Population Growth & Decline - AP Human Geography

Generally speaking, a significant increase in economic development in a country or region will eventually lead to a significant decrease in population growth. We know that this increase will likely not happen immediately because it takes time for a society to adjust to improved standard of living; for a time, the death rate will fall whilst the birth rate stays the same. Eventually people will realize that more of their children are surviving and that they have a great deal more options in life, and the birth rate will begin to fall as well, leading to a decrease in population growth. It is important to remember that this is a generalization and as a rule is not always applicable.

China’s population grew immensely in the twentieth century from an already high starting point. In the 1970s, Chinese politicians began to worry that the population was growing too fast, and that soon China’s population growth would be out of control and the country would not be able to cope with the demand for resources. The government implemented a “one child” policy that provides incentives for parents who have only one child and punishments for those that have more. This is not uniformly enforced and has led to many social ills, but it has also curtailed China’s massive population growth.

“Neo-Malthusians” generally adhere to Thomas Malthus’ Principle of Population, but have adapted it to suit the modern time period. “Neo-Malthusians” believe that the population of the world is growing too quickly for the scale of agricultural production to keep up. “Neo-Malthusians” advocate for programs and policies designed to control population growth, so they would be most likely to support a program that limits family size to two children.

Eugenics is the “science” of improving the human population by encouraging only a specific group of people to breed. It generally favors the growth of one race over others within a society. Eugenics was popular in Europe in the early twentieth century, but continues to be influential in some parts of the world to this day.

A census is an official government survey of the population of a government’s country. It usually includes questions about race, gender, religious identity, income, and a great many other things. In the United States, it is conducted every ten years and is used to determine representation in Congress (among other things).

Most studies and statistics on the subject demonstrate that any country that prioritizes education and providing universal access to education is likely to see a decline in the rate of its population growth. This is because as people become better educated they have more opportunities open to them and more control over their lives - this is particularly significant for women. Women who are well-educated are less likely to have unplanned pregnancies, less likely to have large families, and more likely to start those families at a later age. All of this contributes to a decline in the rate of population growth, or, in geographic parlance, a decline in the “natural increase rate.”

An “expansive population policy” is an official government policy designed to encourage the population to conceive and raise multiple children. Unlike a “restrictive population policy,” its primary goal is to increase the rate of population growth to prevent the economic and social welfare problems that arise with an aging population. “Expansive population policies” are most common in Western and Northern Europe where birth rates are some of the lowest in the world. Countries like Sweden, France, the U.K., Germany, and Italy have some form of “expansive population policies” in place.

Countries that discourage or ban the use of contraceptives are more likely to experience all of the provided answer options. High death rates result from the rampant spread of sexual disease, particularly AIDS. High birth rates result from the inability of women to control the reproductive process, which is of course linked to gender inequality. Many sociologists and historians agree that the relatively rapid increase in gender equality in many parts of the world in the last fifty years has been primarily caused by the availability of contraception, which allows women to dictate when, and with whom, they have children.

China's one-child policy has historically featured all of the following: awareness campaigns, inspections, fines, and forced abortions.

Eugenics involve the set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of the human race. During the Progressive Era eugenics was accepted as a method of preserving and improving the dominant population groups. Today, eugenics is associated with racist and nativist elements.

Overpopulation, as a defined term, generally occurs when a region has exceeded its “carrying capacity.” The “carrying capacity” of a region refers to number of people a region can reasonably support and sustain. When a region has a greater demand for water and food than it can support it is said to be overpopulated.

The “carrying capacity” of an area refers to the maximum number of people a particular area can sustain (keep alive). If this particular isolated area has enough food to support four thousand people, enough water to support three thousand, and enough shelter to support seven thousand we must consider only the lowest number. If there is only enough water to support three thousand people than this is the “carrying capacity” of the area.

George Perkins Marsh is one of the most well-regarded geographers and environmentalists of the nineteenth century. In his seminal work Man and Nature (1864), Perkins argued that mankind has a destructive influence on the condition of the environment. His ideas were initially on the fringe of accepted geographic theory, but over the years Marsh has come to be revered as a visionary.

The idea of “cultural landscapes” is most closely associated with the twentieth century environmental geographer Carl Sauer. Sauer argued that all geographic regions, even those which might appear to be unaffected by mankind’s influence, have been impacted by the growth of the human population. His work was important for spreading the significance of environmental studies in the field of geography.

The geographic term “ecumene” refers to the proportion of the Earth’s land that is permanently inhabited by human beings. Over time ecumene has increased slightly. This has been caused by a number of factors, but the two most significant are - overpopulation which causes some people to seek new areas for inhabitation and technological innovation that opens up new parts of the world to human inhabitance.

The Fertile Crescent is a region of land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in the Middle East (much of modern day Iraq, Syria, and Jordan). It is often referred to as the “cradle of civilization” because it was in these fertile floodplains that the first agricultural communities and later civilizations began to appear. In the thousands of years since then, however, the region (according to Marsh) has been ruined by overuse by mankind. What was once a fecund floodplain is now mostly an arid desert. Marsh uses the example of the Fertile Crescent to support his theory that mankind negatively impacts the environment, especially as population grows.

The “carrying capacity” of an area refers to the maximum number of people who can be realistically sustained by the geography of that area. This number can be affected by access to food, water, shelter, and other significant factors. The “carrying capacity” can often be quite difficult to compute and is extremely fluid and changeable. This is because most “areas” do not solely sustain themselves (think of how it is common for people in the United States to buy mangoes grown in South Asia), but rather exchange sustaining goods with other “areas.”

HIV/AIDS rates in Sub-Saharan Africa have reached more than 25% in some countries, severely decreasing the populations of these areas. While all of these factors decrease popuations, none are nearly as threatening as the prevalence and expansion of HIV/AIDS.

Great Britain had many colonies, including India, United States, and Canada. Since Great Britain had so many colonies, the nation was known as "the empire on which the sun never sets." Mexico did not become one of these colonies.