Ch 2: Population and Migration Patterns and Processes Vocab Flashcards
Age-Sex Distribution
A model used in population geography that describes ages and numbers of males and females within a given population; also called a population pyramid.
Agricultural Density
The number of farmers per unit area of farmland.
Arithmetic Density
The number of people living in a given unit area.
Baby Boom
A cohort of individuals born in the United States between 1946 and 1964, which was just after World War 11 in a time of relative peace and prosperity. These conditions allowed for better education and job opportunities, encouraging high rates of both marriage and fertility.
Baby Bust
Period during the 1960s and 1970s when fertility rates in the United States dropped as large numbers of women from the baby boomers generation sought higher levels of education and more competitive jobs, causing them to marry later in life. As such, the fertility rate dropped considerably, in contrast to the baby boom, in which fertility rates were quite high.
Carrying Capacity
The largest number of people that the environment of a particular area can sustainably support.
Chain Migration
The migration event in which individuals follow the migratory path of preceding friends or family members to an existing community.
Child Mortality Rate
Number of deaths per thousand children within the first five years of life.
Cohort
A population group unified by a specific common characteristic, such as age, and subsequently treated as a statistical unit.
Cotton Belt
The term by which the American South used to be known, as cotton historically dominated the agricultural economy of the region. The same area is now known as the New South or Sun Belt because people have migrated here from older cities in the industrial north for a better climate and new job opportunities.
Crude Birth Rate
The number of live births per year per thousand people.
Crude Death Rate
The number of deaths per year per thousand people.
Demographic Accounting Equation
An equation that summarizes the amount of growth or decline in a population within a country during a particular time period, taking into account both natural increase and net migration.
Demographic Transition Model
A sequence of demographic changes in which a country moves from high birth and death rates to low birth and death rates throughout time.
Demography
The study of human populations, including their temporal and spatial dynamics.
Dependency Ratio
The ratio of the number of people who are either too old or too young to provide for themselves to the number of people who must support them through their own labor. This is usually expressed in the from n:100, where n equals the number of dependents.
Doubling Time
Time period required for a population experiencing exponential growth to double in size completely.
Emigration
The process of moving out of a particular country, usually the individual person’s country of origin.
Epidemiological Transition
Sudden population growth as a result of improved food security and health care, followed by a plateau in growth because of subsequent declines in fertility rates.
Exponential Growth
Growth that occurs when a fixed percentage of new people is added to a population each year. Exponential growth is compound because the fixed growth rate applies to an ever-increasing population.
Forced Migration
The migration event in which individuals are forced to leave a country against their will.
Generation X
A term coined by artist and author Douglas Coupland to describe people born in the United States between the years 1965 and 1980. This post-baby boom generation will have to support the baby boom cohort as they head into their retirement years.
Geodemography
See population geopgraphy
Immigration
The process of individuals moving into a new country with the intention of remaining there.
Infant Mortality Rate
The percentage of children who die before their first birthday within a particular country.
Internal Migration
The permanent or semi permanent movement of individuals within a particular country.
Intervening Obstacles
Any forces or factors that may limit human migration.
Involuntary Migration
See forced migration
Life Expectancy
The average age individuals are expected to live, which varies across space, between genders, and even between races.
Thomas Malthus
Author of Essay on the Principle of Population (1798) who claimed that population grows at an exponential rate while food production increases arithmetically, and thereby that, eventually, population growth would outpace food production.
Maternal Mortality Rate
Number of deaths per thousand of women giving birth.
Migration
A long-term move of a person from one political jurisdiction to another.
Natural Increase Rate
The difference between the number of births and number of deaths within a particular country.
Neo-Malthusian
Advocacy of population-control programs to ensure enough resources of a particular area are not great enough to support the area’s current population.
Overpopulation
A value judgment based on the notion that the resources of a particular area are not great enough to support the area’s current population.
Physiologic Density
A ratio of human population to the area of cropland, used in less-developed countries dominated by subsistence agriculture.
Population Density
A measurement of the number of persons per unit of land area.
Population Geography
A division of human geography concerned with spatial variations in distribution, composition, growth, and movements of population.
Population Pyramid
A model used in population geography to show the age and sex distribution of a particular population.
Pull Factors
Attractions that draw migrants to a certain place, such as pleasant climate and employment or educational opportunities.
Push Factors
Incentives for potential migrants to leave a place, such as a harsh climate, economic recession or political turmoil.
Refugees
People who leave their home because they are forced out, but not because they are being officially relocated or enslaved.
Rust Belt
The northern industrial states of the United States, including Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania, in which heavy industry was once the dominant economic activity. In the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, these states lost much of their economic base to economically attractive regions of the United States and to countries where labor was cheaper, leaving old machinery to rust in the moist northern climate.
Sun Belt
US region, mostly comprising southeastern and southwestern states, which has grown dramatically since World War 11.
Total Fertility Rate
The average number of children born to a woman during her childbearing years.
Voluntary Migration
Movement of an individual who consciously and voluntarily decides to locate to a new area—the opposite of forced migration.
Zero Population Growth
Proposal to end population growth through a variety of official and nongovernmental family-planning programs.
