Human Geo 2.4 Questions

Question 1

What are the highest, middle, and lowest estimates for world population in 2100 according to the United Nations?

Answer 1

7.2 billion, 11.2 billion, 16.2 billion.

Question 2

What will be one of the first countries in the world to reach stage 5 of the Demographic Transition?

Answer 2

Japan, whose population peaked at 128 million in 2010 and is now starting to decline. Japan’s projected population is 84 million in 2100.

Question 3

What is Japan doing to face their shortage of workers instead of increasing immigration?

Answer 3

Japan is encouraging more Japanese people to work. Rather than combine work with child rearing, Japanese women are expected to either marry and raise children or remain single and work. The majority of women have chosen to work.

Question 4

Why do Russia and other former Communist countries have negative NIRs?

Answer 4

Their high CDR and low CBR are a legacy of 50 years of Communist rule. The low CBR comes from a long tradition of family-planning programs and pessimism about having children in an uncertain world. The high CDR may come from inadequate pollution controls and inaccurate reporting by the Communist government.

Question 5

Why does India add 10 million more people each year than China?

Answer 5

As a result of less effective family-planning programs and antinatalist policies.

Question 6

What were the conditions of the One Child Policy in China?

Answer 6

• A couple needed a permit to have a child
  If couples agreed to have just one child, they would…
• Recieve financial subsidies
• Recieve a long maternity leave
• Get better housing
• Get more land (in rural areas)

Question 7

Why is China’s CBR unlikely to increase much in the future?

Answer 7

Because, after 3 decades of intensive educational programs as well as coercion, most Chinese have accepted the benefits of family planning.

Question 8

In 1952, what was the first country to embark on a national family plannign program?

Answer 8

India. The gov’t established clinics, provided information about alternative methods of birth control, distributed free or low-cost birth control devices, and legalized abortions.

Question 9

What kind of reaction was India’s sterlization camps in the 1970s met with?

Answer 9

Sterilization camps were med with widespread opposition because people feared they would be forcibly sterilized.

Question 10

What two strategies have been succesful in reducing birth rates worldwide?

Answer 10

1. Lowering CBR through education & health care
2. Lowering CBR through contraception

Question 11

What 4 conditions are true regarding education and health-care programs to promot lower birth rates?

Answer 11

1. With more women in shcool, they are more likely to learn employment skills & gain more economic control.
2. With better education, women would understand their reproductive rights and make better choices.
3. With improved health-care, IMRs would decline (improved prenatal care, STD counseling, etc.)
4. With better infant survival rates, women would be likely to make more effective use of contraceptives.

Question 12

What is the most effective way to increase the use of contraceptives in developing countries, where the demand is greater than the supply?

Answer 12

To distribute more contraceptives cheaply and quickly.

Question 13

What is an example of a country that has had little improvement in the wealth and literacy of its people, but 62 % of married women used contraceptives in 2017 compared to 6 % in 1980?

Answer 13

Bangladesh. Similar growth has occured in other developing countries like Colombia, Morocco, and Thailand.

Question 14

Why is the % of women using contraceptives especially low in sub-Saharan Africa?

Answer 14

Because men are reluctant to use them due to religious beliefs, social norms, and lack of education on contraception.

Question 15

What are the 3 reasons for the emergence of a stage 5 of the epidemiologic transition?

Answer 15

1. Evolution
2. Poverty
3. Increased Connections

Question 16

Why does Malaria now cause about a 1/2 million deaths worldwide annually, when it was thought to be eradicated in the mid-20th century by spraying DDT?

Answer 16

Because of the evolution of DDT- resistant mosquitoes.

Question 17

Why are infectious diseases more prevalent in poor areas?

Answer 17

Because unsanitary conditions may persist, and most people can’t afford the drugs needed for treatment.

Question 18

Why is tuberculosis more prevalent in poor areas?

Answer 18

Because th elong, expensive treatment for TB poses a significant economic burden. People with immune systems compromised by poor nutrition or HIV infection are especially susceptible to TB.

Question 19

What has been the most lethal pandemic in recent years, and where was its impact felt most strongly?

Answer 19

AIDS. Worldwide, 35 million people died of AIDS from the beginning of the epidemic through 2017, and 37 million were living wih HIV (the cause of AIDS). The impact of AIDS has been felt most strongly in sub-Saharan Africa, home to 26 million of the world’s 37 million HIV-positive people.

Question 20

When and how did AIDS enter the US?

Answer 20

AIDS entered the US during the early 1980s through New York, California, and Florida (where the 3 leading US international airports are located). It diffused from sub-Saharan Africa through relocation diffusion, by Africans and by visitors to Africa returning home.

Question 21

Why has the number of AIDS diagnoses dropped sharply?

Answer 21

Because of the rapid diffusion of preventative methods and medicines (expansion diffusion).

Question 22

What did Malthus believe?

Answer 22

Population was growing much more rapidly than Earth’s food supply because population increased geometrically, whereas food supply increased arithmetically. Population growth would press against availabel resources in every country unless “moral restraint” produced lower CBRs or unless disease, famine, war, or other disasters produced higher CDRs.

Question 23

What do Neo-Malthusians argue?

Answer 23

Characteristics of recent population growth make Malthus’s thesis more frightening then when it was first proposed more than 200 years ago. The world faces a future in which billions of people are in desperate competition for food, water, and energy.

Question 24

What do critics of Malthus argue?

Answer 24

Worldwide, carrying capacity in terms of food production has increased during the past half-century somewhat more rapidly than Malthus predicted (ex. in India, wheat production has increased twice as fast as Malthus expected). Additionally, in India, population has increased more slowly than Malthus’s predicted quarduple during 50 years, and population has also increased more slowly than the country’s food supply.

Question 25

Why is population growth possibly exceeding carrying capacity in Africa?

Answer 25

As the land declines in quality, more effort is needed to yield the same amount of crops. This extends the working day of women, who regard having another child as a way of getting additional help growing food.