PATTERNS OF POPULATION

Distribution In the World:

Patterns of population distribution and density help us to understand the demographic characteristics of any area. The term population

Distribution refers to the way people are spaced over the earth’s surface. Broadly, 90 per cent of the world population lives in about 10% of its land area.

The 10 most populous countries of the world contribute about 60 per cent of the world’s population. Of these 10 countries, 6 are located in Asia.

GROWTH RATE

Growth of population is the change in the number of people living in a particular area between two points of time. It is expressed in percentage.

Population growth has two components namely, natural and induced. While the natural growth is analysed by assessing the crude birth rate and death rates, the induced components are explained by the volume of inward and outward movement of people in any given area.

The decadal and annual growth rates of population in India are both very high and steadily increasing over time. The annual growth rate of India’s population is 2.4 percent. At this current rate of increase, it is estimated that the country’s population will double itself in another 36 years and even surpass population of China.                                            

DECADAL GROWTH RATE:  According to census 2011 Indian population increased to 1.21 billion with a decadal growth of 17.70%.      

DEMOGRAPHIC DIVIDEND

According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the Demographic Dividend refers to “the economic growth potential that can result from shifts in a population’s age structure, mainly when the share of the working-age population (15 to 64) is larger than the non-working-age share of the population (14 and younger, and 65 and older).” It can only come into existence, when countries invest in the empowerment, education and employment including good governance.

Relationship between Demographic Dividend and Economic Growth:

There is a great influence of demographic dividend on the economic growth because the demographic dividend is the economic benefit that can arise when a population has a relatively large proportion of working age people, and effectively invests in their empowerment, education, and employment.

According to the Malthus, increase in food production would not be able to keep up with an increase in population because while population grew geometrically, food production only increased arithmetically. He stressed that societies which have high fertility rates would have lower income levels and those with lower fertility rates will have higher incomes.

The reasoning behind this inverse relationship is that high population levels would drive down the price of labour and increase the price of food. Hence, he believed that nature had its own checks to balance the world’s population.

Therefore, on the basis of the above argument of Malthus, the economic growth can be defined as ‘a long term rise in capacity to supply diverse economic goods to its population, this growing capacity based on advancing technology and the institutional and ideological adjustments that it demands’.

Migration:              

Movement of people from one area to the other area is called migration. Based on the nature of movement, this can be divided into (i) permanent and (ii) temporary.

Permanent migration involves movement of people from one place to the other and these people do not go back to their original place. For example – The movement of the people from rural to urban areas for better jobs and other opportunities can be said as permanent settlement.

Temporary migration, the people move from one place to the other for some duration and then return to their original place of living. An example of this movement is seasonal migration. Migration of Agricultural labourers from Bihar to Punjab and Haryana during the harvesting season is a temporary migration. 

Migration can be on daily basis also. You might have observed that a large number of people commute to the cities every day in the morning from the surrounding areas to work and they all go back in the evening. This is called DAILY OR DIURNAL MIGRATION.