not by natural increase rate.

8. Men are more likely to travel long distances.

9. Those men are more likely to travel by themselves and not with their family.

10. Most people migrate for better economic activities.

Geographer Wilbur Zelinsky's model of migration predicted migration characteristics vary with the demographic transition.

Migration Transition (As Applied to the Demographic Transition Model)

Forced and Voluntary Migration

Forced migrations are where human migration flows in which the movers have no choice but to relocate

• Best example of forced migration is Slavery

  • During the 17th & 18th centuries, hundreds of thousands of Africans were forcibly brought to the Americas in the Triangle Trade

    • Smallest # of slaves involved in the Atlantic Slave Trade was sent to British North America

Forced migrations produce different types of migrants according to the UNHCR:

Refugees are forced to migrate because of a threat to their life and cannot return for fear of persecution.

• Ex: People who have fled Syria, due to the ongoing civil war

Internally displaced persons (IDP) is a refugee within his or her own country

• Similar to refugees, but they have not migrated internationally

  • In 2012, Colombia had around 5 million IDPs, because of the rampant drug cartels throughout the country

Asylum seekers find shelter & protection in one state for refugees from another state

• Cuban immigrants who actually make it to the U.S. shores are allow to stay, this is known as the “Wet foot, Dry foot policy”

• Hoping to be recognized as refugees

  • Ex: Migrant caravan that was traveling to the U.S. in 2018 from Central America

    • Claiming they fled due to persecution in their home countries

Under U.S. immigration policies refugees receive special priority over economic migrants

Causes of Forced Migration:

• Natural or manmade disaster

• Human trafficking

• War and civil war

• Fleeing persecution

• Slavery

• Development Projects

Examples to Correspond:

• Hurricane Katrina

• International Sex Trade

• Civil War in Rwanda

• Afghans fleeing the Taliban

• Atlantic Slave Trade

• Three Gorges Dam construction in China

Effects of Migration

Effect on Countries of Origin

• Positive Effects:

  • Reduce overcrowding

  • Receive remittances or money sent from receiving country

  • Reduce unemployment

• Negative Effects:

  • As work-age people leave (young workers), the population that is left are elderly & children

  • Economically creates a dependency ratio problem

  • Culturally undercuts traditional family structure

  • Lose highly skilled workers heading to develop countries of opportunity (Brain drain)

Effect on Receiving Countries

• Positive Effects:

  • Help with worker shortage & willingness to take low pay

  • Gain highly skilled workers or educated is known as a Brain Drain

  • stimulate the economy (new workers pay taxes and buy goods)

  • Contribution new ideas /innovations/ cultural diversity

• Negative Effects:

  • Migrants send remittance or money back to their home countries

  • Migrant exploitation

  • Stains on public services

  • Cultural conflicts