CHAPTER 2CHAPTER 2GEODEMOGRAPHY: GEODEMOGRAPHY:

PEOPLING THE EARTHPEOPLING THE EARTH

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Definition: Demography

• Statistical analysis of human population– Spatial Density– Humans are quite unevenly distributed

over the Earth’s surface– Population densities range from zero to

over 2,000 people per square mile

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What is studied?• Areas of inquiry

– Fertility– Gender– Health– Age– Nutrition– Mortality– Migration

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What is studied?

• Also study the spatial variation of other demographic qualities.– Birthrate differences– Death rates– Overpopulation– Sex ratios– Age groups– Crime– Quality of life– Human mobility

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Density and Distribution• Population distribution and density

– Uneven population distribution by continent

– Density divided into categories– Density does not indicate standard of living,

overpopulation, or under population– Physiological density difficult to

measure• More useful than the arithmetic density• Agricultural Density better for comparing countries

– Shifting population densities• Migrations

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Density and Distribution

• Formal regions devised by population geographers

• Distribution of people by continents– Eurasia 73.3 percent– North America 7.3 percent– Africa 12.7 percent– South America 5.5 percent– Australia and Pacific Islands < 0.5 percent

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Cartogram of World Population

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Density and Distribution

• Population density categories for demographic regions – Thickly settled areas – 250 or more per

sq mi

– Moderately settled areas – 60 to 250 per sq mi

– Thinly settled areas – 2 to 60 per sq mi

– Categories based on single trait of population density. (Formal Regions)

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Choropleth Map of Arithmetic Density

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Density and Distribution

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Physiological Physiological DensityDensity

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Agricultural DensityAgricultural Density

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Demographic regions

• Is the world really overcrowded?– Who determines or defines

“overcrowded”?

– How is this to be determined?

• Does population density give us the full picture?

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Demographic regions

• Population density– What population densities do not tell

us• Standard of living• Over or under population• As a statistic concept it conceals

changes that constantly occur

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Components of Change

• Patterns of natality– Birthrate – measured as the

number of births in a year per thousand people.

– Total fertility rate (TFR)• More useful measure than birthrate• Varies greatly from one part of the

world to another• Key number is 2.1 (replacement rate)

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Total Fertility Rate (TFR)

• Measured as the average number of children born to each woman during her reproductive years– Focuses on female segment of population

and reveals family size– In Europe TFR now stands at 1.4– Sub-Saharan Africa’s overall rate is 6.0,

Niger is highest with 7.4– Remember that 2.1 indicates no growth –

just replacement18

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Components of Change

• Birth rate does not generally correspond to population density

• Inverse situation in China/Europe and interior of Africa

• High birthrates concentrated in a belt through the lower latitudes

• Mid-latitudes and high-latitude countries have low birthrates

• Birthrates now declining in most all countries 20

Birth Rates

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Components of Change

• The geography of mortality– Mortality rate: Number of deaths per

1000 people

– In developed world most people die of age-induced degenerative conditions

– In poorer countries contagious diseases leading cause of death

– Discussion of differing death rates in different parts of the world 22

Death Rates

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Components of Change• Reasons for differences in death rates

when compared with birth rates– Countries with high birth rates tend to

have younger population– More developed regions, such as

Europe, including Russia, have low birth rates and an aging population that is reflected in higher death rates.

– Australia, Canada, and the United States attract more young immigrants

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Components of Change

• Nature seeking to find a balance may have developed effective diseases to control population in Africa where our species originated.– Changing climatic patterns imposed a

great desert across Africa blocking disease spread from humid tropic region

– AIDS started in Tropical Africa but has diffused to more temperate climates

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Components of Change

• Fatal or potentially fatal diseases can occur in all parts of the world– Many are increasingly resistant to

medicines – antibiotic overuse

– Monitored by World Health Organization and US Center for Disease Control

– Next slide shows that few areas of the world have been spared.

– Medical Geography – name given to spatial study of human health 27

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Components of Change

• Death comes in different forms geographically–In developed world – age-induced

degenerative conditions• Enter the “sandwich generation”

–In developing nations contagious diseases are leading cause of death

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Sandwich Generation

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Infant Mortality Rates Compared for Selected CountriesYEARS USA UK Japan Italy Belarus India China

South Korea

Jordan Israel Haiti BrazilAfghan-

istanMexico

1950-1955

28 29 51 60 75 190 195 115 160 41 220 135 225 121

1955-1960

26 24 37 48 44 173 179 100 145 36 193 122 214 101

1960-1965

25 22 25 40 30 157 121 70 125 29 176 109 203 88

1965-1970

22 19 16 33 24 145 81 58 102 25 165 100 189 79

1970-1975

18 17 12 26 21 132 61 38 82 23 152 91 184 69

1975-1980

14 14 9 18 22 129 52 30 65 18 139 79 178 57

1980-1985

11 11 7 13 20 107 52 23 54 14 124 65 177 47

1985-1990

10 9 5 10 16 94 50 14 44 11 106 55 173 40

1990-1995

9 7 4 7 16 79 47 12 33 9 74 47 167 34

1995-2000

8 6 4 6 12 73 41 8 27 6 68 42 165 31

2005 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . .

Equal to or better than the USA figure for those periods.... not available Source: Encyclopedia Britannica 200831

Components of Change

• Population explosion– Triggered by a dramatic decrease

in the death rate

– No universal decline in the TFR

– Example of the geometric doubling of world’s population

– Discussion of Thomas Malthus predicting the population explosion

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POPULATION MEASURES & STRUCTURE

U.S.A. Population Pyramid

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Infant Mortality Rates

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Life Expectancy at Birth 36

% of Population under age 15 37

Was Malthus totally off base?

• What could he not have foreseen?– Ingenuity: increasing food supply

– Green Revolution• 21st century Organic Farming Revolution

– World's falling TFR

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Components of Change

• Or population implosion?– Karl Marx—communistic view of society

– class struggle driven by economics– Ingenuity of humans in increasing food

supply– Green Revolution– World's falling TFR

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Components of Change

• World population explosion is not a worldwide phenomena– Confined to underdeveloped and developed

countries with high TFR– All industrialized, technologically advanced

countries have achieved low fertility rates– Stabilized or declining populations

– Passed through the demographic transformation

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Many developing countries are stuck here!

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Demographic transformation

• In pre-industrial societies, birth and death rates are normally high

• Coming of industrial era– Medical advances and diet improvements– Sets state for drop in death rates– Life expectancy soared from average of 35

years to 75 years or more at present– Results in population explosion– Eventually leads to decline in birth rate

following decline in death rate43

Demographic transformation

• In post-industrial period, demographic transformation produces actual zero population growth or decline

• Stages 3 and 4 of demographic transformation– Require effective methods of birth control– Traditionally, infanticide served as principal method

in some cultures– Abortion remains common in some parts of the world– More common are various contraceptive devices

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Cape Verde – Chile – Denmark

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China – One Child Policy

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Family Planning

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% of Women Using Family Planning

Family Planning Methods

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Demographic regions• Geography of gender

– Gender roles and culture• Importance of number of children to men

and women• Restriction of places where men and women

can go

– Education of women results in falling fertility levels

– China and India—female-specific infanticide or abortion

– Results of infanticide51

Geography of gender• Humanity is divided almost evenly between

females and males, but geographical differences in the sex ratio occur– Recently settled areas tend to have more males

than females– Look at the next slides parts of Alaska, tropical

Australia– Alaska 53% male– Mississippi 52% female reflecting the emigration

of young males seeking better jobs – Africa – 59% females in some poverty-stricken

areas52

Geography of gender• Gendered spaces: Daphne Spain

– Finds them in homes, schools, at work, and sometimes regionally

– Males and females often spatially segregated– Inequality of status, access to knowledge, and well-being

• Some cultures impose gender-specific place taboos– Muslim countries– Mount Athos peninsula in Greece

• Influence of WWII on Germany where lower number of males, even 50 years later

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Geography of gender

• Female-specific infanticide or abortion– Most notorious in China and India– Results from culturally-based preference for male

offspring– About 100,000 ultrasound devices available, even to

rural Chinese peasants, allowing sexual identification of fetuses

– By 2020 China will have 110 marriageable aged males for every 100 females

– India today, has only 930 females for each 1000 males creating a profound gender imbalanc

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Why Children?

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Rural Pakistan

• In rural settings where a child becomes an economic asst by the age of six, girls train for early marriage and motherhood by looking after their younger siblings.

• While studies show that more educated women bear fewer children, only one in four women is literate.

• The average Pakistani woman has more than six children.

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Rural Pakistan

• Since daughters will marry out of their birth households, spending money on their education is seen as wasteful.

• Parents prefer sons for their labor, old-age assistance, and pride of accomplishement.

• With a natural increase rate of close to 3%, Pakistan is still in state 2 of the demographic transformation.

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Age distributions

• How countries differ– Countries with almost half their population

under 15 years of age• Kenya, Africa has the highest number• Many other nations in Latin America, Africa,

and tropical Asia

– Early industrialized countries have greatest preponderance of people in the over-20/under-60 category age bracket

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Age distributions• Growing number of affluent countries have

remarkably aged population– Sweden has 18 percent over the age of 65– Other European countries not far behind

• In Africa, Latin America, or other parts of Asia, the average person never lives to age 65

• In Sudan, Gambia, Saudi Arabia, Guatemala, and other countries only 2 or 3 percent reach age 65.

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Population pyramid

• Useful graphic device for comparing national age characteristics

• Reveals past progress of birth control

• Allows geographers to predict future population trends

• Broad based pyramids suggest the rapid growth of population explosion

• Excessively narrow based pyramids represent countries approaching population stability 61

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Age distribution

• Different cultures result in populations that have large numbers of young or aged people

• Age structure differs spatially within individual countries

• Rural populations– In US and many other countries are usually older

than the urban areas– In the United States, the flight of young people has

resulted in rural people having a median age of 45 years or older

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Age distribution

• Retirement havens for the elderly– Arizona and Florida have populations far

above normal average age– Sun City, Arizona legally restricts

residence to elderly– In Great Britain, coastal districts have a

higher proportion of elderly

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Demographic regions

• Standard of living: Use of the infant mortality rate– One simple measure to map living

standards is using infant mortality rate– Tells how many children die (per 1000 live

births) before reaching one year of age– Reveals many different things

• Health and nutrition• Sanitation• Access to doctors, clinics, and ability to obtain medicines• Education• Adequacy of housing

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Demographic regions• Standard of living

– Human Development Index• Combines literacy, life expectancy,

education, and wealth• Examples of where countries place on the

index• Surprises about the United States

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HDI 2005• (Liberia, Puerto Rico,

Afghanistan, Macau, North Korea, Iraq, Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Montenegro, San Marino, Serbia, Vatican City, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, and Tuvalu are not ranked, either because of an inabilty or an unwillingness to provide the necessary data.)

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Standard of living

• East vs west component, brought on by collapse of the Soviet empire

• Standard of living could be the basis of future mass migrations or conflicts, especially where rich border poor

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Brazil• This boy lives in a village

in the Amazon basin accessible only by river.– While the village has

electricity, there is no plumbing and raw sewage puddles in the dirt road.

– There is a clinic but no resident doctor, a two-room school but few supplies

– Television is received via satellite

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Amazon Village Cont.

• Chances for employment in the village are negligible.

• Most young people seek economic opportunity in mines and logging camps or in larger settlements such as Manaus.

• Will this boy join the ranks of the rural-urban migrants?

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Population ecology

• Cultural ecology is quite relevant to the study of population geography

• Successful adaptive strategy– Permits a people to exist and reproduce in

a given ecosystem– Population size and growth offer an index

to successful adaptation

• Maladaptive strategies can lead to dwindling number, even extinction

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Population ecology

• Preadaption – to what extend did a groups’ ways of living precondition them for success in a new land?

• Successful cultural adaptation– Can lead to catastrophe if it causes significant

environmental alteration and destruction so as to undermine livelihood

– The key is sustainability– Adaptive strategy must allow many generations to

use the land in more or less the same manner

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Population ecology• Environmental influence (Climate)

– Characteristics of mid-latitude settlement population concentrations

– Human viewpoint of “defective climate zones”

• Human remain creatures of the humid and subhumid tropics, subtropics or mid-latitudes

• Small populations of Inuit (Eskimo), Sami (Lapps), and others live in cold or dry areas

• In avoiding cold places, we may reveal even today the tropical origin of our species

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Population ecology

• Main reasons for American interregional migration– Mild winter climate and mountainous

terrain– Diverse vegetation including forests, and

mild summers with low humidity– Presence of lakes and rivers– Nearness to seacoasts– Where?

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Population Ecology• Immigrants to Arizona reveal a preference for

its sunny, warm climate• Immigrants to Florida cite attractive

environment as the dominant factor• Different age and cultural groups often

express different preferences as reasons for migrating interregionally in the United States– All are influenced by their perception of the

environment– Misinformation is at least as important as accurate

impressions– People often form strong images of an area

without ever visiting it77

Population ecology• Environmental influence (Climate)

– Preference for living at higher altitudes in tropical regions• Escape the humid, not climate of tropical

lowlands– Reasons for the tendency to live near

seacoasts• Partly stems from trade and fishing

opportunities– How the presence of disease

affects settlement patterns—Africa 78

Aging and Environmental Preference

• Landscapes of the elderly become especially noticeable in societies with aging populations – those with low birth rates and long life expectancy.

• Many North American retirees become part of a migratory population known as “snowbirds.”

• Traveling northward in summer and southward in winter, they frequently follow specific circuits of places and events.

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Quartzite, Arizona • In the desert, a giant swap meet and lapidary festival is held in February.

• Close to a million people, mainly retirees attend.

• More than 50,000 winter in Quartzsite but in summer as temperatures rise, the resident population drops to about 3000 and snowbirds head for more comfortable climes

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Hollow Shell

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Sweden

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Population ecology

• Continental interiors tend to be regions of climatic extremes– Australia’s interior is a land of excessive

dryness and heat– Desert regions lack water and people

cluster together where it is available from rivers (Nile), or oases

– Extreme cold of Siberia & North central Canada

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Water in the desert

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Population density and environmental alteration

• Through adaptive strategies people, especially where population density is high, can radically modify their habitats

• Can happen even in low density areas where the environment is fragile

• The carrying capacity of Earth varies greatly from one place to another

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Worldwide Ecological Crisis• Partly because at present densities many

adaptive strategies are not sustainable

• Close relationship between population explosion and ecological crisis

• Haiti– Rural population pressure particularly severe– Most available biomass (humus) now being

used in small intensively cultivated kitchen gardens

– Surrounding fields and pastures becoming increasingly denuded 86

Population ecology

• Overpopulation can precipitate environmental destruction– Yields a downward cycle of worsening poverty– Many cultural ecologists believe attempts to

restore balance of nature will not succeed until we halt or reverse population growth

• Adaptive strategy is as crucial as density– Population pressure can lead to more

conservational land use– Rural China offers supportive evidence

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Overpopulation?

• Overpopulation can precipitate environmental destruction– Yields a downward cycle of worsening poverty– Many cultural ecologists believe attempts to

restore balance of nature will not succeed until we halt or reverse population growth

• Adaptive strategy is as crucial as density– Population pressure can lead to more

conservational land use– Rural China offers supportive evidence

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Ecological Crisis

• Worldwide ecological crisis is not just a function of overpopulation– Relatively small percentage of Earth’s

population controls much of the industrial technology

– Absorbs a gargantuan percentage of the world’s resources each year

– Americans (US), who make up less than 5% of the world’s population, account for about 40% of the resources consumed each year

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Population Ecology

• The factor of disease in population location– Malaria depopulated Italy’s coastal regions

after Romantimes– Diseases attack domestic animals,

depriving people of food and clothing– Sleeping sickness in parts of East Africa

• Particularly fatal to cattle, but not humans• Cattle represent wealth and provide food• Serve a religious function in some tribes• Its spread caused entire tribes to migrate from

infested areas 90

Disease can influence settlement

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Population ecology

• Environmental perception and population distribution– Major role in where a group

chooses to settle– Example: European Alps – Industrialization caused people to

flock to new areas for work– Climate and interregional

migration in the United States

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Population ecology• Population density and

environmental alteration– Can cause radical alterations

through adaptive strategies– Population explosion and ecological

crisis closely related– Belief—balance of nature not

possible until population growth is stopped

– High consumption of resources in the United States

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Cultural-demographic interaction

• Cultural factors– Example: cultural food

preferences– Religion as a factor in migration– Need for personal space differs

between cultures

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Cultural integration and population patterns

• Cultural factors– Basic characteristics of a group’s culture

influence the distribution of people– Rice domestication influenced high

population growth in Southeast Asia– In environments similar to Southeast Asia

where rice was not grown, populations did not reach such densities

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Changing Cultural Factors

• In the 1700s, the introduction of the potato to Ireland allowed a great increase in rural population– It yielded much more food per acre than

traditional Irish crops– In the 140s, failure of the potato harvests

reduced Irish population through starvation and emigration.

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Fertility Decline

• France – first place in the world where sustained fertility decline took root– Did not keep pace with nearby lands of

Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom – Was the most populous of these four

countries in 1800– Became the least populous after 1930 and

still is– During the years between 1800 and 1930

millions of Germans, British, and Italians emigrated overseas 97

Fertility Decline

• Few French left their homeland

• French Canadians in Quebec continued to favor large families– About 10,000 people left France between

1608 and 1750– Today, Quebec’s population of about 7

million does not include those that migrated to New England and other areas

• Some unknown cultural factor worked to produce demographic decline in France

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Culture & Migration

• Why some cultural groups differ in their tendency to migrate– Religious ties bind some to traditional homelands

• Travel outside sanctified bounds of the motherland considered immoral

• Responsibilities to tend ancestral graves and perform rite at parental death kept many Chinese in China

• Navajo Indians bury the umbilical cord in the floor of the hogan at birth, which seems to strengthen attachment to the house

– Some groups consider migration a way of life– Poverty stricken Ireland proved so prone to

migration that today Ireland’s population is about half the total of 1840

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Political Factors

• Governments can restrict voluntary migration• Haiti and Dominican Republic share island of

Hispanola– Haiti supports 620 people per square mile– The Dominican Republic has only 440 people per

square mile– Government restrictions on migration into the

Dominican Repluc make migration form Haiti difficult

– If Hispanola were one country its population would be more evenly distributed

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Political Factors

• All cultures have laws based in the political system to maintain order within society

• Laws, especially those concerning inheritance, can affect population density– In Europe, the code derived from Roman law

requires that all heirs divide the land and other property equally. Farms fragment as generations pass. Rural population density increases

– In Germany, primogeniture is favored – inheritance of all land passes to the firstborn son. But in south Roman law was practiced and severe rural overpopulation occurred in mid-nineteenth century

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Protein deficiency and malnutrition

• Research often produces negative results that are enlightening

• Experts long assumed vegetarianism in India, based on Hindu belief, led to protein deficiency, malnutrition, and resultant health problems

• Study revealed no spatial correlation between vegetarians and consumption of animal protein

• Nonvegetarians also eat little or no meat• Greatest protein deficiency occurs in areas

where rice, rather than wheat bread accounts for the greater part of cereal consumption 103

Malnutrition in India

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Diffusion of Fertility ControlDiffusion of Fertility Control

• Needed for the final two stages of the demographic transformation– Successful cultural diffusion of effective

methods of birth control– Acceptance that small families are

preferable to large ones

• Sustained fertility decline arose in Europe in the first half of the 1800s

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Diffusion of fertility controlDiffusion of fertility control• France was the country of origin

• Spread slowly at first, eventually diffused through most of Europe

• Fertility decline became accepted as countries industrialized and became prosperous

• Root of population explosion caused by failure of European idea of fertility control to spread to less-developed countries

• Why? 107

Diffusion of fertility controlDiffusion of fertility control

• Reasons for birth control in an urban society:– Investment of large sums of money

into the formal education of its children

– The forbidding of child labor makes children a financial burden

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People’s Republic of China – One People’s Republic of China – One Child LawChild Law

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Enforced fertility controlEnforced fertility control• China: “one couple, one child”• Authorities sought to halt population

growth and decrease the number of people• Penalties for violations of the policy

– Huge monetary fines– Cannot request new housing– Lose rather generous old-age benefits

provided by the government– Forfeit their children’s access to higher

education– Maybe even lose their jobs

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Enforced fertility controlEnforced fertility control

• Late marriages encouraged• China’s falling fertility rate

– Plummeted from 5.9 births per woman to 2.7 between 1970 and 1980.

– Was 2.2 by 1990– Latest statistics 1.8

• China achieved one of the greatest short-term reduction of birthrates ever recorded

• Cultural diffusion can be coerced111

Enforced fertility controlEnforced fertility control

• China has less rigidly enforced its population control program in recent years– Economic growth eroded government’s

control over the people– Allowed more couples to have two

children instead of one– Rise of economic opportunity and

migration to cities led others to have smaller families

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Diffusion of fertility controlDiffusion of fertility control• Barriers to diffusion of fertility control• Example of India’s rural society

– Children may offer the only way out of a life of poverty and an old age of solitary begging

– Costs of raising and educating a child are minimal and grow smaller with every child added to the family

– Children start working at an early age, replacing expensive hired labor

– Without offering a method of attaching the root problem, the struture of peasant poverty, tenancy, and insecurity is to offer nothing

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Resistance

• Religious teachings

• Cultural attitudes – – Machismo – Preference for males

• Dependence on male children for old-age support

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Diffusion in population geographyDiffusion in population geography

• Disease diffusion– Example: HIV/AIDS diffusion

across the world• Discussion of theories on its origin• May have started as early as 1930• No doubt it started in Africa

– HIV-1 – in east-central Africa– HIV-2 – in the upper Niger River country in the

Guinea highlands of West Africa

– Role of transportation in diffusion– All types of diffusion spread

disease 115

Diffusion in population geographyDiffusion in population geography

• AIDS– Apparently originated in the local monkey

population– Passed on to humans through the local

cultural practice of injecting monkey blood as an aphrodisiac

– HIV-2• Most similar to the simian type• Has had less impact on humans in its source

region• Has not spread as widely beyond Africa as HIV-1

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Disease diffusionDisease diffusion• Diffusion after humans became infected

– Apparently moved throughout central and western Africa

– Followed transport routes and spread through growing urban areas

– Haitians working at civil service posts in Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo) carried disease back to the Caribbean in the early 1960s

– Europeans visiting central Africa diffused AIDS back to Europe

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Disease diffusionDisease diffusion

• American male homosexuals vacationing in Haiti likely contracted the virus and spread it throughout the gay communities in the United States

• Americans falsely believed the virus was exclusively linked to homosexual behavior

• Western Europe became a secondary diffusion area

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Disease diffusionDisease diffusion

• Not all diseases spread by contagious diffusion

• Relocation diffusion – tourism, temporary migration

• Hierarchical diffusion – disease spread by persons affluent enough to participate in international tourism

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Diffusion in population geography

• Diffusion of fertility control– Arose in France during first half of

the 1800s– Product of industrialization– Children not needed for farm work– Example: China and enforced fertility

control

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