Population Growth

Activity 1: Definitions and Map Analysis

Infant Mortality Rate Map

This map represents the infant mortality rate in different countries. As the map shows, countries like Afghanistan, Mozambique, Somalia, and Bhutan have high infant mortality rates, that is because many of these countries are under developed and do not have proper medical care for infants. In countries such as Somalia and Afghanistan, and other conservative countries, where majority of deliveries are still performed at home, the mother does not have adequate aid to make a safe delivery, which might cause problems with the baby. On the other hand, countries like Australia, Sweden, and Canada, which are all developed countries that consider pregnant women and their safety to be of importance, have very low infant mortality rates. However, it was surprising to see that India, and other South-Asian countries was not in the higher end of the spectrum of infant mortality rates considering how the society does not value the lives of women, for example, it is no secret that in India many families want sons and if a female is born there have been many instances where the baby girl is killed or neglected. Generally speaking, the trends seem to indicated that the more ‘developed’ countries like Japan, Norway and Canada, have lower infant mortality rates than less developed countries, mainly due to the quality of hospitals and maternity care that the more developed countries offer.

You can find my defintions linked to the map.

Activity 2: Video Critique

This video describes the population trends over millions of years in a very interesting way. It describes the population of different countries and regions as a water jug that has a hole in it, the water being the population and the hole the number of deaths that occur, however the people are still adding water to the jug which increases the amount of water in the jug, or population. It later details why there was a sudden increase in population after the 1800’s; because we went through the industrial revolution causing improvements in medicine and agriculture, which made the lives of children and people better.

I thought that it was a new, easy, and engaging way to describe the population growth and why it is happening. It also didn’t get into detail about how the Earth won’t have enough resources or space to hold everyone, but instead assured the viewers that we do not have to worry immensely about the population growth because it is slowing down, by stating that at the end of the century, it is estimated that the population will only be 10 billion. From having 7 billion people in 2010 to having only 10 billion people in 2100, is that really possible? According to the UN and this video, yes. People are starting to have fewer babies because more and more people are aware of the population growth that we are facing. The video also describes why other statistics such as life expectancy is increasing in numerous countries, because of the better quality of life and health care that countries have started to offer.

The video was informative in various aspects and it executed the message, of how and why the population got as big as it is, in a simple, yet meaningful way. I would recommend watching this video to people of all ages who are interested in population growth and the reasons behind it.

Activity 3: Population Projections using DTM and Population Pyramids

For this activity we had to chose one country with a high GDP (top 15 in the list), one that was a low inome country (below 100 on the list) and one other middle income country that was between the two. I chose Singapore as my high GDP country, Turkey as my middle and Liberia as my low income country. After we chose chose the three countries, we had to analyze its population by finding the youth and old age dependency ratio of each, figure out which stage of the demographic transition model the country is at, make a population projection by calculating the population momentum factor of the countries, and last but not least we had to make a triangle graph and plot where the countries are according to it.

All of my populaton pyramids are from: http://populationpyramid.net/

You can find my work by clicking on any of the pyramids above.

Demographic Age structure Report

In this activity we studied how a high old age and youth dependency ratio affects the country. We talked about the advantages and disadvantages of a population with many old people or youth, what it means to have a large youth or old age population and some solutions for it.

You can find my report by clicking on the picture.