Changing Population

IB Geography SL - Changing
population
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Patterns of population and economic development
● Physical and human factors affecting population distribution at the global scale
Population distribution: the way people are spread across the surface of the earth
○ Human factors
■ Agriculture → food accessibility/crop yields attract people
■ Manufacturing → provides employment
■ Communication infrastructure → transportation, social media, globalisation
■ Political factors → development, conflict, immigration encouragement
○ Physical factors
■ Landforms, soil, climate, vegetation, pets and natural resources
○ World’s population distribution is uneven and changing (78% live in the northern
hemisphere, 50% live on 5% of land)
● Global patterns and classification of economic development:

○ Low income countries: focused in Africa, slow development, lack of infrastructure, US$
1025 and under
○ Middle income countries and emerging economies: US$ 1026-12475, restructuring the
economy through expansion of manufacturing and service sectors, focused on Asia, upper
south america
○ High income countries: focused on Australia, North America, Europe
○ HDI
■ high HDI concentrated in north america, europe, australasia
■ uses adult literacy rate, life expectancy, GDP per capita
○ PGLI (physical quality of life index)
■ uses adult literacy rate, life expectancy, infant mortality rate
○ MPI (multidimensional poverty index)
■ Health, educatoni, living standards
○ Quantitative index: GDP, GNP, GNI → can’t measure happiness, distribution of wealth,
excludes informal sectors
■ GNP (Purchasing power parity) : not affected by exchange rates or inflation
● Population distribution and economic development at the national scale, including voluntary
internal migration, core-periphery patterns and megacity growth
○ Internal factors affecting economic development
■ Infrastructure and transportation, political systems, availability of natural
resources, internal capital reformation, rapid population growth
○ External factors
■ Culture contact (colonisation allows countries to benefit from infrastructure but
not from cheap exports), trade, financial aid
■ Transnational companies
● Advantage, technological advancement: introducing new but labour
intensive (resource endowment)

● Disadvantage, new-colonialism: economically developed countries

oppressing the less developed by tax and overdeveloped technology
○ Voluntary internal migration: comes from a person's choice to relocate to an opportunity
○ Megacity growth: un urban area that has at least 10 million people
■ Consequences: crime rates, homelessness, slums, traffic, urban sprawl (city
spreads horizontally across large distances to cover more land), pollution (visual,
air, noise), burden on government budget
■ Recent future of world urbanisation
■ Megacities are glorified but has a huge wealth gap
○ Core-periphery patterns
● Two detailed and contrasting examples of uneven population distribution

○ China - internal rural-urban migration leading to uneven distribution
○ Push factors
■ oversupply of farmers, lack of education and employment, infrastructure
○ Pull factors
■ longer life expectancy, less children are malnourished, high literacy rate, high
income, employment opportunities, ownership of cars
○ Densely populated: north-east (manufacturing, rich mineral resources), central eastern
(fertile land with river), south east (manufacturing, fertile soil) China
○ Sparsely population: north-west (lack of resources), south-west (mountainous) China
○ Papua New Guinea - internal rural-urban migration

○ Push factors
■ Increased population and pressure on land
■ Avoidance of traditional obligations

■ Boredom with village life

■ Low income
○ Pull factors
■ Education and infrastructure
■ More service
■ Glorified perception of the urban life
○ Consequences
■ Uneven male to female ratio
■ Increased crime rate
■ Harsh reality (many squatter settlements in the urban areas, unemployment,
shortage of housing, increased crime rate, ethnic conflict between migrants)
○ Densely populated: mountain valleys → rich volcanic soil, rainfall, malaria free
○ Sparsely populated: no service and infrastructure, lack of competition
Changing populations and places
● Population change and demographic transition over time, including natural increase, fertility rate,
life expectancy, population structure and dependency ratios
○ Population structure
■ Developing: wide base, high infant mortality rate, few elderly, more female
■ Industrialised: narrow base, wide working population, more male
○ Population growth - slower rate of acceleration
■ Death rate ↓, life expectancy ↑
■ Uneven population growth → 90% in developing countries
number of dependents
○ dependency ratio = number of economically active × 100
○ Predictions of population growth
○ Demographic transition model

● Detailed examples of two or more contrasting countries

○ South Sudan - increasing population growth
○ National population increase rate at 2.8% → due to increased fertility rate, and slight
improvement in health care, acceptance of migrants, ethnically diverse culture
○ Not ideal for a developing country → too many people to support, burden on
government’s budget
○ Uneven distribution, majority living in rural areas → lack of development
○ China - shrinking population

○ Due to the one-child policy (late 1970s) discouraging couples from having children
○ Decline in birth rates and increase in life expectancy → future working population will be
too small
○ When fertility rates fall, women labour participation increases NOT FOR CHINA
■ Increased pressure on women through increased costs of education and housing
○ Ageing population → many consequences in the future
● One case study of a contemporary megacity experiencing rapid growth

○ Shenzhen, China
○ Rural-urban migration
■ High population density, high-rise housing blocks, decreased dependency ratio,
increased demand for labour, demand for women (electronics)
○ Consequences
■ Homelessness, demographic pressure on land and energy and food, physical and
mental condition of workers, undocumented workers in the informal sector,
pollution

○ Future of Shezhen
■ Merge with nearby megacities to form the world’s largest megacity
○ Shezhen as one of the special economic zones (SEZ)
■ Strict borders to restrict western practices or influences to enter the area
■ Useful foreign technology import
■ Increase bond between foreign firms, globalisation
■ Employ young workers
■ Attract foreign money to China → depreciation (cheaper exports)
■ Control over population through severe borders
● The causes and consequences of forced migration and internal displacement

○ Types of forced migrants
■ Refugees: forced to cross international boundaries, granted to legal rights
■ Asylum seekers: accused of seeking refugee status for prevention of immigration
process
■ Internally displaced persons: lack legal protection
■ Development displaces: forced to move for economic development (domestic)
like construction of dams, large scale urban renewal, establishment of tourist
hotspots
■ Environmental displacement: threatened by increase in sea level, natural disasters
■ Human trafficking: result of deception, form of slavery
○ Types of disasters
■ Natural disasters: earthquakes, floods, volcanic eruptions
■ Environmental changes: desertification, deforestation
■ Human-induced disasters: industrial accidents, chemical/radioactive
contaminants
● Detailed examples of two or more forced movements, to include environmental and political push
factors, and consequences for people and places
○ Syria → Turkey (political)
○ Protests against the Syrian government, calls for president’s resignation led to violation
○ Challenges for Syrians entering Turkey
■ New language → struggle to find jobs, fit into society
■ Pay for housing and education
■ Vulnerability as “asylum seekers” or “refugees”
○ Syria’s consequences
■ Destructed infrastructure due to violence
■ Decrease in population due to deaths and emigration
■ Decrease in economic growth
○ Turkey’s consequences
■ Burden on economy
■ Ethnic diversity/conflict
■ Increased security threats

■ Political polarization
■ High density of asylum seekers camps → increased crime rates, scarcity of jobs
○ Turkey’s changing attitude
■ Refusing → accepting refugees as temporary protection → permission for
employment, health care and education
○ Niger → Algeria (environmental)

○ Sparsely populated and poor country reliant on subsistence crops and foreign aid
○ Push factors
■ Rapidly growing population putting pressure on fragile biophysical environment
(drought, over cultivation of crops)
■ Human activities degrading soil and grasslands → less crops and food to sustain
themselves
■ Shrinking of Lake Chad → food, water and energy security (nexus)
■ Pollution
■ Deforestation → use of fuelwood as main source of energy causing soil erosion
■ Vulnerability to climate change → more drought, stress of vegetation (cycle)
■ Sand intrusion → covers infrastructure, land and crops
Challenges and opportunities
● Global and regional/continental trends in family size, sex ratios, and ageing/greying
○ Family size: influenced by fertility rates
■ MEDC has small family sizes (contraceptive methods, female education)
■ LEDC has large family sizes
○ Sex ratio: measure of number of males to every 100 females
■ Preference of sons → more men
■ Violent treatment of women → more men
■ Males participating in more work, risky and dangerous, war → more women
■ Immigration → more men, emigration → more women
○ Ageing/graying: proportion fo elderly people (65+) in the population increased
■ HICs has ageing population due to falling birth rates and death rates
■ LICs have steady and low ageing population
■ Challenges for the economy;
● Burden on government budget (pensions, healthcare) and taxpayers
● Dependency ratio
● Decrease in capital investment by the government (opportunity costs)
■ Benefits for the economy;
● Elderly people taking voluntary work and part time jobs
● Less crowing in populated areas as retired people tend to move to the
countryside
● Policies associated with managing population change, focusing on:

○ Policies related to ageing societies

■ Increasing retirement age
■ Reforming pension
○ Pronatalist policies: encouraging birth rates and fertility rates (Singapore)
○ Anti Natalist policies: discourages births and fertility rates through regulation (one child
policy), incentives, affluent
○ Gender equality and anti-trafficking policies
Def: buying and selling of human beings for purposes such as prostition, sexual slavery,
forced labour
■ Laws reinforcing criminalising human trafficking or attempts to do so
■ Advertisements and protest for gender equality
■ Protection of women through law
■ Global awareness about human trafficking being the 3rd largest illegal industry
mainly generating reveune from industrialised countries
■ Victims are 50%+ children and women, tricked or blackmailed into trade
● The demographic dividend and the ways in which population would be considered a resource
when contemplating possible futures
Def: accelerated economic growth that a country may experience when its dependency ratio
declines as a result of its changing population structure
○ Factors required
■ ↓ dependency ratio
■ Expansion of workforce
■ Investment in productivity of young people
■ ↑ savings
■ Demand expands to luxurious goods
● One case study of a country benefiting from a demographic dividend

○ Vietnam
○ Population control policy (two child policy) decreased fertility rate and at the same time,
death rates decreased due to improved health care
○ Effects
■ Increased labour force
■ Structural shift from agriculture to service
■ Increased productivity
■ Improved health of population
○ Economic reforms “Doi moi”
■ Free and open market → trade and globalisation
■ Development of manufacturing and service sectors

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IB Geography SL - Changing

Downloaded by: perfectlyimperfect | sari.schultheis@gmail.com

Patterns of population and economic development

● Global patterns and classification of economic development:

Downloaded by: perfectlyimperfect | sari.schultheis@gmail.com

● Disadvantage, new-colonialism: economically developed countries

● Two detailed and contrasting examples of uneven population distribution

○ Papua New Guinea - internal rural-urban migration

Downloaded by: perfectlyimperfect | sari.schultheis@gmail.com

■ Boredom with village life