The Human Population Section 1

Chapter 9
The Human Population
Section1, Studying Human Populations

DAY ONE
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Studying Human Populations

• Demography is the study of the
characteristics of populations,
especially human populations.
• Demographers study the historical
size and makeup of the populations
of countries to make comparisons and
predictions.
• Demographers also study properties
that affect population growth, such as
economics and social structure.
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Studying Human Populations
• Countries with similar population trends are often
grouped into two general categories: developed and
developing countries.
• Developed countries have:
– higher average incomes
– slower population growth
– diverse industrial economies
– stronger social support systems
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Studying Human Populations

• Developing countries
have:
– lower average
incomes
– simple and
agriculture-based
economics
– rapid population
growth.
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The Human Population Over Time

• The human population underwent exponential growth
in the 1800s, meaning that the population growth rates
increased during each decade.
• These increases were mostly due to increases in food
production and improvements in hygiene that came
with the industrial and scientific revolution.
• However, it is unlikely that the Earth can sustain this
growth for much longer.
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World Population Over Time

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Age Structure
• Age structure is the classification of
members of a population into groups
according to age or the distribution of
members of a population in terms of age
groups and helps demographers make
predictions.
• Countries that have high rates of growth
usually have more young people than
older people.
• In contrast, countries that have slow
growth or no growth usually have an even
distribution of ages in the population.
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Age Structure
• Age structure can be graphed
in a population pyramid, a
type of double sided bar graph.
• The figure on the right shows
typical age structures for
countries that have different
rates of growth.
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Survivorship
• Survivorship is the
percentage of newborn
individuals in a population that
can be expected to survive to
a given age.
• It is used as another way to
predict population trends.
• To predict survivorship,
demographers study a group
of people born at the same
time and notes when each
member of the group dies.
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Survivorship
• The results of these
studies are then plotted on
a graph and might look like
one of the types of
survivorship graphs.
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Survivorship
• Wealthy developed countries such as Japan
and Germany currently have a Type I
survivorship curve because most people live to
be very old.
• Type II populations have a similar death rate
at all ages.
• Type III survivorship is the pattern in very poor
human populations in which many children die.
• Both Type I and Type III may result in
populations that remain the same size or
grow slowly.
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Fertility Rates
• A fertility rate is the number of births
(usually per year) per 1,000 women
of childbearing age (usually 15 to 44).
• Replacement level is the average
number of children each parent must
have in order to “replace”
themselves.
• This number is slightly more than 2
because not all children born will
survive and reproduce.
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Fertility Rates
• A graph of historical fertility rates for the United States is
shown on the next slide.
• In 1972, the total fertility dropped below replacement
level for the first time in US History.
• Fertility rates remained below replacement level for most
of the 1990s, but recently has been growing partly
because the children of the baby boom grew up and had
children.
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Fertility Rates
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Migration
• Migration in general, is any
movement of individuals or
populations from one location to
another.
• Movement into an area is
immigration and movement out of
an area is emigration.
• The populations of many developed
countries might be decreasing if not
for immigration.
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Declining Death Rates

• The dramatic increase in Earth’s human population in
the last 200 years has happened because death rates
have declined more rapidly than birth rates.
• Death rates have declined mainly because more people
now have access to:
– adequate food
– clean water
– safe sewage disposal
– vaccines
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Life Expectancy
• Life expectancy is the average length
of time that an individual is expected to
live.
• Life expectancy is most affected by
infant mortality, the death rate of
infants less than a year old.
• Expensive medical care is not needed
to prevent infant deaths. Infant health is
more affected by the parents’ access to
education, food, fuel, and clean water.
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Life Expectancy
• The graph shows that
average life expectancy
worldwide has increased
to more than 67 years old.
But, new threats, such as
tuberculosis and AIDS are
arising as populations
become denser.
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The Demographic Transition

• The demographic transition is the general pattern of
demographic change from high birth and death rates to
low birth and death rates, and observed in the history of
more-developed countries.
• The theory behind the demographic transition is that
industrial development causes economic and social
progress that then affects population growth rates.
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Stages of the Transition

• In the first stage of the demographic transition, a society
is in a preindustrial condition.
– The birth rate and the death rate are both at high
levels and the population size is stable.
• In the second stage, a population explosion occurs.
– Death rates decline as hygiene, nutrition, and
education improve.
– But, birth rates remain high, so the population grows
very fast.
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Stages of the Transition

• In the third stage, population growth slows because birth rate
decreases.
– As the birth rate becomes close to the death rate, the
population size stabilizes.
– However, the population is much larger than before the
demographic transition.
• In the fourth stage, the birth rate drops below replacement
level, so the size of the population begins to decrease.
– It has taken from one to three generations for the
demographic transition to occur.
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Women and Fertility

• The factors most clearly related to a decline in birth rates
are increasing education and economic independence
for women.
• In the demographic transition model, the lower death
rate of the second stage is usually the result of increased
levels of education.
• Educated women find that they do not need to bear as
many children to ensure that some will survive. They
may also learn family planning techniques.
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Women and Fertility

• Women are able to contribute to their family’s increasing
prosperity while spending less energy bearing and caring
for children.
• As countries modernize, parents are more likely to work
away from home.
• If parents must pay for child care, children may become
a financial burden rather than an asset.
• All of these reasons contribute to lower birth rates in both
developed and developing countries.
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Ticket out the Door

1. What is demography?
2. What is age structure?
3. What is survivorship?
4. What are the three types of survivorship curves?
5. What is fertility rate?
6. What is the difference between emigration and
immigration?
7. What are the four stages to demographic transition?
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Chapter 9
The Human Population
Section 2, Changing Populations Trends

DAY ONE
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Changing Population Trends

• Throughout history, and currently in many
parts of the world, populations that have
high rates of growth create environmental
problems.
• A rapidly growing population uses
resources at an increased rate and can
overwhelm the infrastructure of a
community.
• Infrastructure is the basic facilities of a
country or region, such as roads, bridges,
sewers, power plants, subways, schools,
and hospitals.
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Problems of Rapid Growth

• A rapidly growing population can use resources faster
than the environment can renew them, unless resources
come from elsewhere.
• Standards of living decline when wood is removed from
local forests faster that it can grow back, or when wastes
overwhelm local water sources.
• Symptoms of overwhelming populations include
suburban sprawl, polluted rivers, barren land,
inadequate housing, and overcrowded schools.
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A Shortage of Fuelwood
• In many of the poorest countries, wood
is the main fuel source.
• When populations are stable, people
use fallen tree limbs for fuel. When
populations grow rapidly, deadwood
does not accumulate fast enough to
provide enough fuel.
• People then begin cutting down living
trees, which reduces the amount of
wood available in each new year.
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A Shortage of Fuelwood
• A supply of fuel ensures that a person can boil water and
cook food.
• In many parts of the world, water taken directly from
wells is not safe to drink. Food is often unsafe to eat
unless it is cooked.
• Water can be sterilized, and food can be cooked, but fuel
is needed to do so. Without enough fuelwood, many
people suffer from disease and malnutrition.
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Unsafe Water
• In places that lack infrastructure, the local
water supply may be used not only for drinking
and washing but also for sewage disposal.
• As a result, the water supply becomes a
breeding ground for organisms that can cause
diseases such as dysentery, typhoid, and
cholera.
• Many cities have populations that are doubling
every 15 years, and water systems cannot be
expanded fast enough to keep up with this
growth.
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Impacts on Land
• Growing populations may have a
shortage of arable land.
• Arable land is farmland that can
be used to grow crops.
• Growing populations also make
trade-offs between competing
uses for land such as agriculture,
housing, or natural habitats.
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Impacts on Land
• For example, Egypt has a population of more than 69
million that depends on farming within the narrow Nile
River valley.
• Most of the country is desert, and less than 4 percent of
Egypt’s land is arable.
• The Nile River Valley is also where the jobs are located,
and where most Egyptians live. They continue to build
housing on what was once farmland, which reduces
Egypt’s available arable land.
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Impacts on Land
• Urbanization is an increase in the ratio or
density of people living in urban areas rather
than in rural areas.
• People often find work in the cities but move
into suburban areas around the cities.
• This suburban sprawl leads to traffic jams,
inadequate infrastructure, and reduction of
land for farms, ranches, and wildlife habitat.
• Meanwhile, housing within cities becomes
more costly, more dense, and in shorter
supply.
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A Demographically Diverse World

• Not every country in the world is progressing through
each stage of demographic transition.
• Some countries now have modern industries, but
incomes remain low. A few countries have achieved
stable and educated populations with little
industrialization.
• Some countries seem to remain in the second stage and
are unable to make enough educational and economic
gains to reduce birth rates and move into the third stage.
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A Demographically Diverse World

• In recent years, the international community has
begun to focus on the least developed countries.
• Least developed countries are countries that
have been identified by the united Nations as
showing the fewest signs of development in
terms of income, human resources, and
economic diversity.
• These countries may be given priority for
foreign aid and development programs to
address their population and environmental
problems.
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Managing Development and Population Growth

• Today, less developed countries face the likelihood that
continued population growth will prevent them from
imitating the development of the world’s economic
leaders.
• Countries such as China, Thailand, and India have
created campaigns to reduce the fertility rates of their
citizens.
• These campaigns include public advertising, family
planning programs, economic incentives, or legal
punishment.
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Managing Development and Population Growth

• In 1994, the United Nations held the International
Conference on Population and Development (ICPD),
• It involved debates about the relationships between
population, development, and the environment.
• Many countries favor stabilizing population growth
through investments in development, especially through
improvements in women’s status.
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ICPD Goals for 2015

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Managing Development and Population

• With these goals, worldwide fertility rates are dropping
as shown below.
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Growth Is Slowing
• Fertility rates have declined in both more-developed and
less-developed regions.
• Demographers predict that this trend will continue and
that worldwide population growth will be slower this
century than the last century.
• If current trends continue, most countries will have
replacement level fertility rates by 2050. If so, world
population growth would eventually stop.
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Projections to 2050
• Looking at the graph below, most demographers predict
the medium growth rate, and a world population of 9
billion in 2050.
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Ticket out the Door: Graphic Organizer

1. What is arable land?

2. What is infrastructure?
3. What is urbanization?
4. What types of diseases
can you get from unsafe
drinking water?