Economic change Flashcards
What are the 4 sectors of economic activity?
1 primary - extracting natural resources
2 secondary - when the raw materials are put together, manufacturing
3 tertiary - when you provide a service
4 quaternary - hi-tech research and development
What are examples of professions in the 4 sectors of economic activity?
primary e.g. agriculture (farming), fishing, mining
secondary e.g. car factory worker
tertiary e.g. teacher, shop assistant
quaternary e.g. scientist, computer programmer
What was the employment like in the UK during the 1700s?
- over 300 years ago most people worked in primary industries
- they were fishermen, farmers, miners; no people worked in quaternary
What was the employment like in the UK during the 1900s?
- in 1750, the industrial revolution began
- Britain produced huge amounts of iron and steel and turned them into trains, railways, ships and new machinery
- 1000s of people moved to work in new factories where products were made
- still no quaternary, mainly secondary
What is the employment like in the UK today?
- other countries started to make products more quickly, better and cheaper than in the UK
- key industries such as coal, iron, steel and textiles started to decline which meant people became unemployed
- there has been an increase in the need for teachers, doctors, shop staff etc
- the quaternary industry was introduced, tertiary industry is the biggest
What is GNI?
Gross National Income:
- the total value of good and services produced by a country’s economy plus overseas earnings
- we use this to compare how much the different sectors (e.g.primary) contribute to the economy of a country
What is the model called which we use to show the percentage of employment in the UK and what does it show?
The Clark Fisher Model:
- the industrial phase started in approximately 1850 AD
- the post industrial phase started in approximately 1950 AD
- the model shows us that there has been a decline in primary industry, an increase then decrease in secondary industry (industrial phase) and a gradual rise in the tertiary industry - the quaternary sector is very recent
What are the 3 categories of countries based on their GNI per capita and where are they located?
- low-income countries: central Africa, southeast Asia
- (lower and upper)middle income countries: south America, north and south Africa, parts of the Middle East, eastern Europe
- high-income countries: north America, western Europe, Australasia
Compare the employment rates in the various sectors of 3 countries (low,middle and high income): UK (high), China (middle) and Ethiopa (low)
- in the UK over 3/4 are employed in the tertiary sector, less than 2% work in the primary industry and about 1/5 in the secondary industry due to the fact that the UK has developed into an industrialised and urbanised country able to import as well as export
- China has a fairly even spread of the workforce over the 3 sectors with a strong secondary and tertiary sector because they create products brought by high income countries and they have a high primary sector
- in Ethiopia about 3/4 of the workforce is involved in the primary sector and there is a larger tertiary sector than secondary sector which is due to the country’s underdevelopment so they don’t have factories and machinery to produce things on a large scale
In the UK, why has the primary industry declined?
- most valuable resources already extracted (depletion of raw resources, inaccessible nature)
- UK has developed and urbanised
- other countries can do this for cheaper (raw materials and labour cheap in LICs)
- UK can import most of its goods, world more interconnected and importing is a cheaper option
- more farming machinery from IR means less people needed - technological improvements led to reduction in labour force
- greater population in UK means it’s urbanised with less room
- people in HICs want to do other jobs in tertiary/quaternary industry - more attractive, less risky and better paid
What are the reasons for the decline of agriculture in the UK?
- UK used to produce nearly all its own food, limitations of climate caused some needing to be imported but today it produces less than 60% of its food because it’s cheaper to import from abroad
- become highly mechanised - single machine e.g.combine harvester can do in a day what 20 men did in a week and livestock (particularly poultry) are reared by factory-like methods
- farming taken over by agribusiness - everything scaled up to be commercial to create larger fields more suitable for machinery (lots of money invested in latest machinery, technology, better seeds, pesticides, herbicides, drugs and genetic modification of crops
What are the reasons for the decline of fishing in the UK?
- most of UK’s coast was involved in fishing making it an important part of the nation’s food supply but today most fleets have gone
- over-fishing has caused depletion of fish stocks caused mostly by the mechanism of fishing - larger vessels using modern, electric equipment to help fish shoals and then trawling larger nets to catch them
- tight controls on the amount of fish which can be caught internationally today in order to conserve remaining fish stocks
- most of UK’s catch is landed in 3 ports (Petershead, Lockinver and Fraserburgh)
What are the reasons for the decline of mining and quarrying in the UK?
- most UK mining was for coal as it fueled the IR but today there’s only 5 deep mines and 7 open cast mines working
- cheaper to import coal from other countries e.g.Australia and Poland
- collapse of large-scale traditional industries e.g.iron and steel has cut the demand for coal
- modern electricity generating stations are powered by natural gas rather than coal
- in 1950s, became clear burning coal was not a good for environment e.g.air quality - now know it contributes to global warming
- quarrying still takes place producing building materials e.g.sand, gravel, cement and hard rocks crushed to make surfacing for roads
Has there been a decline in forestry in the UK primary sector?
- little or no decline
- in terms of numbers employed, it is the least important
- main employer is forestry commission responsible for planting new public forests and managing them
What is the general output of the ‘top 15 manufacturing countries’?
- USA had gradual increase from $600 billion in 1980 to approx $1800 billion in 2010 (been no drop in industry)
- China used to be about the same as group of countries including:Brazil, UK, France, India, Italy and Korea who have remained fairly regular throughout but China began a massive increase in 1995 from $400 billion to being above USA in 2010 at $1900 billion
- Japan had very sharp increase to peak at 1995 with $1250 billion but has slowly declined before slightly rising again
- Germany started off in the block of consistent countries but peaked higher at $500 billion in 1995, the declined in 2000 to $400 billion and rising higher in 2010 to $650 billion
Why has the secondary sector declined in the UK?
- some tertiary/quaternary jobs are more attractive with less manual labour
- fast, efficient and cheap transport to move goods from new factories to the UK and other markets
- since the IR other countries have developed and are able to produce things more quickly and cheaply so it’s cheaper to import with cheaper labour, land and regulation costs in LICs
- less materials in the UK after IR so they must import goods
- spreading of ideas on global scale means factories can keep updated on latest trends
- growth of TNCs (Trans National Corporations)
- far more mechanisation and advanced technology so less jobs required to manufacture goods so can produce them better and quicker
What was the UK the first to become?
Industrial Nation
lead to Industrial Revolution, manufacturing produced 40% of the country’s wealth and employed 1/3 of the workforce
now only produced about 25% of the wealth and employs less than 20% of the workforce
factories have closed in the UK because the products being made could be produced more cheaply elsewhere
Why has the global shift from HICs to MICs and LICs taken place?
- cheaper land and labour in poorer parts of the world, fewer regulations about working conditions and less environment impact concern
- fast, efficient and cheap transport to move the goods from new factories to the UK and other major markets
- the global superhighway created by modern communication networks can keep in close touch with changing trends, style and fashion
How do Transnational Companies operate on a global scale?
have a range of business interests in different countries e.g.pick up raw materials in one country, set up a factory in another country and then finally transport goods to main markets
What is Globalisation causing?
countries to become tied to one huge global economy and everyone has a part to play
What are the physical factors which affect the site of a new factory?
- raw materials
- power
- accessibility
- land
- climate
What impact do raw materials have on a new factory location?
- old, heavy industry required large amounts of bulky raw materials which were costly to transport so the industry had to be close to them
- newer industries are described as footloose and are not tied to being near raw materials which are smaller and easier to transport
What impact does power have on a new factory location?
- old industry had to be right beside a power source (water power used first, then burning of coal produced steam power) which restricted the locations
- now industries can gain their power from the National Grid and so power does not influence location a great deal
What impact does accessibility have on a new factory location?
- site of a new factory needs to be accessible so that importing raw materials and exporting products is easy
- early industry had to have good access to raw materials (normally by river)
- nowadays, transport is required for transport routes
What impact does land have on a new factory location?
- very important
- usually flat land is most essential
- most industries try to find areas which can be expanded once production has become successful
What impact does climate have on a new factory location?
- climate could affect where an industry is located in order to attract workers to the area
- not particularly important
What are the human factors which affect the location of a new industry?
- government policy
- capital
- labour supply
- communications
- markets
