Population

Population

1. Why measure population?

   • Administraion: Quantify the amount of service required
   • several fundamental measures require population figures: per capita - per person

2. Terms and Concepts

   • Demography: The Science of Measuring Population
     • -Absolute numbers
     • - Rate of Change
   • Birth Rate (1,000 population per year)
   • Death Rate (1,000 population per year)
   • Sex Ratio: Males and Females
     • Worldwide SR at Birth: 107 to 100
     • Worldwide adult SR: 102 to 100

3. Factors Affecting Demographic Growth

   • Birth Rate
     • Sex Distribution, Marriage Age, Education, Income, Contraception
   • Death Rate
     • Sex/Age Distribution, Poverty, Environment, Health Care
   • Migration
     • Pull Factors: Germany has good social services
     • Push Factors: War, Poverty, Disloction, Chain Migration
   • "Preston Curve"
     • incease in life expectancy = increases per capita income
       • at higher income levels, the relationship flatters

4. Example of Birth/Death Rate Interaction -> Transition Theory -> how the signs of demography has evolved in a developing world

   • 4 stages about the evolution of demography + 1 future stage
     • 1) death rates are high and life expectany low.
       • High birth rates are encouraged
     • 2) fall of death rates (industrial phase)
       • nutritution, health
     • 3) decrase of birth rates
       • Middle class effect
         • People get wealthier and more educated, they save capital and do not invest it in children
     • 4) falling death and birth rates
     • Many advanced Western countries are considered to have passed through all 4 stages
   • Population pyramide: shows the number of people who are in a certain age in a society in any given time

5. The Malthusian Trap

   • Humans have an urge to reproduce, with the result that populations tend to grow more rapidly than the food supply. Result is misery and poverty, this will increase death rate and bring population back into equilibrium
     • Negative checks: limit age of marriage -> lower birth rates
     • positive checks: disease, infanticide -> raise of death rates
     • preventive check
       • he wants to get delayed marriage

6. Effects of Industralization

   • Mechanical Agriculture
     • dramatically increased crop yields per hectare
   • people freed from the land and find work in factories or service indutry
   • temperate zone - most population density
   • Compound: used when one has none reliable figures
     • divide two annual figures to come up with rate of change
     • huge difference between simple interest and compound interest calculations, which has a major impact over longer periods of tim
   • simple: 2% per year = added to each of annual figures
     • natural rate of change: sum total of births minus deaths plus net migration (immi - emmi)
     • crude birth rate: number of births by population for a country
       • crude death rate is the same
     • Growth rates: expressed in percanteges, birth and death rates in numbers per thousand

7. Modern Perceptions of Population Growth

   • Economists, Business: It's Great!
     • positive economic growth
     • property values
     • stock prices of large corporations
   • Pension Plans
   • Tax base

8. Other

   • Fast growing populations tend to have a relatively young population, which may have been a driver in the protests of the Arab Spring
     • Slow growing or declining populations tend to have a disproportionally older population which imposes extra health care challenged and costs
   • Errors in recent national census data is still possible trough over or undercounting ( Nigeria)
     • Or large scale migrations