Population Geography

Front 1

Describe • Stage 1 – Create Modern Society

Back 1

 Births high, deaths high
 Before industrial revolution
 Low population
 UK: pre 1780
 All human populations up until the late 18th century
 0.05 Growth Rate

Front 2

Reasons for stage 1 fluctuating

Back 2

• Little access to birth control
• Many children die to infancy so parents have more to compensate
• Children needed to work on land
• Some religions/cultures encourage large families
• Death rates are high due to food supply, poor diet, disease, famine, poor hygiene, little medical science

Front 3

Describe • Stage 2 – Early Expanding (Industrialization)

Back 3

 Population growing at faster rate “population explosion”
 High birth rate
 Decreasing death rate
 Age structures change
 How?
 UK: 1780-1880

Front 4

Reasons for Stage 2 Early Expanding

Back 4

• Improvements in medical care
• Improvements in sanitation and water supply
• Quality and quantity of food produced improves
• Transport and communications improve of food and medical supplies
• Decrease in infant mortality

Front 5

Describe • Stage 3 – Late Expanding (Mature Industrialization)

Back 5

 Population still increasing, but slowing down
 Decreasing birth rate
 Low death rate
 UK: 1880-1940
 End of 19th Century in developed countries

Front 6

Reasons for Stage 3 Late Expanding

Back 6

• Increased access to contraception
• Lower infant mortality rates so less need for bigger families in rural areas
• Industrialization/urbanization and mechanization means fewer laborers required
• Desire of material position takes over the desire for large families (change in values)
• Increase in woman literacy and employment opportunities

Front 7

Describe • Stage 4 – Low Fluctuating (Post Industrial)

Back 7

 Total population high, almost stable
 Low birth rate
 Low death rate
 UK: post 1940

Front 8

Reasons for Stage 4 Low Fluctuating

Back 8

• Rates fluctuate with “baby booms” and epidemics of illnesses and diseases
• Rate may fall below expectant

Front 9

Thomas Malthus - Malthusian Theory

Back 9

• human pop tends to grow aster than the power in the earth to substance us
• since humans tend not to limit their pop size voluntarily, “checks” occur in Malthus’ terminology
• if population is not checked, exponential growth will happen (bunnies)
• point of crisis is when population outruns resources (war, famine, disease)
• once the point of crisis has been reached, further growth in pop would be prevented by negative and positive checks

Front 10

What is a Positive Check?

Back 10

• famine, war, disease – all increasing the mortality rate and reducing life expectancy

Front 11

What is a Negative Check?

Back 11

• limit growth by lowering birth rate (abstinence, late marriage)
• favored moral restraint
• only for working and poor classes

Front 12

Describe Esther Boserup's Theory on Population Growth

Back 12

• Opposite to Malthus – suggested population growth has enabled agricultural development to occur
• People developed techniques required by more intense systems and used them when the population grew
• More people = more capacity to innovate
 Demographic pressure (pop density) promotes innovation and higher production in use of land (irrigation, wedding, crop intensification, better seeds) and labor (tools, better techniques)
• Argued changes in technology allowed for crop improvement – green revolution

Front 13

What was the Green Revolution?

Back 13

• Movement starting post WW2 to address food shortages in developing countries
• International relief organizations invested in research to breed more productive rice and wheat crops
• New agricultural technologies
 Fertilizer
 Agrochemicals
 New types of irrigation

Front 14

What were some of the Ecological Problems with the Green Revolution?

Back 14

• Problems with soil fertility – micronutrient issues
• Increased dependence of external applications
• Water quality
• Ecological degradation caused returns to decrease as the years went on
• Loss of diversity
• Improper application of pesticides cause poisoning

Front 15

What were some of the Social and Political Problems with the Green Revolution?

Back 15

• Changed nature of agriculture form internal to external
• Commercialization of relationships and subsequent cultural erosion
• Rapid increase in grain in first years drove down the price of food, harder for small farmers to profit
• Increased competition for smaller resources, rural inequality

Front 16

What is the Sex Ratio?

Back 16

# of males per 100 females (at birth sex favors males @ 105)

Front 17

What are Population Pyramids used to show?

Back 17

 Age distributions
 Demographic booms and busts
 Sex ratios
 Dependency ratios

Front 18

What is the Dependency Ratio?

Back 18

Proportion that are considered 'dependents' who are those younger than 15 and older than 64. (dependents/independent)*100

Front 19

What is Death Rate?

Back 19

• Crude Death Rate (CDR) = #deaths/ population *1000
• The problem using CDR is affected by the age-sex structure of the country
• If all other things are equal CDR goes up as the average of the age of the population goes up

Front 20

What is the difference between Infant and Child Mortality?

Back 20

Infant Mortality = first year
Child Mortality = first 5 yrs.