GEODEMOGRAPHY

1. GEODEMOGRAPHY the power of numbers

2. We are all drops in the ocean … • If you shook hands with people, night and day, for the rest of your life you could only meet about 1/5 of the people on the planet (assuming handshakes last 2 seconds) • In short, get a different job!

3. What’s wrong with the table at the left? Can this be right?

4. Global Population Distribution

6. Sparse populations Too cold, too dry, too rocky, etc.

7. Sparse rural settlement: Iceland

8. Sparse rural settlement: Iceland

9. Dense populations Usually in areas with good soils, ample to high rainfall, and water access May be urban or rural

10. Dense urban settlement http://rose.ruru.ne.jp/pollux/natsu/natsuTop2.htm Dense rural settlement (rice paddy regions) LucianNiemeyer, http://www.bettadreams.com/

11. How useful is a map of birthrate? Not very

12. Total Fertility Rate What can we learn from TFR? What can’t we learn from TFR?

13. Births and Deaths per minute • Russia: 3 births - 4 deaths = -1 • Japan: 2 births - 2 deaths = 0 • U.K.: 1 birth - 1 death = 0 • U.S.: 8 births - 4 deaths = 4 • Nigeria: 8 births - 3 deaths = 5 • Pakistan: 10 births - 3 deaths = 7 • China: 38 births - 16 deaths = 22 • India: 48 births - 17 deaths = 31 What would help us compare these statistics?

14. Annual Natural Change of Population What can we learn from this map? What can’t we learn?

15. Is Global Population Growth a Problem? • “No, the world has more than enough resources if they are divided fairly” • The planet can physically support more than 10 billion people as long as they all share nicely. • Assumptions: • People are willing to share the resources they have, especially with strangers. •  an optimistic view!

16. Let’s Get Real … • Whereas the U.S. currently uses 25% of the world’s resources … • And whereas the other 95% of the world would have to consume something like 5 times as much as they do now in order to equal our level, • And whereas their definition of an “adequate” standard of living is not far below our own … • The current growth of population is a problem.

17. Whose Problem is it? • If the poor countries develop over the next century to our levels of resource consumption, then the total rate of resource exhaustion, ecological disruption, and pollution is about 10 times higher than today. • If the poor countries do not develop over the next century but continue to double in population every four decades, then we will have to deal with massive social unrest stemming from abject poverty, waves of poor immigrants, desperate refugees, epidemics, and political chaos. • It’s our problem as much as it’s “their” problem

18. Current Migration Flows

19. Total Fertility Rate Zone of economic insecurity

20. Why do insecure people have more children? • Often they are rural • They seldom have access to the equivalent of welfare, social security, Medicare, and Medicaid • Often they are members of oppressed ethnic groups • Their world is quite different from the world we live in (religion, sex roles, economy, age roles, pass-times, etc.)

21. Contraception What combination of factors might cause this pattern?

22. Consequences of these considerations: • Children are useful in agricultural economies starting around 8 yrs. old • When children (at least male children) grow up they are expected to support their parents • Leaders in oppressed ethnic groups often advocate large families because they recognize the power of numbers (a minority that grows enough will no longer be a minority)

23. What are the consequences? • People in many poor capitalist countries are faced with a highly uncertain future • Periodic food shortages • Lack of employment • Political instability and inadequate policing • Diseases caused by lack of adequate sanitation • Diseases caused by industrial pollution • Lack of health care • They “insure” themselves by having more children than we consider “sensible” • At the individual level, their actions are sensible

24. What is our contribution to the problem? • Europeans & Americans have believed they could make a profit and help people in poor countries (developing regions), but profit-making has been the primary objective driving policy • exploitation causes social disruption, which leads to insecurity of families and individuals, which in turn leads to people having more children • During the Cold War, US policy centered on suppressing Communism and the U.S. supported those people most interested in foreign economic ties: large land owners and members of aristocratic families • These “leaders” were seldom interested in social programs to alleviate poverty and increase the security or the rights of the poor

25. Population pyramids What they are and what they can tell us about society & culture in different places

26. Demographic Transition

29. Some Gallic Inspiration • “It is old age, rather than death, that is to be contrasted with life. Old age is life's parody, whereas death transforms life into a destiny: in a way it preserves it by giving it the absolute dimension.” • Simone De Beauvoir

30. Average Age Why are the Europeans so old? Why are the Africans so young?

32. 50,000,000 Missing girls

33. Is the child in the poster (promoting China’s one-child policy) a boy or a girl?

35. Male-Female Ratio What might cause a surplus of males or females somewhere?

36. Females are less than 50% in some countries because: • Where girls are fewer it is usually because of: • Selective abortion • Infanticide • Deliberate neglect • Favoring boys nutritionally • Also, women’s natural longevity is negated by • Early childbirth • Frequent childbirth • Lack of obstetric care • What about Australia’s Northern Territory?

37. Average Marriage Age for Women • Japan: • 26 • U.S.: • 25 • Mali & Niger • 16 • Hausa people living in Nigeria and Niger • 10-12

38. What impact do you think marriage age has: • On infant mortality? • On family size? • On women’s status in society? • On women’s educational level? • On health and disease levels?

39. Infant Mortality If you could do one thing to reduce infant mortality what would it be?

40. Education of Women • Lowers TFR (and thus improves child care) by improving the effectiveness of birth control • Lowers TFR (and thus improves child care) by reducing the need to have a boy as “insurance” against poverty in old age • Lowers maternal mortality rates (and thus improves child care) by delaying the onset of childbearing • Lowers maternal mortality making it easier for women to leave abusive and/or promiscuous husbands (nutrition, child care, and AIDS diffusion are affected) • Lowers infant mortality and maternal mortality by improving women’s ability to access a wide range of information on medicine, hygiene, and nutrition

41. Contraception Muslim countries have low contraception rates but do not have high HIV infection rates. Why? What would you predict about AIDS in Thailand?

42. New AIDS Cases per year

43. “Mexico City Policy” • No US funds (USAID) are given to NGOs operating in foreign countries if they use any funds (even non-US funds) to provide abortions (excluding cases of rape, incest, & medical emergencies), to counsel about abortion, or to lobby to keep abortion legal in their country. • USAID does support provision of contraception

44. The Role of Disease • Disease’s role is not always predictable • Often people’s response to epidemic disease is to “insure” themselves by having more children • For example, although the HIV infection rate in some African countries is more than one in three, the African population is expected to double in 40 years.

45. The role of social conflict and oppression • People in oppressed minorities nearly always recognize that they would not be oppressed if they were not a minority. • Solution? • Have lots of kids!

46. Quebec’s “Revenge of the Cradles” (La Revanche des Berceaux) • Catholic Church saw numbers as the key to survival • Strategy called “la survivance” • Ended when three things changed (1960s): • Francophones got more power in Federal government • Catholic Church lost power in Quebec • Birth rate plummeted

47. Palestinians • Gaza Strip’s population will quadruple to 4.8 million by 2050, West Bank is growing almost as fast • Palestinians will outnumber Israelis by 2036 • Considering lack of jobs and lack of arable land, this will create massive dependency on foreign aid unless these areas somehow become booming industrial centers like Hong Kong or Singapore • Children growing up with no hope of leading a happy life are coached to die a martyr’s death • When will this unsustainable situation change?

48. Role of religion • Lays down standards pertaining to reproduction, but people respond to these standards in complex ways…

49. Catholics don’t always listen to the Pope • Political conditions were more important than religious factors in shaping the demographic pattern in Quebec.

50. Onset of decline in TFR Three guesses what country the town of “Condom” is found in … Condom Actually, the name appears to have nothing to do with the town, but the map does have something to do with birth control