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Principals of Sociology
Summary & Outline for Chapters 15 & 16
with Assignment and Unit Test Review
Compiled and Edited by Joe Eulo
http://PSYCH.MyUCCedu.com/SOC101
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CHAPTER 15: POPULATION AND URBANIZATION
WHAT IS DEMOGRAPHY?
Demography is the study of the size, composition, and distribution of the population. Population
growth is the result of fertility, mortality, and migration.
POPULATION GROWTH IN GLOBAL CONTEXT
Over two hundred years ago, Thomas Malthus warned that overpopulation would result in major
global problems such as poverty and starvation. According to the Marxist perspective,
overpopulation occurs because of capitalists’ demands for a surplus of workers to suppress wages
and heighten workers’ productivity. Demographic transition is the process by which some
societies have moved from high birth and death rates to relatively low birth and death rates as a
result of technological development.
PERSPECTIVES ON URBANIZATION AND THE GROWTH OF CITIES
Urban sociology is the study of social relationships and political and economic structures in the city. Functionalist perspectives (ecological models) of urban growth include the concentric zone model, the sector model, and the multiple-nuclei model. According to the political economy models of conflict theorists, urban growth is influenced by capital investment decisions, power and resource inequality, class and class conflict, and government subsidy. Feminist theorists
suggest that cities have gender regimes; women’s lives are affected by both public and private
patriarchy. Interactionists focus on the positive and negative aspects of people’s experiences in
the urban settings.
URBAN PROBLEMS IN THE UNITED STATES
Urbanization, suburbanization, gentrification, and the growth of edge cities have had a dramatic
impact on the U.S. population. Many central cities have experienced fiscal crises that have
resulted in cuts in services, lack of maintenance of the infrastructure, and a health care crisis.
POPULATION AND URBANIZATION IN THE FUTURE
Rapid global population growth is inevitable in the 21st century. The urban population will triple
as increasing numbers of people in lesser-developed and developing nations migrate from rural
areas to megacities that contain a high percentage of a region’s population.
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1.DEMOGRAPHY: THE STUDY OF POPULATION
A.Demography is a subfield of sociology that examines population size, composition
and distribution.
B. Three primary causes of population change
1.Fertility is the actual level of childbearing for an individual or a population.
1. The crude birth rate is the number of live births per 1,000 people in a
population in a given year.
2. In most areas of the world, women are having fewer children; women
who have six or more children tend to live in agricultural regions where
children’s labor is essential to the family’s economic survival and child
mortality rates are very high.
2.Mortality is the incidence of death in a population.
a. The crude death rate is the number of deaths per 1,000 people in a
population in a given year.
b. The infant mortality rate is the number of deaths of infants under 1 year
of age per 1,000 live births in a given year.
3.Migration is the movement of people from one geographic area to another for
the purpose of changing residency.
a.Immigration is the movement of peoplei nto a geographic area to take up
residency.
b.Emigration is the movement of peopleout of a geographic area to take
up residency elsewhere.
c. The crude net migration rate is the net number of migrants (total in-
migrants minus total out-migrants) per 1,000 people in a population in a
given year.
d.Pull factors are the reason migrants become attracted to an area.
e.Push factors are the reasons immigrants leave an area.
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