Maria Jaramillo Essay on Population disparity

Population. Its a word we tend to use offend. Its official definition is: the total number of persons inhabiting a country, city, or district or area. When most people think of population they just think of the number of people in a general place. But, what most people dont realize are all the other factors that connect with population other than just the number of people in a certain area. Or the difference between an immigrant and an emigrant. I bet that most people dont know what MEDCs and LEDCs are either. The problem with this is that if we dont start realizing our situation on this earth and start population studies we might not have a future to look forward to with an overpopulated planet. Food, energy, and water. Thats what we need to survive. If we dont have those three basic necessities, there would be more death rates and not enough birth rates. Thank fully healthy living and medicines fight off diseases decreasing our death rates. Unfortunately this isnt true for all parts of the world. The advantages that are given in some places arent as evenly distributed in others. Population used to be balanced by nature, but now sadly its controlled by power, cultures, resources, and laws. The population of some countries will increase while others will decrease. Its happening at this very moment even. In less economically developed countries in (LEDCs) Sub-Saharan Africa is said to be overpopulated because they have insufficient food, minerals and energy resources to sustain themselves. Meanwhile in countries more economically developed (MEDCs) such as Australia and Canada are overpopulated because they have more food, minerals, and energy resources than they needed and being able to export the surplus, giving them high incomes and good living conditions. The annual growth rate of the worlds population rose slowly but steadily until the beginning of the nineteenth century, known as the population explosions. It was due to a combination of factors: a decline in birth rate across the world, improvements in a family educations, the one-child policy in China, and diseases such as HIV/AIDS and malaria. Although it is now recognized that the three key factors leading to a decline in birth rate are family planning, health care and womens education and status. So the view on the world population all depends on what part of the world you viewing it from really. In 1979 China decided to impose the one-child-policy that restricted all families to only one child per family. After this rule was enforced there were thousands of forced abortions, and there is also evidence of female infanticide by parents whishing their one child was a boy. There were some exceptions to this rule though: if the first child had a mentally or physically handicapped, or died the couple was allowed to have a second child. Some local officials would

have allowed a second child on payment of a fine or bribe. Ever since the one-child-policy had been established the birth rate has fallen from 31-12 in less than 30 years. Right now China is more concerned with its ageing population than its birth rate numbers. The life expectancy has been raised so much that a person born in 2008 can expect to live 33 years longer than their grandparents did! These drastic changes in statistics have great impacts on the Chinese government. They are spending a much bigger amount of money on pensions, health care, and other benefits on the elderly than they should. So going back to the one-child-policy, it was meant to try to control population growth, but it only partially solved the under 15s and created the great ageing problem in the country. Migration is also a big factor that has to do with population. There are many different types of migration, and all of them impact the world their own way. In all there are 7 types of migration: Annual, seasonal, daily, national, permanent, temporary, and international (voluntary/forced). Most of these type of migrations live up to their names; the two more complex ones are the voluntary and forced migrations. Voluntary migration is the free movement of migrants looking for an improved quality in life and personal freedom. This type of migration is practiced a lot actually with the Chinese moving to Australia. Forced migration is when the migrant has no personal choice but has to move due to natural disaster or to economic or social imposition. These migrants are called refugees. They are forced immigrants also known as Asylum seekers. Unfortunately most of the worlds refugees are Palestinian, Indian, and Pakistani refugees. These people are entering an unknown country and are awaiting a decision on their application while they have a status of a refugee. Also concerning migrants are the terms we use to describe them. An emigrant is a person who leaves their country. An immigrant is a person who arrives into a foreign country and you can put any of the types of migrations in front of emigrant/immigrant to describe a persons migration status. Urbanization is the proportion of people living in towns and cities. Nowadays people tend to move from rural to urban areas. This is called rural-urban migration. Four of the main reasons people migrate are: social, economic, political, and religious reasons. These four reasons tie into push and pull factors. A push factor is why people leave the country side. A pull factor is why people move into the city. So each time someone leaves the country area to a city its because social, economic, political, and religious reason. As you can see population is so much more than just numbers but about culture, living standards, health, economy and so much more. Population studies are over looked too often. The more people start learning about all of this the sooner we can come up with the solution to over and under population. Instead of just focusing on the statistics, start taking interest into what makes those numbers and facts what they are and what we can do to change them for the good of our world.