Population and Migration Show
Introduction The subject of overpopulation can be highly divisive given the deep personal views that many hold on abortion. This course emphasizes a geographic perspective on population growth as a relative concept. Population, from a geography perspective, should be viewed in the context of the availability of resources. Human-environment interaction and overpopulation can be discussed in the contexts of carrying capacity, as well as the relationship between people and resources. The study of population has never been more important than it is today. There are over 7 billion people on the planet, but the majority of this growth has occurred in the last 100 years, mostly in developing nations. Humans do not live uniformly around the planet, but rather in clusters because of earth's physical geography. Environments that are too dry, wet, cold, or mountainous create a variety of limiting factors to humans. Two-thirds of the world's population is located within four major clusters: East Asia (China), South Asia (India and Indonesia), Southeast Asia, and Europe, with the majority in East and South Asia. Demographers, scientists that study population issues, and other scientists say there is more to the story than simple population growth. Ecologists believe that humans have out-grown the Earth’s carrying capacity, which is a scientific way of saying that the planet can no longer sustain or support human activity. Simply put, there is just not enough of the world’s resources to give every human a standard of living expected by most Americans. If fact, if all 7 billion people on the planet lived the average American lifestyle, it would require over three Earth’s. This raises several issues: that the planet cannot sustain a population of 7 billion, though we are expected to reach 9 billion by 2100, and that the planet cannot sustain Western lifestyles for the entire planet.
Humans only occupy five percent of the Earth’s surface because oceans, deserts, rainforests, and glaciers cover much of the planet. The term for areas where humans permanently settle is called ecumene. Population growth and technology dramatically increase the ecumene of humans, which affects the world’s ecosystems. It has been argued that the world can't support all the humans on the planet. On some level that's true and on another it is not. For example, we could actually pack all 7 billion humans in California, but that's not desirable, sanitary, or sustainable. The reality is that humans cannot live in many parts of the world due to moisture, temperature, or growing season issues. For example, 20 percent of the world is too dry to support humans. This mostly has to do with high pressure systems around 30 degrees north and south of the equator where constant sunny conditions have created some of the world's largest deserts. Some of these include the Sahara, Arabian Peninsula, Thar, Takla Makan, and Gobi deserts. Most deserts do not provide enough moisture to support agriculture for large populations. Those who do live in these regions tend to raise animals and are considered nomads. Regions that receive too much moisture also cause problems for human settlement. These are tropical rainforest regions located between the Tropic of Cancer (23.5 degrees North) and the Tropic of Capricorn (23.5 degrees South). The problem with these regions of the world has to do with the soil erosion due to high precipitation. High levels of precipitation greatly hinder agricultural production because nutrients in the soil are quickly washed away. This is partly why slash-and-burn agriculture occurs in these regions. Locals will burn part of the forest to put nutrients back into the ground. This only works for a short period of time because the precipitation washes away nutrients within a few years, so farmers move on to other parts of the forest with their slash-and-burn practices. Additionally, regions that are too cold pose problems for large population clusters and food production. The cold polar regions have a short growing season and many of the polar regions have limited amounts of moisture because they are covered by high pressure systems (much like the desert regions). Thus, cold polar regions are not only limited by temperature, they are also limited by lack of moisture despite access to snow, ice, and glaciers. Mountainous and highland regions lack population clusters for similar reasons: steep slopes, snow and ice cover, and short growing seasons.
Demographers use various ways to measure and analyze population density. The arithmetic density, also called population density, of a population is the total number of people in proportion to the area of land (land size). But that's not the best indicator of population density because there are many environments humans can't live well in (i.e. deserts, arctic, tropical forests, etc.). Plus it doesn't consider if the ground is usable for producing food. The physiological density of a population is the total population in proportion to the area of arable land suited for agriculture. Even more specifically, agricultural density refers to the amount of farmers valuable to arable land. A high agricultural density suggests that the available agricultural land used for farming and the farmers who are capable of producing and harvesting food is reaching its limit for that region. If the demand for food continues or rises, the risk is that there will not be enough arable land to feed their people. In contrast, an area with a low agricultural density actually has a higher potential for agricultural production. Economically, a low agricultural density would be favorable for future growth.
POPULATION PYRAMIDS
Global Population Trends
POPULATION When CBRs are compared to CDRs, a region's natural increase rate can be determined. A natural increase rate (NIR) is the percent a population will grow per year, excluding annual migration. Usually a NIR of 2.1 is required to maintain or stabilize a region's population. Any more than that and the population will grow, any less than an NIR of 2.1 causes population contraction. The reason why the NIR percent is 2.1 and not 2.0 for stability is because not every human will pair up and have a child because of genetics, choice, or death before child bearing years. Once we know the NIR, we can determine doubling time. Doubling time is the how may years would it take for a defined population to double in size, assuming that NIR stays the same over time. Currently about 82 million people are added to world’s global population every year.
Demographic Transition Model
STAGE 2: HIGH GROWTH RATE Human Overpopulation Malthus' theory has not come to fruition, yet, due to technological advances in agriculture (fertilizers, insect and drought resistance and better farming techniques). Some discredit Malthus because his hypothesis is based on a world supply of resources being fixed rather than expanding. Humans have the ability to expand the supply of food and other resources by using new technologies to offset scarcity of minerals and arable land. Thus, we can use resources more efficiently and substitute new resources with scarce ones. Even with a global human population of 7 billion, food production has grown faster than the global rate of increase (NIR). Better growing techniques, higher-yielding and genetically modified seeds, as well as cultivation of more land have helped expand food supplies. While new technologies have helped to increase food production, there are not enough emerging technologies to handle supply and demand. Adding to the problem is the fact that many insects have developed a resistance to pesticides. These problems have cause a slow down and leveling off of food production in many regions of the world. Without breakthroughs in safe and sustainable food production, food supply will not keep up with population growth. Others believe that population growth isn't a bad thing. A large population could stimulate economic growth, and therefore, production of food. Population growth could generate more customers and more ideas for improving technology. Additionally, some maintain that no cause-and-effect relationship exists between population growth and economic development. They argue that poverty, hunger, and other social welfare problems associated with lack of economic development, famines, and war are a result of unjust social and economic institutions, not population growth. Lately, there has been a rise in neo-Malthusians. One notable figure is Paul Ehrlich. In his very popular book, The Population Bomb, Ehrlich argues that population growth cannot continue without controls because the planet will reach the carrying capacity of our species. In short, we must consider environmental factors as we discuss overpopulation concerns. For example, even though humans produce four times the amount of food that we consume, we produce our food at the price of the environment. The rapid population growth of the world has caused massive deforestation in the Boreal Forests and rainforests, increasing desertification that encroaches into arable land, over-fishing of the oceans, mass extinction of species, air and water pollution, and anthropogenic (human-induced) climate change. All of these things have economic and environmental costs that we must consider. FUTURE OF POPULATION GROWTH After the two great world wars, the United Nations Population Commission and the International Planned Parenthood Federation began to advocate for more global population control. Many groups who advocate for population control focus on:
Religious organizations are also concerned with population growth; however, they focus on contraception issues and not strictly population growth. Some religions and political entities find contraception use immoral which has influenced some governments to make the access to them and use of them illegal.
Migration Geography The other type of migration is called international migration, which is the movement from one country to another. Some people are allowed to voluntarily migration based on individual choice. At other times, an individual leaves against his or her will. This is forced migration. Ultimately, the distance people migrate is depends on economic, gender, family-status, and cultural factors. For example, long-distance migration tends to involve males looking for employment and traveling by themselves rather than risk taking their families. Migration is very dynamic around the world with peaks in different regions at different times. As noted earlier, there are several reasons why people migrate, but where are people migrating to or from? Migration transition is the change in migration patterns within a society caused by industrialization, population growth, and other social and economic changes that also produce the demographic transition. A critical factor in all forms of migration is mobility—the ability to move either permanently or temporarily. There has been a dramatic increase of immigration into the United States from Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. Some from these regions migrate to the U.S. out of economic necessity. We hear quite a lot about guest workers in the United States. These are individuals who migrate temporarily to take up jobs in other countries. Others migrate to escape conflicts such as the civil wars in Somalia, Sudan, and Ethiopia. Genocides in Rwanda (1994) and more recently Darfur, Sudan have forced internal and international migration. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have also forced migration from these regions. Washington Post reporter Sudarsan Raghavan reported on February 4, 2007 that the U.N. High Commission for Refugees estimates that over 2 million Iraqis (nearly 8 percent of the pre-war population) have been forced to migrate to nearby nations of Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. There are several reasons why people migrate and these are called push and pull factors and they occur on economic, cultural, or environmental lines. Push factors are events and conditions that compel an individual to move from a location. Pull factors are conditions that influence migrants to move to a particular location. The number one reason why people migrate is for economic reasons. This is because people either get "pushed" away from where they live due to a lack of employment opportunities, or pulled because somewhere else either offers more jobs/higher paying jobs. Cultural push factors usually involve slavery, political instability, ethnic cleansing, famine, and/or war. People who choose to flee or are forced to flee as a result of these problems are often refugees. The United States Committee for Refugees classifies a refugee as someone who has been forced from their homes and can not return because of their religion, race, nationality, or political opinion. In 2010, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees estimated that there are over 44 million people worldwide that have been forcibly displaced. The number grows to another 27 million when you consider internally displaced persons (IDPs). Cultural pull factors could include people who want to live in democratic societies, gender equality, or educational or religious opportunities. A variety of environmental push and pull factors also influence migration patterns. Environmental pull factors can include people wanting to live in particular environments. For example, many elderly people like to live in St. George because they prefer the recreational opportunities that are provided for retired individuals. Some people want to live where snow activities are available or near an ocean. Push factors often are related to the frequency of natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, or flash floods that a region could experience. Climatic push/pull factors, such as droughts, also influence migration patterns. A very recent example of this is the famine in Somalia. US AID and the Famine Early Warning System track potential famines globally so that relief organizations can have a heads up and be more proactive when events occur. People who have been pushed for environmental reasons are called environmentally displaced persons (also called environmental refugees). The problem with these refugees is that they are not protected or given the same rights under the 1951 Refugee Convention. Under the convention, a refugee is a person with: "well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, who is outside the country of his nationality ad is unable o, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country." But more and more people are becoming environmental refugees because of climate change, droughts, flooding from massive storm systems, water shortages, and more. Summary There are a variety of ways that geographers and demographers study population dynamics and profiles, often times representing this data in the form of diagrams, graphs, and most importantly maps. One way social scientists have tried to describe historical, current, and future population trends is with the Demographic Transition Model. The model tries to describe how more developed countries progressed with their demographics through as compared to less developed countries today. But some argue that though the model predicts demographic trends in North America and Europe, the model does not accurately represent population trends other regions of the world. Others say the model is too simplistic because environmental and cultural factors are not considered. Another area of debate is what the potential ramifications could be as the human population exceeds past 8 and 9 billion by 2050. This debate started a while ago with the Malthus theory. Many ecologists believe humans have reached the earth’s carrying capacity and can not sustain such large populations. Other argue that technology has consistently kept ahead of food scarcity concerns and that high populations could actually be a benefit for less developed countries as a way to improve development. Geographers also understand that humans are migrating species and with technology today can move across great distances. The reason for migration varies, but it all comes down to push or pull factors related to economic, political, social, or environmental reason. Many of these travelers are temporary living as guest workers until they need to move on. Today, many migrants are refugees, living in a variety of living conditions from complex metropolitans to squatter towns or refugee camps. But one thing we do know about human migration is that the majority of humans will die in the same town they were born in. What happens in stage 2 of the demographic transition?Stage 2 of the Demographic Transition Model (DTM) is characterized by a rapid decrease in a country's death rate while the birth rate remains high. As such, the total population of a country in Stage 2 will rise because births outnumber deaths, not because the birth rate is rising.
Is South Africa in Stage 2 of the Demographic Transition Model?Stage three countries start to become more industrialized, which means they are more urbanized and the total fertility rate goes down. Countries that are currently in stage three are Mexico, India, Colombia, and South Africa.
What was a major cause of countries going into Stage 2 of the DTM?STAGE 2: HIGH GROWTH RATE
Around the mid-1700s, global populations began to grow ten times faster than in the past for two reasons: The Industrial Revolution and increased wealth. The Industrial Revolution brought with it a variety of technological improvements in agricultural production and food supply.
What country is in Stage 2 of the demographic transition?Example: poorest developing countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bolivia, sub-Saharan countries such as Niger, Uganda and middle east countries like Yemen, Palestinian Territories are still in stage 2. Birth rate falls due to the availability of contraception.
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