Chapter 34: Population Flashcards
Emigration
Act of leaving the country to live in another country
Birth rate
Number of births in a year per 1000 population in a year
Death rate
Number of deaths in a year per 1000 population in a year
Net immigration
More people coming to live in the country than people leaving the country to live elsewhere
Infant mortality rate
The number of deaths per 1000 live births in a year
Net migration
The difference between immigration and emigration.
Population pyramid
A diagram showing the age and gender structure of a country’s population.
Dependency ratio
The proportion of the population that has to be supported by the labour force
Optimum population
The size of population which maximises the country’s output per head
Factors that affect population growth
- Increase in net immigration
- Birth rate exceeds death rate
Birth rate factors
- Average age of population
- Number of women in population
- Women’s fertillity rate (average number of children per woman)
Death rate factors
- Nutrition
- Housing conditions
- Medical care
- Lifestyle
- Working conditions
- Involvement or non-involvement in military
The reasons for different rates of population growth
Reasons for high birth rate
- Young averaged population where women marry young
- High infant mortality rate
- Women not well-educated
- Women do not work and is cheap to raise children
- Lack or disapproval of family planning
- Government cash incentives to have children
- Lack of government help to care for the sick and elderly
Reasons for low birth rate
- Expensive to have children (Legal requirement for school, expectation for higher education)
- Well paid jobs open to women
- Government does provide state pension, sickness, and disability benefits
Reasons for low death rate
- Healthy diets
- Good housing facilities
- Access to high quality medical care
- No smoking or alcohol
- Regular exercise
- Good working conditions
- Country at peace
Rate and pattern of net migration
- Relative living standards at home and abroad
- Persecution of particular group
- ## Extent of control on movement of people
Reasons for a larger women population
- Women living longer
- ## Higher male infant mortality rates
Dependency ratio
Number in dependent age groups/Number of labour force x 100
Overpopulated
- May be considered overpopulated if there is a shortage of land, capital, and technical knowledge relative to the number of workers
- Government may try to reduce the population
- Government may try to increase investment
Underpopulated
- A country is under-populated if it does not have enough of human resources to make the best use of its resources
- Government may encourage immigration
Benefits of an increase in population
- If underpopulated, country is able to make better use of their resources
- Size of markets may increase giving firms greater economies of scale
- Increase in factor mobility (Immigration, birth rate means industries can recruit new workers. They may be familiar with the methods lowering training and lowering costs)
- Extra demand (Stimulate investment and lead to new techonology)
- ## Rise in the labour force (Rise in dependency ratio in the short term but increase in labour force in the long term)
Disadvantages of an increase in population
- Concerns about famine
- Restrictions on improvement of living standards (Resources would have to be used on provision of goods and services for the extra people)
- Overcrowding
- Enviornmental pressure
- Pressure on employment opportunities
- Balance of payment pressure (More dependants in the population may result in a rise in imports and some products may need to be diverted from the export to the home market.)
