Population Change

Question 1

What is birth rate?

Answer 1

The number of live births per 1000 people per year

Question 2

What is death rate?

Answer 2

The number of deaths per 1000 people per year

Question 3

What is fertility rate?

Answer 3

The average number of children a woman will have between the ages of 15 and 44

Question 4

What is infant mortality rate?

Answer 4

The number of children per 1000 born alive who die before their first birthday

Question 5

What is life expectancy?

Answer 5

The average age a person can expect to live.

Question 6

What is migration rate?

Answer 6

The difference between the number of people who migrate in and the number of people who migrate out of a country per 100,000 of the population per year.

Question 7

What is population density?

Answer 7

The number of people per square km (population divided by size of area)

Question 8

What is natural change?

Answer 8

Change in population because of the difference between birth and death rate.

Question 9

What is stage 1,2,3,4 and 5 called on the demographic transition model?

Answer 9

1 - High fluctuating
2 - Early expanding
3 - Late expanding
4 - Low fluctuating
5 - Declining

Question 10

What happens in stage 1 of the DTM?

Answer 10

1) Birth rate is high because there is no birth control
2) Its also high as there is high infant mortality, so people have more children to replace those who have died
3) Death rate is high and life expectancy is low because there is poor health care, sanitation and diet

Question 11

What happens in stage 2 of the DTM?

Answer 11

1) Death rate falls but birth rate is still high - population increases rapidly
2) Birth rate is high for labour reasons - family members have to work, a larger family will earn more money
3) Death rate falls and life expectancy increases due to improved health care

Question 12

What happens in stage 3 of the DTM?

Answer 12

1) Birth rate decreases due to increases use of birth control
2) Birth rate also drops because the economy moves towards manufacturing - fewer children are needed to work on farms
3) Birth rate falls further because more women want to work rather than stay at home to have children
4) Some countries introduce government policies to reduce birth rate

Question 13

What happens in stage 4 of the DTM?

Answer 13

1) Birth rate stays low because increased access and demand for luxuries means there is less money available for having children
2) Also children are not needed for working on farms so people have fewer children

Question 14

What happens in stage 5 of the DTM?

Answer 14

1) Birth rate declines further while death rate stays the same
2) Birth rate decreases because children are expensive to raise and many people have dependent elderly relatives.
3) Death rate remains steady

Question 15

Give examples of countries in each stage of the DTM

Answer 15

Stage 1 - Tribes in rainforests of Brazil
Stage 2 - Nepal 
Stage 3 - Egypt
Stage 4 - UK
Stage 5 - Japan

Question 16

What 4 characteristics do MEDCs have?

Answer 16

1) Low birth rate
2) Low death rate
3) Long life expectancy
4) Slow population growth

Question 17

What problems can being in stage 5 cause?

Answer 17

1) There are too few children to replace the current, ageing workforce
2) A smaller population means a reduction in spending, which could cause the economy to slow down
3) There are fewer taxpayers, so there’s less money for services. This is made worse by increasing cost of services for the elderly (more old people means more money needed for health care and pensions).

Question 18

When was the UK in stage 1 of the DTM?

Answer 18

about 1760 - population was small e.g. 6 million in 1700. Poor diet and hygiene as well as wars and diseases such as cholera caused a high death rate, which cancelled out the high birth rate.

Question 19

When was the UK in stage 2 of the DTM?

Answer 19

1760-1880 - population was 5 times greater by the 1880s. Improvements in farming and medicine reduced starvation and disease, so death rate fell. Birth rate remained high and the economy grew quickly. Urban populations grew rapidly.

Question 20

When was the UK in stage 3 of the DTM?

Answer 20

1880-1940 - Population was still growing but at a slower rate. Birth control improved and was used more often so birth rate fell. Death rate continued to fall as food supply, medicine etc all improved.

Question 21

When was the UK in stage 4 of the DTM?

Answer 21

1940-today - Population growth has slowed down - 56 million by 1981. Death rate was low and birth rate was low.

Question 22

When was the UK in stage 5 of the DTM?

Answer 22

Today+ - Death rate is almost exactly the same as birth rate and population is ageing - pensioners outnumber children. By 2030 a quarter of the UKs population could be over 65. Population could begin to decline if birth rate drops below death rate.

Question 23

What are the advantages of the DTM?

Answer 23

1) Gives a good generalised picture of how a population can change over time
2) Easy to compare a country with the DTM - if you know about its birth and death rates you can analyse what stage on the DTM it is at.
3) You can forecast how population may change in the future - this will help to implement policies and immigration laws.

Question 24

What are the disadvantages of the DTM?

Answer 24

1) It is Eurocentric - original data was from more developed countries like European countries. This means that the model may not be valid worldwide, what happened in these countries might not be the same as what happens in other countries.
2) The original DTM only had 4 stages - the 5th was added recently
3) Population in countries with different customs may change in different ways e.g. Catholicism condemns contraception
4) The DTM can’t predict exactly when countries will reach each stage, or how long each stage will last
5) It doesn’t consider migration- international migration can have large effects on population change.
6) Other factors can affect the population so the DTM no longer fits

Question 25

How do population control policies affect the population?

Answer 25

High levels of population growth or decline have forced some governments to introduce population policies discouraging or encouraging larger families. E.g. in France population growth is low so child care is subsidised, in China population growth is to high so they introduced the one child policy.

Question 26

How does infectious disease affect the population?

Answer 26

some countries may have high levels of infectious disease, which keeps the death rate high, reducing the population or stalling population growth.

Question 27

How does civil war affect the population?

Answer 27

War leads to increased death rate and decreased birth rate. Also civil war leads to emigration, decreasing the population as people flee the fighting.

Question 28

See graphs on page 66

Answer 28

.

Question 29

How does internal migration affect population structure?

Answer 29

Often young adults move from rural areas to urban areas to find a job, this affects birth rate as they are often of a reproductive age. This is called rural-urban migration

Question 30

How does emigration affect population structure?

Answer 30

Decreases the population of the country they have left e.g. elderly people retiring to other countries reduces the number of elderly people in the country

Question 31

How does immigration affect population structure?

Answer 31

Increases population of people of working and productive age, this increases birth rate.

Question 32

What is a pull factor?

Answer 32

Things that attract people to a new place, positive factors e.g. better jobs

Question 33

What is a push factor?

Answer 33

Things that make people want to move out of a place e.g. lack of jobs

Question 34

What is the dependency ratio?

Answer 34

The proportion of the population that has to be supported by the working population

Question 35

What are the social impacts of an ageing population?

Answer 35

1) Increased pressure on public services such as hospitals. More people will be needed to provide care for the elderly, so more carers and nurses need to be trained. Also more people will act as unpaid carers to relatives , putting pressure on them financially.
2) Unequal distribution of older people - some places have high levels of older people so will have inadequate facilities for young people
3) Reduced population growth or population decline - if people have more older relatives they may have less children, reducing birth rate

Question 36

What are the economic impacts of an ageing population?

Answer 36

1) Reduced work force may slow economic growth
2) Increased taxes - pensions and services are paid for by taxes, if more people are claiming taxes could mean higher taxes for the working population
3) Spending - the elderly have savings and pensions to spend - this is called the grey pound.

Question 37

What are the social impacts of a youthful population?

Answer 37

1) Increased pressure on public services - greater demand for services like schools and childcare.
2) Rapid population growth - Large number of children grow up and have families, increasing the population. This may lead to overpopulation.

Question 38

What are the economic impacts of a youthful population?

Answer 38

1) Too few jobs - aren’t enough jobs for people when they grow up. More unemployed people means more dependency on government support.
2) Increased poverty - More young people are born into families that are already poor, so more people in poverty. If young people have to work to support families they may miss out on education meaning they cant break out of poverty.

Question 39

What are the political impacts of an ageing population?

Answer 39

Elderly issues will be important to voters e.g. pension changes. Immigration laws may be relaxed to encourage people of a working age to enter the country

Question 40

What are the political impacts of a youthful population?

Answer 40

Youth issues will be important e.g. student loans. Teacher salaries may have to increase due to an increased demand for teachers.

Question 41

What are some strategies to manage ageing populations?

Answer 41

1) Encouraging larger families e.g. longer, paid maternity leave such as in Sweden. Encouraging larger families should result in a large working population when the children grow up which provides more taxes.
2) Raising retirement age - Increases the size of the working population so more people contribute to the state pension more, and will claim it for less time.
3) Encouraging the immigration of working age people - This helps to support the working population because more people will be paying tax.
4) Increasing health care - This doesn’t manage the population change but could help to ease the problem of poor health in the elderly

Question 42

What are some strategies to manage youthful populations?

Answer 42

1) Controlling birth rate - Overpopulated countries try to slow growth by using policies. E.g. China have the one child policy
2) Limiting the immigration of younger people - Limiting number of immigrants of reproductive age would mean that birth rates aren’t made any higher.
3) Increasing child care provision - Means that parents can work instead of caring for children, doesn’t manage the population change, but helps to address some of the problems caused by a younger population.