Demography (Week 14) - Conan Chua

1. Summary

The study of the dynamics of human populations to explain certain sociological phenomena is known as Demography. It explores the changes a human population goes through over time due to births, deaths, migration and aging. The selection of a population can range from whole countries to certain groups based on education, religion or ethnicity.

Demography makes use of data collected from censuses and registration statistics (such as birth, death or marriage), usually over a large period of time to observe trends in demographic indicators. Demographic indicators are variables in a population that sociologists use to operationalize their investigation.

Examples of these indicators include:

1.     Fertility and Fecundity Rates, which can then be used to determine an important factor called the replacement level, which shows whether the fertility rate is enough to replace the existing population, thus describing whether a population could be aging or diminishing.

2.     Mortality Rates, which could be misleadingly higher in developed countries as there are relatively more old people, thus skewing the mortality rate for higher ages. Less developed countries might have deaths that are more spread out along different age classes than developed countries. Study of mortality rates can be done in conjunction with wealth, race, social networks or job satisfaction to find correlations and achieve a greater understanding in which factors affect society and how.

As a country goes through economic development, a phenomenon occurs where the country transitions from high birth rates and death rates to low birth rates and death rates. Recent research in Mongolia suggest women pursuing education in hopes of better wealth is part of the reason for this transition – fertility maximization is traded for the pursuit of status enhancement.

In the discussion of population changes, a situation occurs when the population reaches a stage where it exceeds the carrying capacity of its ecological niche. In this case, the overpopulation of a country with limited resources. Early arguments for population control was proposed by Thomas Malthus (19^th c.) based on the idea that resource growth is arithmetic, while population growth is exponential. It is an almost undeniable fact that if both resource and population grow, there will come a point where the available resources are unable to support the population, after which population control will come in the form of mass famine and starvation. Population growth has to be controlled now to avoid this immoral disaster imposed by nature.

In the case of food as a resource, the results of many investigations actually show a negative correlation between food availability and birth rates. The more developed countries with more access to food usually have the lowest birth rates. However, there are also other factors to consider with regard to resources in developed countries, as food availability could also include availability of other resources like education and opportunities, which also contribute to lower birth rates.

Solving overpopulation can be done naturally (laissez-faire), where the balance between production and consumption of resources will self-regulate. However, critics are encouraging measures to be taken before the system has to result to this natural way of regulation, as there might be irreversible consequences (extinction, pollution, and moral issues).

The growth of a population can also be attributed to urbanization, where there is an influx of people due to the available opportunities, and thus population grows regardless of birth and death rates. This movement of people is usually known as “rural flight”, where cities provide better economic opportunities (both job-wise and resource/amenity wise) than rural areas. The economic costs of urbanization usually price the working class (people who move from rural areas), out of the real estate market. However, the cost might still be balanced out by the value of opportunities provided.

The environment on the other hand, usually suffers due to urbanization as it brings along the urban heat island effect. Heat is concentrated within cities due to the lack of vegetation and water bodies, and the abundance of concrete, metal and other heat absorbing materials. A possible side effect of the urban heat effect is increased carbon dioxide emissions.

2. Something of interest to me

I feel that the future of city-design will be to address the issues of the current trend of urbanization, where the large concentration of people does not fit into the urban areas designed for lower concentrations of people. The goal would be to design the city to have the atmosphere and environmental effects of the rural area, but with the carrying capacity of the current city design.

3. Discussion point

The world will have to progress together towards a common goal which eliminates the need for certain types of government funding, in order to reallocate those funds into providing for a larger population. For example, if world peace were achieved, governments would have no need to spend trillions on creating and developing their military power. The resources could then be used to develop the infrastructure and amenities to support the growing population.