Human Geography: GEOG 1101
Chapter 3: Geographies of Population and
Migration
What is current world population?
Feb, 2020: 7.8 billion people on the planet
The most populated country: China and India
=> we cannot compare populations between countries in raw data because of differences in
total populations in each country
What about the trends within populations?
● Population growth rate: how many people are being added to the total population a
year
● Can be looked at a particular characteristic of a subset of a population (ex: the
maternal mortality rate, refugees fleeing)
● Can be looked at: growth rates, characteristics of subpopulations, movement of
people
Ex: US population was slowly declining and relatively low => tell the proportion of younger
people to older people
● Populations move between places with different reasons - they don't just change in
total number or growth or decline
Demography
"The study of the characteristics of human populations" (sex, race, age, income, disability,
education, etc)
Where does population data come from?
● In terms of understanding the population in the US, the government is one of the
biggest collectors and providers population data through a census data (a count of
every person in the US every 10 years by collecting some basic information)
● Special and changing question => The idea of race: usually question about hispanic,
latino or spanish origin (depends on your perspective/institution) because they are
broad geographies so they let folks to determine exactly what sub-area of that broad
group that they would identify with
● Decennial census - every 10 years
+ Name/Address
+ Sex (M/F)
+ Age
+ Race (mark one or more box, write in)
+ Type of dwelling
● Census helps the federal government with resource distribution and tax money
● Census is conducted with public money - it's taxpayer-funded
Why is the census done?
, It's in the constitution and it's about the representational democracy to understand how many
people they are and where they are to create legislative representational districts with
about the same number of people. It represents a certain number of people and those
people have to be collected over an area
● Collect citizenship information (legal residency in US) would likely reduce response
rates from people without legal documentation in US
Problems with census data
● Cost: it's expensive to get the survey out to get the website up and running where to
put data in and have people process that data and reach those household did not
return census => limit how often it can be done and the accuracy
● Underreporting: wealthy white populations tend to be counted twice because they
own more than one residence. Minorities, children, and lower income people,
homeless people tend to have lower response rates. It's hard to get information on
population who lack a stable address - they don't have a residence and they shift
between homes and relatives or afraid to report
● Response rates
Question of " Race" on the US census
● The change in questions are based on the political priorities or cultural shift to try to
collect data
● Race was very narrowly constructed (small categories) on the early state (white
landowners, free white people, enslaved people). Later, there appears broader
populations (native american, indian, asian). After 2000, you can pick more than 1
race as multi-racial and write their own categories in 2020
● Geographers argue that races are stable categories at all or categories that exist and
it was socially constructed
● Groups of people construct race based largely on physicaly characteristics and not
the same on every place and through time
● Americans are increasingly multi-racial
American Community Survey (ACS): ask a lot of questions to know more about the
languages you speak, economic situation, social network, martial status, real estate etc -by
putting out to a subset of Americans - about 3.5 million people every year. Use spatial
statistical methods to extrapolate out the information over the population
Other government survey: Bureau of Labor Survey
Vital Records
● Birth certificate, death certificate, marriage, divorce record
Chapter 3: Geographies of Population and
Migration
What is current world population?
Feb, 2020: 7.8 billion people on the planet
The most populated country: China and India
=> we cannot compare populations between countries in raw data because of differences in
total populations in each country
What about the trends within populations?
● Population growth rate: how many people are being added to the total population a
year
● Can be looked at a particular characteristic of a subset of a population (ex: the
maternal mortality rate, refugees fleeing)
● Can be looked at: growth rates, characteristics of subpopulations, movement of
people
Ex: US population was slowly declining and relatively low => tell the proportion of younger
people to older people
● Populations move between places with different reasons - they don't just change in
total number or growth or decline
Demography
"The study of the characteristics of human populations" (sex, race, age, income, disability,
education, etc)
Where does population data come from?
● In terms of understanding the population in the US, the government is one of the
biggest collectors and providers population data through a census data (a count of
every person in the US every 10 years by collecting some basic information)
● Special and changing question => The idea of race: usually question about hispanic,
latino or spanish origin (depends on your perspective/institution) because they are
broad geographies so they let folks to determine exactly what sub-area of that broad
group that they would identify with
● Decennial census - every 10 years
+ Name/Address
+ Sex (M/F)
+ Age
+ Race (mark one or more box, write in)
+ Type of dwelling
● Census helps the federal government with resource distribution and tax money
● Census is conducted with public money - it's taxpayer-funded
Why is the census done?
, It's in the constitution and it's about the representational democracy to understand how many
people they are and where they are to create legislative representational districts with
about the same number of people. It represents a certain number of people and those
people have to be collected over an area
● Collect citizenship information (legal residency in US) would likely reduce response
rates from people without legal documentation in US
Problems with census data
● Cost: it's expensive to get the survey out to get the website up and running where to
put data in and have people process that data and reach those household did not
return census => limit how often it can be done and the accuracy
● Underreporting: wealthy white populations tend to be counted twice because they
own more than one residence. Minorities, children, and lower income people,
homeless people tend to have lower response rates. It's hard to get information on
population who lack a stable address - they don't have a residence and they shift
between homes and relatives or afraid to report
● Response rates
Question of " Race" on the US census
● The change in questions are based on the political priorities or cultural shift to try to
collect data
● Race was very narrowly constructed (small categories) on the early state (white
landowners, free white people, enslaved people). Later, there appears broader
populations (native american, indian, asian). After 2000, you can pick more than 1
race as multi-racial and write their own categories in 2020
● Geographers argue that races are stable categories at all or categories that exist and
it was socially constructed
● Groups of people construct race based largely on physicaly characteristics and not
the same on every place and through time
● Americans are increasingly multi-racial
American Community Survey (ACS): ask a lot of questions to know more about the
languages you speak, economic situation, social network, martial status, real estate etc -by
putting out to a subset of Americans - about 3.5 million people every year. Use spatial
statistical methods to extrapolate out the information over the population
Other government survey: Bureau of Labor Survey
Vital Records
● Birth certificate, death certificate, marriage, divorce record
