Growing Populations, Changing Landscapes Studies from India, China, and the United States (2001) / Chapter Skim
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2. Elements of Population Growth
2. Elements of Population Growth
Pages 23-42
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From page 23... ...
Some major patterns are apparent, however, when the three countries and the six study regions in them (Kerala, India; Haryana, India; the Jitai Basin, China; the Pearl River Delta, China; South Florida, USA; and Chicago, USA) are compared on several dimensions: changes in the rates and components of population increase, geographic redistribution of the population, and the influences of external economic and demographic events.
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From page 24... ...
SOURCE: U.S. Census Bureau.
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From page 25... ...
At the other extreme, Kerala, which is only 26 percent urban, has a dense system of village settlements that results in a population density almost as high as those of the Chicago and Pearl River Delta regions. CHANGES IN DENSITY AND POPULATION As the world moves into the twenty-first century, one major reason for concern is not just the current population density level but also the rate at which it has been increasing over time.
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From page 26... ...
China's average growth rate rose from less than 1.0 percent in 1950 to over 3 percent in the 1963, interrupted by declines during the "Great Leap Forward" of the late 1950s and the early 1960s. The high birth rate was the response of the population to the huge losses of life during the Great Famine and was a catch-up in births to replace the children who died or who were not born in those years.
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From page 27... ...
Since 1950 the crude death rate has fluctuated slightly with improvements in life expectancy, sometimes outweighed by increases in the proportion of the population over age 65, so that by 1998 the crude death rate was eight deaths per thousand persons (Figure 2-3~. The demographic transition in fertility in the United States was not as smooth as that in other countries with developed economies.
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From page 28... ...
Today, China appears to have passed through all the stages of the demographic transition. As a result of falling death rates and even faster falling birth rates, China's rate of natural increase (and its rate of population growth)
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From page 29... ...
~ ~9~ ,~9~ ,~9~ ~99~ ~99 Year FIGURE 2-5 Demographic transition of India, 1950-1998. During the second half of the twentieth century, India too showed gradual but steady reductions in its crude death rates from 27 per thousand persons in 1950 to 9 per thousand in 2000 signaling the beginning of its demographic transition (Figure 2-5~.
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From page 30... ...
30 ~ ~ A cat)
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From page 32... ...
Age Structure and Age-Specific Vital Rates Rates of population growth and natural increase and crude birth and death rates help paint a rough picture of population change, but a fuller understanding of the underlying population dynamics lies in a more detailed look at the population age structure and age-specific birth and death rates. For example, a young population with a pattern of relatively high age-specific mortality rates could produce a lower crude death rate than an older population with relatively low age-specific mortality rates.
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From page 33... ...
The Chinese total fertility rate in 2000 at 1.8 children per woman was also lower than the U.S. rate of 2.1, but the larger percentage of the population that is of child-bearing age led to a larger crude birth rate in China in 2000 (16 per thousand persons)
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From page 34... ...
. Increased migration, such as the heavy flow into the rapidly urbanizing Pearl River Delta has accompanied economic development and the recent rapid growth of major cities as well as smaller towns (Ma and Lin, 1993~.
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From page 35... ...
Within this literature, perhaps the I = PAT formulation is the most well known that is, negative impacts on the environment are a direct function of population size, affluence, and technology (Holdren and Ehrlich, 1974~. Thus the population of a highly developed country with high consumption levels would have a much more negative effect on the environment than a similar population in a country with lower levels of economic development and consumption.
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From page 36... ...
Although immigration flows have only a small effect on India's overall population trends, capital flows and remittances from Indians abroad are playing an increasingly important role in the economy. Study Findings The vastly different characteristics of the six study regions provide a wide gamut for viewing the role of population as both an independent variable and a dependent variable.
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From page 37... ...
In recent years Kerala and the Jitai Basin have experienced declines in fertility and considerably lower population growth. The lower population growth has accompanied the conversion of agricultural land to less laborintensive uses, whether it be the conversion of rice paddy to coconut or rubber plantations in Kerala or the transformation of marginal hillside cultivation to pine forests in the Jitai Basin.
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From page 38... ...
The predominantly urban sites in the study the Pearl River Delta, South Florida, and Chicago have the higher migration rates (Chicago, until recently) characteristic of areas with high economic growth, but they also have the lower fertility levels typical of developed economies and of urban areas in general.
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From page 39... ...
Both domestic and international migration to the area continues to stimulate population growth, although at a much slower rate than in the early part of the twentieth century. Chapter 10 on South Florida describes various stages of land use change and population settlement from the frontier days before 1900 to the present, drainage and land conversion activities during 1900-1930, the postwar economic boom and flood control projects of 1950-1970, and the more recent periods of environmental protection and restoration of natural habitats.
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From page 40... ...
Government policies can be effective as well for example, public health campaigns to reduce mortality, strong national family planning programs, and strict regional and local zoning and land use restrictions that influence population distribution. Much of population theory deals with closed systems, but in today's world there is no such thing.
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From page 41... ...
1994. Demographic Transition in Kerala in the 1980s.
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