Population and growth is a massive issue in the world today. It has held geographers’ interest for several years. There has been discussion and debate over the max amount of people that the world can sustain. Some geographers believe that the world is already overpopulated, while others believe that we are working toward a serious overpopulation problem in the future. One thing that everyone can agree on is some countries and regions, such as China, are vastly over populated, and other countries and regions, such as Europe and Japan, are experiences issues with population decline. In all three cases there are external and internal contributors. These places are attempting to deal with their population crisis in different ways, such as child incentive policies, population control policies, and even immigration policies.
Demographic transition is defined as a model that describes the stages of population change within a country. The country will start out having a high birth rate, high death rate, and low rate of natural increase; then moves through a middle stage of high birth rate, low death rate, and high rate of natural increase. Finally, the country will reach the third and final stage of a low birth rate, low or medium death rate, and low or negative rate of population increase (Hobbs G-5). Europe is considered the real life example of demographic transition. In the third stage of the demographic transition, they are currently experiencing what is commonly acknowledged
Population Growth is an issue that exists in today’s world that needs to be confronted before it becomes out of hand. The population itself has reached overwhelming numbers making it a problem that could turn to be dangerous. The amount of humans that the earth can support or the carrying capacity is slowly rising but at a much slower rate than the population growth rate. The increasing growth rate has its negative effects environmentally, agriculturally, socially, and economically and also has its positive effects nationally, and economically. The government is brainstorming and trying to come up with ways to decrease
Over population is an extremely serious problem facing the world today. According to an article from Newsweek in Oct. 2009 called “Where do babies come from?”, today’s world population has reached over 6.6 billion people. Also the article mentioned that in 2009 57.4% of all new born babies who were born this year came from Asia alone. This is an issue because over population can lead to hasty consumption of resources. China who has one of the largest population in the world with over 1.3 billion people, has taken a stance against over population.
When the early humans left Africa, there was only 5,000 people. Now, the planet is overpopulated, over 7 billion and counting. Nations all over the world to use too much of their finite resources and spend too much money to maintain the life of their population. Other issues intensify with the addition of more people, such as poverty, starvation, and climate change. This is a problem even developed countries face, like Japan for instance. However, Japan has been successful in combating the problems that arrive with overpopulation in several ways. In order for the world as a whole to overcome overpopulation, nations must look to Japan as an example.
The human population is growing at an exponential rate. It is expected that the human population is going to increase to 9.6 billion by 2050, compared to 7.2 billion in 2013 (Porter). Because of the increasing human population, the rate of food production increases causing food waste produced to rise as well. Food consumption has decreased to less than a quarter of what was consumed in 1961 for people living in developing countries (Porter). These statistics are important to highlight because according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, most landfills are made up of food waste which is causing the emissions of greenhouse gasses. The Environmental Protection Agency also states that cows produce one of the most dangerous greenhouse gas known as methane. Methane is 21 more times stronger than carbon dioxide. The reason why this needs consideration is because beef is the most consumed meat compared to other meats such as chicken, which has less greenhouse gas emissions. Countries with the most greenhouse gas emissions come from great financial economies in which citizens are privileged with what they eat. The increasing rate of releasing emissions by food waste can be dramatically slowed down by, using systems that convert food waste into a source of renewable energy, implementing policies that limit the amount of food waste in each country, and having governmental officials influence citizens to take into consideration the amount of food waste they produce.
1a. China and Japan are both industrialized countries where population is decreasing; however, they are both decreasing due to different social, economic, or political factors. With 1.33 billion people, China has been one of the world’s most populous countries, however due to the overpopulation crisis; it caused implications and strain upon the country’s energy and resources. This called for the government attention to fix the issue of overpopulation by developing the “one-child policy” which limits couples to having only one child each. The overall outcome of the policy was to reduce population growth, increase economic growth, limit poverty, and to create better health for the citizens of China. Governments
Over time, human population has increased and unfortunately has caused a lot of problems to the economy as well as to the environment. Many of the issues that population growth has affected are climate changes, consumption and waste, family planning, poverty, food and hunger, and changes to the economy. According to data researched by the United Nations, “the world population will reach 8 billion to 10 billion by the year 2030” (Livi-Bacci: 1992:31-32 cited in Robbins, 2010:130). Eight to ten billion is a lot of people living in the world, which unfortunately might cause more problems than solutions to these issues. The book written by author Richard H. Robbins, Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism, includes an
Demographic transition is the process by which a nation/country moves from high birth rate and high death rates to low birth and low death rates as the growth population in the interim (Weeks, 2005). Some of the nations that have gone through this transitions are; Canada, Germany, United States and England. The demographic transition to an industrialized society is harmful to the environment. Industrialized countries also have the largest ecological and carbon footprint comparative to developing/non-industrialized nations. Nevertheless, demographic transitions have some notable advantages. Countries that have gone through demographic transitions have low birth and death rates. Citizens in
Demographic transition involves the changes a less industrialized country undergoes regarding birth rates and death rates from being an industrialized country. The change implies the reduction of birth and mortality rates from a less industrialized country into an industrialized country with reduced birth and death rates. Several countries, especially the European countries, exemplify this mode of transition in their historical information. Besides, the changes involved in demographic transition filters down to the environment in the long-run. The surrounding environment suffers from the expanded industrialization and due to the demographic transition (Smout, 2009).
According to Kunkel in “Global Aging: Comparative Perspectives on Aging and the Life Course”, the Demographic Transition Theory is a “... set of interrelated social and demographic changes that result in both rapid growth and aging of a population” (Kunkel 77). This theory essentially consists of stages that explain how most, but not all, countries undergo a stage of rapid fertility and death then see a decline in births, thus leading to a growth in the aging population.
Manuscript received March 7, 2013; revised August 28, 2013. NICTA is funded by the Australian Government as represented by the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy and the Australian Research Council through the ICT Centre of Excellence program.
Demography is the study of the components of population variation and change. Death rate and birth rate are two determinants of population change. Theory of Demographic Transition is comparatively recent theory that has been accepted by several scholars throughout the world. This theory embraces the observation that all countries in the world go through different stages in the growth of population. A nation's economy and level of development is directly related to that nation's birth and death rates. Population history can be divided into different stages. Some of the scholars have divided it into three and some scholars have divided it into five stages. These stages or classifications demonstrate a
With a growing population in every country comes with challenges and dilemmas. 7.4 billion humans are living on earth today and it is projected to be around 9 billion by the year 2040. Important aspects partake into population growth such as fertility, migration, and mortality. Other aspects greatly effect population growth, however; each country has their own rate of growth. In 20-30 years the world population will grow yet, at grow at a decreasing rate which still raises challenges for the over populated countries. I have great interest in China; I will be explaining and giving an outline on the possible problems that China is currently facing, future dilemmas and advice to advise China with solutions with the it’s challenges.
With the world running out of resources and struggling to sustain the recent boom in world population, governments around the world have been responding by trying to curb population growth with population programmes. Fertility Transition is a process whereby a country changes from a high birth rate to lower birth rate and is measured in terms of number of live births per 1000 women. This process usually occurs when a country is developing. Countries which are undergoing fertility transition in recent years have undergone a much more rapid transformation than when the present day developed economies underwent transition a couple hundred years ago. High fertility is often associated with poverty as there is a lack of education, healthcare and lack of sustainability within a country. The reasons which cause a country to experience fertility transition include; the changing of economy structure or economic growth, investment in education and the provision/subsidisation of contraception.
Human population is an ever changing measure. As time goes on, the human population underwent a continuous makeover. Population changes due to many natural processes: migration, death, and birth. However, populations amongst different areas (continents, countries, cities, etc) are different from each other. They are, in a way, related to each other; population change in one area may affect population of another. Not only that, the speed at which a population changes also varies. Because of all of the reasons stated above, it is a very crucial study that can reveal much of the needed reference to many decision making questions national leaders
The reason I chose this topic is because in my country Ethiopia the rapid growth of population alarmed me, just around the 1965 our population was very low however in the past few years it has tripled form 20 million to over 100 million. This was when my interest in my countries population developed. Population is one of the conversational topics when talking about a countries profile, in view of the fact that it plays a huge role, in a countries work force, consumption and economy. I will be collecting data and modelling them to predict the population for the next 5 to 10 years. I will also be doing this for Kenya to see the relationship between the two countries to prove that this rapid growth of population is happening not only in our country but in our neighboring countries too.