4.2 Demographic transition

Question 1

What happens in the stage 1 of the demographic transition model?

Answer 1

• high fluctuating birth and death rates due to high levels of disease
  -limited access to birth control and some religions encourage large families, giving reason as to why birth rates are high although they fluctuate in correspondence to disease/famine
• population remains constant and low as birth rates do not exceed equally high death rate

Question 2

Describe stage 2 of the DMT

Answer 2

FALL IN DEATH RATES:
- advancements in healthcare, hygiene and general living standards lower disease, causing less deaths
- increased food security leads to less famines
- birth rates still high (not increasing still high)
e.g Angola

Question 3

Describe stage 2 of DTM

Answer 3

BIRTH RATES START TO FALL
- emancipation of women: women’s rights more recognised, more socially acceptable for women to chose to have children/how many
- beginning to work, not child bearers

CONTRACEPTION:
- increased availability

REDUCED NEED FOR LARGE FAMILIES:
- shift in industry causing less need for large families e.g living in an urbanised area
- death rates fallen less need for lots of children

EDUCATION AND CHANGE IN SOCIETAL VALUES:
- higher literacy rates
- education about contraception and more educated workforce all lower the need for many children
- view of ideal family changes

Question 4

Describe Stage 4 of DTM

Answer 4

LOW FLUCTUATING
- birth rates and death rates are both low, causing population growth to be slow
- HICs e.g UK

Question 5

Describe stage 5 of DTM

Answer 5

DEPLETING POPULATION
- birth rates fall below death rates, causing a decline in population
- can lead to ageing population
- e.g Germany

Question 6

How does development affect life expectancy?

Answer 6

• life expectancy is higher in HICS that are more developed
• e.g Japan has highest life expectancies
• lowest life expectancies in LICs, due to poor healthcare, water quality, sanitation etc causing higher morbidity (illness
• e.g countries in Africa
• rate of change of life expectancies is reflection of the rate of development.
• HICS at a more stable state of development before LICs, meaning rate at which life expectancy has increased is slower. In contrast, life expectancy has grown rapidly, but is still slow

Question 7

How does development affect Infant mortality?

Answer 7

• higher in less developed countries because less means of keeping aby healthy and preventing illness, when countries have less money/services available

e.g
- little/no access to specialist care for babies
- poor sanitation and poor access to clean drinking water causing infections, illness and dehydration
- food insecurity causing malnutrition and illness

Question 8

What are the issues with ageing populations?

Answer 8

• more welfare spending (benefits and pensions)
• more pressure and spending in the NHS, as older people usually require more healthcare. This impacts those who use the HNS, as there is less time and resources available.
• Higher demand for healthcare/social care professionals to support the elderly population leading to pressure on these services when there is not enough labour available
• lower proportion of people in working, leading to lower tax revenues

Question 9

What are the issues of youthful populations?

Answer 9

• government expenditures into education, childcare, healthcare etc with less people in proportion putting money into gov through taxes
• larger workforce needed to support the needs of youths, which puts pressure on these services (e.g larger class sizes in school as too few teachers)
• if fertility rates do not replace population, eventually there will be larger elderly population

Question 10

What is a youthful population case study?

Answer 10

Uganda:
Causes:
- high fertility and declining mortality led to rapid population growth

Problems:
- Health service:
- shortage of midwives and maternity hospitals: 6000 women die in childbirth each year
- only half children in education puts pressure on the gov to provide more school places. Education will reduce birth rate and spread of HIV/AIDS
- in 2012, unemployment 20%, when large numbers of children grow up, unemployment could rise further

Question 11

What are the strategies to tackle issues in Uganda?

Answer 11

• to reduce birth rate, gov has encouraged use of contraception through advertising, education and provision of free condoms
• despite this 70% of Ugandans do not use contraception
• clinics built and more doctors/nurses trained nut many choose to emigrate to HICs
• money spent of training teachers and increasing school places - 50% of children do not go to school, reducing their future prospects
• foreign aid encouraged
• to reduce unemployment, gov encouraged TNCs to set up factories in Uganda but many put of by political instability and corruption