Essentials of Ecology 7th Edition Miller

Full download at link: https://testbankpack.com/p/solution-manual-

for-essentials-of-ecology-7th-edition-by-miller-spoolman-isbn-
9781285197265/

Chapter 6
The Human Population and Its Impact

Chapter Outline
CORE CASE STUDY Planet Earth: Population 7 Billion
6-1 How Do Environmental Scientists Think about Human Population Growth?
SCIENCE FOCUS How Long Can the Human Population Keep Growing?
6-2 What Factors Influence the Size of the Human Population?
CASE STUDY The U.S. Population—Third-Largest and Growing
SCIENCE FOCUS Projecting Population Change
6-3 How Does a Population’s Age Structure Affect Its Growth or Decline?
CASE STUDY The American Baby Boom
6-4 How Can We Slow Human Population Growth?
CASE STUDY Slowing Population Growth in India
CASE STUDY Slowing Population Growth in China: A Success Story
TYING IT ALL TOGETHER World Population Growth and Sustainability

Key Concepts
6-1 The continuing rapid growth of the human population and its impacts on natural capital raise
questions about how long the human population can keep growing.
6-2A Population size increases through births and immigration, and decreases through deaths and
emigration.
6-2B The average number of children born to the women in a population (total fertility rate) is the key
factor that determines population size.
6-3 The numbers of males and females in young, middle, and older age groups determine how fast a
population grows or declines.
6-4 We can slow human population growth by reducing poverty, elevating the status of women, and
encouraging family planning.

Key Questions and Case Studies

CORE CASE STUDY:
It took about 200,000 years for the human population to reach 2 billion. It took less than 50 years to add
the second 2 billion. Twelve years later, in late 2011, we topped 7 billion. What is a sustainable level of
human population?

The Human Population and Its Impact

6-1 How do environmental scientists think about human population growth?
A. The human population has grown rapidly due to technology, improved medical techniques,
emphasis on hygiene, and expansion of agriculture and industry.
B. Population growth has slowed but is still growing exponentially.
1. The vast majority of all growth occurs in less-developed countries.
C. In 2050, there will be 7.8-10.8 billion people on the earth
1. Cultural carrying capacity is the maximum number of people that can live in reasonable
freedom and comfort indefinitely without compromising the ability of earth to sustain future
generations.

SCIENCE FOCUS: How long can the human population keep growing?
Estimates of future population growth vary widely. Demographers must rely on available data in
making these predictions. However, current population estimates may not be accurate and
assumptions must be made about future fertility. In addition, population predictions are made by a
variety of different organizations.

6-2 What factors influence the size of the human population?

A. Population increases through births and immigration and decreases through deaths and
emigration. [Population change = (Births + Immigration) – (Deaths + Emigration)]
1. Population change is calculated by subtracting the number of people leaving a population
(death and emigration) from the number entering it (birth and immigration).
B. Fertility is the number of births that occur to an individual woman or in a population.
1. The changing nature of fertility rates affect population growth.
a. Replacement-level fertility is the number of children needed to replace their parents.
b. Total fertility rate (TFR) is the average number of children that a woman has during her
fertile years.
CASE STUDY: The U.S. population - third-largest and growing.
The population of the United States is currently 310 million people. Although a drop in TFR has
slowed the country’s growth, it is still growing faster than any other developed country. Because of
high per capita resource use and waste, growth in the population of the United States has an
enormous environmental impact.
C. Many factors influence birth and fertility rates.
1. More children work in developing countries; they are important to the labor force.
2. The economic cost of raising and educating children determines their numbers.
3. If there are available private/public pension systems, adults have fewer children because they
do not need children to take care of them in old age.
4. People in urban areas usually have better access to family planning, so have fewer children.
5. If women have educational and economic choices, they tend to have fewer children.
6. The older the age at which women marry, the fewer children they bear.
7. If abortions are available and legal, women have fewer children.
8. The availability of reliable birth control allows women to space children and determines the
number of children they bear.
D. Factors that have caused a decline in death rates:
1. Better food supplies and nutrition, and safer water supplies contribute to people living longer.
2. Advances in medicine and public health, and improved sanitation and personal hygiene also
contribute to people living longer.
E. Measures of overall health:
1. Life expectancy is the average number of years a newborn can expect to live.
2. Infant mortality rate is the number of babies out of every 1,000 born who die before their first
birthday.
a. This rate reflects a country’s level of nutrition and health care.
Instructor's Manual: Chapter 6
 b. It is the single best measure of a society’s quality of life.
3. U.S. infant mortality rate is higher than 40 other countries because:
a. Inadequate health care for poor women and for their babies
b. Drug addiction among pregnant women
c. High birth rate among teenagers

SCIENCE FOCUS: Projecting population change.

Estimates of population size by 2050 range from 7.8 to 10.8 billion. Demographers must consider
different factors when projecting population size. First, they have to determine the reliability of
current population estimates. Demographers also make estimates about trends in fertility. Population
projections are made by a variety of organizations employing demographers.
F. Migration is also a factor in population change.

6-3 How does a population’s age structure affect its growth or decline?
Age structure diagrams are visual aids that show the distribution of males and females in each age
group.
A. The percentages of males and females in the total population are divided into the following age
categories:
1. Pre-reproductive ages span birth to 14 years of age.
2. Reproductive ages include age 15 through 44.
3. Post-reproductive ages include ages 45 and up.
B. The major determining factor in a country’s future population growth is the number of people
under the age of 15.1.
CASE STUDY: The American baby boom.
Changes in the distribution of a country’s age groups have long-lasting economic and social impacts.
An example of this is the ‘baby boom’ generation in the U.S. Such a group can dominate the
population’s demands for goods and services as well as influence elections and legislation and
economic demand. The graying of America may create economic problems for future generations.
C. Population decline can have long-term consequences, especially if the decline is rapid.
1. A gradual population decline, its harmful effects can usually be managed.
2. There can be a sharp rise in the proportion of older people.
a. Produces a sharp rise in public service costs, for health, etc.
b. May have many fewer working taxpayers and labor shortages.
c. It may be necessary to raise retirement age, raise taxes, cut retirement benefits, and
increase legal immigration, which are generally unpopular moves.
3. If population declines because of deaths, consequences are serious.
a. Deaths from disease such as AIDS disrupt a country’s social and economic structure.
b. Large numbers of people in a particular age are removed from the country’s future.
1) Life expectancy drops.
2) In the case of AIDS, the deaths are mostly young adults, those who usually help run the
country and everyday life for millions.
3) Two major goals are to reduce the spread of HIV through education and health care and
to provide financial help for education, health care, and volunteer teachers and social
workers to compensate for the lost young adults.

6-4 How can we slow human population growth?

The Human Population and Its Impact

 A. A precautionary approach is adopted to slow or stop population growth. The three most
important steps are to:
a. Reduce poverty
b. Elevate the status of women
c. Encourage family planning
B. The demographic transition hypothesis states that as countries become industrialized, first their
death rates rise and then their birth rates decline.
a. Four stages: preindustrial, transitional, industrial, and postindustrial.
b. Some failing states may be stuck in step 2.
C. Women have fewer children when they are educated, in control of their fertility, earn an income,
and live in societies that do not suppress their rights.
D. Family planning helps reduce the number of births and abortions throughout the world.
1. Family planning has been responsible for at least 55% of the drop in TFRs in developing
countries.
2. Family planning has also reduced both legal and illegal abortions per year.
3. Services come through educational and clinical services.
a. Women want to limit their pregnancies but have no access to contraceptives.
CASE STUDY: Slowing population growth in India.
India has tried to control its population growth for years. Poverty, malnutrition, and
environmental problems abound in India. Efforts to limit population have not been especially
successful because poor couples believe they need several children for work and care, and there is
a strong preference for male children, so many do not use birth control. India is currently
undergoing tremendous economic growth that will likely continue. This may increase the
ecological footprint of the nation, but may also serve to hasten the demographic transition.
CASE STUDY: Slowing population growth in China - a success story.
China is the world’s most populous country. In the 1960s China’s population was growing so
rapidly that there was a threat of mass starvation. To avoid this, the government put in place the
world’s most strict family planning and birth control program. Since the program began the birth
rate has declined from 5.7 children per woman to 1.5.

Teaching Tips
Large Lecture Courses:

Begin with a discussion of the concept of the ecological footprint. Have your students take an online
footprint quiz before coming to lecture. Ask them to share their scores by show of hands and tabulate
them on the board. Then go through the questions that gave rise to those numbers, asking for classroom
participation as a means of brainstorming why certain factors, like meat consumption or number of people
per household, contribute greatly to the high ecological footprint common to the developed world. Ask
for suggestions that might help diminish the magnitude of the footprint, and then brainstorm reasons why
there is opposition to these changes.

Smaller Lecture Courses:

Have the students take the ecological footprint quiz before coming to class. Ask the students to get into
groups of three to four and share their scores. Than ask them to brainstorm ways developed nations might
diminish their footprint. What is the greater culprit, population size, or lifestyle? What are the
implications of the majority of the world’s population living in regions that are said to be developing?
What are the ultimate consequences of their future economic development?

Instructor's Manual: Chapter 6

Key Terms
age structure demographic transition population change
birth rate family planning replacement-level fertility
crude birth rate fertility rate total fertility rate (TFR)
crude death rate infant mortality rate
cultural carrying capacity life expectancy
death rate migration

Term Paper Research Topics

1. Population growth: a case study of Mexico, China, India, Kenya, Japan; the geography of global
population distribution; infant mortality trends and issues; illegal immigration into the United States;
marriage age trends; fertility trends and the women's rights movement; factors influencing family
size preferences; Earth's carrying capacity; family planning.

2. Population growth in the United States: economics of fertility control technology in the United
States, economic costs of childrearing in the United States, new birth control methods, and teenage
pregnancy in the United States.

3. Influencing population size: case studies of India, China, Japan, Thailand.

4. Demographic transition: past, present, and future.

5. Environmental impacts of population: air pollution in urban areas; land degradation from urban
sprawl; deforestation and desertification in developing countries.

6. Individual: decisions individuals make about family size and urban conditions and ways individuals
can influence government agencies and non-government institutions concerned with population.

7. National: Zero Population Growth during the 1980s, ZPG analysis of the U.S. way of taxing.

8. Global: the UN International Conference on Population; UN Family Planning Association;

International Planned Parenthood Federation.

Discussion Topics
1. Do you think the United States needs a population policy? Should the federal government stop
subsidizing large families?

2. Evaluate U.S. immigration policy.

3. Do you think the United States should play a global leadership role in promoting stabilization of the
world's human population?

4. Would you rather be a baby boomer or a baby buster?

The Human Population and Its Impact

Activities and Projects
1. Invite a public health official or nutritionist to your class to explain the factors involved in the
decline in the global death rate over the past century and the decline in the infant mortality rate in the
United States. Why is the latter rate higher in the United States than in many other developed
nations?

2. U.S. immigration policy had become a volatile political issue by the 1980s. Arrange a debate on this
subject. Debate the proposition that the United States should enact and strictly enforce legislation
that holds legal immigration to levels consistent with the achievement of ZPG within a few
generations.
3. Ask your students to share with the class poems, short stories, songs, paintings, collages,
photographic displays, slide talks, or other works expressing their feelings about population issues
and problems.

4. Are there family-planning clinics in your community that provide contraceptives and birth control
counseling? Invite a family-planning worker to visit your class and discuss different aspects of
family planning.

5. Ask students to work with dynamic computer simulations (such as the Forrester-Meadows model).
Analyze the sensitivity of the model to initial assumptions (optimistic versus pessimistic).

6. Survey the marriage and childbearing intentions of your female students. Find out at what age
students' mothers married and the number of children each had. Tally the results and compare them
with recent trends in marriage age and total fertility.

7. Survey your students to obtain age- or life-span information about their grandparents. Compare the
results with the average life expectancy in the United States in the year 1900 (46 for men and 48 for
women). Invite your students to discuss major implications of these findings.

8. As a class project, study print and broadcast advertising to determine whether small families are
directly or indirectly encouraged as the ideal model for U.S. society. Compare and contrast the
results with those obtained through a similar analysis of magazine advertising in the 1940s and
1950s.

9. Have your students analyze the political platforms of the major political parties in the United States.
What positions do they take on the birth of American children and birth control? What positions do
they take on the influence of the United States in global population growth patterns? To what extent
does debate on population policy revolve around right to life, desired pregnancies, and quality of life
for the children who are born?

Attitudes and Values

1. Do you feel the size of the human population is an important environmental issue?

2. Do you feel consumption by the human population is an important environmental issue?

3. Do you feel that humans have the right to have as many children as they want? Are there any limits
on this right? If so, what are they?

Instructor's Manual: Chapter 6 71

4. Do you feel that there should be a national population policy? What steps would you support?

5. Do you feel that teen pregnancy is a problem?

6. Do you feel that women's roles are important in addressing population size?

7. What are your feelings toward birth control? Population control?

8. Do you feel that the earth will be able to sustain the projected increases in human population growth?

Suggested Answers for End of Chapter Questions

Review Questions

1. Core Case Study. Summarize the story of how human population growth has surpassed 7 billion and
explain why this is significant to many environmental scientists (Core Case Study). List three factors
that account for the rapid increase in the world’s population over the past 200 years.

• It took 200,000 years for the human population to reach 2 billion in the 1920s. By about 1974 the
population reached 4 billion. By 1999 the population had reached 6 billion, and topped 7 billion
in 2011. This is significant to scientists because exponential growth is unsustainable.
• The three factors that account for the rapid increase in population over the past 200 years are the
advent of modern agriculture, technological development that allows us to live in many climates,
and improved sanitation and vaccination.

2. Section 6-1. What is the key concept for this section? What is the range of estimates for the size of the
human population in 2050? Summarize the three major population growth trends recognized by
demographers. About how many people are added to the world’s population each year? What are the
world’s three most populous countries? List eight major ways in which we have altered natural
systems to meet our needs. Define cultural carrying capacity. Summarize the debate over whether and
how long the human population can keep growing.

• Key concept: The continuing rapid growth of the human population and its impacts on natural
capital raise questions about how long the human population can keep growing.
• The range for population in 2050 is from 7.8 billion to 10.8 billion, with the median projection at
9.5 billion people.
• Demographers recognize the following population trends:
o Rate of population growth has slowed, but it is still growing at a rate of about 1.2%.
o Human growth is geographically unevenly distributed.
o Populations are moving from rural areas to cities.
• About 83 million people are added to the world’s population each year.
• The world’s most populous countries are China, India, and the United States.
• We have altered natural systems by:
o Reducing biodiversity
o Increasing use of net primary productivity
o Increasing genetic resistance in pest species and disease-causing bacteria
o Eliminating many natural predators
o Introducing harmful species into natural communities
o Using some renewable resources faster than they can be replenished

72 The Human Population and Its Impact

 o Disrupting natural chemical cycling and energy flow
o Relying mostly on polluting and climate-changing fossil fuels
• Cultural carrying capacity is the maximum number of people who could live in reasonable
comfort and freedom indefinitely, without decreasing the ability of the earth to support future
generations.
• No population can go on growing indefinitely. No one knows how close we are to the
environmental limits.

3. Section 6.2. What are the two key concepts for this section? Define and distinguish between crude
birth rate and crude death rate. List three variables that affect the growth and decline of human
populations. Explain how a given area’s population change is calculated. Define fertility rate, and
distinguish between the replacement-level fertility rate and the total fertility rate (TFR). How has the
global TFR changed since 1955?
• Key concepts: Population size increases through births and immigration, and decreases through
deaths and emigration. The average number of children born to the women in a population (total
fertility rate) is the key factor that determines population size.
• The crude birth rate is the number of live births per 1,000 people in a population in a given year.
The crude death rate is the number of deaths per 1,000 people in a population in a given year.
• Birth, death, and migration affect the growth and decline of human populations.
• Population change = (births + immigration) − (deaths + emigration)
• Fertility rate is the number of children born to a woman during her lifetime.
• Replacement-level fertility rate is the average number of children that couples in a population
must bear to replace themselves.
• TFR is the average number of children born to women in a population during their reproductive
years.
• Reaching replacement-level fertility does not bring an immediate halt to population growth
because so many future parents are alive. If all of today’s girl children have 2.1 children, the
world’s population will continue to grow for 50 years or more (assuming death rates do not rise).
• Between 1955 and 2010, the global average TFR dropped from 5 to 2.4.

4. Summarize the story of population growth in the United States and explain why it is high compared
to population growth in most other more-developed countries. About how much of the annual U.S.
population growth is due to immigration? List six changes in lifestyles that have taken place in the
United States in the 20th century, leading to a rise in per capita resource use. What is the end effect of
such changes in terms of the U.S. ecological footprint?
• The population of the United States grew from 76 million in 1900 to 314 million by 2012, despite
oscillations in the country’s TFR and birth rates. The U.S. has high and irregular immigration
rates and less direct government population control than most other more-developed countries.
• About 30% of the total growth was due to immigration.
• Changes in lifestyle include:
• Increased life expectancy
• More high-school graduates
• More homes with electricity
• More people living in suburbs
• More homes with flush toilets
• More married women working outside the home
• The end effect is that the U.S. has a much larger per capita ecological footprint.

Instructor's Manual: Chapter 6 73

5. List nine factors that can affect the birth rates and fertility rates. Explain why there are more boys
than girls in some countries. Define life expectancy and infant mortality rate and explain how they
affect the population size of a country. Why does the United States have a lower life expectancy and
higher infant mortality rate than a number of other more-developed countries?
• Birth rates are affected by:
o Importance of children as a part of the labor force
o Cost of raising and educating children
o Availability or lack of private and public pension systems
o Urbanization
o Educational and employment opportunities available for women
o Infant mortality rate
o Average age at marriage
o Availability of legal abortions
o Availability of reliable birth control methods
o Religious beliefs, traditions, and cultural norms
• In some countries, including China, there is a strong preference for male children.
• Life expectancy is the average number of years a newborn infant can expect to live, and the
infant mortality rate is the number of babies out of every 1,000 born who die before their first
birthday. A longer life expectancy and a lower infant mortality will increase population.
• The U.S. lower life expectancy may be due to more than 45 million Americans lacking health
care insurance, while Canada and many European countries have universal health care; also,
adults in the United States have one of the world’s highest obesity rates. Three factors helped to
keep the U.S. infant mortality rate higher than it could be: inadequate health care for poor
women during pregnancy and for their babies after birth, drug addiction among pregnant
women, and a high birth rate among teenagers.

6. What is migration? What are environmental refugees and how quickly are their numbers growing?
Describe three major factors that demographers have to consider in making population projections.
• Migration is the movement of people either into or out of a country.
• Environmental refugees are people who had to leave their homes because of water or food
shortages, soil erosion, or some other form of environmental degradation or depletion.
• Demographers have to take into account TFR estimates, and make assumptions about death rates,
and migration.
7. Section 6-3. What is the key concept for this section? What is the age structure of a population?
Explain how age structure affects population growth and economic growth. Describe the American
Baby Boom and some of the economic and social effects. What are some problems related to rapid
population decline due to an aging population? How has the AIDS epidemic affected that age
structure of some countries, especially in Africa?
• Key concept: The numbers of males and females in young, middle, and older age groups
determine how fast a population grows or declines.
• Age structure refers to the number or percentage of males and females in young, middle, and
older age groups. Diagram of percentages of males and females in the total population in age
categories: pre-reproductive (ages 0–14); reproductive (ages 15–44); and postreproductive (age
45 and older).
• The American baby boom added 79 million people to the U.S. population. For decades, members
of the baby-boom generation have strongly influenced the U.S. economy because they make up
about 36% of all adult Americans. In 1960, one in 11 Americans were older than 65. After 2011,
when the first baby boomers began turning 65, the number of Americans older than age 65 will
grow sharply through 2030 as they become one of every five people in the country.

74 The Human Population and Its Impact

 • Population has the potential to increase if a large percentage falls in the pre-reproductive and
reproductive categories and decrease if a large percentage falls in the post-reproductive age.
Economic growth may be predicted based on how many individuals are in a group that would be
working and spending money.
• Rapid population declines from an aging population may cause a lack of support services such as
health care.
• A large number of deaths from AIDS can disrupt a country’s social and economic structure by
removing significant numbers of young adults from its population. Another effect of the AIDS
pandemic is the loss of productive young adult workers and trained personnel such as scientists,
farmers, engineers, and teachers, as well as government, business, and health-care workers.

8. Section 6-4. What is the key concept for this section? What is the demographic transition and what
are its four stages? What factors could hinder some less-developed countries from making this
transition?
• Key concept: We can slow human population growth by reducing poverty, elevating the status of
women, and encouraging family planning.
• The demographic transition is a hypothesis explaining population change that occurs as countries
become industrialized and their populations tend to grow more slowly. As countries become
industrialized, first their death rates and then their birth rates decline. The four stages of this
transition are:
o Preindustrial
o Transitional
o Industrial
o Postindustrial
• Factors that can hinder countries from making the demographic transition include:
o Rapid population growth
o Extreme poverty
o Increasing environmental gradation

9. Explain how the reduction of poverty and empowerment of women can help countries to slow their
population growth. What is family planning and how can it help to stabilize population? Describe the
roles of reducing poverty, elevating the status of women, and family planning in slowing population
growth. Describe India’s efforts to control its population growth.
• Family planning includes educational and clinical services that help couples choose how many
children to have and when to have them.
• Many women in the developing world are trapped in poverty by illiteracy, poor health, and
unwanted high fertility. Reducing poverty can alleviate these problems.
• In general, as women are empowered the population decreases. Studies show that women tend to
have fewer children if they are educated, hold a paying job outside the home, and live in societies
where their human rights are not suppressed.
• For more than five decades, India has tried to control its population growth with only modest
success. The world’s first national family planning program began in India in 1952, when its
population was nearly 400 million. By 2010, after 58 years of population control efforts, India
had 1.2 billion people.

10. What are this chapter’s three big ideas? Summarize the story of human population growth and
explain how the three scientific principles of sustainability (see Figure 1-2, p. 6 or back cover) can
guide us in dealing with the problems that stem from population growth and decline.
• The three big ideas:

Instructor's Manual: Chapter 6 75

 o The human population is increasing rapidly and may soon bump up against
environmental limits.
o Even if population growth were not a serious problem, the increasing use of resources per
person is expanding the overall human ecological footprint and putting a strain on the
earth’s resources.
o We can slow human population growth by reducing poverty through economic
development, elevating the status of women, and encouraging family planning.
• It took 200,000 years for the human population to reach 2 billion in the 1920s. By about 1974 the
population reached 4 billion. By 1999 the population had reached 6 billion, and then topped 7
billion in 2011.
• Human population growth relates to the three principles of sustainability because as the human
population has grown, it has had detrimental effects on biodiversity, has generated pollution by
ignoring natural chemical cycling, and has been fueled by fossil energy, rather than solar power.

Critical Thinking
The following are examples of the material that should be contained in possible student answers to the
end of chapter Critical Thinking questions. They represent only a summary overview and serve to
highlight the core concepts that are addressed in the text. It should be anticipated that the students will
provide more in-depth and detailed responses to the questions depending on an individual instructor’s
stated expectations.

1. Do you think that the global population of 7.1 billion (Core Case Study) is too large? Explain. If your
answer was yes, what do you think should be done to slow human population growth? If your answer
was no, do you believe that there is a population size that would be too big? Explain.

Student answers will vary.

2. If you could greet a new person every second without taking a break and working around the clock,
how many people could you greet in one day? How many in a year? How long would it take you to
greet the 84 million people who were added to the world’s population this year? How many years
would it take you to greet all 7.1 billion people on the planet?

1 person x 60 seconds x 60 minutes x 24 hours = 86,400 people

86,400 people x 365 days = 31,536,000 people

• 7,100,000,000people/31,536,000 people per year = 226 years

• 84,000,000 people/31,536,000 people per year = 2.6 years

3. Which of the three major environmental worldviews do you believe underlie the two major positions
on whether the world is overpopulated (Science Focus 6.1)?

The planetary management worldview, which sees no problem with the current population of the
earth, and the environmental wisdom worldview, which is supported by the group that suggests
introducing measures of population control.

4. Should everyone have the right to have as many children as they want? Explain. Is your belief on this
issue consistent with your environmental worldview?

In a free democratic society people have certain inalienable rights to be able to make choices that

76 The Human Population and Its Impact

 affect many aspects of their lives. Many people would suggest that everyone has the right to have as
many children as they want. However, in a free society, people also have the right to have as few
children as they want. Everyone should be able to have control over the choices they make and at the
same time be provided with an education in a factual and unbiased way to make the best choices for
themselves and the planet. The ultimate ideal would be to aspire to zero population growth with a
fertility rate at replacement level, or in some cases below that.

5. Is it rational for a poor couple in a less-developed country such as India to have four or five children?
Explain.

It is rational for people living in places like India to have four or five children. This is because they
are seen as part of the labor force and will provide old-age security for their parents as they age.
Many live in rural areas and may not have easy access to doctors or family planning advisors. In some
parts of India there is a high infant mortality rate, which leads to the desire to have more children.
Also, religion, cultural norms, traditions, beliefs, and other factors may lead to avoiding birth control
and to having children until one or more male child is born. There are a number of things that could
help change this pattern including: education of women, free access to birth control, introducing
government pension funds, improving health care to decrease infant mortality, and offering free
vasectomies and tubal ligations.

6. Identify a major local, national, or global environmental problem, and describe the role population
growth plays in this problem.

Overfishing is a major environmental problem in our area. As the population increased, the demand
for seafood as a means of providing a form of healthy protein to our diets also increased led to a non-
sustainable situation. Many types of fish and shellfish are being harvested beyond the maximum
sustainable yield. This has resulted in dwindling fish stocks and closure of some local fishing areas.
This is also a problem in developing countries where coastal communities are often dependent on fish
as a food source and revenue for the local economy.

7. Some people believe the most important environmental goal is to sharply reduce the rate of
population growth in less-developed countries, where at least 92% of the world’s population growth
is expected to take place between now and 2050. Others argue that the most serious environmental
problems stem from high levels of resource consumption per person in more-developed countries,
which have much larger ecological footprints per person than do less-developed countries. What is
your view on this issue? Explain.

It would need both things to occur simultaneously in order for the effects to be successful in the long
term. People in developing countries need to sharply reduce their rate of population growth (maybe
through education/access to family planning, etc.). Increasing numbers in developing countries will
result in increased consumption of ever-dwindling resources. At the same time people in the
developed world need to take stock of their over-consumptive lifestyles and make changes to help
combat “affluenza” and reduce their ecological footprint. People in developed countries cannot expect
the developing countries to take action if they are not prepared to act themselves.

8. Experts have identified population growth as one of the major causes of the environmental problems
we face. The population of the United States is growing faster than that of any other more-developed
country. However, this fact is rarely discussed, and the U.S. government has no official policy for
slowing U.S. population growth. Why do you think this is so? Do you think there should be such a

Instructor's Manual: Chapter 6 77

 policy? If so, explain your thinking and list three steps you would take as a leader to slow U.S.
population growth. If not, explain your thinking.

Student answers will vary and provide a good starting point for class discussion.

Data Analysis

The chart below shows selected population data for two different countries A and B.

Country A Country B
Population (millions) 144 82
Crude birth rate (cbr) 43 8
Crude death rate (cdr) 18 10
Infant mortality rate 100 3.8
Total fertility rate 5.9 1.3
% of population under 15 years old 45 14
% of population older than 65 years 3.0 19
Average life expectancy at birth 47 79
% urban 44 75
(Data from Population Reference Bureau 2007. World Population Data Sheet)

Questions
1. Calculate the rates of natural increase (due to births and deaths, not counting immigration) for the
populations of Country A and Country B. Based on these calculations and the data in the table, for each of
the countries, suggest whether it is a more-developed country or a less-developed country, and explain the
reasons for your answers.
2. Describe where each of the two countries may be in terms of their stage in the demographic transition
(Figure 6-16). Discuss factors that could hinder either country from progressing to later stages in the
demographic transition.
3. Explain how the percentage of people under 15 years of age in each country could affect its per capita
and total ecological footprints.

Answers
Question 1
Country A
r = cbr - cdr r = 43/1000 - 18/1000 = 25/1000 = 2.5%

Country B
r = cbr - cdr r = 8/1000 - 10/1000 = -2/1000 = -0.2%

Country A is most likely to be a developing country as it has the following characteristics indicative of a
developing country: higher birth and death rates; higher infant mortality; higher total fertility rate; higher
percentage of population under 15 years old; smaller percentage of population over 65 years old; lower
life expectancy; smaller urban population; higher percentage of the population living with HIV/AIDS;
higher rate of natural increase. (Country A is actually Nigeria)

78 The Human Population and Its Impact

Country B is most likely a developed country as it has the following characteristics indicative of a
developed country: lower birth and death rates; lower infant mortality; lower total fertility rate; lower
percentage of population under 15 years old; higher percentage of population over 65 years old; higher
life expectancy; larger urban population; lower percentage of the population living with HIV/AIDS; lower
rate of natural increase (in fact it is undergoing a natural decrease). (Country B is actually Germany)

Question 2
Country A is probably in stage 2 or the transitional phase of the demographic transition. Birth rates are
still high and the death rates are lower.

Country B is probably in stage 4 or the postindustrial phase of the demographic transition. Birth rates and
death rates are both low; in fact, the birth rate is lower than the death rate in Country B.

Country A is probably about halfway along the path to economic development, and still has a fairly high
population growth rate. There is concern and disagreement among the experts as to whether such a
country may be able to progress smoothly through the industrial and postindustrial phases. One group
feels that advances in technology and expanded birth control initiatives will allow such a transition to
occur. Others feel that the continuing rapid rate of population growth and the population momentum that
will occur may counteract any economic benefits and lead to overconsumption and further collapse of
local ecosystems that are needed to provide food, water, and other necessities for life. Country A may end
up trapped in stage 2 or even fall back into stage 1 depending on the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Due to the population structure there may also be a shortage of a skilled workforce, little opportunity for
economic growth, and an increasing national debt, which will all hinder the progression of Country A into
the third and later stages of the demographic transition.

Question 3
In Country A, the large number under 15 can have many negative effects on the country as a whole. Not
all of these individuals will be able to find jobs when they try to enter the workforce and many may not be
able to provide for themselves. Poverty rates are likely to increase. Hunger and malnutrition would
become a problem for many people in this large population as land is degraded by overgrazing or overuse
for raising food. Water use issues will get worse. Much of the country’s environment can become
degraded and exhausted as the country tries to meet the needs of this large percentage of its population.
Social unrest could increase making this sector of society prime recruits for radical groups. Turmoil or
even war could ensue leading to further overuse of limited resources, environmental degradation, and a
larger the ecological footprint. Whenever the economic growth of a country is threatened through
increased poverty, the overall footprint of the country is at risk as potentially renewable resources such as
soil and water become degraded.

Country B has a lower percentage of young people. However, this group can still have a profound effect
on the ecological footprint of the country because they live in an affluent country with a high resource use
per person. Thus, as these young people move into adulthood they could have a much larger ecological
footprint per person than the average footprint per person for the much larger group of young people in
country A. This could lead to a larger overall ecological footprint for country B than for country A.

Instructor's Manual: Chapter 6 79