Activities

1. Exploring the Demographic Transition

Please answer the following questions.

1. In the "pre-modern" phase, why do you think birth and death rates tended to fluctuate more than in later stages?
2. List some of the reasons why death rates fell so quickly as nations moved into the second, industrializing stage.
3. What accounts for the sharp rise in polulation growth during the second stage?
4. What is the major factor causing population growth to level off during the end of stage three?
5. What does this model predict about population growth in the long term?

2. Comparing Population Density and Living Standards

	Population (millions)	People per KM2 arable land	Per capita GDP	Life expectancy M   -   F	% literate over age 15	Population growth rate (%)
United States	272.6	154	$31,500	73  -  79	97	0.97
Nicaragua	4.7	404	2,500	65  -  70	66	2.09
Bangladesh	127.1	1,209	1,380	56  -  56	38	1.59
Japan	126.2	3,034	23,100	77  -  83	99	0.15
Ethiopia	59.6	441	560	39  -  41	36	2.64
Taiwan	22.1	2,560	16,500	74  -  81	94	0.78
India	1000.8	543	1,720	62  -  64	52	1.51

Please answer the following questions:

1. Arable land is defined as land capable of being cultivated in any given growing season. Why is this a more useful statistic than overall land area?
2. What are some way that the quanitity of arable land is increased or decreased?
3. Given the general trend for women to live longer than men, what does this chart suggest about the status of women in Bangladesh?
4. Based on this chart, what generalizations can you suggest about the relationship between population density and poverty?
5. Based on this chart, what generalizations can you suggest about the relationship between poverty and population growth?

3. Evaluating an Interpretation of High Birth Rates

Children: The Poor People's Source of Power

When at least one billion rural people in the third world have been deprived of farmland, what are the consequences for fertility? During a period of rapid population growth, landholdings in many countries (e.g. Brazil, Mexico, the Philippines) have become increasingly concentrated in the hands of a minority, who seize land from the less powerful by legal means or by force. Without adequate land or secure tenure, and with no old-age support from the government or any other source outside the family, many poor people understandably view children as perhaps the only source of power open to them. For those in extreme poverty, children can be critical to one's very survival.

For example, one study on the island of Java, Indonesia, found children to be an extremely important asset in the rural economy. As early as age seven, a boy assumes responsibility for his family's ducks and chickens. At nine, he can care for goats and cattle, cut fodder, and harvest and transplant rice. And as early as twelve, he can work for wages. By his fifteenth birthday, a Javanese boy has, through his labor, repaid the entire investment his family has made in him. The labor of girls is equally important. In Tanzania, one study found that girls between the ages of five and nine spend an average of three and a half hours a day working on economic activities and in the home.

Moreover, the "lottery mentality" is associated with poverty everywhere. Third world parents can always hope that the next child will be the one clever and bright enough to get an education and land a city job, despite the odds. In many countries, income from just one such job in the city can support a whole family in the countryside.

And in nearly all third world societies, those rendered powerless by unjust economic structures also know that without children to care for them in old age, they will have nothing.

Please answer the following questions:

1. Why have so many people been deprived of farmland?
2. Name three economic reasons why poor people make rational choices to have more children.
3. Many poor nations with low life expectancy rates also have high infant mortality rates. How would these factors affects the tendency to have more children?
4. In the United States, summer vacation was originally designed to allow children to help their parents on the farm. How does the economic role of children and teenagers in the US compare with that of children in a developing country?