Population Period 3 Lauren Smith, Brooke Smith, Vibhu Banala, Breanne Williamson

Measure of total population relative to land size

Different Types of Density

The Population Booms Uneven distribution of people over land has intensified over the past years. Historically people tend to gather where you can grow food, which results in cities. Now with all this new technology, cities now don’t necessarily have to be on arable land. Geographers study population distributions, descriptions of locations where people live Geographers use dot maps to represent population distributions.

A.D A.D A.D B.C B.C B.C B.C B.C B.C B.C. 1+ million years Old Stone Age New Stone Age Bronze Age Iron Age Middle Ages Modern Age Black Death—The Plague A.D A.D A.D Future Billions Source: Population Reference Bureau; and United Nations, World Population Projections to 2100 (1998). World Population Growth Through History This J Curve demonstrat es the exponential growth of natural increase in human population

Dot Map of the World

The Four Major Clusters East Asia 1.3 billion people in China alone The population follows the river valleys South Asia 1.5 billion people live in this area (India, Pakistan, etc.) Himalayas and the desert confine this population to this region This region also gathers around rivers, such as the Ganges and Indus

South Asia East Asia

Europe 728 million people As the population reaches into Russia, it is following Europe’s coal fields North America The population is ¼ the size of any of the Eurasian clusters Most of this cluster lies on the eastern seaboard from Boston down to Washington D.C.

Europe Night Picture

Megalopolis Large chain of super cities

Crude Birth/Death rate Crude Birth (CBR) – number of live births per year per thousand people Crude Death (CDR) – number of deaths per year per thousand people Natural Increase- Difference between the number of births and the number of deaths

Rates of birth, death, and natural increase per 1,000 population Natural Increase Source: United Nations, World Population Prospects: The 2004 Revision, Birth and Death Rates, Worldwide

Crude Birth Rate

Crude Death Rate

The Demographic Transition Sequence of stages of population growth (4 stages)

Demographic Transition in Denmark

Demographic Transition in Cape Verde

Stage 1 – Low growth Marked by much human suffering High birth rates are equaled by high death rates Epidemics and plagues keep the death rates high Europe was marked by the bubonic plague Also famines mark this stage of population growth

Stage 2 – High growth Europe (around 1700s) – farming methods became more advanced Results in a bigger food supply; able to support a high population overall Europe (around 1800s) – sanitation and disease prevention increase; death rates fall

Stage 3 – Moderate growth Continuing, but slower, decline in death rates Coupled with a significant decline in birth rates Birth rates fall because as people move into cities, the economics and culture of large families changes. As medicine decreases infant mortality rates, it lessens the sense that you need to have multiple children

Stage 4 – Low growth/Stationary Stage Countries with low TFRs are in this stage Low birth rates along with low death rates results in low or no population growth Birth rates are the lowest in countries with the most educated and most involved women

Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) Baby’s death during the first year following its birth Reflects overall health of the society Reported as number of cases per thousand births Many infants die when they are improperly weaned

Annual number of deaths to infants under age 1 per 1,000 live births Trends in Infant Mortality, by Region Source: UN, World Population Prospects: The 2004 Revision (medium scenario), 2005.

Life Expectancy Indicator of society’s well being Number of years, on average, a person may live to be Life expectancies can change in a relatively short time For example, when communism fell in Russia, the life expectancy for men dropped from 68 to 62

Life Expectancy at Birth

Looking at the population This profile of Kenya’s population shows major problems. Who is going to feed all those children? 29.2% of the population is under 9 years old, 42.6% of the population is under 15 years old. So, when does one go to work in Kenya, and what kind of work can these children do? How many fifteen year olds are going to school? How many schools, hospitals, roads and other projects can a country like this take on? How can they fix this problem?

Dependent Ages The dependent ages are ages that you would not expect in the working population because they are too old or too young. If too large a population is in the dependent ages the workforce must support too large a population (there will not be enough workers to feed non-workers). While you would expect people 12 or 13 to not be working in a country like the United States, people in the developing world must work at younger ages. What kind of jobs would these young people do? Would you trust a 12 year old with a machine worth five years of your pay?

All population profiles looked like this before the industrial revolution. A farmer wants children because they add to the families work. Not only that but in the past the only old age security you had were your children. When you were too old to work or if you were hurt you depended on your children to support you; the more children, the more support. Family size was much larger then than in the present USA. When people started doing factory work, children became an expense, not an asset. We have pension plans, social security and a host of other ways to protect us in our old age, cutting the older people’s need for a large family. Some say if you want to slow the birth rate put the mother to work.

This profile of the United States shows a healthier population. Most of the population is in the working years. The dependent years (the very old and very young) does not put a strain on the country like in Kenya. What is that big bulge between the 30 and 60 year olds called? Working years

This problem is facing some of the most developed countries. Look at the young ages. Will this group be able to support the ones now working in the future? No one really knows how this will work, because this is the first time in history for this to happen. In the short run it is good to have few people in the dependent ages, but in the long term it may destroy the social fabric. Countries like Japan, and now even China, are giving incentives to their citizens to have more children.

AIDS 1980 – 200,000 people were infected with HIV, all of them Africans By 2004, the number exceeded 37 million worldwide Low life expectancies might be low in some countries due to this disease.

AIDS Cases Annually per 100,000 Population