Population

In this unit students gain an understanding of how population changes, policies to control population growth, ageing

populations and migration. There are four key ideas in this unit:

1. Over time the global population increases and the population structures of different countries change.

2. A range of strategies have been tried by countries experiencing rapid population growth.

3. An ageing population impacts on the future development of a country. 4. Population movements impacts on both the source regions of migrants and the

receiving countries.

1. Over time the global population increases and the population structures of different countries change.

World Population Growth

A population may increase or decrease over time. This change depends on the birth rate, death rate and migration. A population grows if the birth rate is greater than the death rate (a natural increase). In some countries the death rate is greater than the birth rate which results in natural decrease. Migration can also have a significant impact on population.

Lecture on population growth over human history. Video - population change and structure

Factors affecting birth rates

Birth rate - the number of babies born per year for every 1000 people.

Higher birth rates Lower birth rates

Lack of access to contraception: LEDCs tend to have poor access to contraception which results in higher birth rates.

Early marriage: early marriage in LEDCs leads to higher birth rates as women have more time to have children .

Carrying on family name: boys are prized in many cultures to carry on the family name, families will continue to have children until they have a boy resulting in higher birth rates.

Traditional role of women: in many LEDCs women are viewed as homemakers and their role is to look after children.

Polygamy: in some cultures e.g. Bedouin tribe multiple marriages can result in higher birth rates

Workers: more children mean more workers so poorer families have more children to work, support themselves in their old age or to work on the farm

High infant mortality: poor sanitation and medical care mean that many infants die young so people have more children to compensate.

Status: in some countries e.g. Kenya the larger the family, the stronger the man(!) resulting in higher birth rates.

Religion: high birth rates as the use of contraception is banned e.g. Catholicism which raises birth rates.

Availability of contraception: couples can decide whether or not to have children which decreases the birth rate

Sex education: people are more aware of contrapcetion methods etc which lowers the birth rate

Population control strategies: some countries e.g. China restrict birth which lower the birth rate.

Career women: in MEDCs many women now work and delay having children thus lowering the birth rate.

Finances: some couples decide the limit their family to one or two children as the cost of bringing them up is expensive.

Cultural norms: one or two children is seen as a 'normal' family size.

Factors affecting death rates

Death rate - the number of deaths per year per 1000 people.

Access to healthcare

Natural disasters e.g. earthquakes, floods

Diseases e.g. HIV/AIDs

Human-induced illnesses e.g. obseity, lung cancer (due to smoking)

War

Access to clean water and sanitation

Famine

Demographic Transition Model

DTM animation

Population Pyramids A population pyramid is a graph that tells you about the age and gender structure of a population. Different shapes of the population pyramids can tell us different things about a population e.g. birth rates, death rates and life expectancy.

BBC Bitesize - population pyramids Video - population pyramids

Want to know how population pyramids vary from country to country and over time? Use this website to pick the year and country you want then see it build the population pyramid.

2. A range of strategies have been tried by countries experiencing rapid population growth.

Population change can cause a range of social, economic, environmental and political implications on countries. These problems can be very different between LEDCs and MEDCs. Poorer countries often have a very high birth rate and their problem is trying to provide for many young and growing populations resulting from many years of population growth. In MEDCs they are having to cope with ageing populations and a reduction in the number of working population.

Rapid population growth Many developing countries are experiencing rapid population growth and are now having to deal with the increasing pressure. This has made their development unsustainable.

Environmental Social Economic Political

Increasing population leads to increasing pollution.

Old vehicles and unsupervised factory emissions > air pollution > effects of human health

Poor sanitation > rivers being used for waste and litter disposal > water pollution > disease

Shantytowns build on marginal land can increase risk of landslides.

Overfarming in rural areas can lead to desertification (land is turned into desert as a result of human activities) as the soil is degraded.

Deforestation as forest is cut down for fuel.

Difficult to feed everyone > millions go hungry

Poor healthcare > millions of people suffer and die from illnesses and diseases that could be cured and prevented.

Low living standards and rising crime.

Lack of education > unemployment.

Can't afford to provide enough schools and teachers > millions of people don't get education and skills that would lift them out of poverty > country can't develop

Poverty in rural areas is transferred to urban areas by migration > overcrowding, unemployment, poor housing.

Developing countries often have huge international debts > can't improve living standards for population.

Problem for governments and city authorities is how to plan and pay for public services (education and healthcare), public utilities (water, electricity, sanitation) and housing.

Sustainable development means 'meeting the needs of today without harming the chances of future generations to meet their own needs'. For a population to be sustainable, the rate at which the population grows must not threaten the survival of future generatons.

Population policies Many countries have introduced population policies to influence population growth. China and

Kerala (India) have two very different ways of controlling their population.

China's One Child Policy During the 1970s the Chinese government realised that the country would be heading for disaster unless population growth was dramatically reduced.

The one-child policy was introduced in 1979 and it set out that:

women could not marry until they were 20 years old and men 22 years old.

couples must apply for permission to marry and to try to have a baby

couples could only have one successful pregnancy (and therefore, usually only one child)

policy only applied to native (Han) Chinese

in rural areas, where sons are essential to work the family land, a second pregnancy was allowed if the first child was a girl, in the hope of having a boy

second children born abroad are not penalised, but they are not allowed to become Chinese citizens

Benefits if policy followed Sanctions if policy not followed

Priority housing Pension Family benefits Free education for the only child

10% salary decrease Fine was so large that it bankrupted many households Family would have to pay for education of both children and for healthcare for all the family

If you didn't follow the one-child policy the pressure to abort a second pregnancy was immense. The government would even cut the pay of the couple's co-workers so they would make life unbearable. The 'Granny Police' were older women in the community who were entrusted with keeping everyone in line. They checked regularly on couples of childbearing age, even accompanying women on contraception appointments to ensure that they attended.

Did it work? Essential yes, China's one-child policy has prevented the births of over 400 million babies and the population is lower than it would have been had the policy not been enforced. Population growth has slowed down enough for all people to have enough food and jobs. Increased technology amd exploitation of resources have raised living standards for many. This is partly due to the one-child policy but also because of technology from other countries.

However, it has created a lot of problems for China as well.

Chinese society prefers sons over daughters. Some daughters were placed in orphanages or left to die (female infanticide) in the hope of having a son the second time round.

Due to preference for boys, China now has a gender imbalance. By 2020, it is estimated that men in China will outnumber women by 30 million, which might lead to social tension and unrest as more and more men find themselves unable to marry.

Little emperors: children have become over indulged by their two parents and four grandparents as they are the only child.

The only child will have to support two parents and four grandparents to support. Could lead to an ageing population. They will need supporting financially in their old age which includes an

increasing need for expensive healthcare.

Many experts believe that China's growing economy won't have enough workers to keep expanding whilst also supporting the increasing number of dependents.

The one-child policy is now changing. The policy is mostly still strongly enforced in urban areas whilst in rural areas the policy is relaxed to allow two children if the first child is a daughter. In urban areas couples are often allowed to have two children if they were both only children themselves. The new government installed in 2012 is discussing relaxing the one-child policy further - The Independant.

One family's experience of the one-child policy - video clip

Click to zoom

Kerala's alternative population control

Kerala's government has taken a very different approach to managing its population growth. It has a population of approximately 32 million and is one of India's most densely populated states but it has one of the country's lowest birth rates. Its population growth of 9.8% per decase is less than half of India's average (21.3% per decade).

India was the first developing nation to launch a national family planning programme as early as 1952. Not only have they encouraged the use of contraception but have included many social changes such as healthcare and education.

Kerala's success of a variety of strategies:

improving education standards and treating girls as equals to boys

providing adult literacy classes in towns and villages

educating people to understand the benefits of smaller families

reducing infant mortality so people no longer need to have so many children

improving child health through vaccination programmes

providing free contraception and advice

encouraging a higher age of marriage

allowing maternity leave for the first two babies only

providing extra retirement benefits for those who have smaller families

following a land reform programme (land redistributed so that no-one was landless, no family was allowed more than 8ha and everyone could be self-sufficient)

Kerala has managed to control its population growth by investing in social changes while still allowing people the freedom to choose their own family size.

Kerala population control - video clip

3. An ageing population impacts on the future development of a country.

Richer countries also have problems with their populations. Many MEDCs are now experiencing an ageing population (an increasing proportion of old people). It is most noticable in Europe and Japan where birth rates are low. Some countries have even reached the point of population decline and have moved into stage 5 of the DTM.

Why do countries get ageing populations?

1. Better healthcare leads to longer life expectancy as more diseases are treated and cured.

2. Fewer children being born so less people of a child bearing age who will in turn have even fewer children.

Reasons for the UK's ageing population - video clip

Dependency ratio The dependency ratio is a measure of the number of working people and those dependent on them.

In 2007, the UK's dependency ratio was 61, which meant that for every 100 people of working age, there were 61 people dependent on them.

The UK

Impacts of an ageing population Having an increasing proportion of elderly people in the population can lead to several problems.

Health care: demand for health care increases as more illnesses occur in later life. The elderly visit their GP more ofte and they have more hospital appointments than the young. This means that the government has to find more funding to support this demand and as there are a lower proportion of working population taxes have to be raised.

Social services: elderly people also create a higher demad on social services e.g. nursing homes, day care. This puts further financial pressure on the country and working population.

Pension crisis: as people are living longer they are also claiming their pensions for longer. Taxes have to increase as there is a lower proportion of working population. Retirement ages are also being raised to reduce the number of years people are claiming their pensions.

There are also opportunities in having an ageing population. Younger retired people (i.e. late 60s, early 70s) contribute to the economy still as they are relatively wealthy and spend money on leisure activities. They also spend money on travel and recreation creating jobs in this sector. Many volunteer or still do paid work (so pay taxes).

Managing an ageing population One way of managing an ageing population is to encourage people to have more children. In France they have adopted this policy.

Couples are given a range of benefits if they have more children:

three years of paid parental leave, which can be used by mothers or fathers

full-time schooling starts at 3 years, fully paid for by the government

day care for children younger than three is subsidised by the government

the more children a woman has, the earlier she will be allowed to retire on a full pension

BBC Bitesize - France's pro-natalist policy

4. Population movements impacts on both the source regions of migrants and the receiving countries.

Migration is the movement of people to live in a different place. There are several types of migrants:

Internal migrant: someone who moves within their country

International migrant: someone who moves between countries

Economic migrant: someone who moves for an improved salary or job

Voluntary migrant: someone who moves of their own free will

Immigrant: someone moving into a country

Emigrant: someone moving out of a country

Illegal immigrant: someone moving into a country without valid passports or visas (i.e. without permission)

Refugee: someone forced to flee from their country due to war, natural disasters, persecution etc

Asylum seekers: someone requesting to move to a country as it is unsafe for them to return to their own country

Why do people migrate? The reasons why people migrate are usually split into push and pull factors. Push factors are the things that push people away from an area. Pull factors are those that attract people to move to an area.

Lack of employment

Low wages

Poor educational opportunities

Poor healthcare

War with another country

Civil war and high crime rates

Drought and famine

Better job opportunities

Higher wages

Better healthcare

Better educational opportunities

Higher standard of living

Family and friends have already moved there

Lower levels of crime and safety from conflict

Migration within the EU: Polish migrants move to the UK

Video

When Poland and seven other Eastern European nations joined the EU in 2004 it started a wave of migration to the UK. By 2008, over 850,000 had registered to work in the UK. Many of these migrants were Polish.

Polish migrants moved to the UK to find work. There was high unemployment in Poland at the time. Most migrants were under 34 (85%) and only 15% wanted to stay permanently. Most wanted to work in the UK for a couple of years, earn money and then return home. Wages in the UK are much higher than they are in Poland (in 2006 a Polish migrant could earn an average of £20,000 a year in the UK compared to £4,000 in Poland).

Migration into the EU: Afghan refugees move to the UK

The EU receives over 2 million asylum claims each year. Refugees are often forced away from areas because of wars. In recent years many refugees have come from Afghanistan were there are problems with ongoing conflict, corruption, poverty and unemployment. Many of these

refugees went to Pakistan and Iran but some have attempted the difficult journey to the UK.

Background to Afghanisation - BBC website Story of an Afghan refugee

Under EU immigration laws refugees should claim asylum in the first EU country which they reach. However, many of the refugees want to get to the UK (as they say it is a 'good' and 'safe' country for refugees) and make their way to Calais to try and cross the English

Channel. The 'Jungle' has built up on wasteland on the edge of Calais. It is a makeshift settlement of homemade tents and shacks, hygeine is very poor. In August 2009, between 700 and 800 Afghans were living there waiting for a chance to cross to the UK (usually hidden in a lorry or train). Early on the 22nd September 2009 the migrants in the camp were arrested and the settlement was bulldozed. Many people hoped that the migrants would be able to reamin in France or be sent home. However, most were just released and made their way back to northern France to attempt to cross to the UK.