chapter 6 notes Flashcards
What is Population Geography (geodemography)?
the study of the spatial variations in populations
World Population Distribution
90% of people live north of the Equator, 66% between 20o and 60o
More than 70% of world’s pop. lives on ~10% of the land
Most live at low altitudes (nearly 80% below 500 metres)
Most live on continental margins (~60% live within 100 km of the ocean)
Four major clusters of settlement
East Asia Zone (China, Japan, Taiwan, and Korea).
South Asia (India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka).
European (Most of Europe and Europeanized Russia).
Northeastern US/Southeastern Canada
Population Distribution and Density: arithmetic
number of people per unit area of land
Crude measure
Doesn’t take resources into account
Population/total land area
Population Distribution and Density: physiological
number of total people per unit of arable (farm) land
population/farmland
Malthusian Population Theory
Malthus (early 1800s) worried about population growing exponentially and resources growing linearly
An Essay on the Principle of Population
population growth (exponential) has the potential to outstrip increases in subsistence resources (arithmetic)
Positive checks (famine) and preventative checks (later marriage)
Neo-Malthusians
Neo-Malthusians: people with the same views as Malthus
Ehrlich (1960s) warned of a population bomb because the world’s population was outpacing food production
Criticism of Malthus and Neo-Malthusians:
The assumption that the environment determines population size
Malthus didn’t anticipate the food revolutions (cornucopian theory – humans will create new inventions)
Crude Birth Rate
BPY/pop @mid-year x 1000
Crude because the denominator is not limited to women
Requires few data which are commonly available and is easy to calculate
Problem: can mask important age or sex differentials
Expected range in values is 10-~50 per 1,000
The Crude Death Rate (CDR)
DPY/mid-year pop x 1000
Defined as the number of deaths divided by the population at risk
A poor measure of mortality in some respects (not sensitive to age structure, gender, education etc)
6 is low, 20 is high
Infant Mortality Rate
deaths under 1yr / bpy x 1000
is sensitive to poor living conditions and poverty
Is used to compare health and well-being of populations across and within countries
infant mortality trends in canada
improved/declined, but levelling off
rate of natural increase
Rate of natural increase – annual growth rate for a county or region as a percentage increase
This tells us how much the population is increasing (or decreasing) each year
RNI = (CBR - CDR)
CBR = B x 1000 CDR = D x 1000
P P
Example: world crude birthrate = 21/1,000
World crude deathrate = 9/1,000
World RNI = 21-9=12 births per 1000 or 1.2% annualy
RNI practice
2005 Manitoba population: 1,174,000
Live births: 14,801
Deaths: 9,856
CBR: 12.6
CDR: 8.40
RNI: .42% (does not include migration
Rate of growth – adding migration
A measure of the average, annual rate of increase for a population
For the world as a whole, it is possible to convert the RNI to the rate of population growth by converting the rate per 1000 to an annual percentage
World RNI is 12 per thousand = rate of population growth, 1.2%
most of the time migration must be considered, making rni different from rate of growth
RNI + or – net migration = growth rate
Canadian Statistics:
Population: 33,098,932
Crude birth rate: 10.78 births/1,000 population
Crude death rate: 7.8 deaths/1,000 population
RNI = 0.3% (no migration)
Net migration rate: 5.85 migrants/1,000 population
Population growth rate: 0.88%
Difference is from net migration
US RNI: 0.6%
US growth rate: 1.0%
imp. ones:
RNI = 0.3% (no migration)
Population growth rate: 0.88%
Difference is from net migration
Doubling time
The number of years required for a population to double in size
Can approximate this by dividing into 70 the annual rate of population growth
Doubling time = 70
Annual rate of population growth
World = 70
1.2 = 58 years
Total fertility rate and replacement level fertility
Total Fertility Rate (TFR): the average number of children a women is expected to have her childbearing years
Replacement level: A rate of births per woman that would guarantee a stable population
estimated 2.1 to 2.3
Compensates for early deaths, and replaces parents
Reasons for global fertility decline
improved contraceptives/increased knowledge and acceptance of contraception’s
reduced child mortality (les need to replace children who die)
high rates of urbanization increase the cost-benefit ratio of children
increased education of women has raised earning power and increased the “opportunity cost” of child bearing and child rearing
Improved technology leads to greater return on “investment” (incentive to educate children rather than to have large numbers of kids)
Poverty (usually) = higher fertility levels
Demographic Transition
a model describing population change over time Birth rates Death rates Population change 4 stages (5?)
Studied the change in birth rates, death rates and natural growth rates over the course of British industrialization (200 years ago)
The Demographic Transition
Stage 1: Low Growth – preindustrial/premodern stage – birth and death rates are both high. Death rate fluxuates more (wars, famine, epidemics). Short life expectancies (30-40). No countries in stage 1 today.
Stage 2: High Growth – early industrial/urbanizing stage – death rate drops but the birth rate stays high. Improvements in nutrition, political stability, medicine, improved distribution of food medical knowledge and technology, sanitation and hygene all brought death rate down. People are living longer, still having lots of kids for 70-80 years before it starts to adjust. Some countries still in stage 2.
Stage 3: Moderate Growth – death rate still declines, birth rate drops (reasons previously discussed) ie indodesia, india, mexico
Stage 4: Low Growth or Stationary – both birth and death rate low but birth rate on average is higher than death rate.
Stage 5: Negative population Growth? - birth rate drops below the death rate
–does not account for immigration in this model
Historical records
Our knowledge remains speculative about :
historical sizes
growth rates
Population data was not collected before the mid 18th century
What sources are used to estimate historical populations? archaeolical church baptismal Church marriage records Church death records
Historic and Current Ecumenes
Historically parts of the “developing world” have always comprised densely settled ecumenes
Ecumene: permanently inhabited portion of the world
Nonecumene: uninhabited
what are population pyramids
A simple and useful way to examine the age and sex structure of a population
A pyramid is two bar-graphs back to back
Pyramids present “the demographic history of an area over two or three generations”
can identify significant demographic events (eg epidemics, warfare, improvements in survival)
pop pyamid convention`
Males on left and females on right
Youngest at base of pyramid
Either single or five year (more common) cohorts
last cohort (80+) may be left out
Bottom scale either absolute numbers or percentages
the choice of scales affects the shape of the pyramid
cohorts (pop pyramid)
5 years; Scale (absolute here, in millions); males on right females on left; youngest at bottom, final cohort is 80+
Concave shape – “expansive” pyramid
Death rate is falling (top is extended)
characterizes les developed countries (Africa, latin America, etc)
The “too much” population problem
“expansionary” growth process
Triangle shape – “transition” pyramid
Reproductive age cohort grows wider
Rapidly growing populations
birth and death rates falling but still large difference between them
We can see a clear transition from an expansionary pyramid to a stationary pyramid
Beehive shape – “stationary”
stable population
low death rate and low birth rates
Average age of the population is increasing
“stationary growth process”
Example: England, Sweden, US
Rectangular Shape/Tapered bottom – “negative”
Similar to beehive, but with a decrease in fertility at bottom cohorts
aging population
‘no growth’ population problem
Example: Italy, germany, singapore
Examples of Pyramid Types: Canada
Expansive — a broad base (high number of children), concave sides and a low number of older people.
Ex. nunavut
Stationary — a narrow base and roughly equal numbers in each age group, tapering off at the older ages.
Ex. manitoba
Declining — a high proportion of aged persons and declining numbers
Ex. Newf and labra
Aging populations
The populations of many countries are aging.
- eg. Europe - eg. Japan
To replace the population, TFR must be 2.1.
- TFR in Bologna, Italy is 0.8 - Why are women having fewer children?
What are the impacts of an aging population on a country?
What are the “solutions” to an aging population?
Dependency Ratio (DR)
A measure of the Productive Capacity of a population, with respect to age structure
Productive segment (PS): between 15(20) and 64 years (the workers) Dependent segment (DS): under 15(20) or over 64 (the dependents) DR = DS x 100 PS
Therefore it measures the number of dependents that each 100 people in the productive sector must support
Example DR
Suppose a country has:
20 million in productive segment
5 million in dependent segment
DR=DS/PS x 100 = 5/20 x 100 =25 people that each 100 people in the productive sector have to support
Suppose, later, that country has:
15 million PS
10 million DS
DR = 10/15 x 100 = 67 people that every 100 working people in the productive sector would have to support
Dependency ratios by country
Philippines: 63 : 100
For every 100 workers there are 63 dependents
Japan: 60 : 100
Most of the 60 dependents will be elderly, not children
Costa Rica: 44 : 100
Iraq: 85 : 100
The closer to 100, the higher the age-dependency ratio
High dependency ratios
Note: a high dependency ratio in itself doesn’t tell us whether the large population is in the lower age group or higher age group
A high dependency ratio could indicate:
An aging population (ie Canada, Italy) with a. Large > 64 population
A very young population (i.e. ___ethiopia________) with a large < 15 pop
Dependency Ratios
A rough indicator of age distribution
Generally, ratio of non-productive to productive age groups
Can be affected significantly by disease, warfare, etc
Can be used to compare populations
The greater the ratio the more dependant the overall population
What is the impact of having a high dependency ratio? …
Sex ratios
Natural birth sex ratio is 105:100, meaning 105 boys are born for every 100 girls
Men have higher mortality rates than women
Women live longer than men (on average)
India’s sex ratio is 113 boys / 100 girls, and as high as 123 boys in some states
chinas sex ratio as 118 boys / 100 girls and as high as 160 boys in rural areas for 2nd births
both countries have a strong cultural preference for male children
Population Control Policies: pro natalist france
TFR is 2.0 (low by global standards, but one of the highest TFRs in Europe)
Pro-natalist policies include: less taxes for large families, subsidized day care under 3 and free full time school places over 3, parental leave and job security for women on maternity leave
Population Control Policies: pro natalist russia
The TFR in Russia in 1980 was 2.04 and now it is only 1.34
The Russian government offers cash subsidies of $10,000 to women who give birth to a second or third child
National Day of Conception (Sept 12) in one province and 9 months later (June 12) 87 babies were born (4x average)
Anti-natalist policy: China
1950 – 1979 the government encouraged later marriage and fewer children
In 1979 the government began the One Child Policy
free contraceptives offered, abortions and sterilizations were common
Penalties, including fines, were levied for a 2nd or 3rd child
infanricide (especially girls) was a means of keeping to the policy
In 1965, CBR was ~___37_____ births/1,000 people
In 1986, CBR was ____18____ births/ 1,000
The policy was successful, and the population is 300 million less than it would have been
