Keywords pages 96-101 + Q&A

Keywords pages 96-101

mortality:

  • Population Structure: The composition of a population, including age, sex, and other characteristics.

  • Demographic Transition Model: A model that describes how populations change over time in terms of birth and death rates.

  • Food Security: The state of having reliable access to enough nutritious food.

  • Carrying Capacity: The maximum number of individuals an environment can support sustainably.

  • Pandemic: A widespread outbreak of a disease affecting many people across multiple countries.

  • Affluence: The state of having a lot of wealth or resources.

  • LIC (Low-Income Country): A country with a low gross national income per capita.

  • MIC (Middle-Income Country): A country with a gross national income between low and high.

  • NIC (Newly Industrialized Country): A country that is transitioning from agriculture to industry.

  • HIC (High-Income Country): A country with a high gross national income per capita.

  • Population Momentum: The tendency for a population to keep growing even after birth rates decline.

  • Vital Rates: Statistics that measure the health of a population, including birth and death rates.

  • Birth Rate: The number of live births per 1,000 people in a year.

  • Death Rate: The number of deaths per 1,000 people in a year.

  • Natural Increase: The growth of a population when the birth rate exceeds the death rate.

  • Natural Change: The difference between the number of births and deaths in a population.

  • Net Migration: The difference between the number of people entering and leaving a country.

  • Immigration: The act of coming to live in a new country.

  • Emigration: The act of leaving one country to live in another.

  • In-migration: Movement of people into a specific area.

  • Out-migration: Movement of people out of a specific area.

  • Population Change: The change in the number of people in a population over time.

  • Fertility Rate: The average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime.

  • Replacement Level: The number of children needed to maintain a population size.

  • Infant Mortality Rate: The number of deaths of infants under one year old per 1,000 live

  • Life expectancy: Average number of years a person is expected to live.

  • Population density: Number of people living per unit area, typically per square kilometer.

  • Population distribution: How people are spread across a given area.

  • census: Official count or survey of a population, typically recording various details.

  • resources: Assets or materials available for use, including natural, human, and economic resources.

  • quality of life: Overall well-being and standard of living of individuals or communities.

  • sanitation: Conditions related to public health, including clean drinking water and waste disposal.

  • birth control: Methods to prevent pregnancy and control the number of children.

  • NICs: (Newly Industrialized Countries) Countries experiencing rapid economic growth and industrialization

  • servitude: Condition of being a servant or in forced labor.

  • GDP/person: Gross Domestic Product divided by the population, indicating average economic output per person.

  • disposable income: Amount of money available for spending after taxes and necessities.

  • baby boomers: Individuals born during the post-World War II baby boom (1946-1964).

  • dependency ratio: Ratio of dependents (young and old) to the working-age population.

  • working population: Segment of the population that is employed or actively seeking employment.

  • dependent population: Individuals who rely on others for support, typically children and elderly.

  • quantitative: Data that can be measured and expressed numerically.

  • qualitative: Data that describes qualities or characteristics, often non-numerical.

  • sex ratio: Ratio of males to females in a population. (how many males to 100 females)

  • demographic dividend: Economic growth potential that can result from shifts in a population's age structure.

  • informal economy: Economic activities not regulated by the government or covered by formal labour laws.

  • pro-natalist: Policies or attitudes that encourage higher birth rates.

  • virtuous spiral: Positive feedback loop where improvements lead to further benefits.

  • anti-natalist: Policies or attitudes that discourage birth rates

  • overpopulation: Condition where the number of people exceeds the capacity of the environment to support them.

(page 96)

In this chapter you will learn about:

→ Natural increase as a component of population change with reference to birth and death rates. The factors affecting fertility, overall mortality, and infant mortality. Population structure and the interpretation of age/sex structure diagrams.

→ How birth rates and death rates change over time. A critical appreciation of the demographic transition model and its applicability. Changes in infant mortality and life expectancy and the issues related to youthful and ageing populations.

→ Food security, the causes and consequences of food shortages and the technological and other innovations that impact on food production. The role of constraints in relation to sustaining population. The concepts of carrying capacity, overpopulation, optimum population and underpopulation.

→ The ways in which governments can attempt to manage their population. A case study of one country's policy and the ways it is being adapted to changing circumstances.

Natural increase as a component of population change

Global population change

Modern humans have lived on the Earth for about 200 000 years and for most of that time numbers have been small. By 10000 years ago it is estimated that 5 million people lived on the Earth. At about this time, the Neolithic farming revolution meant that people began to develop the technologies that allowed them to interact with nature in a more systematic and destructive way. They were able to produce food in greater quantities, increasing the carrying capacity of their land but the farming methods that they used often led to environmental degradation and the collapse of the land's ability to produce food. The domestication of animals led to new diseases such as smallpox that increased death rates. Death control was still the way that human population growth was limited but by 2000 years ago the global population was 250 million.

RESEARCH Find out what is meant by the 'carrying capacity' of a region, in terms of the size of its human population.

(page 97)

Slow growth continued throughout the first millennium CE and for most of the second millennium CE so that, despite periodic setbacks such as the Black Death pandemic of the mid 14th century, global population had reached one billion by the start of the Industrial Revolution some 200 years ago. It was at this point in history that population growth in the countries that we now refer to as HICs began to accelerate.

Developments in water supply and medicine allowed death rates to be reduced but because birth rates stayed high, the population in these countries began to grow rapidly. The use of fossil fuels and the machines that they powered allowed the production of food and goods to increase (economic development) so that these growing populations could be supported. Eventually, urbanisation and increasing affluence meant that children became an economic liability and birth rates fell. As a result the population growth rates slowed down and the population total stabilised. This is what had happened in the countries of western Europe, the USA and Japan by the middle of the 20th century.

At about the same time (1950), similar changes started to take place in the poorer parts of the world. Between 1960 and 1990 the global population increased, on average, by 70 million per year 8000 per hour. This was not the number of babies being born but the difference between the number being born and the number of people dying. Most of this increase took place in LICS and MICS. For example, the population of Mexico increased from 38 million to 83 million during this 30-year period - an increase of 118 per cent. As a comparison, the population of the UK increased from 53 million to 57 million during those 30 years, an increase of only 8 per cent.

RESEARCH

What is meant by the following acronyms:

LIC

MIC

NIC

HIC

The growth rate of the world's population peaked in the 1960s at 2.1 per cent per year. By 2012 it had declined to 1 per cent per year and was expected to continue declining in the future. Despite this, the global population is still growing and is predicted to reach 8 billion by 2025.

(page 98)

Fig. 4.5 illustrates the difference between annual increase and actual population totals. The annual increase bars have been declining since the 1980s but the total population has been growing. Part of the reason is population momentum, the fact that there are so many young people in the population who still have to produce their own children. For example, in Uganda, 49 per cent of the population are under 15 and have not yet started having children.

The components of population change

Population change is complex and to understand it some key factors need to be considered. They are also known as vital rates.

Birth rate: the number of live births per thousand people per year (expressed by the symbol %0 per year).

RESEARCH Fig. 4.6 is a choropleth map and also a thematic map. Find out what is meant by:

a choropleth map

a thematic map.

(page 99)

Death rate: the number of deaths per thousand people per year

Natural increase: the change in the size of a population caused by the difference between the birth rate and the death rate. If birth rate exceeds death rate, the population will grow. If death rate exceeds birth rate the population will decline and then we should refer to natural change.

Net migration: migration is the permanent change of residence of an individual or group of people. Net migration is the balance between immigration and emigration. If immigration exceeds emigration in a country, the population will grow. If emigration exceeds immigration the population will shrink. (The terms to use for movement in and out of an area within a country are in-migration and out-migration.)

Overall population change over time: the annual population change of an area is the cumulative change in the size of its population after both natural change and migration have been taken into account. This can be represented by the following equation:

Population change = (birth rate - death rate) ± migration

Fertility rate: the average number of children each woman in a population will have in her lifetime. If this number is 2.1 population will replace itself (replacement level). If it is higher than 2.1. population will grow but if it is less than 2.1. population will decline. It is also defined as the number of live births per 1000 women aged 15-49 in one year.

Infant mortality rate: the number of children who die. under the age of one, expressed per thousand live births per year.

Life expectancy: the average number of years, from birth, that a person can expect to live. This means the age at which 50% of the children, born in a particular year, have died. It is usually different for men and women in the same country.

Population density: population density is the number of people in a given area, usually measured as the number of people per square kilometre.

Population distribution: population distribution is usually shown on a map and uses variations in population density to show how people are spread out across an area - which could be a region, a country, a continent, or the whole world.

The measurement of population characteristics

Most countries in the world collect data about their populations - not just about the vital rates mentioned above but also about employment, ethnicity, educational attainment, religion, patterns of social activity, housing and affluence. The best way of doing this is by a regular census, where every household has to be questioned and

(page 100)

counted. In the UK there is a census every ten years: i.e. 1991, 2001, 2011, and so on. A running total of the UK population is also kept because people have to register births and deaths, and the UK Border Agency record immigration and emigration.

Governments use this information to plan for the allocation of resources to services such as health, education and employment. The information is also useful to non- government bodies such as retailers, advertisers, financial services, property developers and utility providers.

Factors affecting levels of fertility

In most countries, fertility exceeds mortality, leading to population growth. The highest fertility rates are found in African countries such as Niger, Mali and Liberia. Some of the lowest fertility rates are in central and eastern Europe, e.g. Germany, Belarus and Ukraine. Fertility is clearly related to levels of economic development but other factors are also important, most of them linked in some way to wealth and quality of life. Global fertility started to fall in the late 20th century and the trend is expected to continue into the future.

Factors affecting fertility include:

Death rate, especially the infant mortality rate

In the poorest countries (LICS), the birth rate is often high to compensate for the high rates of infant mortality. some parts of sub-Saharan Africa a woman must have 8 or 9 children to be 95 per cent certain of having a surviving son to look after her in old age. Improvements in healthcare sanitation and diet can reduce child deaths and therefore reduce the need to have so many children as security for the future. However, people still think they need large families while for people's behaviour to catch up with the new r even when the infant mortality rate has dropped. It takes a while for people’s behaviour to catch up with the new reality.

Tradition

In many parts of the world there is a cultural expectation that people will have large families and this tradition often override a woman's desire to stop childbearing. Another tradition the fosters large families is the expectation that women will at an early age and start having babies right away.

Education

Increasing female literacy is a vital step towards lowering fertility. With education comes knowledge of birth control more opportunity for employment outside the family home and more choice of lifestyle. Contraception is a powerful strategy in reducing fertility but women need to know about its availability and use, and both partners need to have a desire to use it. The following graph indicates the link between female literacy and fertility rates.

RESEARCH Find out what is meant by the Brandt Line and why it is no longer used.

(page 101)

Age structure of the population

This is important for the number of future births. In Mali, where 48 per cent of the population is under 16, the number of future births will be high even if fertility rates drop, simply because of all the young people who still have to find a partner, settle down and have a family. In Japan, where only 14 per cent of the population is under 16, the number of future births will be low because there are so few young women moving into the childbearing age group.

Religion

Both Islam and Roman Catholic Christianity oppose the use of artificial birth control. However, as people become richer they pay less attention to this, even if they may still be faithful to their religion in other ways. In Italy most people are Catholics and church-going is quite high but the fertility rate is (1.3 children per woman) and this suggests that most women use artificial contraception. In Muslim countries this change is evident too as countries become more developed - compare Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran in Fig. 4.9 (page 100).

Economic factors

In LICS children are viewed as an economic asset - they can work on the family farm or in the family workshop, they can be sent to work in a factory at an early age, and they can support their parents in old age. There is often no compulsory schooling or laws restricting child labour. A large number of children make the family wealthier. In NICs and HICS the opposite is true. Employment laws and compulsory secondary schooling mean that parents can't send their children out to work but they still have to feed and clothe them - children are an economic liability not an asset. Pensions mean that parents do not rely on their children to support them in old age. In HICs, an economic downturn means that people reduce their fertility - as in eastern Europe and the former USSR after the collapse of communism.

Government policy

In China the 'one-child policy has been successful in reducing fertility. Russia is adopting policies to boost fertility in order to combat a future where the population will age and then decline in number.

The status of women

In Brazil, poorly educated women have an average of 6.5 children each while the average for those with a secondary education is only 2.5 children. Many women in LICs are trapped by poverty and cultural expectations into a lifetime of childbearing. As well as having to bear children and take responsibility for the household and the family, women suffer from poverty, ill health, second-class legal status and lack of land. They are responsible for fetching water, gathering fuelwood and growing the family's crops. Women may not be able to own land, inherit property, qualify for credit or loans, or even get a decent education. In other words, they are trapped may amount in a cycle of childbearing and childrearing that to a form of lifelong servitude. Raising the status of women is a crucial aspect of economic development. Societies where women are better educated are more successful and more prosperous. In Kerala, in southern India, women have a high social status, birth rates and infant mortality rates are low, and poverty is declining. In the states of northern India where women have low social status, the opposite is true.

Changing fertility rates

LICS, MICS and NICS

Since 1950, the fastest rates of population growth have been in the developing world. Birth rates are now declining and this fall is expected to continue. The greatest falls in fertility are expected over the next few decades in the LICs of Africa and the Islamic nations of the Middle East. Here there are over 50 countries which are still in stage 2 of the DTM (see page 110) but are expected to move into stage 3. Overall, the growth rates in poorer countries are slowing but their populations are still expected to grow for several decades. The huge number of young dependents in these countries will ensure that growth continues - population momentum.

HICS

Here population growth has been slow for several decades and some countries have already experienced a fall in population the former communist countries of central and eastern e.g. Europe. In these countries, and in Japan, governments are offering financial incentives for people to have children. There are already 50 countries with fertility rates below replacement level. Over the next few years more countries will see a fall in numbers and in some countries it could be substantial e.g.