Economic Activity and Energy

Question 1

Economic activity

Answer 1

the different types of jobs people do in order to make money within all levels of society

Question 2

Economy sectors

Answer 2

Primary - extracting natural resources e.g. mining
Secondary - processing things such as food/minerals e.g. manufacturing
Tertiary - providing services e.g. entertainment
Quaternary - concerned with ICT and research and development

Question 3

Subsistence farming

Answer 3

growing crops or raising livestock for personal consumption, without surplus for trade

Question 4

Footloose industry

Answer 4

industry that can be located anywhere without needing to consider factors of production such as resources, land or labour

Question 5

Optimum population

Answer 5

when the number of people working with all available resources produces the highest per capita economic return

Question 6

Overpopulation

Answer 6

when there are too many people to maintain an adequate standard of living and exceeds the carrying capacity of the Earth

Question 7

Underpopulation

Answer 7

when there are far more resources in an area e.g. food, energy, minerals that can be used by the number of people living there

Question 8

Energy gap

Answer 8

The difference between a country’s rising demand for energy and its ability to produce energy from its own sources

Question 9

Energy security

Answer 9

access to reliable and affordable sources of energy

Question 10

Carbon footprint

Answer 10

the total amount of greenhouse gases produced as a result of human activities, usually expressed in equivalent tonnes of CO2

Question 11

Ecological footprint

Answer 11

measures the demand on the supply of nature through the amount of natural resources used to support a person’s lifestyle

Question 12

Malthus’s theory

Answer 12

Human population grows at an exponential rate if left unchecked. Food supply only increases at an arithmetic rate, so there will be a point of crisis where rise in population exceeds increases in food supply. An increase in population beyond this point will lead to war, famine and disease

Question 13

Boserup’s theory

Answer 13

Food production can, and will, increase to match the population’s needs - the threat of starvation motivates people to improve their farming methods. People have the knowledge and tech to increase food supplies and overpopulation leads to innovation and higher productivity in use of land and labour.

Question 14

Factors affecting location of economic sectors

Answer 14

• space/cheap land
• labour/employees
• access to market/customers via good transport links
• power supply
• raw materials

Question 15

How raw materials affect employment sectors

Answer 15

• affects primary sector (people can no longer farm for resources if they are used up)
• increased mechanisation causes reduction in number of agricultural workers
• raw materials cheaper to be imported

Question 16

How new technology affects employment sectors

Answer 16

• mechanisation has reduced demand for labour
• technological advances have created new industries for the quaternary sector e.g. aerospace, biotech, robotics
• creates new products/services e.g smartphone (tertiary sector)

Question 17

How globalisation affects employment sectors

Answer 17

• enabled companies to move manufacturing base to other cheaper locations (decrease in secondary sector)

Question 18

How government policies affect employment sectors

Answer 18

• UK policies support agriculture and encourage services to compensate for loss of jobs in manufacturing due to deindustrialisation
• China has made concentrated effort to expand secondary sector and produce manufacture goods for global market

Question 19

How demographic changes affect employment sectors

Answer 19

• population growth raises demand for a range of goods and services
• changing of people’s preferences boost tertiary sector - e.g. HIC populations prefer shopping at superstores/retail parks than local shops
• young people with more disposable income to spend on entertainment, socialising and beautification

Question 20

Informal employment

Answer 20

Any employment that is unregulated and unofficial

Question 21

Raw materials

Answer 21

Natural resources which are unprocessed/unrefined

Question 22

Employment structure

Answer 22

The division of the workforce into primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary

Question 23

Deindustrialisation

Answer 23

the reduction of industrial activity/manufacturing within an economy