Population change Flashcards
(35 cards)
What are the factors in natural population change ?
- Demographic transition model
- Key vital rates
- Age-sex composition
- Cultural controls
Define birth rate
Number of live births per 1000 people per year
Define death rate
The number of deaths per 1000 per year
Define total fertility rate
The average number of children a woman will have when she is of reproductive age
Define infant mortality rate
Number of children of every 1000 born alive who die before their first birthday
Define dependency ratio
Proportion of population that has to be supported by the working population (often young and old people)
What does the DTM show ?
How birth rates and death rates change which causes total population to change as a country develops
What are the 2 types of population change
Natural change (by differences in birth and death rate) and migration change
At which stage do you get a natural decrease in population
5
Give a country in stages 2-5 of DTM
2= Chad
3= Morocco
4= USA
5= Japan
What are key vital rates ?
Fertility rate (most useful for predicting future population change), birth rate death rate, literacy rate …
[evaluate usefulness and reliability]
Evaluate the DTM
- Easy to compare countries and forecast change so governments can decide on policies such as immigration laws
- Original data to create the DTM was from richer European countries which doesn’t mirror the change in others such as Africa
- Extreme poverty and low development can cause a lack of population growth and prevent less developed countries passing through the stages
- Doesn’t consider MIGRATION as on an international level can cause significant population change
- Other factors can affect a population such as war and infectious diseases so a population of a country no longer fits the DTM
- No time scale as UK took 200 years to industralize whereas China has done it in 60
What is age-sex composition
- Usually displayed in a population pyramid (narrow point indicate when birth rate was low or high death rates from war)
- Structure of a population based on age groups and gender. It shows how many males and females there are in each age group.
- Helps understand a population’s growth potential, dependency ratio, and future challenges
What are birth and fertility rates heavily influenced by ?
Cultural controls
What are the cultural controls
- Role of women (education and employment access, in UK nearly half labour force are women so total fertility rate is 1.89)
- Attitudes towards marriage (young marriage culture, in Niger 3/4 of girls are married before 18 and total fertility rate is 6.6)
- Religion (Catholic church condemns contraception, East Timor 98% are Catholic and fertility rate is 5)
- Population policies (France lowered taxes to encourage population growth vs China one child policy to discourage population growth)
What 2 countries are used to model natural population change in application to physical and human settings ?
Niger and Canada
Give case study of Niger
WEST AFRICA
Human setting:
- Mainly primary industry (high birth rate as children needed for manual labour)
- High rural population aswell as subsistence farmers
- Over 90% Muslim (cultural beliefs = high birth rate)
- Stage 2 although surprisingly low death rate as young population structure and government focus on reducing infant mortality with malnutrition and healthcare schemes
Physical setting:
- Most of North and East is in Sahara desert
- Edges of Niger river basin are in a tropical climate which is hard to live in
- Non-desert areas are also threatened by drought and desertification from climate change so no reliable food supply/job opportunities
Give case study of Canada
NORTH USA
Human setting:
- Small and sparsely distributed population with high concentrations in large cities
- Economy based on tertiary sector and financial services aswell as manufacturing and mining industries
- Multicultural society which welcome international immigrants to avoid an ageing population and benefit workforce (MEANING IT ISN’T PROGRESSING INTO STAGE 5)
- Stage 4 of DTM
Physical setting:
- Wide range of climatic types such as arctic and temperate
- West is mountainous so limited population there
- Southern and central areas have fertile plains which attracts farmers
Explain why some countries experience demographic dividend
Potential for rapid economic growth in a country as its dependency ration falls (stage 2/3 of DTM)
- Death rate decreases before birth rate as people still have many children but more survive to adulthood
- Benefits of youthful population experienced in workforce and society by taxes and cheap labour/attracts investment for TNCs. Higher productivity and social development
- Countries have to incest in education and job creation so the unemployed aren’t dependent on the employed
Evaluate the use of population pyramids and age-sex composition
- Only show a snapshot in time
- Can be used to show temporal change when compared
- Can infer stage of DTM
- Can show changes in fertility, mortality and international migration aswell as current trends
What can population pyramids be divided into ?
- Young dependent population
- Economically active population
- Elderly dependent population
Give a negative about demographic dividend
Can create extra demand in the economy which can cause environmental degradation and additional pressure on natural resources which need to be managed sustainably
Isn’t permanent so governments often need to encourage immigration to boost the economic population as schemes to increase birth rate would take longer
What are the types of migrant/international migrant ?
- Refugee: forced to flee country and are unable to return due to persecution, conflict or environmental reasons
- Asylum seeker: fled country but not yet had application to be recognized as a refugee accepted so can only receive formal assistance and legal protection once their fear of returning home is well-founded so are granted refugee status
- Economic migrant: move to another country to work
What are the environmental causes of migration?
Push factors: natural disasters, desertification, impact of climate change such as floods from rising sea levels
Pulls: More desirable climate, better farming conditions, fewer extreme weather events and impacts from climate change