Human population

Human Fecundity

• over the past 50 years the birth rate per capita is steadily declining

  • Factors that contribute to declining birth rate

    • Inflation → less income for a family, cost of living is high

    • Availability of Contraception

    • Shift in roles

      • having kids late

      • lack of a want for kids

      • Working mothers

• Slowly we are approaching zero population growth and replacement rate is declining

  • replacement rate → the rate at which people have children to “replace” them when they die

• Population fecundity depends on → # of children per mother and age distribution per population

• Age pyramids represent age distributions across a population

  pyramid 1 → population is steady

  pyramid 2 → population is declining

  pyramid 3 → population is growing

• Canada’s population is slightly shirking with a steady growth

  • immigration can help the decreasing

Human Population

• the population has grown rapidly in the last century despite the declining birth rate

• Factors contributing to the rapid change in human population

  • advancing agricultural → fertilizer + Diet

  • improvement in Healthcare/medicine → decreased mortality rate

  • Less accidental death → less people are dying young

    • more labour laws → reducing deaths at the work place

  • More Child protection

• Why is the rapid growth of the population concerning

  • overburdening earth’s resources

  • Biocapacity →

  • The biodiversity is being threatened by human population