Population

 The total number of persons inhabiting a country, city, or any district or area
(Knox & Marston, 2010).

 Population experts collect information on births, deaths, marriages, migration

and other aspects of population changes from censuses and vital records
(reports on births, deaths, divorces etc.) (Knox & Marston, 2010).

 Population change/dynamics – the increase or decrease of number of

persons inhabiting the earth.

 Increase – natural (number of births) and immigration (persons coming into a

country)

 Decrease – natural (number of deaths) and emigration (number of persons

leaving a country)
 Factors Responsible for Population Change

 Advancement in Technology – advances in health and medicine have

resulted in decreases in infant mortality rates and increases in life
expectancy rates.

 Family Planning Practices

 Higher education levels among women
 Religious beliefs
 Incentives (financial, housing etc.)
 Migration
 Wars, diseases and natural disasters
 Policy implementation
 Population Distribution

 Describes the way in which people are spread out across the Earth’s
surface (Waugh, 2002).

 The distribution is uneven and there are often considerable changes

over periods of time.

 Population distributions are often shown by means of a dot map, where

each dot represents a given number of people.
 Population Distribution

 Factors responsible
 Degree of accessibility,
 topography,
 soil fertility,
 climate and weather,
 Water availability and quality
 Type and availability of other natural resources

Other factors include

o Political and economic experiences and characteristics (highly populated coastal
areas were influenced by colonialisation)
o Culture (Mecca is a sparsely populated because it is a sacred site) (Knox, 2010).
 Population Density

 Describes the number of people living in a given area, usually a square kilometre
(km2)

 Population densities are often shown by means of a choropleth map.

 Densities (Crude/arithmetic density) are obtained by dividing the total

population of the country by the total area of the country.

 The densities are then grouped into classes, each of which is coloured lighter or
darker to reflect lesser or greater density.

 http://statisticstimes.com/demographics/countries-by-population-density.php
 Guyana Statistics

 The current population of Guyana is

787,567 based on the latest United
Nations estimates.
 Guyana population is equivalent to 0.01%
of the total world population.
 Guyana ranks number 164 in the list of
countries (and dependencies) by
population.
 The total land area is 196,850 Km2 (76,004
sq. miles)
 The population density in Guyana is 4 per
Km2 (10 people per mi2).
 26.9 % of the population is urban (211,821
people in 2020)
 The median age in Guyana is 26.7 years.
 Population Density - Nigeria
 The current population of Nigeria is 207,460,406
as of Wednesday, October 7, 2020, based on
Worldometer elaboration of the latest United
Nations data.
 Nigeria population is equivalent to 2.64% of the
total world population.
 Nigeria ranks number 7 in the list of countries
(and dependencies) by population.
 The population density in Nigeria is 226 per Km2
(586 people per mi2).
 The total land area is 910,770 Km2 (351,650 sq.
miles)
 52.0 % of the population is urban (107,112,526
people in 2020)
 The median age in Nigeria is 18.1 years.
 Population Density - India
 The current population of India is 1,383,604,455 as
of Wednesday, October 7, 2020, based on
Worldometer elaboration of the latest United
Nations data.
 India population is equivalent to 17.7% of the total
world population.
 India ranks number 2 in the list of countries (and
dependencies) by population.
 The population density in India is 464 per Km2
(1,202 people per mi2).
 The total land area is 2,973,190 Km2 (1,147,955 sq.
miles)
 35.0 % of the population is urban (483,098,640
people in 2020)
 The median age in India is 28.4 years
Factors affecting population
density
Relief
Climate
Vegetation
Soils
Water supplies
Resources
Communication
Economic activities
Political
 Physical Factors High Density Low Density

Relief
Low land which is flat e.g. High land that is mountainous
(shape and height of
Ganges Valley in India e.g. Himalayas
land)
.

Areas rich in resources (e.g. coal,

Areas with few resources
oil, wood, fishing etc.) tend to
Resources tend to be sparsely populated
densely populated e.g. Western
e.g. The Sahel
Europe

Areas with temperate climates Areas with extreme climates

tend to be densely populated as of hot and cold tend to be
Climate
there is enough rain and heat to sparsely populated e.g. the
grow crops e.g. UK Sahara Desert
 Human Factors High Density Low Density

Countries with stable governments Unstable countries tend to have

Political tend to have a high population lower population densities as
density e.g. Singapore people migrate e.g. Afghanistan.

Groups of people want to live close Other groups of people prefer to

Social
to each other for security e.g. USA be isolated e.g. Scandinavians

Good job opportunities encourage Limited job opportunities cause

high population densities, particularly some areas to be sparsely
Economic
in large cities in MEDCs and LEDCs populated e.g. Amazon
around the world. Rainforest
 Population

The world population has grown tremendously over the past two
thousand years. In 2011, the world population passed the seven
billion mark.

Latest official current world population estimate:

7,816,946,890

http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/
 Mortality
The word "mortality" came from the Latin "mors" (death).

The term is synonymous with “death and fatality rates”.

It is the ratio of deaths in an area to the population of that area;

expressed per 1000 per year.

Globally, adult mortality rate declined from 198 per 1000 population in
1990 to 152 per 1000 population in 2013 (WHO, 2016).

Guyana’s Crude death Rate : 7.6 (World Bank, 2019)

 Fertility and Family size

 Fertility rates have fallen in most of the Least Developed countries – in 1950-5
it was 6.2 and remained around there for the next 15 years, but since then it
has now halved.
 Asia and Latin America – 2.5 (average)
 Africa – 4 – 6.4
 Causes – family planning programmes, widening of educational and career
opportunities for women, improvement in tackling diseases.

 More Developed countries – 1.3 or lower

 Guyana – 2.14 (CIA World Fact Book, 2016)

 Life Expectancy

 The average number of years of life remaining at a given age.

 The United Nations estimate a global average life expectancy of 72.6 years
for 2019 – the global average today is higher than in any country back in
1950. According to the UN estimates the country with the best health in
1950 was Norway with a life expectancy of 72.3 years .

 Guyana is numbered 135 out of 194 countries on the Global List

 total population: 66.2 years

male: 63.6 years
female: 69.0 years (WHO 2018)
 Demographic Transition Model
This is a graph that shows change in
population over time.

It shows changes over time

It shows natural increase
It can be used to estimate population
structure
Each stage represents a country’s economic
status

http://www.geography.learnontheinternet.co.
uk/topics/popn1.html#factors
 Stage One

 Associated with pre

Modern times, and is
characterized by a balance
between birth and death
rates.

 Very high birth and death

rates due to:
1. Lack of knowledge of
disease prevention and
cure;
2. Occasional food shortages.
 Stage Two
 There is a rise in population
caused by a decline in the
death rate while the birth
rate remains high, or
perhaps even rises slightly.

 First, improvements in food

supply brought about by
higher yields as agricultural
practices.
Stage Two
These improvements included crop rotation, selective
breeding, and seed drill technology.

Second, the decline in deaths which was due to

significant improvements in public health had
reduced mortality, particularly in childhood

A consequence of the decline in mortality in Stage

Two is an increasingly rapid rise in population growth
(a "population explosion") as the gap between deaths
and births grows wider.
 Stage Three
 Moves the population towards
stability through a decline in the
birth rate.

 Availability of family planning

facilities.

 Increasing female literacy

 Employment
 Improvements in contraceptive
technology
 Changes in values about children
and sex
 Availability of contraceptives and
knowledge of how to use them.
 Stage Four

 Traditionally many
demographers have
assumed that the
demographic transition
would be complete
when populations
reached similarly low birth
and death rates so that
populations would
become essentially
stable.
 Population Composition/Structure

 Population composition/structure is the description of a population according

to characteristics such as age and sex. These data are often compared over
time using population pyramids.

 This is the total number of males and females, number and proportion of
senior citizen and children, and the number of persons active in the
workforce.

 This information provides valuable insights into the ways in which the
population behaves presently and how it might behave in the future

 Population structure is typically presented in a pyramid-style format.

Age-Sex Pyramids -Representation of the population based on its
composition according the age and sex.
 Dependency Ratio
 Economically Active (working population) – Aged 15 -65
 Non economically Active (dependants) – youths under 15 and
adults over 65

 total dependency ratio: 53.5 (2015 est.)

 youth dependency ratio: 45.8 (2015 est.)
 elderly dependency ratio: 7.7 (2015 est.)

 Guyana’s total dependency ratio: 63.5 %

youth dependency ratio: 57.7 %
elderly dependency ratio: 5.7 %

(CIA World Fact Book, 2016)

 International Migration

 In 2019, the number of international migrants worldwide – people residing in a

country other than their country of birth – reached 272 million (from 258 million in
2017).

 Female migrants constituted 48 per cent of this international migrant stock

 There are an estimated 38 million migrant children, three out of four international
migrants are of working age, meaning between 20 and 64 years old. 164 million
are migrant workers.

 Approximately 31% of the international migrants worldwide reside in Asia, 30%

in Europe, 26% in the Americas, 10% in Africa and 3% in Oceania
 Impacts - Population Aging
 Population ageing is a global phenomenon. Virtually every country in the world is experiencing
growth in both the size and the proportion of older persons in the population.

 In 2019, there were 703 million persons aged 65 years or over in the global population. This
number is projected to double to 1.5 billion in 2050.

 Globally, the share of the population aged 65 years or over increased from 6 per cent in 1990 to
9 per cent in 2019. That proportion is projected to rise further to 16 per cent in 2050, when it is
expected that one in six people worldwide will be aged 65 years or over.

 Globally, the number of persons aged 80 years or older nearly tripled between 1990 and 2019,
growing from 54 million to 143 million; it is projected to triple again between 2019 and 2050 to
reach 426 million.

 Between 1990 and 2019, the number of persons aged 80 or over doubled in all regions except
Europe and Northern America and tripled in four of eight regions. Between 2019 and 2050, the
number of persons aged 80 years or over is projected to show the largest percentage increases
in Eastern and South-Eastern Asia and in Northern Africa and Western Asia.
 Government Policies that Encourage Population
Growth
 France, for example, grants substantial payments and services to parents to help in child
rearing.

 In Canada, parental subsidies, housing priorities and generous and extended maternity
leaves at full salaries are among the inducements for multiple child families.

 Interestingly enough, in Romania, contraceptives are banned and abortions permitted only
on doctor’s orders in the hope that birth rates can be increased.
 https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/immunization-coverage
 https://thinkwell.global/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Latin-America-Policy-
Brief-1.16.20.pdf
 https://www.nap.edu/read/9543/chapter/5#16 – World Population
Problems
 https://www.nap.edu/read/9543/chapter/6

 Older People are happier…..