Chapter 2

Demographics : Population and Urbanization

Key Issues:

1. What is demography and what are its basic idea?

2. What are the key factors sapping ( draining )

population?

3. What are the major types of cities and how have they
grown?

1.0 Introduction

Since the beginning of Earth’s history, population of the

entire earth was never more than 500 millions.

About 250 years ago, however, the world population began

to push upward. We now add about 90 million people to the
planet each year, an increase that made the global total to
6.1 billions in 2000, more than 6 times larger than it was in
1800.

It is projected that the world population will be 8.4 billion by

2010 and may reached the peak of 9 billion by 2070. After
that, it might start to decline.

Demography – the study of human population.

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 It analyses the size and composition of a population
as well as how people move from places to place.

The main concern is about the effect of population

growth and its control.

2.0 Key Factors shaping the population

2.1 Fertility

The study of human population begin with how many people

are born.

Fertility is the incidence of childbearing in a country’s

population.

Crude Birth Rate is the number of births per thousand of

the population.

In 2000, the birth rate for the world was 22

Total Period Fertility Rate ( TPFR ) is the average

number of children each woman would have in her lifetime.

This measure tells us the average number of children women

have had in the past and allows us to project how many they
may be likely to have in the future.

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2.2 Mortality

Population size is also affected by mortality, the incidence

of death in a country’s population.

Crude death Rate, the number of deaths in a given year

for every thousand people in a population.

Mortality rate also permit the calculation of life

expectancy, the average to which people in given society
are likely to live.

Males born in Britain in 1997 can expect to live 74 years,

while females can look to nearly 80 years.

Infants mortality rate, the number of deaths among

infants under one year of age for each thousand live births in
a given year.

2.3 Migration

Population size is also affected by migration, the

movement of people into and out of a particular
territory.

Migration is sometimes involuntary – such as the

forcible transportation.

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 Voluntary migration, however, is usually the result of
complex ‘push-pull’ factors. Dissatisfaction with life in
poor countries may ‘push’ people to move, just as the
higher living standards of rich nations may exert a
powerful ‘pull’.

People’s movement into a territory, commonly termed

immigration, is measured in an in-migration rate,
calculated as the number of people entering an area
for every thousand people in the population.

Movement out of a territory, or emigration, is measured

in terms of the out-migration rate, the number leaving
for every thousand people.

Net Migration rate ; Both type of migration usually

occur simultaneously, their difference is called the net
migration rate.

2.4 Population Growth

Fertility, mortality and migration all affect a society’s

population.

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 Natural increase ( more births than deaths ) accounts
for the majority of the population expansion in the high
growth regions.

2.5 Population Composition

Demographer also study the composition of a

society’s population at a given point in time.

One simple variable is the sex ratio : the number of

males for every hundred female in a given population.

Sex ratio are usually below 100 because women

typically outlive men.

3.0 History and Theory of Population Growth

Throughout, most of human history, societies favored

large families, since human labor was the key to
productivity.

Currently, global population is increasing by 90 million

people each year, with more than 90 per cent of this
growth in poor societies.

Without a change in global consumption and living patterns,

this increase will have dramatic social and environmental
consequences.

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3.1 Malthusian Theory

Thomas Robert Malthus ( 1766 – 1834 ), an English

clergyman and economist, noted that the number of
people in the world had begun to increase
geometrical ( that is, doubling each time ). Even though
people were improving faming technology and techniques,
Malthus feared that the limited range of farmland could
only sustain an arithmetic increase in the production of
food.

He concluded that the world might head towards a period of

catastrophic starvation.

Malthus noted that people could slow the tide of

population increase through preventive checks, such
as family planning, sexual abstinence and delay
marriages.

He also predicted that nature check like famine,

disease and war would slow – but not prevent – the
progression towards the final catastrophe.

3.2 Demographic Transition Theory

Malthus’ rather crude analysis has been superseded by

demographic transition theory, a thesis linking
demographic changes to a society’s level of
technological development.

Why did world population soar after 1800?

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Why is population increase much higher in poor countries
that in rich nation?

Demographic transition theory answers these questions by

analyzing birth and death rates at four stages :

Stage 1

Society yet to be industrialize.

Have high birth rates because of the economic value of

children,

The absence of effective family planning,

The right risk that children will not survive to adulthood.

Death rate, too, are high, due to the period outbreak of

plagues or other infectious disease,

Low living standard

A lack of medical technology.

But deaths almost offset births,

So population increase is modest.

Stage 2

The onset of industrialization, brings a demographic

transition as population surges upward.

Technology expands food supplies and science combats

diseases.

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 Death rates falls sharply but birth rate remain high, reducing
in rapid population growth.

Stage 3

A mature industrial economy, birth rates drop, finally coming

in line with death rates, resulting in curbing population
growth.

Fertility falls, because more children born do survive to

adulthood and rising standards make raising children
expensive.

Affluence transforms offspring from economic assets into

economic liabilities.

Small families due to the availability of family planning.

A birth rates follow death rates downward, population growth

slows further.

4.0 Global Population Today

A brief survey of population trends around the world

today reveals a growing gap between events in richer
and poorer nations.

Understanding these trends is the first step to understanding

the nature of the population problem.

4.1 The low-growth North

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When the Industrial Revolution began, growth in Western
European and North American population peaked at 3 % per
annually, doubling the population in little more than one
generation.

Growth rates have eased downward throughout the Northern

Hemisphere.

As Europe entered Stage 4, the birth rate neared the

replacement level of 2.1 children per woman, a point
demographer designate a zero population growth, the level
of reproduction, migration and death that maintains
population at a steady state.

Europe’s population, was excepted to decline but it actually

increased due to the in-migration.

4.2 The high-growth South

Population growth is a serious and increasing problem in the

poor societies of the Southern Hemisphere.

Most of Latin America , Africa and Asia moved from stage 1

to Stage 2, still primarily agricultural but with some industry.

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 In these nations, advanced medical technology ( much
supplied by rich societies ) has sharply reduced death rates,
but birth rates remain high.

5.0 Urbanization : The Growth of Cities

For most of human history, the sights and sounds of great

cities such as HK, Paris, LA were completely unknown.

5.1 The Early Evolution of Cities

Cities are a relatively new development in human history.

Some early cities, like Jericho, reaching a population of

50,000 became centers of urban empires.

5.2 Pre-industrial European Cities

The city of Roman grew to almost 1 million inhabitants and

became the centre of a vast empire.

Expanding trade prompted medieval cities to tear down their

walls.

5.3 The Growth of industrial European Cities

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 Throughout the Middle Ages, steadily increasing commerce
enriched a new urban middle class or bourgeoisie ( from the
French world, meaning ‘ of the town’ ).

6.0 The Rise of the Modern Industrial City

By 1750, industrialization was well under way, triggering a

second urban revolution.

Factories unleashed productive power as never before.

6.1 The Shapes of the twentieth –century City

The twentieth century has seen living spaces changing in a

number of directions, from the growth of central cities to
expansion beyond suburbs,

The pace of urban change has accelerated with time.

6.2 The Great Metropolis

Following the First World War, waves of people deserted the

countryside for cities in hopes of obtaining better jobs.

This growth marked the era of the metropolis ( from the

Greek words, meaning ‘mother city’)

6.3 Decentralization: Commuter towns and the

Suburbs

The industrial metropolis reached its peak during the

reconstruction after Second World War.

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People deserted the city centres for outlying suburbs.

There is expansion of new towns and suburbs.

Railways and bus enable people to travel to work in city

centres yet leave behind the centralized congestion when
they went home to quieter dormitory communities.

6.4 Gentrification

Gentrification whereby areas in decline are transformed into

areas of prosperity.

6.5 Megacities and megalopolis : The rise of size

In 1950, only London ( with 8 millions )and New York with

12.3 millions were megacities.

Megalopolis : to designate a vast urban region containing a

number of cities and their surrounding suburbs.

6.6 Urban Tensions

With so many processes in the rise of cities, from the

expansion of work with very low wage, low job security and
few benefits, to suburbanization and gentrification, working
against the poorest residents, it is small wonder that
tensions between city elites and poor people result.

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7.0 Megacities in low-income societies

Cities often offer more opportunities than rural areas, but

they provide no quick fix for the massive problems or
escalating population and grinding poverty.

8.0 Globalization and the spread of World Cities

Growth of new informational network and economies –cities

started to transform themselves again.

Global cities are cities with much economic power,

commanding global investments and the concentration and
accumulation of capital.

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