10/5/15
Articles:
Human Geography: People, Places and Culture: Chapter 2 - Population
The Population Surprise - by Max Singer
The Population Sizzle - by Anne H. Ehrlich
The U.S. Economy's Big Baby Problem - by Derek Thompson
In the 1960, The Chinese government, but more specifically Mao Zedong, wanted married couples to have as many children as possible, which lead to a boom in fertility rate, and almost doubled the size of the population in China. But, with an already high and continually increasing population, China began to encounter problems in the economy, so the one-child policy was put into place, which would allow the Chinese government to drop the population to a desired number of 700 Million citizens. Then, the policy was relaxed in 2013 when the population arrived at an idea number for the landscape, and couples were allowed to have two children if they so wished.
How does global demography determine when our planet reaches its stationary population level?
In 2040, according to Anne H. Ehrlich's The Population Fizzle, the world's population growth is predicted to greatly slow down after it hits 8 million inhabitants, and level out completely in 2100 when it reaches 10 million. Of course, our planet is composed of 196 individual countries, or states, as geographers generally refer to them, so naturally, these states are in very different developmental stages. Some are even predicted to reach the ideal, zero net population growth, or stationary population level, in the next few decades, while other countries are only just beginning to develop. Simply, while some countries are developing and have a higher crude birth rate than crude death rate, a term known as natural increase without emigration or immigration (which is an unrealistic idea), other countries will have a higher crude death rate than crude birth rate, or even a stationary population level, which allows for a global zero net population growth. This in mind, the obvious question is what factors contribute to this rise or fall in population which ultimately contributes to this stationary population level?
We face many problems across the planet, some of which include: unequal population distribution, epidemics or pandemics, growing dependency ratios, and many other like the ones that I've mentioned here, all contributing to the planet's population level. As I have mentioned before though, all countries are in a different part of what we now call, the demographic transition model, a model that basically explains the phases of a country's developmental journey. In Max Singer's The Population Surprise, each of these phases are described in great detail, giving the attributed and contributing factors of each one, the first phase, being the developing phase. In developing countries, many of which are in Subsaharan Africa as well as the Middle East, there is a very high natural increase in population, due to high crude death rates, and even higher crude birth rates. This is because of multiple factors, one being a high total fertility rate in the country. As a country forms, the main roles of women is to stay at home and take care of the kids, this and the lack of family planning and mother's index, leaves mothers uneducated about proper birth control. Also, many government's of developing countries put into place a expansive population policy, which encourages mothers to have as many kids as possible. There are also many different ways that a developing country can decrease their population level, the most common being an endemic or an epidemic. Due to poor sanitation and a high population density, or many people living in close proximity, it is easy for an infectious disease to spread across a state, one such as Ebola. This disease can kill thousands, or even millions in extreme cases, and is the leading cause of deaths in developing countries.
The next three phases are commonly blended together into one phase: rapid growth followed by slowed expansion and modernization phase. In the United States for example, this phase was marked by the industrial revolution, where sanitation and medical technology were greatly improved. This lead to the population explosion beginning in 1820, and the Baby Boom in the U.S., which was documented in Derek Thompson's The U.S. Economy's Big Baby Problem. As Thompson describes in his writing, birth rates naturally decline with economic development for many reasons such as the education of women and their presence in the work force, as well as when children become financially unproductive in a society, rather than an economic commodity. This is the demographic phase that the United States currently resides in, along with many other developed countries on the planet. The fifth and final phase is the ideal phase for a country, known as the theoretical phase. Very few countries reside in this phase, if any, but for a country to be in this phase or development, the crude birth rate and crude death rate must even out, making a zero net population growth, or the ideal 'stationary population level'. The stationary population level globally is modeled to reach 10 million people in 2100, when all of the planet's nations reach the theoretical phase. All in all, there are many demographic features that play into when a country reaches its stationary population level, and it is only a matter of time before the planet reaches its.
This is a map of Northern Africa that I chose to color because it contains the country Niger. This country, named after the Niger River is the largest nation in Africa, covering 1,270,000 square kilometers, 80% of which is covered by the Sahara Desert. However, this country also has the current highest fertility rate in the world at 6.89. This is mostly because it is a developing country that faces the struggles of its desert terrain, overpopulation, poor education and sanitation, as well as its lack of infrastructure. All of these factors contribute to Niger's shockingly high fertility rate.
No comments:
Post a Comment