1.1 Natural increase and Population Change Flashcards
What are the main definitions for population?
Birth rate: Number of live births per 1000 for a population over a given period of time
Death rate: number of deaths per 1000 for a population over a given period of time
Infant mortality: Number of papers per 1000 who die before the age of one.
Total fertility rate: average number of babies per woman
Fertility rate: number of births per 1000 women in childbearing age
Natural increase is the difference between birth and death rate
Carrying capacity: capacity of people an area can sustainably house with the resources available - can increase if find more resources, tech, etc.
Replacement rate: the rate of natural increase which balanced birth and deaths so population growth is 0, as everyone replaces everyone
Net migration is the difference between emigration and immigration in a country
Total population change is the net increase - net decrease which includes migration
What has been the recent demographic change?
Most of population growth is occurring in LICs. Population boom occurred after WW2 in all countries.
Population was 1.5bn in 1900, 2bn in 1950, 8bn now. Average life expectancy is 72 - world population grows by 80m people a year.
What factors are affecting level of fertility?
Death rates: to compensate high IMR and death rates people have lots of children to ensure they survive. In SS Africa, women have 8 or 9 children to make sure some survive to care for them in old age. Medical infrastructure plays a key part in this
Traditions/culture: misogyny, role of women, cultures to have large family, children seen as assets, opposing birth control. Women in workforce have less time to have children and focus on their careers. Women may lack the basic human rights and spend most of their time at home gathering resources instead of education so raising the status of women is crucial to development.
Economic: children seen as asset so many expected to work at a young age to support families
Education level: knowledge of birth control, family planning, social awareness, employment opportunities etc. reduce fertility. In Brazil, poorly educated women average 6.5 children and educated average 2.5
Age structure: youthful populations mean future births will be high even if fertility falls
Population policy: policies put into place to increase/decrease birth rates or general healthcare, smoking, etc. and so can influence birth rates
Why are fertility rates changing?
In LICs, they are changing the fastest since 1950s but are expecting to see decline as countries soon move into stage 3. People subsistence farm and so need children as economic assets, have poor healthcare so there is high IMR and DR, little education.
In HICs, population growth has declined for decades, children are burdens costing up to £200,000 and women have more opportunities, education, more contraception and low IMR
What factors are affecting mortality rates?
-Poverty and job opportunities
-Infant mortality - small children vulnerable
-Medical infrastructure - lacking facilities
-Diseases: Cholera, Ebola, AIDs, etc. can spread very fast in densely population poor areas with limited healthcare
-Economic development - health, sanitation, less disease, education etc.
-Ageing populations - more dying than born
-HIV/AIDs in Africa - Botswana 25% of economically active is HIV positive
-NCDS: Health conditions such as diabetes, cancer, obesity, alcoholism caused by increased consumption of damaging foods and less physical activity and old age. Also called degenerative diseases
Injury related diseases: wars, murder, cars, industrial, etc.
Why are mortality rates changing?
SS Africa has low GDP/person so lack nutrition, water, sewage, healthcare, HIV/AIDS, etc.
Ethiopia and Kenya healthcare improvements have lowered their MR
Lowest death rates in richer HICs due to high revenues and government expenditure however it is higher than expected due to ageing populations
NICs also have low death rates due to rising GDP/Capita
What is population structure and the different shapes?
Population structure shows graphs using the number of percentage of males and females within different age groups of a population which can be used to analyse the demographics and compare other countries, using a population pyramid. This shows changes over time, historically and in the future.
Structure changes as it progresses through the DTM and can be used to divide the population into groups and can be used to determine government policies needed.
Bulges tend to indicate baby booms e.g. After WW2
LICs tend to have wide bases due to high youthful populations due to high birth rates and stabilising death rates - many young dependents
HICs tend to have more evenly spread populations however may have baby booms around 60 and ageing populations.
Ageing populations such as Japan have top heavy shapes due to their high proportion of elderly people due to high healthcare, services and education.
What is the dependency ratio?
Age groups are split, used to determine the ratio between the working and dependent population. Young dependents are 14 and under and old dependants are over 65. If there is a ratio of 52, it means there are 52 working for every 100. This may also be split into youth and elderly dependency ratios
Calculated with dependents/working x 100
This is important as the economically active contribute more to the economy, and the dependent population tend to be bigger recipients of state funding from education, healthcare and pensions
The measure is crude as a lot of people are still in education up to 18 and 21 and retire before or beyond the age of 65. Also, a significant of those in working ages are not in work and in LICs a significant amount of children are working below the age of 15.
What are the causes, impacts and solutions of an ageing population?
Causes: Annual growth of people aged 80+ is 3.8%, and is double the growth of those 60 and over (1.9%0. Global life expectancy increased from 46 in 1950 to 71 in 2014, normally due to fertility rates decline whilst life expectancy remains constant or increases, causing the median age to rise.
Issues: pressure on health, pensions, budgets as the older population tend to use highest proportion of government spending.
Solutions: technology, prolonged pensions, high retirement ages, reduce educational costs to subsidise families, immigration laws to bring in working dependents, incentivise female labour participation.
What are the causes and impacts of a youthful population?
These occur during and after stage 2 as the death rate is high, so very few old people but as this drops the birth rate remains high, causing a large amount of young people who survive. Another cause is high level of immigration as they are usually within childbearing age.
Issues may be pressure on food supply, healthcare, education, facilities - pressure for anti-natalist policies, increase unemployment in future, more benefits and government expenditure
Benefits: all the extra workers provide a pool of cheap labour, encouraging growth and FDI especially if this is able to account for new influx of young workers without risk of unemployment rates.
