GREAT ZIMBABWE UNIVERSITY

GARY MAGAZIRE SCHOOL OF AGRICULTURE & NATURAL SCIENCES

DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS, GEOGRAPHY & ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE

POPULATION
GEOGRAPHY
HGGES105
ZINHIVA HARDLIFE [O772712090;[email protected]]

2017

P. O.BOX 1235 MASVINGO; WWW.GZU.AC.ZW

1 ; INFORMATION @GZU.AC.ZA
1.0 Introduction
Viewpoint!! (The Way I see It! Or Just Thinking . . . )
Demography is the statistical study of the human population. It encompasses the study of
size, structure and distribution of these populations, and spatial and/or temporal changes
in them in response to birth, migration, aging and death.
Population Change = Fertility + Mortality + Migration

Box 1: Activities or Talking Point . . .

Compare the terms: population studies, population geography and demography.
Describe the content of population Geography.
What is demography?

 Geography is the branch of science that studies the spatial distribution of diverse
phenomena, especially those related to human activities.
 Geography is interested in the spatial aspects of the societies’ life – its aim is to study the
space as a creation established by a society, its system of values; traditions; cultural,
social and political attitudes (the every society’s ideological ground for the motivations
and reasons for action).
 Population is, technically speaking, a stock, a group; that is, a group of people with a
certain volume (total number of inhabitants on Earth) and certain structures (basically,
sex and age structure) which depend on the employed criteria for the analysis of this
population.
 The science which studies the population volume and structure is demography – as its
Greek etymology states: demos (‘people’) and graphia (‘study’).
 Demography is the science that studies the characteristics of human populations, from
both the static viewpoint (referring to stocks/volume) and the dynamic one
(fluxes/growth). A stock is the group of people that resides at a specific moment, in a
specific place, while the flux is the movement (natural or migratory) that modifies the
volume and the composition of the stocks.
 Demography is a broad social science discipline concerned with the study of human
populations, primary with respect to their size, their structure and their development.
 Demographers deal with the collection, presentation and analysis of data relating to the
basic life-cycle events and experiences of people: birth, marriage, divorce, household and
family formation, employment, ageing, migration and death.
 The discipline emphasises empirical investigation of population processes, including the
conceptualisation and measurement of these processes and the study of their determinants
and consequences.
 The field of demography is also concerned with the broader nature of social and
economic change, and with the impact of demographics change on the natural
environment. Its important to know that because there is an inverse relationship between

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 population growth and resources i.e. there are too many people in places without enough
resources to support them and too few people in areas with over abundant resources.
 Thus, demography studies the dimension, the structure, the evolution and the general
features of the human population. The key issue is finding out whether these general
features include the spatial ones, i.e. the features which refer to the settlement, the
location and the territorial mobility, or they have to be studied by geography.
 Geography and demography are two interrelated sciences that complement each other so
strongly that their fusion gives birth to a third science, named ‘Population geography’ or
simply ‘Geodemography’. Geographers use demographic data to analyse the spatial
variations in demographic characteristics and trends, linking these to their social
consequences, seeking explanations for differences and solutions for inequalities.
 Population geography is a branch of human geography specialised in the study of the
spatial distribution of the people and their daily activities in the territory, that is, it studies
the relationships between the nature of the places and the spatial variations in the
distribution, density, composition, migration, health and growth of human numbers on
earth.
 Population geography emerged in the early 1950s as a systematic branch of geography. It
is a sub-discipline of human geography.
 Glenn Thomas Trewartha was the first person to use the term population geography in
1953 at the Association of American Geographers annual meeting in Cleveland, Ohio,
USA. He argued that population has a fundamental role in geography and the one around
which all other branches are oriented and derive their meaning.
 Before this meeting, geographers were more concerned with the division of geography
into physical ad cultural geography.
 He proposed a three-fold organisation of geography into (i) population; (ii) the natural
earth and (iii) the cultural earth (Figure 1.1).

POPULATION

GEOGRAPHY

CULTURAL EARTH PHYSICAL EARTH

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Figure 1.1: Trewartha’s Conceptualisation of the Place of Population in Geography

 Population geography has a close relationship with demography and population studies.
The analytical methods and theories used to give explanations to various population
geographical patterns are heavily borrowed from population studies and demography.

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 Population geography focuses on the size, composition, changes and distribution of
human beings in relation to variation in the conditions of the earth’s space.
 The main focus is on human-environmental relationships i.e. how the two are interrelated
and affect each other in the spatial and temporal contexts.

1.1 POPULATION DATA SOURCES

METHODS OF ANALYSING POPULATION DATA
1. Direct Methods
 Direct demographic data collection is the process of collecting data straight from statistics
registries which are responsible for tracking all birth and death records, records of
marriages and migrants.
a. Census
 The UN (1996) defines census as a process of collecting, compiling, evaluating, analysing
and publishing demographic, social and economic data about the entire population of a
well defined territory at a specified time.
 Census is the main source of comprehensive population data since it involves the
enumeration of all people in a defined territory.
 E.g. of data collected: age, sex, marital status, education, occupation, religion, socio-
economic status, ethnicity, etc.
 There are two common approaches to carry out censuses:
i. De facto census i.e. a person is enumerated wherever that person is found at the
precise time (on census night) of census enumeration. The enumerator has to record
only persons who spent census night at a given place. It is simple and unambiguous.
ii. De jure i.e. a person is enumerated at his/her normal place of residence irrespective of
where he/she was at the time of a census. It is more suitable for administrative and
planning purpose, e.g. taxation, housing and education.
 In Zimbabwe, censuses are carried out after every 10 years. The first comprehensive
census was carried out in 1962 and subsequently in 1969, 1982, 1992, 2002, 2012 and
expect the next in 2022.
 Before 1962, the main sources of population data were registers of native commissioners
who collect taxes and government records.
 Advantages: it covers the entire given territory and includes every person in a given
territory; the whole population is counted at a specified time and date; it is the most
reliable source of population data for policy decision makers, planners, academics etc.
 Disadvantages: is very expensive and a complex exercise; it demands highly qualified
personnel to analyse the data and the collection of data is prone to coverage i.e. under-
enumeration and over-enumeration.

Challenges of carrying out censuses in sub-Saharan Africa

 Since the first censuses were carried out in the 1930s, the data is perceived to be
unreliable due to the following factors:
i. Lack of knowledge of the importance of census by people resulting in little
cooperation and giving false information. People may consider censuses as an
invasion of their privacy.
ii. High level of illiteracy.

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 iii. Poor recording of vital events (births, deaths, marriage) leading to memory lapse.
iv. The population is very mobile due to its youthfulness.
v. Political instability and civil unrests – people tend to be suspicious and resenting
fearing that the information they supply might be used to justify policies which are
against people. Also, Nigeria had no censuses for 28 years because of the political
situations in that country.
vi. Poor transport and communication networks.
vii. Inaccessibility due to environmental hazards e.g. thick forests, mountains etc.
viii. Frequent changes in boundaries of political, administrative and census units.
ix. There is fear among people that information will be used by government against them
e.g. number of children i.e. that information could be used for limiting their income.
x. Deficiencies in government machinery i.e. lack of finance to conduct censuses at
given periods. The government does not have money to train enumerators. It is
difficult for governments to do full coverage – some people are omitted in the
process. In developed countries, they send/post questionnaires to be returned the same
day.
xi. Lack of culture of appreciation in developing countries. In 3rd World countries, there
is a tendency to send a large number of enumerators which raises the costs.
Frequently, they want to be supported by others e.g. bilateral aid, UNPF, UNDP,
UNICEF, etc.
xii. Political reasons, e.g. in countries where resources are allocated to federal
states/provinces/counties, this can influence the accuracy of census data. There is a
tendency to inflate the figures to attract more resources. Manipulation of data is done
if it has something to do with sharing of the national cake. There will be inflation of
numbers, say in provinces so as to get more aid – this is typical of the Nigerian
situation. For example in 1962, Nigerian census was declared invalid because of the
fabrication of results. The population size was to form the basis of representation in
the federal state i.e. the more people you have the more MPs you have, hence there
was inflation of figures. In 1963, the population total of 55,7 million was suspiciously
considered. In 1973, a total of 120 000 enumerators was each accompanied by an
armed soldier. The result of the 1974 was 79.8 million people – where other states
increased by 80 – 90% over the 1963 figure and this could have given an annual birth
rate of 8 – 9 yet the highest so far is 3.7. In July 1975, a new president took over and
declared the 1973 census invalid.

b. Vital registration
 Involves the registration of vital events e.g. births, deaths, divorces, marriages etc.
 The data is incomplete because many people don’t register these events due to social,
cultural and economic reasons, distance to and from the registrar’ office.
c. Sample Surveys
 Sample surveys are carried out and judged as representative of the national demographic
structure e.g. demographic health surveys.
 Two types:
a) Single Round Survey: Data collection is done only once.

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 b) The Multi–Round Survey: Enumerators make repeated visits to the sampled
households recording events occurring between visits. It is however a very expensive
method of data collection.
 Advantages: they save more time and money than censuses; data is relatively easy to
handle and analyse; the errors of coverage and content are fewer in surveys; fewer
personnel is needed in surveys.
d. Administrative records
 These include: statistics for internal and international migration, school and church
registers, public service records and local government records (chief, headmen and
councillors).
2. Indirect Methods
 Indirect methods are used to analyse population data collected using direct methods
especially from census.
 The indirect method of demographic data collection may involve only certain people or
key informants in trying to get data for the entire population and then applying some
mathematical formula.
 There are fertility models (e.g. The Brass P/F Ratio Fertility Model) and mortality models
(e.g. abridged life tables) developed by the United Nations.

1.3 POPULATION GROWTH AND

DISTRIBUTION
Viewpoint!! (The Way I see It! Or Just Thinking . . . )
It is important to know the difference between a crude birth rate and a total fertility rate
and why both measures are important when trying to demographically describe a
population.
A population gains individuals by birth and immigration and loses individuals by death
and emigration.
Processes of fertility and mortality within populations have resulted in uneven population
growth and are being influenced by social, economic and political factors.
A growing population is the ultimate resource in the search for economic improvement.
Population distributions are descriptions of locations on the Earth’s surface where
individuals or groups live.

Box 1: Activities or Talking Point . . .

Why do we study and/or measure population growth?
What are the reasons for studying population growth?
What are the causes of slow or rapid growth of birth rate, death rate, population growth,
sex ratio, and health conditions, etc?
Establish the correlation between population size and structure with:
employment/unemployment; income conditions of the masses; standard of living; labour
conditions and living standard; production; consumption; saving-habits; economic
development; etc.

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 Why is population increasing at different rates in different countries?
What factors drive population growth rates?
What is population distribution?
In what places on Earth do you expect to find the most people living? What common
traits might these places exhibit?

 Population Size: the number of people living in a given place at a given time, its
comparison with previous period and the future projections are important elements of size
of population.
 The current world population size has surpassed the 7 billion mark (the world’s symbolic
‘seven billionth’ baby was received on 31 October 2011, and about 1/3 of the global total
population is found in Asia).
 Although the sub-Saharan African has the least proportion (700m), it is experiencing the
fastest growth rate than any region in the world.

 Population(𝑩𝒊𝒓𝒕𝒉
growth𝑹𝒂𝒕𝒆−𝑫𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒉
rate is calculated as: (𝑰𝒎𝒎𝒊𝒈𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏−𝑬𝒎𝒊𝒈𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏)
𝑹𝒂𝒕𝒆)+
PGR = x 100
𝑻𝒐𝒕𝒂𝒍 𝑷𝒐𝒑𝒖𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏

 The above equation refers to the national population growth rate. If it is for an area (e.g.
province, district etc.) within a country, we substitute immigration with in-migration and
emigration with out-migration.

FERTILITY

Viewpoint!! (The Way I see It! Or Just Thinking . . . )

People waste a lot of resources decrying population growth not knowing that this
phenomenon could be a good thing for the entire world.
Ages 15 to 49 are humans' prime childbearing years, biologically speaking (although
resource constraints and social and political factors shape childbearing decisions
differently from one country to another).
Fertility is a function of a woman's fecundity (her physiological ability to conceive and
bear children) and of social, cultural, economic, and health factors that influence
reproductive choices in the country in question.
In 2006, the number of births per 1,000 people worldwide averaged 21, with extremes
ranging from a low of 8 or 9 (mainly in northern and western Europe and some former
Soviet republics) to 50 or more in a few west African nations.
It may seem intuitively obvious that large family size is associated with poverty. Indeed,
family planning efforts in the 1960s were spurred by worries that rapidly growing
populations would lead to slower economic growth in developing countries.
Some scholars have argued that population growth helps the economy by stimulating
innovation and providing bigger markets.
Recent studies confirm that high fertility tends to slow economic growth and keep poor
families poor, while declines in fertility reduce poverty.

Box 1: Activities or Talking Point . . .

Why is population increasing at different rates in different countries?
What factors influence human population growth trends most strongly?

7
 Why may some countries invest resources to lower fertility?
Assess the factors that may compel some countries to start striving to raise fertility.

 Fertility (natality) is the reproductive performance measured by the number of births of

an individual, a couple, a group or a population. Demographers usually measure the
reproductive performance of women.
Definitions and Measurements
 CBR is the total number of live births per 1000 population in a given year.
Formula: CBR = No. of live births ÷ Total population*1000
 Age Specific Fertility Rate is the number of births occurring annually per 1000 women of
a specific age group.
Formula: ASFR = No. of births ÷ Women in a specific age group = nBx/nWx
 Total Fertility Rate is the average number of children a woman will have during her
childbearing or reproductive years (15-49years).
Formula: TFR = nΣASFR. n = age group
 Parity is the number of children previously born to a woman. It is computed as:
Pi = CEBi/Wi
 General Fertility Rate is the number of births per 1000 women of the reproductive age
group (15-49years). Formula: GFR = No. of births ÷ No. women of the reproductive age
group * 1000.
 Replacement-level fertility refers to the level of fertility at which a group of women on
the average is having only enough girls to replace itself in the population.
 Married women of reproductive age are women who are currently married or in a stable
sexual union, generally between the ages of 15 and 49 years.
 Family planning refers to the conscious effect of couples to regulate the number and
timing of births.

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World Fertility Rate Trend: the global fertility rate shows a declining trend, .
Determinants of Fertility
 Fertility is determined by proximate and background factors. Proximate determinants
directly influence fertility while background factors operate through proximate
determinants.

Background Factors Proximate Causes

- Socio-economic; - Biological and
Behavioural
Fertility
Political; Religious;
Cultural; Residence

 Fertility is determined by biological factors that constraint the reproductive process and
the potential supply of births and behavioural factors that modify the extent to which the
biological maximum is realized as well as socio-economic, cultural, residence, political
and religious factors.
 Biological and behavioural factors include: infertility and fecundity, celibacy, induced
abortion, breastfeeding, temporary sterility after birth, postpartum abstinence, exposure to
and frequency of sexual intercourse, contraception
 Socio-economic, cultural and political factors include: education, occupation, place of
residence, exposure to mass media, income, religious beliefs, value of children, insurance
births, empowerment of women, policy and legislation etc. We know how to dampen
excessive population growth—just educate girls.
Theories of Fertility
Intergenerational Wealth Flow Theory
 It’s a brainchild of J. C. Caldwell in response to the demographic transition theory.
 He rejected the assumption that underdeveloped populations behave in an irrational way
with regard to fertility and modernisation is essential for demographic transition.
 He argued that the precondition for fertility change is social i.e. social change alter social
and economic organization.
 In societies of every type and in all stages of development, fertility behaviour is rational
and the decline is fertility is a response to a shift from extended family arrangement to
nucleation of the family where child care has many psycho-emotional consequences.

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 The burden of child care in terms of costs and time tends to increase as the society
becomes more commercial.
 The theory is mainly based on the direction and magnitude of the flow of wealth between
generations.
 In traditional society, wealth tends to flow from children to parents and children start to
contribute at an earlier age. Therefore, the value of children as an economic asset is very
high offsetting the disadvantages of a large size of a household.
 However, in a modern society the opposite occurs where parents are free to lavish
emotional and financial care to their children. The socio-economic and emotional costs of
raising children make couples to regulate their fertility.
Idealation or Diffusion Theory
 The theory is based on the assumption that the spread or adoption of new information,
ideas, beliefs or social norms are capable of influencing reproduction decisions and
behaviour that might occur through social interaction and the media.
 Populations might be exposed to new values and norms in relation to family size. If they
observe advantages from new norms they can adopt to new behaviour with regard to
fertility without any change in one’s social position in the social system.
 The theory argues that couples can reduce the size of their families even in the absence of
major changes such as high income.
 Cleland noted that the use of contraception responds rapidly throughout socially and
linguistically heterogeneous systems, regardless of the position of populations’ level of
economic development.
 However, people mainly reduce their fertility responding to internal changes and
sometimes refuse to adopt new ideas.
The Chicago School of Thought
 It borrows heavily from economics and children are seen as similar to consumer goods.
The concepts of quality and quantity are very important because couples want quality
children.
 Couples control their births when they perceive that the costs of raising quality children
are high. Quality children means educated, well-nourished and healthy etc.
 However, it has been criticized by several demographers especially Blake (1968). She
argued that children can’t be considered similar to consumer goods because:
There are strong social pressures to marry and start a family and people even
encouraged to do so in the face of financial need.
Adults are not free to choose the number of their children as they are to decide to buy
or not buy consumer goods.
Parents are not able to choose the quality of their children since this depends on many
other factors e.g. genetic factors in addition to care and education.
Where parents are not satisfied with the number and quality of their children they are
not free to change them as they may change consumer goods if they are not satisfied
with them.
Parents are not as free to use or abuse their children as they are free to use their
consumer goods.
 Instead of economic considerations families are influenced in their decisions on fertility
by the norms and values of a given society.
Geographical Differentials in Fertility Trends and their Determinants

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 Fertility in Europe is now below replacement level. Fertility decline in Northern Europe
since the mid-1960s may be associated with the postponement of childbearing. By 1988,
the average age of a woman at birth of her first child was 26years.
 Several of the first countries to experience sustained below replacement fertility in the
late 1960s and early 1970s include Denmark and the Netherlands exhibited relatively high
fertility in the late 1990s i.e. 1.73 and 1.65, respectively.
 Changes in reproductive behaviour during the post-World War II period may also be
allied with the shift in social values. Individuals are now able to choose more freely
between competing value systems without religious interference. Consensual unions are
now widely accepted in most European countries. Under these circumstances, singlehood,
cohabitation, single motherhood and the avoidance of parenthood are becoming more
socially acceptable.
 In Southern Europe, Spain and Italy reached below replacement-level fertility in 1993.
High youth unemployment due to difficult in entry into the labour market has made
higher education more attractive and thereby leading to postponement of marriage.
Labour market uncertainty and poor economic prospects in early childhood also tend to
perpetuate the commonly observed behaviour of staying in the parents’ household until
relatively late ages.
 In Central and Eastern Europe, fertility declined as a result of insecurity and hardship
caused by the economic transition after the collapse of the Union of Social Soviet Russia
(USSR) in the early 1990s. During the 1990s, social incentives (paid maternity leave,
easier access to housing etc.) ended or eroded owing to inflation or were modified,
contributing to postponement of motherhood in the last decade.
 Improved appliance methods of contraception, sterilization, wider access to legal abortion
and the introduction of oral contraceptives have all contributed to smaller family sizes by
reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies.
 Fertility is declining in Africa, Asia and Latin American and the Caribbean after the
1960s mainly due to the availability of contraceptive methods. However, it is still high in
most sub-Saharan African countries.
 Urbanization, weakening of the patriarchal value systems and education contributed to the
decline in fertility.
 Transference of medical technology to developing countries greatly reduced mortality
from the partial control of infectious and nutrition-related diseases and thereby increased
the survival probability of children.

Fertility Trends in Zimbabwe

 Although it is high, fertility is declining since the 1960s. It declined from 6.7 in 1969 to
3.8 in 2012. It is declining due to the following factors:
Empowerment of women
Education
Legislation and policy e.g. Domestic Violence Act, Legal Majority Act, Sexual
Offense Act
Family planning
Urbanisation
High costs of living
Family Planning in Zimbabwe
 Zimbabwe is one of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa where the implementation of the
family planning programme is seen as successful.

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 The provision of family planning services began during the colonial period by the Family
Planning Association (FPA) a non-governmental organisation.
 It mainly supplied the Depo-Provera which created tensions between the association and
nationalists due to its side effects and also ideological differences.
 The FPA was disbanded in 1981 and replaced by the Child Spacing and Fertility
Association under the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare.
 In 1985, the government replaced the Child Spacing and Fertility Association with a
parastatal called the Zimbabwe National Family Planning Council.
 The aim was to promote an integrated approach to the provision of health services. The
council was expected to contribute to improved maternal and child health through birth
spacing and meeting the overall goal of controlling population growth.
 Its functions were:
Provision of family planning
Infertility treatment
Participation in primary health care
Research on reproductive health
Diagnosis and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs)
 The use of family planning increased rapidly among married women and also fertility
concurrently declined.
 In 1988, 79% of the married had ever used any method.
 Several factors have been attributed for this success.
 Government support through the Ministry of Health and donor assistance made great
impact in ensuring availability, accessibility and affordability of family planning.
 The Ministry of Health funded 60% of the family planning council’s budget. The money
was used to buy contraceptives that were supplied to clients at heavily subsidized prices
or provided for free to the low-income group.
 The council recruited the Community Based Distributors (CBD) to reach out rural clients
and also make use of health facilities.

MORTALITY

Viewpoint!! (The Way I see It! Or Just Thinking . . . )

Human mortality is relatively high among infants, children, and adults over age 60, and
relatively low at other parts of the life cycle.
The probability that a child will die at a given age drops through childhood and
adolescence after she passes through the vulnerable early years, then starts to rise
gradually in mid-life.

Box 1: Activities or Talking Point . . .

What factors raise life expectancy?

 UN defines mortality as the permanent disappearance of life.

 Mortality is the study of the occurrence of death in a population.
Definitions and Measurements
 Rate is frequency of defined events in a specified population for a given time period.

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 Proportion is defined as a subgroup with common characteristics in a population divided
by the total population of the subgroup in a population for purpose of comparison.
 CDR is the total number of deaths per 1000 population in a given year.
Formula: CDR = Deaths ÷ Total population * 1000
 ASDR is the number of deaths occurring annually per 1000 population of specific age
group. This is a more valid measure for comparing death rates between countries since it
takes into account variations by age and sex.
Formula: ASDR = Deaths in a specific age group ÷ Total population of a specific age
group * 1000
 IMR refers to the number of infant deaths occurring before celebrating the first birthday
per 1000 live births. It only refers to death after a live birth has taken place i.e. it excludes
foetal deaths, miscarriages and still births etc.
Formula: IMR = No. of deaths of infants under 1 year in a year ÷ No. of live births in a
year * 1000
 CMR is the number of deaths of children before reaching the age of five years but
celebrated their first birthday per 1000 live births. CMR = No. of deaths of children aged
1- 4 years ÷ No. of children aged 1- 4years*1000
 Under five mortality (0 - 4years) = IMR + CMR
 Maternal death is the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination
of pregnancy, irrespective of duration of pregnancy, from any cause related to or
aggravated by the pregnancy or its management but not from accidental or incidental
causes.
 Maternal mortality rate is the number of maternal deaths per 100 000 live births during a
given year.
 Formula: MMR0 = No. of maternal deaths ÷ No. of live births * 100 000
Maternal mortality rate is the number of maternal deaths per 100 000 women of
reproductive age (15 - 49 years) in a given year.
MMRa = No. of maternal deaths ÷ No. of women aged 15 - 49 years * 100 000
 Life expectancy is the average number of years that a person would be expected to live.
To be more precise, it is defined as the average number of years that a member of an age
group of births would be expected to live if the age group was subjected to the mortality
conditions expressed by a particular set of age-specific mortality rates.
 Life expectancy is the expected (in the statistical sense) number years of life remaining at
a given age.
Trends and Geographical Distribution of Mortality Patterns
 Patterns of mortality show the changes in demographic components and levels of
socioeconomic development in different regions.
 Slightly more than 56 million people died in 2001, 10.5 million, or nearly 20 percent, of
whom were children younger than five. Of these child deaths, 99 percent occurred in low
and middle-income countries. Those age 70 and over accounted for 70 percent of deaths
in high-income countries, compared with 30 percent in other countries.
 Deaths are concentrated among infants and adults in 15-59years age group in developing
countries.
 In low- and middle-income countries, 30 percent of all deaths occur at ages 15 to 59,
compared with 15 percent in high-income countries.
 Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for 42% of child deaths globally.
 Overall, infectious diseases are the main causes of death.
 Mortality is high in developing countries due to infectious diseases and injuries.

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 The 4.5 million adult injury deaths in 2001 were heavily concentrated among young
adults, particularly men. In the 15 to 59 age group, road traffic accidents and suicide were
among the 10 leading causes of death in high-income and low- and middle-income
countries, and violence (homicide) was also among the 10 leading causes in low- and
middle-income countries. Among adults ages 15 to 44 worldwide, road traffic accidents
were the leading cause of death for men after HIV/AIDS, followed by TB and violence.
Suicide was the third leading cause of death for women in this age group, after HIV/AIDS
and TB, with road traffic accidents in fifth place.
 Global mortality from malaria increased by 0.5 million during the 1990s, with 80 percent
of the deaths occurring in Sub-Saharan Africa. The proportion of all child deaths due to
malaria doubled from 5 percent in 1990 to 10 percent in 2001 worldwide and increased
from 15 percent in 1990 to 22 percent in 2001 in Sub-Saharan Africa.
 HIV/AIDS led to an increase in child mortality of, on average, 10 per 1,000 in Sub-
Saharan Africa between 1990 and 2001.

Demographic Transition Model

Viewpoint!! (The Way I see It! Or Just Thinking . . . )
The demographic transition is a well-recognised pattern, but it has shown many variations
from country to country. We cannot predict when specific demographic changes will
occur in particular countries, and it is hard to specify precisely which factors will shape a
given society's path.
After several decades of lower mortality, people realised that they did not have to have so
many children to achieve their desired family size, so birth rates began to fall as well.
Population momentum (i.e., continued population growth after a fall in birth rates)
accounts for a significant portion of world population growth today even though the
global fertility rate has declined from about 5 children born per woman in 1950 to a little
over 2.5 in 2006.
Replacement-level fertility is the number of children per woman that keeps population
levels constant when births and deaths are considered together over time (assuming no net
migration).

Box 1: Activities or Talking Point . . .

What are the key concepts of the demographic transition?
For each stage of the DTM, describe its characteristics – i.e. stage 1- low growth; stage 2 - high
growth; stage 3 - moderate growth; stage 4 - low growth and stage 5 - negative growth.
Explain factors that influence countries/regions to move from: stage 1 to stage 2; stage 2 to stage
3; stage 3 to stage 4; stage 4 to stage 5.
Identify countries/regions which remain in stage 1; stage 2; stage 3; stage 4 and those which
moved on to stage 5.
Explain the relationship of the demographic transition and CBR, CDR, NIR, TFR, IMR, and life
expectancy.
A major question for the 21st century is: What happens after the demographic transition?

Demographic transition is a process changes in natural increase, fertility, and mortality rates
at different times and at different rates. The process is irreversible.

14
Figure 1.4: The Demographic Transition and Associated Population Structures
Stage 1 : Low Growth
 Crude birth and death rates varied considerably from one year to the next and from one
region to another.
 CBR roughly equals to CDR so natural increase rate was essentially zero.
 Earth’s population was unchanged.
 Population depends on food availability: hunting and gathering for food.
 Agricultural revolution (8000 B.C.): world’s population began to grow by several
thousand per year because human beings first domesticated plants and animals. However,
the food supplies were still unpredictable because of climate condition, war, and disease.
 Population structure: life expectancy is low, so population is made up of mainly young
people.
 Most of human history was spend in this stage.
 Today no such country remains in this stage.

15
Stage 2: High Growth
 Crude death rate suddenly plummets, while the crude birth rate remains roughly the same
as in stage 1 so population grows rapidly (mortality transition phase).
 Industrial Revolution (1750): New machines transformed the process of manufacturing
goods and delivering them to market. Farmers increase agricultural production (green
revolution) and feed more people to work in factories, producing other goods and
generating enough food for the industrial workers. The wealth produced by Industrial
Revolution was also used to improve sanitation and personal hygiene. As a result of these
public improvements, people were healthier and therefore lived longer.
 Population structure: life expectancy has increased but there are still more young people
than older people.
 Countries in Europe and North America entered this stage about 1,800 because of
Industrial Revolution. Improvements in medical care and public health services – which
took place more in urban than in rural areas – also helped people to live longer, so death
rates fell.
 Most countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America entered stage 2 around 1950 because
of medical revolution. Medical revolution invented in Europe and North America diffused
to LDCs and enabled more people to experience longer and healthier lives.
Stage 3: Moderate Growth
 Crude birth rate begins to drop sharply while crude death rate continues to fall but much
slower than in stage 2 so the population continues to grow but in smaller rate (fertility
transition).
 Population growth rate is high because of population momentum. Population
momentum is the impetus for continued expansion of the number of people in a country
when the age structure is characterised by a large number of children. Even if birth
control efforts are effective in the adult community and the number of new births per
person decreases, the number of people in the country expands as the large population of
children reach reproductive age.
 Population structure: more people are surviving into older age cohorts.
 Crude birth rate declines because of changes in social customs. First, the infant mortality
rate declined in stage 2 but many years elapsed before people reacted by conceiving fewer
babies. Second, more people lived in cities rather than in the countryside. Farmers need
more children to be assets. In contrast, children living in cities are prohibited from
working in most types of urban jobs. In addition, urban homes are relatively small to
accommodate larger families.
Stage 4: Low Growth
 Zero population growth (ZPG) as population stabilisation is occurring at a much slower
rate.
 First definition: crude birth rate declines to the point where is equals the crude death rate,
and the natural increase rate approaches zero.
 Second definition: the total fertility rate (TFR) results in a lack of change in the total
population change over a long term. A TFR of approximately 2.1 produces ZPG.
 Population structure: life expectance is high, so even more people are living to be older.
 First, more women enter the labour force market rather than remain as fulltime
housewives. Second, people have access to a wider variety of birth-control methods.
Third, with increased income and leisure time, more people participate in entertainment

16
 activities that are not conducive to having children beside them. Again, the cost of raising
children soured thereby constraining family sizes. As result, crude birth rate declines.
Stage 5: Negative Growth
 Below replacement fertility rate.
 Several Western and Eastern European countries have negative natural increase rates.
Higher death rates have resulted from inadequate pollution controls, while lower birth
rates have resulted from very strong family-planning programmes and deep-seated
pessimism about having children in an uncertain world. Also there are so many childless
unions in some democratic societies, implying the couple would not be replaced upon its
demise.

 The DTM was developed to explain the population history of Western Europe as they
went from rural-agrarian to urban-industrial societies.
 The idea first emerged with Warren Thompson in 1929 who classified countries
according to their patterns of population growth but the theory was formulated by
Notestein in 1945.
 According to the theory, the shift towards low mortality and fertility rates occurs when
there is a process of overall modernisation resulting from industrialisation, urbanisation,
education, empowerment of women, and substantial overall socio-economic
development. Such a shift, would lead initially to a drop in mortality through progress in
hygiene and medicine and, subsequently, to a decline in fertility occasioned by economic
growth.
 As the society progresses in modernisation, couples tend to limit their fertility because of
the desire to benefit from the goods and services of modernity which tend to be in conflict
with large family sizes.
 Mortality decline as a pre-condition for both population and fertility decline. Fertility
declines because increasing survival rate of infants.

Critique
 It is Eurocentric since it was formulated to account for population change in Western
Europe.
 The theory is silent about the regulative role of external migration which may affect the
interaction between fertility and mortality.
 In many European countries CDRs declined in the 18th century and were in their low 20s
by the 2nd quarter of the 19th century preceding the initiation of modern economic
growth by several decades. Urban DRs were substantially higher than rural ones even in
the first decades of the 20th century in Western European countries and in the US.
 Caldwell (1976) rejected the assumption that in pre-modern societies populations behave
in an irrational way by arguing that in every society of every type and in all stages of
development fertility behaviour is rational in response to socio-economic and cultural
changes.

Applicability to the Developing World

 Unlike in European countries, mortality decline have been far more dramatic in LDCs and
have often resulted largely from imported technologies which can be transferred with
relative ease and these declines are marginally related to the pace and level of economic
development.

17
 The rates of population growth in LDCs are higher than those of Europe during the
transition. During the transition, European nations rarely experienced doubling times of
less than 50 years and the average was about 90 years.
 Modern LDCs have very much younger age structures than Europe had and therefore a
far greater momentum for further growth.
 Occupational mobility away from agriculture and rural-urban migration provide
alternative life opportunities for increased rural populations during the European
transition. However, the rapid natural increase in LDCs makes it difficult to provide
comparable opportunities for occupational and spatial mobility.
 European fertility decline was based on use of traditional methods such as withdrawal,
abortion and celibacy. The fertility decline is more rapid in developing countries due to
use of family planning.
 Mhloyi (1998) noted that in Zimbabwe mortality was increasing in the past two decades
while fertility was declining an atypical of the standard demographic transition whereby
fertility declines due to mortality decline.
 Economic development doesn’t always necessarily translate to low fertility. Fertility
decline took place under very diverse socio-demographic conditions and there was no
simple relationship between development and demographic. Fertility decline in rural
South Asia – especially in Bangladesh – in the 1960s was unexpected.

World Population Growth Trends

 The world population was assumed to be stationery during the Stone Age when all human
societies lived by hunting and gathering. Population growth was checked by epidemics,
lack of a sustainable food supply, a mobile lifestyle which discouraged high fertility and
nutritional deficiencies caused many infant deaths.
 Technological progress resulted in an increase in the size and density of population made
possible by more abundant food supply to greater human control and permitting larger
and more permanent settlements.
 The food-producing revolution took place initially about 8000 to 7000 B.C. i.e. the
domestication of plants and animals. Between 8000BC and 6000BC, with the onset of the
domestication of plants and animals, people were able to grow food thereby supporting a
large population. This marked the first major take off of population growth. Human
population increased to half a billion by AD1650 i.e. an increase by about 50 times in
7000 to 9000 years.
 Urban revolution which occurred for the first time about 4000B.C. in the Nile Valley and
Lower Mesopotamia.
 Industrial revolution. Significant population growth began with the inception of the
industrial revolution in 1750. It tripled between AD1 and 1750.
 Rapid upturn occurred with the inception of the industrial revolution between 1750 and
1850 in Europe, Anglo-America and the Caribbean while other regions followed around
1900 and by 1950 the population increased dramatically in all regions.
 By 1850, the population doubled and reached its first billion mark. But it took about only
100 years to add another billion, about 45 years to double the population to 4 billion in
1975 and took just 12 years to reach the 5 billion mark in 1987.
 The ever increasing population has reached such a size that each additional results in
astronomical in increase in the total (population momentum) giving a J-curve growth.
 Rapid growth was mainly due to decline in mortality rather that increasing fertility levels.
Number of deaths decline due to improved diet and nutrition, sanitation, efficient disposal

18
 of sewage, improved food hygiene, improved personal hygiene (use of soap) and
technological advances in modern medicine.
 Europe and Americas have grown more rapidly since 1650. Europe’s population has
increased more rapidly because of a more favourable births-deaths ratio during the most
of the period from 1650 to the present.
 It is believed that Africa’s numbers declined absolutely between 1650 and 1800
attributing to slave trade.

Population Growth Trends: Overview

The rapid growth of the world population is a recent phenomenon. About 2,000 years ago, the
population of the world was about 300 million. It took more than 1,600 years for the world
population to double to 600 million. The rapid growth of the world population started in
1950, with reductions in mortality in the less developed regions, resulting in an estimated
population of 6.1 billion in the year 2000, nearly two-and-a-half times the population in 1950.
With the declines in fertility in most of the world, the global growth rate of population has
been decreasing since its peak of 2.0 per cent in 1965-1970.
The doubling time has sharply fall over centuries.

1804 1927 1959 1974 1987 1999 2011

1billion123yrs2billion32yrs3billion15yrs4billion13yrs5billion12yrs6billion12yrs7billion

Source: UNFPA (2011)

Box 1: Population Growth Trends

Population Distribution
 It is the way in which people are spread out across the earth’s surface (Waugh, 1994).
 A visualization of world population distribution map shows that the population is
unevenly distributed.
 Some land areas are nearly uninhabited, others are sparsely settled or densely populated.
 Almost 90% of all people live north of the equator and 2/3 in the mid-latitudes between
200 and 600 North mainly because large land masses are located north of the equator.
 At the global level, the spatial distribution of population is closely related to the
favourability or unfavourability of the physical environment to human habitation e.g.
equatorial, mountainous and desert regions are sparsely populated due to harsh climatic
conditions and poor soils. People concentrate in lowland areas which have fertile soils
e.g. the Nile Valley, The Great African Rift Valley etc.
 Between 50% and 60% of world population live below 200m and nearly 80 reside below
500m above sea level.

Population Distribution in sub-Saharan Africa

 The uneven population distribution in SSA is attributed to physical, ecological, historical
and socio-economic factors.
 Regions with low population densities are (i) the northern fringe of W. Africa, landlocked
countries of Chad, Mali, Gabon, Equatorial Africa and Sahel desert region, (ii) expansion
from Angola, Namibia, Botswana to Zambia due to aridity, swamps and diseases and (iii)
horn of Africa.

19
 Regions of high population densities are (i) West Africa along the coast and savannah
region due to historical reasons – high concentration of economic activities (ii) East
Africa along the coast and shores of Lake Victoria and (iii) Southern Africa where the
population is found in small nodes, the coastal areas, along the line of rain in Zimbabwe
especially with greater concentration in the north where densities are associated with
considerable economic development both of agriculture and industrial nature.
 Island development promoted by colonial governments characterised by urban industrial
sectors and plantations led to high concentration of people in these areas. These economic
centres attracted people to them resulting in a situation where as much as 50% of the total
population in a given population is found in one or more cities.

1.4 POPULATION STRUCTURE,

CHARACTERISTICS AND COMPOSITION
Viewpoint!! (The Way I see It! Or Just Thinking . . . )
dependents – people who are too young or too old to work, so they depend on their
families or on workers who generate economic activity or on pensions for support.

Box 1: Activities or Talking Point . . .

Explain the concepts of population pyramids/diagrams; age distribution; dependency
ratio; sex ratio and life expectancy.
Map the global distribution of age distribution, sex ratio and life expectancy.
Describe the global distributions of youthful, mature and aged populations.
What are the social implications of an aging world population?
Explain the relationships of sex ratio and birth and death rates; male and female life
expectancy.
Analyse relationships of CBR, CDR, NIR, TFR, IMR, life expectancy, the age
distribution, the sex ratio, male life expectancy, female life expectancy, and less and more
developed countries.

Population Structure and Characteristics

 Population characteristics refer to the distribution of a population by age, sex, marital
status, education, occupation, ethnicity, income, health status, etc.
 Population structure is the number of people of a given age and sex in a society. It shows
a vertical distribution of the population. The population structure of any given country is
determined by rate of natural increase, life expectancy and migration.
 The age structure divides the population into:
Child dependents (0-14 years)
Adults economically active (15-64 years)
Old age dependents (65+years)
 The age structure of a population is extremely important in understanding similarities and
differences among countries.

20
Theoretical Issues on Age-Sex Structure
 The age-sex structure records any changes in the demographic and socio-economic
development of a population.
 The life expectancy (average years a person is expected to live) is a good indicator of
socioeconomic development of the population. E.g. low life expectancy means low living
standards as indicated by high infant and child mortality.
 The age-sex structure reflects the major socio-economic and historical processes a
population undergoes such as high mortality rates due to catastrophic events, family
planning policies, improvements in medical care, sanitation and hygiene etc.
 It can be graphically shown using population pyramids. There are commonly four types
of population pyramids representing different stages of development and countries.
 Population in a country is influenced by the demographic transition in two principle
ways: the percent of the population in each age group and the distribution of males and
females. A country’s population can be displayed by age and gender groups on a bar
graph called a population pyramid.
 Formula:

 A population pyramid shows the percentage of the total population in five-year age
groups.
 Youngest groups (0-14 years old) at the base of the population pyramids and the oldest
group at the top.
 The length of the bar represents the percentage of the total population contained in that
group.
 Males are shown on the left side and females on the right.
 The shape of population pyramids is determined primarily by the crude birth rate.

Stage 1: Expansive
 Is concave in shape i.e. has a broad base and narrow apex.
 Indicates high BR, low life expectancy and high DR.
 BR is high due to high DR and traditional value of children.
 Is a characteristic of developing countries e.g. most countries in SSA, selected countries
in Asia etc.
 Indicates a youthful population i.e. over 35% of the population is less than 15 years.
Stage 2: Stable

21
 Crude death
rate starts
plummeting.

High crude birth rate is

roughly as same as in
stage 1.
A population pyramid in stage 2 of the demographic transition.

 BR is still high but people are now living relatively longer as more people reach the
middle ages.
 There is a general improvement in the health of the population but population growth is
still high.
 It is typical of some newly industrialized countries (NICs).

Stage 3: Stationery

Crude death rate

continues to fall.

Crude birth rate

drops sharply.

A population pyramid in stage 3 of the demographic transition.

 Both BR and DR are decreasing.

 Life expectancy is increasing
 Typical of some NICs.
Stage 4: Declining

22
 Lower crude
death rate

Lower crude
birth rate

A population pyramid in stage 4 of the demographic transition.

 Both BR and DR are low

 High life expectancy
 Aged or old population i.e. >10% of the population is aged 65 years and above.

Constructing a Pyramid
 It can be constructed using absolute figures or percentages
 Females are placed on the right side while males on the left side.
 Age is shown on vertical axis.

The Age Distribution

 The age structure of a population is extremely important in understanding similarities and
differences among countries.
The mean Age/Ratio
 It measures the middle age where half of the population is above and half below the
median point.
 Formula: median age = total ages of population in a country ÷ total population
 The population must be classified by single age groups for us to calculate the median age.
Dependency Ratio
 It measures the burden to the economically active population (15-64 age group) of
supporting the non-economic active population (0-14 and 65+ years age groups).
 It is the number of people who are too young (age of 0-14) or too old (65+) to work
compares to the number of people in productive years (15-64 years old).
 Formula: DR0 = No. of dependents (0-14 and 65+) ÷ No. economically active age group
(15 - 64)*100
 It is expressed as a percentage. The higher the ratio or the greater the percentage of
dependents, the more people each worker has to support i.e. the greater the financial
burden is on those who are working and vice versa.
Sex Ratio
 Is the ratio of males to females at birth or at any given age group i.e. the number of males
compares to per hundred females in the population.

23
 Statistically, it is defined as the number of males per 100 females.
 Sex ratio depends on or is modified by fertility, mortality and migration.
 Generally, slightly more males are born than females i.e. An interesting biological fact is
that, on average, between 103 and 107 boys are born for every 100 girls. As a result,
males outnumber females at the bottom of most population pyramids. However, men tend
to die at higher rates at all ages than do females hence they lose their initial advantage in
numbers at birth as we progress to higher age cohorts.
 Males have higher deaths rates because of war, violence, bravery to embark in
risky/dangerous operations and immigration.
 Women live longer:
In MDCs, more older females than older males
In LDCs, more younger males than females but more older females.
 If the number of males in any age group or area is higher than that of females, it means
the sex ratio is high and vice versa.
 Formula: Sex ratio = Males ÷ Females *100

1.5 POPULATION GROWTH AND

RESOURCES (POPULATION DOCTRINES AND
THEORIES OF POPULATION CHANGE)
Viewpoint!! (The Way I see It! Or Just Thinking . . . )
The basic argument is that the world is currently experiencing a population explosion that
may result in eventual devastation when the population exceeds the available food supply.
One in five people alive today are desperately poor and each year 40 million die from
malnutrition and diseases related to poverty (more than 100,000 per day).
In some areas such as the Sahel in West Africa (the transition zone between the Sahara
desert and more humid woodlands to the south), population growth is putting heavy
stresses on a fragile environment, so food needs are outstripping food production.
As a species, we have certainly demonstrated our capacity for successful reproduction but
it may well be time for us to restrain ourselves before we find a way to destroy our own
ecological niche.
The sheer number of people on earth is not as important as their inequality and how much
they consume. You do not need to be consuming so much to have a long and healthy life.
A reminder that political economy, not food supply limitations, result in a current world
in which perhaps 800 million people have either nutritionally inadequate diets or not
enough food to eat. Hunger amidst plenty still exists, and it will so long as grinding
poverty leaves millions unable to purchase enough food for their needs, even if it is
readily available.
We can either take steps now to prevent the famines and scarcity that will ultimately
result from population increase, killing millions in the process, and work toward a more
stable and sustainable population, or we can wait for the cookie to crumble, as it
inevitably must, and experience the suffering.

24
 By being prepared, population growth and development can be sustained by using
sensible planning and suitable modern technology.

Box 1.5: Activities or Talking Point . . .

What population can Earth sustain?
What indicators can you identify in your region that suggest that humans may have
exceeded their carrying capacity?
What are the effects of unfettered population growth on the carrying capacity of a
territory?
Explain the terms: Under-population; optimum population; over-population and
environmental resources, in relation to environmental carrying capacity.
Agenda 21 identifies population growth as one of the crucial elements affecting long-term
sustainability. How?
What are the principles of Malthusianism?
What does a Malthusian crisis involve?
How does population growth or decline influence economic and social well-being?
Does population growth enhance or diminish economic growth?
What impact does population growth have on poverty?

The Concept of Environmental Carrying Capacity

 Biologists define carrying capacity as the maximum population of a given species that
can survive indefinitely (sustained at a steady state) in a given environment.
 It depends on the conditions and resources available in the specific area (ecosystem), and
the consumption habits of the species considered.
 Because both what is available in the area, and the consumption habits of the species
change over time, carrying capacity is always changing. Carrying capacity is a measure of
sustainability within these changing conditions.
 For most species, the tendency is to increase rapidly while food and habitat are abundant
and then slow down or collapses down to a lower level as regulatory factors (low birth
rate, reduced food availability, competition for resources, exhaustion of resources upon
which they depend, high mortality) come into play.
 When the population size is smaller than the carrying capacity (under-population), the
population growth rate is positive so populations increase in size and when population
size is larger than the carrying capacity (over-population), the population growth rate is
negative so that populations decrease in size.
 Eventually, these populations will either increase or decrease in size until the population
size equals the carrying capacity at which time the growth of the population will stop
(optimum population). The carrying capacity represents a stable equilibrium of
population size.
 The concept of carrying capacity was applied to human populations in the 1960’s. It was
noted that the consumption habits of humans are much more variable than those of other
animal species, making it considerably more difficult to predict the carrying capacity of
the earth for human beings.
 Human carrying capacity refers to the number of individuals who can be supported (at
different standards of living and levels of resource consumption) in a given area within

25
 natural resource limits, and without degrading the natural social, cultural and economic
environment for present and future generations.
 The carrying capacity for any given area is not fixed. It can be altered by improved
technology, but mostly it is changed for the worse by pressures which accompany a
population increase.
 As the environment is degraded, carrying capacity actually shrinks, leaving the
environment no longer able to support even the number of people who could formerly
have lived in the area on a sustainable basis.
 No population can live beyond the environment’s carrying capacity for very long.
 The IPAT equation has been used to estimate the human carrying capacity of the earth or
part of it.
What is the IPAT Equation, or I = P x A x T? Where:
I – Environmental Impact
P – Population Size
A – Affluence
T - Technology
 It is one of the earliest attempts to describe the role of multiple factors in determining
environmental degradation. It describes the multiplicative contribution of population (P),
affluence (A) and technology (T) to environmental impact (I).
 Environmental impact (I) may be expressed in terms of resource depletion or waste
accumulation; population (P) refers to the size of the human population; affluence (A)
refers to the level of consumption by that population; and technology (T) refers to the
processes used to obtain resources and transform them into useful goods and wastes.
 The formula was originally used to emphasize the contribution of a growing global
population on the environment, at a time when world population was roughly half of what
it is now. It continues to be used with reference to population policy.
 The IPAT equation made a contribution to understanding the multiple causes of
environmental impact, and it continues to be developed as a method for improving our
understanding of these issues.
 It has not helped in identifying sustainable scale, but it is a useful framework to assist in
thinking about ways of reducing environmental impacts by reducing various types of
throughput.
 Ecological Footprint Analysis is an attempt to compute human carrying capacity on a
global basis.

Pre-modern Population Doctrines

 They are doctrines because they were just ideas which can’t be verified by scientific
methods.
 Ancient societies were mainly concerned about the reproductive potential of people due
to high levels of mortality (most births were insurance births).
 The doctrines about population growth started with the classical Greek period.
 Plato and Aristotle were interested in the quality of humans rather than quantity. They
believed that an optimum population is the ideal size that people could fully develop their
potentialities and realize their highest good.
 The Roman period was marked by pronatalist doctrines. Rapid population growth was
seen by emperors as a necessary means of assuring enough people to help expand the
empire.

26
 The Middle Ages tended to be dominated by an essentially antinatalist doctrine. E.g.
Augustine (354-430) believed abstinence to be the highest form of human existence.
 In the 17th century, the mercantilism doctrine emphasized the economic, political and
military advantages of a large population and favoured measures which stimulate
population growth.
 By the 19th century, pronatalist doctrine lost popularity because rapid population growth
had become associated with poverty.
 This gave birth to the physiocratic philosophy which argued that land, not people, is real
source of wealth of a nation. It argued that population size is determined by the demand
for labour, which is determined by the productivity of the land.
 The major ideas of this philosophy provoked Malthus to come up with the first major
theory of population.
Malthusian Theory (1789)

 Thomas Robert Malthus was a British economist, demographer and a reverend.

 He wrote an essay entitled Essay on the Principle of Population in 1789 explaining the
relationship between population growth and food supply.
 He argued that the rate of population growth was positively related to the general level of
material welfare i.e. economic development induces rapid population growth while
population growth led to poverty.
 He came up with two postulates which guided his theory and these are:
Food is necessary to the existence of man.
The passion between sexes is necessary and man is driven by the natural urge to
reproduce.

27
 He argued that the power of population is definitely greater than the power in the earth to
produce subsistence for men.
 From this argument he came up with two principles or tenets:
Population, when unchecked, increases at a geometric rate i.e. 1,2,4,8,16,32 etc
Food production at the subsistence level grew at an arithmetic rate i.e. 1,2,3,4,5,6
etc.
That is, growth of available resources is linear while population growth is often
non-linear (exponential). Its like a tortoise and hare race.
 The theoretical framework is illustrated in Figure

Diminishing Returns Over-population

Resource Ceiling

Qty

Food Supply Population Growth

Time

Figure: Malthusian Theoretical Framework

 The social and demographic mechanisms regulating population growth in the Malthusian
theory are mortality and age at marriage.
 With time, population growth outstrips the capacity of subsistence to support the
population and the immediate result is poverty (the Malthusian crisis).
 He viewed agricultural land as a scarce and inelastic resource with labour as a variable
factor and technical progresses (machinery, irrigation, fertilizers, and new types of crops)
are slow to occur.
 Therefore, as the population is increasing to grow there would be scarcity of land and
even an increase in inputs would not result in any increase in production.
 However, he argued that population cannot continue to grow unchecked thereby
suggesting the concepts of positive and preventive checks.
 Among the preventive checks (i.e. those which people can voluntarily adopt to control
their fertility), Malthus recommended moral restraint on reproduction as the best
preventive check, i.e. i) to follow celibacy ii) to marry late, iii) abstinence within
marriages or from entering into sexual unions resulting in procreation.

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 If human beings don't adopt the ‘preventive checks’, ‘positive checks’ which are beyond
the control of man come into operation in the form of famine/food shortages, infectious
diseases and epidemics, war, and other natural calamities, and a lot of population is wiped
out.
 For the remaining population food supply may be sufficient, though it may be a
temporary relief.

Critique
 The theory was heavily criticised because of its failure to foresee some of the
technological changes which had stopped or reduced the catastrophes predicted by
Malthus.
 Firstly, the ratio of arithmetical progression of means of subsistence and the geometrical
progression of population growth was never proved by empirical data. Fertility has been
brought under control by the use of contraceptives and socio-economic factors led
couples to desire for smaller families.
 He placed undue emphasis on the limitations of the supply of land. He did not recognise
that agricultural productivity can’t only be improved by extending the area under
cultivation. Agricultural production tremendously increased through agricultural
revolution since the 19th century in Western Europe and in the mid-20th century in Asia
and Latin America. Bongaarts (1994) noted that food production in the developing world
rose by an average of 117% between 1965 and 1996 although the majority of this gain
took place in Asia.
 The improvements in transportation enhances that food can be efficiently transported
from areas of surplus to areas of deficit. E.g. during the drought in 1992 in Zimbabwe, the
importation of food aid reduced the impact of this catastrophe.
 His assumption that there economic development induced high population growth did not
stood the test of time since empirical evidence shows that families with higher incomes
have fewer children than those with lower incomes.
 He was also criticised of his failure to distinguish between sex as a desire for pleasure and
as a desire for children.
 However, although the theory came under fierce critique it was a landmark in the history
of population which divided the history into two periods i.e. pre- and post-Malthusian.
 Some of his assumptions were noted in the developing world.
 The negative impact of population growth on food supply and scarcity of land has been
widely documented. The manifestations of hunger, under-nutrition and nutrition-related
diseases have been documented and are linked to shortage of food due to famine and
droughts e.g. in SSA. The land fragmentation in Asia is due to population pressure on
land. The problem of famine and crop failure in the Horn of Africa and the Sahel region
are attributed to rapid population growth where people are now encroaching into marginal
lands resulting in arid conditions, loss of forests and farmlands. A future in which
population increase outstrips the production of food and other necessities of life is a real
possibility for Niger which is doubling population every 20 years.
 Civil wars e.g. in DRC and Sudan are due to scarcity of resources especially land.
 The high burden of infectious diseases in many parts of Africa is a result of
overcrowding.
The Neo-Malthusian Theory

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 Where Malthus’ focus was on the effects of reproduction outstripping production for
people neo-Malthusians look most intensively at the consequences of the same factors
with respect to the environment and only indirectly at the consequences for people.
 In a situation of scarcity created by imbalance between people and resources, the people
are seen as over-exploiting the resources in an unsustainable way. This leads to a
degradation of the resource base i.e. soil degradation, overfishing etc which leads to
greater scarcity, greater overexploitation and greater degradation.
 Over time, population will tend to fall because the environment which sustains production
is increasingly degraded through the actions of the population itself.
 Their major concerns are: recurring problems of under nutrition and starvation, air and
water pollution, loss of forests and farmland and apparent nearing exhaustion of many
minerals and fossil fuels.
 However, they differ with Malthus in some aspects.
 They supported the use of family planning as a method of birth control. They believe that
people not only have sex for procreation but also for pleasure.
 They argued that sexual desire is the most powerful physical and psychological desire
among adults and its repression leads to so many mental and physical evils while desire
for children, particularly depend on social, economic, moral and cultural values.
 In short, they reject the argument that sexual desire is identical with the desire for
children.
 They argued that fulfilment of sexual desire is a must for a normal and healthy life and
there is no moral evil in using family planning to satisfy sexual desire.
 The neo-Malthusians have advanced the following arguments in favour of artificial birth
control:
Birth control is necessary to limit the family size in the context of available
economic means otherwise the standard of living will fall down considerably.
Birth control is equally necessary to limit the burden on world economy.
Birth control is necessary on the ground of health and medical care as well.
There is nothing wrong with artificial birth control (e.g. use of contraceptives,
induced abortions, prolonged breastfeeding – voluntary infecundity)
Birth control is today a social necessity and should be accepted as desirable
without any sense of immorality.
In short, they proposed measures to slow down the hare (population growth) to make their
favoured athlete, the tortoise (means of subsistence) win the race:

Plate 5.1: Slowing down the Hare and Quickening the Tortoise

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Boserup’s Model (1965)
Esther Boserup’s views on population growth were opposed to those of Thomas Malthus. She
wrote ‘The conditions of agricultural growth’ in 1965. It is also viewed as a more optimistic
approach to the issue of population growth.

 Her major argument was that population growth rather than being a hindrance to
economic growth, is actually a prerequisite for agricultural development.
 She believed that population growth stimulates innovation in technology and economic
organization. Boserup believed that people have resources of knowledge and technology
and that ‘necessity is the mother of invention’. Thus as population grows towards the
carrying capacity, people develop new ways to use agricultural land more productively.
 She argued that some societies adopted more labour-intensive techniques and more
technological sophisticated agricultural systems only when persistence of earlier land
intensive methods are threatened by increasing population density. By being prepared,
population growth and development can be sustained by using sensible planning and
suitable modern technology.
 E.g. some societies in Africa shifted from shifting cultivation to sedentary agriculture due
to increased population densities.

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1.6 POPULATION MIGRATION
Viewpoint!! (The Way I see It! Or Just Thinking . . . )

Migration is the movement of people from one region to another on a permanent

basis.
Key variables of migration – Space, distance, time, frequency.
People migrate due to some reasons:
 Economic - To improve job prospects, income and standard of living which is usually the
most important for the majority of people.
 Social - the prospect of better educational opportunities, better medical services, or the
desire to join families and friends.
 Political - religious or political persecution, forcing people to flee for their lives.
 Environmental - problems caused by drought, famine, epidemics, volcanic eruptions or
other environmental disasters.
Push factors - are disadvantages or problems with an area that cause people to leave
- such as few jobs, lack of educational or medical facilities & religious persecution
Pull Factors - are advantages that attract migrants to a particular destination - They
are often the opposite of push factors or could be more specific as in many wishing
to come to Britain for their knowledge of the language for example.
Benefits of migration:
 Relief of shortages such as jobs, housing for country of departure
 Emigrants send money back to their families
 If migrants return they take back new skills with them
 Reduction of birth rate as it is mainly the young males who leave the country
 The host country acquire young energetic workers with enterprise
 Cultural diversification and a more multi-ethnic society develops
 Unwanted jobs are filled by cheap labour
Costs of migration:
 The country of departure loses its most enterprising individuals
 Only the very young and old remain creating a vicious circle of decline
 Growth of emigration culture
 Inhabitants depend on remittances from the people who have emigrated
 In the host country there is increased pressure on resources such as housing
 Discrimination can develop against the ethnic minorities
 Congestion can develop in cities
 Disease can spread - TB
 Social problems can develop due predominance of young male migrants

Box 1: Activities or Talking Point . . .

Why do people migrate?
What are the social and economic implications of population redistribution, through, for
example, rural to urban or international migration?
Describe how push and pull factors can cause migration.
What are the effects of migration on areas from where people are moving from and on the
areas that receive immigrants that you have studied?
What are the political, religious and economic factors that produce refugees?

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 Oucho (1996) defines migration as the spatial mobility or geographical mobility of a
population which has distinguishing characteristics such as a change of usual place of
residence across a defined administrative boundary (an origin and a destination) and an
interval or duration or residence.
 However, migration is difficult to define because there is no agreement on the duration
away from usual place of residence for us to refer the movement as migration. In
addition, some people change the usual place of residence without moving due to
alteration of political boundaries.
 The UN regarded a movement which lasts 12 months away from the usual place of
residence as migration.
 Some scholars, however, tried to distinguish between short- and long-term migration and
conclude that a stay away from the usual place of residence which lasts 6 months is
referred to as short-term migration while that lasts one year is long-term migration.
 Circulation migration refers to cases where the migrant does not stay at the place of
destination for all of his or her lifetime.
 Migration includes: purpose, distance, direction, and duration.
Typology of Migration
 Types of migration are classified on the basis of space and time.
 Classification according to space encompasses direction i.e. rural-urban, urban-rural,
rural-rural and urban-urban.
 Classification on the basis of time involves duration i.e. periodic, seasonal, irregular,
permanent etc.
Theories of Migration
 Theories of migration are generally classified according to two schools of thought: (i) the
neo-classical school and (ii) the historical-structural school.
 The neoclassical school explains migration in terms of economic law of demand and
supply i.e. an individual decides to migrate after comparing benefits and losses. A
migrant is primarily motivated by economic factors and migration is seen as redressing
problems of labour shortages and surpluses.
 The historical-structural school views migration in the in the same context as socio-
economic as well as political structural changes in society. Migration is due to imbalances
between the social relations in production and economic development. Unequal
development leads to core-periphery regions.

Ravenstein’s Laws of Migration (1885)

 He came up with some set of propositions to account for the characteristics of migrants.
The rate of migration between two points will be inversely related to the distance
between these points.
Migrants tend to move first towards nearby towns and eventually gravitate
towards the most rapidly growing cities.
Each main current of migration produces a compensating counter-current.
Rural inhabitants are more migratory than urban dwellers. Thus, net internal
migration streams will normally have a rural-urban predominance.
Migration streams will have a built-in tendency to increase over time as a result of
increases in means of locomotion and development of manufactures and
commerce.
Economic motive is always predominant in the matrix factors influencing the
decision to migrate.

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1st “Laws of Migration” 1870s-80s
• Distance: most short (local rural to urban) longer distances to larger cities
• Gender: females mostly short migration (marriage/mills) males more common longer
• Technology: as transport improves leads to greater volume of migration
• Motive: economic motives main justification
• Residence: rural residents more likely to be migrants

Patterns of migrants noted by Ravenstein:

• Stream: migrants from a given rural area often make up a stream from some origin to same
destination – also a counter-stream of returnees
• Steps: migrants more rural therefore local/small town then small town to major town (not
directly rural to big city)

Lee’s Theory of migration

 He noted that no matter how short or how long, how easy or difficult, every act of
migration involves an origin, destination and an intervening set of obstacles (Figure 3).

Intervening Factors
+ o - + - + o - + -

o - + -+ o - + - +

Push Factors Pull Factors

Figure 3: Factors Affecting Migration

 He argued that every origin and destination area is assumed to have positive forces which
hold people within the area or pull others to it; negative factors which repel or push
people from the area or zero forces which on balance exert neither an attractive nor
repellent force and towards which people are therefore essentially indifferent.
 The effect of each of these forces on one’s decision to migrate will vary with the
personality as well as the other individual characteristics e.g. education, skill level, gender
of different people.
 The impact of intervening obstacles varies from one migrant to another e.g. transport
costs.
 He asserted that the decision to migrate and the process of migration is determined by:
Factors associated with the area of origin – push factors
Factors associated with the area of destination – pull factors
Intervening factors e.g. distance, transport costs

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 Personal factors i.e. an individual’s perception of origin and destination factors is
what determines actual migration.
 He formulated several hypotheses:
The volume of migration is inversely related to the difficulty of intervening
variables and varies with the fluctuation in the economy and with the stage of
progress in a country or area.
Migration tends to take place largely within well defined streams and for every
major migration stream, a counter-stream develops.
Migration is selective.

Critique
 It is of limited help for policy analysis in less developed countries (LDCs) because of its
high degree of generality and the interdependence of many of its hypotheses.
 It is difficult to determine which positive or negative factors at both origin and destination
are quantitatively the most important to different groups and classes of people.
Todaro Migration Model
 Previous economic theories of migration viewed rural-urban migration as desirable in
order to solve labour shortages in urban-industrial areas. They argued that people migrate
from rural to urban areas purely for economic reasons and with time when a saturation is
reached in urban areas the migration stops and people look elsewhere where there is
labour demand.
 However, evidence from many LDCs in the 1960s showed that rural-urban migration
increased substantially inspite of rising levels of urban unemployment and
underemployment.
 Todaro (1969) argues that migration process is not only determined by economic factors
but also influenced by physical, social, cultural, demographic and communication factors.
 Migrants consider various labour market opportunities available to them as between the
rural and the urban sectors and choose the one which maximizes their expected gains
from migration.
 Expected gains are measured by (i) differences in real incomes between rural and urban
opportunities and (ii) the probability of new migrant obtaining an urban job.
 Therefore, migration proceeds in response to urban-rural differentials in expected rather
than actual gains because people continue to migrate into urban areas even if they know
that their chances of getting a job are slim.
 He came up with the following propositions:
Migration is stimulated primarily by rational economic considerations of
perceived benefits and costs mostly financial but also psychological.
The decision to migrate depends on ‘expected’ rather than the actual urban-rural
wage differential where the ‘expected’ differential is determined by the interaction
of two factors i.e. the actual urban-rural wage differential and the probability of
successfully obtaining employment in the urban modern sector.
The probability of obtaining an urban job is inversely related to the urban
unemployment rate.
Migration rates in excess of urban opportunity growth rate are not only possible
but also rational and probable in the face of continued positive urban-rural
expected income differentials. High rates of urban unemployment are therefore
inevitable outcomes of the serious imbalances of economic opportunities between
urban and rural areas of most underdeveloped countries.

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International Migration in Southern Africa
 Although people primarily migrate for economic reasons, socio-cultural, environmental,
historical, geographical and political factors also account for international migration in
Southern Africa.
 International migration in this region took well defined patterns with the penetration of
capitalism during European colonialism.
 Matlosa (2001) argues that the nature of migration trends reflect the manner in which the
region was integrated into the world economy and uneven development of capitalism
especially since the colonial period.
 Economic development in the region revolved around mining and commercial
agriculture.
 The discovery of gold in South Africa resulted in rapid growth and expansion of cities
e.g. Johannesburg. South Africa became the major prime destination of migrants from
neighbouring countries.
 High influx of labour migrants was reinforced by the formation of recruiting agencies e.g.
the Employment Bureau of Africa (TEBA) and WENELA.
 The emergence of commercial farms and plantations in Southern Rhodesia (now
Zimbabwe) also attracted labour from Mozambique, Malawi and Zambia. By 1956 there
were as many as 286 thousand male and 15 thousand female labour migrants in
Zimbabwe from these countries.
 With the end of colonialism in the region, new economic forces replaced traditional ones
but without any change in the dominant migration streams.
 Globalization and economic structural adjustments (SAPs) are producing new
opportunities, incentives and costs for migrating. SAPs led to high levels of
unemployment, unequal income differentials between countries.
 Globalization ushered new opportunities for women especially in the retail, services,
hospitality and textile industries.
 Cross border trading has increased significantly in the region due to economic recessions
in some countries.
 The political environment is fragile characterised by hostile civil-military relations and
lack of respect of political freedom leading some people to migrate as political refugees.
 Ethnic ties take precedence over the ties of citizenship in region thereby perpetrating
undocumented migration.
 Geographical proximity is also causing cross-border migration. With its vibrant economy
and bordering countries with poor economies, South Africa became the main destination
for the majority of the migrants.
Women and Migration
 Historically, labour markets favoured male labour and few women migrate.
 Social norms and gender roles are important in translating expectations into behavioural
intentions and subsequent move.
 There were societal concerns which discourage women to migrate, i.e:
There are sex-specific cultural constraints on female mobility and implications of
differences in economic expectations.
There is a concern in some countries about the erosion of moral values through
exposure to modern urban lifestyles among single women.
Most married women need maternal child health services and child care facilities.
Loosening of traditional bonds as reflected more sensitively by changes in female
(as opposed to male) migrants.

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 The increase in female migrants in the recent years is taking place with economic,
structural and socio-cultural changes which are taking place at the global level.
 Empowerment of women through education improves job opportunities for women.
 The process of globalization is putting pressure on national governments to liberalise their
economies to attract foreign direct investment. However, many multinational companies
(MNCs) favour female labour due to the nature of their operations.
 Feminine qualities e.g. deference to command, willingness to withstand rigid discipline
and the lower likelihood of joining or forming unions have made women ideal workers in
these MNCs.
 Women are more concerned about lower income, comfort expectancies and lower work
satisfaction.
 Globalisation also resulted in improvements in transmission of information and in the
explosion of retail, tourism, service, textile, entertainment and sex industries.
 In 2004, UK records revealed that the largest category of work permit applications from
foreign women were from entertainment and leisure, hospitality and catering etc.
 Most jobs are closely related to traditional domestic roles of women. In Pacific Asia
many young women work in hotels, restaurants, hair saloons or as massage girls and
hostess in hotel lounges for escort services or as prostitutes.
 Cross-border trading in Zimbabwe is dominated by women.

1.7 POPULATION AND HEALTH

Viewpoint!! (The Way I see It! Or Just Thinking . . . )


Box 1: Activities or Talking Point . . .

 The World Health Organisation defines health as a state of complete physical, mental and
social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.
 Health status is both a determinant of population change, largely through population
aging, and a consequence of population growth, with smaller family size associated with
lower mortality, and of economic and social development.
 A population’s health status influences all components of population change. It has effect
on individual health status on mortality, morbidity and fertility. For example, it either
discourages high fertility largely through improved child survival and also through the
biological incapability of a sick woman to bear children.
 People die because they degenerate; are killed by diseases that can be transmitted from
one person to another and are killed by products of the social and economic environment.
 Diseases are classified into two main categories:
Communicable or infectious diseases are those that can be transmitted from one
person to another and the life span of these diseases range from hours to years.
Degenerative or non-communicable diseases are those which are caused by
genetic factors and behaviour of people. They are characterised by uncertain
origin, multiple risk factors, prolonged course of illness, non-contagious origin,
functional impairment or disability and incurability.

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Meade and Earickson’s Human Ecology of Diseases
 Meade and Earickson (2000) highlighted that disease ecology examines the relationships
between populations and the changing environment, and studies how processes of
population interactions support or discourage disease (Figure 4).
 The triangle of human ecology focuses on three main categories of factors that affect the
state of health i.e. population, behaviour, and habitat.
 Population is any biological organism that may carry and host disease.
 Behaviour refers to the observed activities among a population, including cultural aspects,
patterns of movement and migration, and the implementation of disease prevention and
control.
 Habitat refers to the characteristics of the surroundings in which individuals and
communities exist and is divided into three subcategories: the natural, social, and built
habitats.

Gender, age, income,

education, length of
residence in county

POPULATION

Physical, social and built Beliefs, knowledge, practices

environments of preventative behaviours

STATE OF
HEALTH
HABITAT BEHAVIOURS

Figure 4: Factors Affecting Disease Ecology

Ecology of Infectious Diseases

 Direct effects of weather and climate on health can manifest in form of injury, disease,
infection and loss of life associated with storms, floods, heat waves and high
temperatures.
 Variability and change in climate can cause widespread disruptions and contamination of
water supplies and thereby increasing the potential for epidemics of water-related
diseases.
Exposure to ground level ozone has also been shown to increase the sensitivity of
asthmatics to other pollutants which is a problem because high concentrations of ozone
often coincide with high levels of other pollutants.

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Epidemiological Transition Theory
 Epidemiological transition refers to the long-term and complex changes in the cause of
death patterns and changes in health and disease that occur during the demographic and
socioeconomic transformation in a population.
 Abdel Omran (1971) formulated the theory to account for epidemiological transition of
diseases in developed countries.
 He argues that there was a transition in the causes and conditions of illness and death with
progress in modernisation.
 In the early stages of development the major causes of deaths are traditional hazards were
infectious diseases, environmental contamination, poor sanitation and hygiene, nutritional
deficiency related diseases etc.
 In later stages in development there was a transition where degenerative diseases and
unhealthy lifestyles are now the major causes of death.

1.8 POPULATION POLICY FRAMEWORK

Viewpoint!! (The Way I see It! Or Just Thinking . . . )
The best way to control rapid population growth is to adopt this ideology: Not Too Early;
Not too Late; Not Too Soon; and Not Too Many!
Birth control ensures women do not start child-bearing too early; do not have too many
children; do not have births that are too closely spaced; and do not take child-bearing too
late in their reproductive lives and endanger their lives.
A population policy is a programme that guides a country on how to manage its
population growth in order to achieve sustainable development.
Agenda 21 recognises that to achieve sustainable development throughout the world,
population must be managed and controlled by a process of ‘demographic dynamics’.

Box 1: Activities or Talking Point . . .

Examine the view that Agenda 21 recognises that to achieve sustainable development
throughout the world, population must be managed and controlled by a process of
"demographic dynamics".
What has been the impact of child sex preference in China’s One Child Policy and its
demographic consequences?

 Demeny (2003) defines population policy as deliberately constructed or modified

institutional arrangements and/or specific programmes through which governments
influence, directly or indirectly, demographic change.
 Its purpose is either to maintain consistency in behaviour or to alter behaviour, in order to
achieve a specified goal.
 It represents a strategy for achieving a particular pattern of population change.
 The strategy may consists of only one specific component e.g. to lower maternal
mortality or it may be multifaceted to reduce the impacts of population change on
development.
 A population policy addresses population issues and problems as they are perceived by
the people of a country.

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 In almost all developing countries, population policies are designed to reduce the high
rate of population growth.
 A formal policy statement must include goals and objectives, a rationale and an
implementation plan.
 The first step in the formulation of a policy is to assess the current demographic trends
and evaluating the expected consequences of current trends e.g. lower incomes,
environmental degradation.
 An assessment of current trends requires an understanding of the causes of population
change.
 If the expected consequences differ from the desired result then there is need to intervene
to alter the course of demographic events.
 An evaluation of the expected consequences depends on projections i.e. statements about
what would happen under a given, specified set of conditions.
 Once the idea of what the future may be or at least a range of reasonable alternatives is
established, there is need to compare that with what we aspire to in demographic and
social terms. This involves establishing a goal.
 There are several different basic population policy orientations that can be adopted i.e.
retarding growth, promoting growth and maintaining growth.
January 2017

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