Population Geography Notes

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Total population of Earth is a balance between two forces: births and deaths [natural increase]

Simple relationship complicated by migration.

Scale: macro to micro

e.g., Effects of natural change on small scale: Mauritius

Terminology

• Crude birth and death rates
• #of births/yr
  population
• e.g., 25 births/year/1000
• Growth rate
• how fast population is growing? range 0% to 4%
• Doubling time
• how long population takes to double; 70÷ growth rate
• Density
• Population Pyramids
• In order to understand the rate of growth in a population you must know something about its age and sex structure
  • problems associated with an aging population
    • economic restructuring to respond to changes in demand
    • dependency
    • social, psychological, political problems

Population Growth

Ecological checks? animal populations

Malthus

• population grows geometrically (exponentially)
• food sources increase arithmetically (linearly)

Malthusian checks? Criticisms of Malthus?

Actual Patterns: beginning of agriculture--10 m?, beginning of Christian era--250m; 1650--500 m; today--nearly 6 billion

J shaped growth; viewed in historical context 1.7% overall growth rate; characterized by an extremely slow start and fluctuations

Demographic Cycles

Industrialization and urbanization in the last 200 years have caused a transition in world pop. growth patterns-->demographic transition: sequence of changes over time in vital population growth rates.

Stage 1 High Stationary

• birth and death rates both high
• population low but fluctuating

Stage 2 Early Expanding

• high birth rate, fall in death rate
• population expands

Stage 3 Late Expanding

• birth rate reduction, death rate stable at low level
• expansion of population slows

Stage 4 Low Stationary

• birth and death rates stable and low
• population stationary

S curve

How does the world fit into this pattern today?

• no Stage 1 nations because of improved medical care, sanitation, and technology
• Stage 2 describes all human groups in early history; now found in countries with uncertain low levels of food production, subsistence economic systems. Less Developed Countries (LDC's) "Third World. Increasing development and associated socio-economic changes moving some into Stage 3. Mentifacts vs. artifacts=lag.
• Stage 4-->US, Canada, Europe, Australia-NZ, Japan--the developed, industrialized nations of the world.

Demographic transition useful in describing the world's past...applicable to the future?

• in some nations, death rate has dropped without economic modernization, e.g., Sri Lanka, DDT vs malaria. 1946 life expectancy 44; 1954 life expectancy 60. Resulting population growth hinders economic development--->strain.
• Cycle of Doom (see overhead)
• rapid increases in population that accompanied Europe's industrialization alleviated by migration. Not possible today.
• many countries already at high population levels, e.g., India. Population increasing at relatively low rate but it is still a huge number of people.
• Therefore, transition theory not accurate in predicting demographic change in LDC's

World Population Distribution

• unevenly distributed; habitable vs uninhabitable; arable vs nonarable
• exception: where people have developed an alternative way to make a living, e.g., mining
• Dense population? Why in those places?
• Future? Implications?