Demography and Global Population Issues (SCH21306)
Institution
Wageningen University (WUR)
Book
Population
Summary of the whole book 'Population: An Introduction to Concepts and Issues', by R. Weeks (12th edition, 2014), only excluding CH9. All chapters (CH1-CH12) are summarised, including important concepts, tables and extra images to clarify explanations. Throughout the summary the writing gets a bit ...
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Population: An introduction to Concepts and Issues (12th edition)
John R. Weeks
Inhoud
Chapter 1: Introduction to Demography ................................................................................................. 2
Chapter 2: Global Population Trends ...................................................................................................... 7
Chapter 3: Demographic Perspectives .................................................................................................. 18
Chapter 4: Demographic data ............................................................................................................... 32
Chapter 5: The Health and Mortality Transition ................................................................................... 41
Chapter 6: The fertility transition .......................................................................................................... 53
Chapter 7: The migration transition ...................................................................................................... 67
Chapter 8: The age transition ................................................................................................................ 82
Chapter 10: The family and household transition ................................................................................. 92
Chapter 11: Population and Sustainability .......................................................................................... 105
Chapter 12: What lies ahead? ............................................................................................................. 118
1
,Chapter 1: Introduction to Demography
Updates the way in which demography connects the dots in the world, including a substantially
revised essay on the ‘Mess in the Middle East’.
❖ Every social, political, and economic problem facing the world today has demographic
change as a root cause
❖ Rise of life expectancy over past 2 centuries most important phenomenon in human history
❖ Many contradictions: rich/poor, well-fed/hungry, control environment/damaging living space
❖ Because birth rate almost never goes down in tandem with decline in death rate → rapid
population growth
➢ Environmental damage
➢ Social upheaval
❖ Population growth makes implacable demands on natural and societal resources
What is demography?
• Demography (Guillard)= the mathematical knowledge of populations, their general
movements, and their physical, civil, intellectual and moral state
• Modern demography= the study of determinants and consequences of population change
and is concerned with effectively everything that influences and can be influenced by:
o Population size= how many people there are in a given place
o Population growth or decline= how the number of people in that place is changing
over time
o Population processes= the levels and trends in fertility, mortality, and migration hat
are determining population size and change and that can be thought of as capturing
life’s three main moments: hatching, matching, dispatching
o Population spatial distribution= where people are located and why
o Population structure= how many males and females there are of each age
o Population characteristics= what people are like in a given place, in terms of
variables such as education, income, occupation, family and household relationships,
immigrant and refugee status, and the many other characteristics that add up to who
we are as individuals or groups
• Population change goes with it is an integral part of creating a present that seems foreign by
comparison to the past, and it will create a future that will make today seem strange to those
who look back on it several decades from now
o Tabel 1.1:
▪ In 1910 <2 billion people, in 2010 almost 7 billion people
▪ Mortality levels dropped; life expectancy rose
▪ Fertility declined
▪ Westward movement Americans
▪ Foreign-born population greater fraction of the nation in 1910 than one
century later
▪ Past was young (32% under 15; 4% >65), older present (20% under 15; 13%
>65)
▪ Past rural, present urban
▪ Present heavily dependent on automobile
2
, ▪ Past less educated (10% high school education vs. 87% now)
How does demography connect the dots?
• Population change is one of the prime forces behind social and technological change all over
the world
• Population size and compositions change → adjustments → alterations to the way society
operates
• Demography is a force that influences every improvement in human well-being that the
world has witnessed
• Composition of families and households more diverse → natural consequence of societies
adapting to demographic changes: longer lives, fewer children, urban living, migration
• Different societies will respond differently
• Population structures sufficiently predictable
The Relationship of Population to Resources
▪ Food: none of the basic resources required to expand food output can be considered
abundant → impacts less developed countries
▪ Water: demand for water increases faster than available supply of fresh water → water
scarcity
▪ Energy: rising standards of living directly tied to increasing use of energy, yet increment in
demand is another claim on those resources
▪ Housing and infrastructure: population growth expected to show up in cities, especially in
developing countries → growing more food requires mechanisation → excess population
forced to move to cities → requires homes and urban infrastructure
➢ Burdensome
▪ Environmental degradation: using up resources and waste accompanies use → disrupts
earth’s biosphere → maintain standard of living while using fewer resources → long-term
sustainability → requires no poverty
The Relationship of Population to Social and Political Dynamics
▪ Regional Conflict: real impact of population growth hard to see
➢ Adjustment
➢ Rejection of change
➢ Youth bulge → the outlook for young revolutionaries appears brightest where the
poverty and insecurity of an underdeveloped but changing economy coincides with a
high proportion of adolescents and young adults → movements like Al-Qaeda
→ increasing poverty and disease, encouraged child labour, slavery,
despair, violent ethno-nationalist conflict
➢ Demographic structure of society contributes to the problem by creating a situation
where disproportionate numbers of children are available to be exploited
▪ Globalisation= increasing level of connectedness among and between people and places all
over the world
➢ Removal trade barriers
➢ Control over mortality
3
, ➢ Huge cohorts of young people → needing jobs (in developing countries → work for
low wages
➔ Jobs have moved to developing countries
➔ Younger consumers encouraged to spend new wages on popular products in
richer countries
➢ Globalisation of the labour market exists because of nature of world demographic
trends. Sheer volume of population growth in less developed countries no guarantee
that jobs will head their way from richer countries. Likelihood grows with 2 related
factors:
▪ Declining fertility
▪ Increasing education
▪ Immigration: globalisation of labour force broadened ancient relationship between jobs and
geography by bringing jobs to people in developing countries
➢ Even as some jobs are heading to developing countries, many young people in those
countries are headed to the richer countries, facilitated by the demographic fit
between young age structures of developing countries and aging populations in
richer countries
➢ Younger population declining (richer countries) → holes in labour force and
payments of taxes for pensions and health care
➢ Young population larger (developing countries)
➔ Supply meets demand as low fertility countries take in migrants from higher
fertility nations
➢ Countries sending migrants have own demographic issues
▪ Mexico: high population growth → underemployment
▪ Vacuum labourers in Europe → ‘sucking sound’ from developing nations
(especially former colonies)
▪ Anti-foreigner sentiment in Europe
➢ ‘Demographic time bomb’ means that European ageing countries could make good
use of immigrants
▪ Immigrants tend to be different
▪ Disproportionate contribution to birth rate in new countries → rapid and
profound shift in ethnic composition of younger population
➢ Immigrants have not bolstered Japan’s rapidly ageing population because of high
anti-foreign sentiment
▪ Riding the Age Wave: a key demographic with which societies must cope is the changing age
structure
➢ As the older cohorts begin to squeeze national systems of social insurance, legislative
action will be required to make long-run changes in the financing and benefit
structure of these systems if they are to survive
▪ Immigration
▪ Delaying retirement
▪ Increased self-reliance
▪ Raised taxes
➢ Impact on educational system → public elementary and secondary school districts
cannot readily recruit students or market their services to new prospects; they rise
4
, and fall on demographic currents that determine enrolment and characteristics of
students
▪ Parental involvement key ingredient in student success → need to create
new policies and programs to educate immigrant parents
➢ Impact on health care industry
▪ Repositioning in marketing sense
▪ More chronic diseases
➢ Crime closely tied to age and sex structure of a community → young (male) people
➢ People at different ages have different needs and tastes for products and differing
amounts of money to spend
• The fact that 90% of world’s population growth in near future will occur in less developed
nations is important reason for globalisation of business and internationalisation of
investment
• Age structures with a disproportionate share of people of working age are good for economic
growth (economies with demographic tailwind); age structures with lots of kids or older
people are not so good (economies with headwind)
o Children don’t contribute to GDP
o Young adults driving force in GDP growth → sources of innovation and
entrepreneurial spirit, but overspending against future human capital
o Middle-aged adults engines for capital market returns
o Senior citizens contribute neither to GDP growth nor market returns
• Huge population doesn’t necessarily mean huge market if most people are poor
The Relationship of Population to Rights of Women
▪ Women higher life expectancy than men
▪ Any group that oppresses women and suppresses their contributions will have a distinctively
unfavourable demographic profile and will almost certainly suffer in terms of overall well-
being
5
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