Population Geography

___________________________________________

1. Global Village, Global Systems, Global Interdependence.

2. Environmental Problems: Global Warming, Greenhouse

Effect, Acid Rain, Ozone Hole.

3. Population Dynamics: Thomas Malthus, Demographic

Transition Model, Dependency Ratio, Population Pyramids.

4. Standard of Living, Physical Quality of Life Index.

5. Food Availability, Allocation, Changes in Global Food

Provisions

6. Developmental Aid

7. Issues: Aging Populations and National Economic Health,

AIDS, Subsidies, a topic of your choice.
 Global Village, Global Systems, Global
Interdependence

Discussion Questions:

1. What is a village? Do the people in the village know everything about

everybody? Is there privacy in the village? If a stranger arrives, will
most people know and include the stranger in their daily lives or will
they have a fair amount of distance and distrust?
2. If someone in the village is known as the “bad apple” or the “odd man
out”, will the others include him or her in their daily affairs or will
they shy away from that person?
3. Read the following story and discuss its implications.

John and Amy have always prided themselves in helping people

in trouble. This year, their attitude has been no exception.
Early July, two immigrants rang their door bell and asked if
they could do some chores for John and Amy in the garden of
their five-bedroom house. John and Amy looked at each other a
few moments, shrugged their shoulders and said “Why not?”
The couple and the two immigrants talked and negotiated a
price for their work, what they would be doing and where they
would stay in the home.
John and Amy decided that the two of them could stay in the
basement of their home for a few weeks, that they would tend
the garden, clean up around the house, and would get one meal
a day. Money would not be part of the deal as John and Amy
were not wealthy people. The two immigrants agreed and
everything went well for a week.
At the end of the first week, three more people arrived at John
and Amy’s house. These people were also looking for a place to
stay. Bill and Charlie claimed they had carpentry skills and
could work without supervision to help John and Amy improve
their home if John and Amy provided free rent and board and
 the necessary supplies for the renovations. They said it would
likely take a couple of months. John and Amy, full of goodness
in their hearts, agreed once again. They discussed the new
situation with Peter and Paul, the first arrivals, and al agreed
that the newcomers could also in stay in the basement.
John and Amy were very generous and allowed their guests to
use the bathroom and their kitchen. Even though things were a
little crowded, everyone got along. Amy and John allowed the
first two to stay a little longer as they were pleased how well
they had improved the look of their house and yard.
Toward the end of August, three more people arrived. This
time, it was three women. Again, homeless and without shelter,
they requested John’s and Amy’s help since they had heard
about their generosity from the other earlier arrivals. John and
Amy were perplexed why they had been chosen. However, they
agreed to accommodate the women as well. However, there
was no more room in the basement. The upstairs was their
private area and John and Amy did not want anyone to be
there. They all sat down and discussed where they would put up
the newly arrived women. For safety reasons, it was decided
that they should move into the basement while the middle group
would camp outside in the garden. John and Amy had a few
tents they were willing to put up. Everyone agreed to this new
arrangement.
A couple of months passed and things started to turn ugly. The
immigrants and the women started to fight over food and the
bathroom. Many had become unhappy living in John’s and
Amy’s house because the food was always the same and had
actually turned worse. John and Amy did their very best but
their income was limited and so everyone had to cut back. The
fighting got to this generous couple and they decided the first
group to leave as they had been there the longest and the
garden did not need any work during the winter months. The
two refused to leave and a fight broke out.

4. Discuss the implications of the following statements and try to apply

them to the above story. (a) We are our brother’s keeper; (b) Don’t
give a hungry man a fish, but teach him how to fish.

Reading
 Former UN Secretary General, Marshal McLuhan, coined the
phrase, Global Village, in the 1960s. He referred to the
importance of television and believed that television would
change the world by bringing people closer together. He
believed that sporting events and cultural events around the
world could be broadcast live and people in other countries
would have a feeling of being there. In his word, the medium
became the message. It meant that through television, people
around the globe could exchange ideas and work towards
global peace.
Television has, indeed, brought people in some communities
together. Television has also been used to educate people in
small rural areas about such important topics as contraception.
Women, unable to read and write, would be able to watch
television and learn how to look after their families and
children and provide proper diet and hygiene.
Television has also been used as a tool by many politicians to
spread their message to the people and convince the voters to
vote in a particular way or support a certain group.
While television has been used as an educational and a
propaganda tool, it has no doubt been most widely accepted as
a means to provide entertainment and dumb down the masses.
Technological advances in the computer age, however, have
led to the demise of television in many circles with the arrival
of the internet.

5. Discuss the implications of the internet in terms of the global village

concept.
Reading:

Global Systems

The earth is made up of 71% water and 29% land area. The
atmosphere provides all living things with oxygen to breathe.
Land, water, and air are interactive systems that are constantly
in flux in a variety of ways.
Human activities take place in all three of these media and as a
result of human activity, these media are often affected by
human activity in a negative way.
As man works the land or mines the ocean, natural resources
are often changed in such a way that they take a long time to
degrade. This leads to concerns about the sustainability of our
global environment a human habitat, especially as population
increases. It is therefore imperative to understand how human
behaviour affects the environment so that humans can act
responsibly and manage their habitat with future generations in
mind.

What are some of these systems? They are the physical system,
the biological system, and the economic system.

None of these systems should be seen in isolation. Instead, one

should examine their interaction. However, a look at these
systems in isolation reveals their initial nature.
This natural slope is treed
with a house located at the
foot of the slope.

How would such human

activity as logging or clear
cutting affect the structure
below?

How would the activity of

logging (physical activity)
change the physical
system of the slope?

How would this affect the

economic system
represented by the house?

Deep Sea trawling

for fish scours the
ocean floor for not
only one species of
fish but anything,
fish or plants.

Fish often to small

for harvesting or
plants unsuitable
for human
consumption as
well as downright
destruction of
complete
ecosystems can
result.
Comment on the
interaction
between biological
systems and
economic systems
Reading:

Hotspots for evolution

June 2006

Ever wonder why the Amazon is loaded with different species

while the Antarctic boasts just a few? Well, so did New Zealand
biologists Shane Wright, Jeanette Keeling, and Len Gillman —
and the answer they discovered would be no surprise to any
sun-worshipping tourist: duh, it's the weather! The team
compared DNA from tropical plant species with the DNA from
species in cooler climates and found that the tropical species'
DNA had evolved about twice as fast as that of their cold-
weather cousins! The researchers chalked this difference up to
the warmer weather of the tropics — which encourages lush
growth, higher metabolic rates, and hence, higher rates of
mutation. Those high mutation rates could boost the pace of
speciation — resulting in a myriad of tropical species.

What's the difference between speciation in a tropical rain

forest and speciation in the Antarctic?
Where's the evolution?
The researchers on this study looked at a fundamental question
in evolution: why are there so many different species — and
specifically, why are they concentrated at the equator? But
answering a question like this can be tricky. After all, the
species that currently inhabit the tropics evolved thousands or
millions of years ago — how can we learn about that deep
history from the evidence available today? The research team
based their approach on the evolutionary clues passed down
from generation to generation in the genes of different species.
Biologists first noted the diversity spike in the tropics several
hundred years ago. More recently, biologists have found that
metabolic rate (the speed of chemical reactions occurring
within the body) is directly related to temperature: the higher
the temperature, the higher organisms' metabolisms will be
simply because biochemical reactions occur more quickly at
higher temperatures. The New Zealand team focused on one
main hypothesis that links those two observations: tropical
species evolve more quickly than cold-weather species because
higher temperatures lead to higher mutation rates. This is a
reasonable hypothesis since warm-weather organisms likely
have higher metabolic rates, and some substances involved in
metabolic reactions can cause DNA damage, potentially
leading to a mutation. Mutations, in turn, increase genetic
variation, the raw material of evolution. So warm weather
means higher metabolism, which means higher mutation rates
— which may mean that warm-weather species evolve more
quickly than cold-weather species.

To study their hypothesis, the New Zealand team compared the

number of mutations accumulated by warm-weather plant
species to the number of mutations accumulated by cool-
weather plant species. But figuring out those numbers required
some detective work. The researchers studied pairs of closely
related, similar plant species where one species lives in the
tropics and one lives in a more temperate climate. They
sequenced the same stretch of DNA in all of these plant species
and compared those to the sequence of a more distantly related
plant, called the outgroup (see below).
 All three species share a common ancestor with the ancestral
sequence some time in the past, and since then, each lineage
has picked up its own set of mutations that make its sequence
unique. In the example below, the outgroup has accumulated
three mutations that set it aside from the other species. The
tropical and temperate species, on the other hand, both
inherited the same two mutations from their immediate common
ancestor — but the tropical species has four mutations that
belong to it alone and the temperate species has only one
mutation that belongs to it alone. Now if we compare the
differences in sequence between the tropical species and the
outgroup (click on the button below), we see that they differ at
nine spots (four of which occurred in the tropical species
alone). However, the temperate species and the outgroup (click
on the button below) differ at only six spots (one of which
occurred in the temperate species alone).

The New Zealand team did this comparison for 45 pairs of

species and found that tropical species accumulated many more
mutations than temperate species — about twice as many! That
evidence strongly supported their hypothesis that higher
temperatures cause higher mutation rates, and hence, faster
evolution — at least in the plants they studied.

Of course, this work represents just one piece of the puzzle:

many alternative hypotheses have been proposed to explain the
tropics' magnificent diversity, and more work is needed to
figure out the most accurate explanations. However, if this
general hypothesis (that higher temperatures and mutation
rates lead to faster evolution in the tropics) holds true for other
groups, it has some important implications. For example, if
global warming continues, it could speed up the pace of
evolution on Earth!

1. What is the consequence of differences in global biodiversity?

2. How would human activity such as cutting down the rainforest or
simply clearing major sections of the rainforest for farm or grazing
land affect other areas around the world?
3. What is development and what is the difference between developed
and developing nations?
4. If industrialized countries, which have a high level of industrial
pollution, came up with the idea of a carbon transfer tax, what
position would members of developing nations take with respect to
such a tax? [Note: A carbon transfer tax is a direct payment to
developing nations for every tree that is not cut down. This is based
on the theory that the tropical rainforests act as carbon sinks that have
the ability to absorb CO2 through photosynthesis. The net effect for
developed nations would be that they could continue to pollute at
present-day levels and would not have to reduce their greenhouse
emissions.]
Reading
Global Interdependence
 Environmental Problems: Global Warming, Greenhouse
Effect, Acid Rain, Ozone Hole

Global Warming

Source: http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/afs/soil_science/MSSS/links/Images/cartoons/bush
%20global%20warming.jpg

What does the carton above suggest?

How would the phenomenon of global warming occur?
The Greenhouse Effect

Source: http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-
images/Guardian/Pix/maps_and_graphs/2000/11/14/climate_greenhouse2.gif

Explain the cartoon above.

How do human activities contribute to the greenhouse effect?
What is the link between the greenhouse effect and global warming?
Acid Rain

Source: http://www.newsroom.ucr.edu/releases/images/257_3.gif
Ozone Layer Depletion
What is Ozone Layer?
A region of the upper atmosphere, between about 15 and 30 kilometers (10 and 20
miles) in altitude, containing a relatively high concentration of ozone that absorbs
solar ultraviolet radiation in a wavelength range not screened by other
atmospheric components. Also called ozonosphere.
Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth
Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Ozone layer protects us from the
ultraviolet rays.
But a very large ozone hole was
discobered in the ozone layer over
Antarctic. It is as large as 3 times the area
of Australia.

What is causing the depletion?

It is caused by the release of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).CFCs were given off by
refrigerators, air conditioners and aerosol cans.
Ozone hole is getting larger each year!

This image from NOAA AERONOMY LABORATORY.

What does ozone layer depletion have brought about?

Ozone layer depletion has bad influences to our lives. An ozone layer is destroyed, and if
an ultraviolet ray passes through an ozone layer and arrives on earth's surface, we receive
serious damage. For example, skin cancer, a cataract, and other diseases.

What will happen if we don't have taken steps to reduce

CFCs?
 Effect of the International
Agreements on Ozone-Depleting
Stratospheric Chlorine/Bromine

Without those protocol,

chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and
other gases would have increased
the stratospheric abundances
tenfold by the 2050 compared with
the 1980 amounts.

Population Dynamics: Thomas Malthus,

Demographic Transition Model, Dependency
Ratio, Population Pyramids
Source: http://www.sustainablescale.org/images/uploaded/Population/World%20Population%20Growth
%20to%202050.JPG

Population pyramid

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A population pyramid is two back-to-back bar graphs, one showing the number of
males and one showing females in a particular population in five-year age groups (also
called cohorts). Males are conventionally shown on the left and females on the right, and
they may be measured by raw number or as a percentage of the total population.

A great deal of information about the population broken down by age and sex can be read
from a population pyramid, and this can shed light on the extent of its development.
There are two basic shapes of population pyramid.

Triangular population distribution

The triangular distribution may also be called a pyramid or exponential distribution. The
wide base indicates a large number of children but the rapid narrowing shows that many
people die between each age band. The pyramid indicates a population in which there is a
high birth rate, a high death rate and a short life expectancy. This is the typical pattern for
less economically developed countries due to little access and incentive to use birth
control, poor environmental factors (for example: lack of clean water) and little access to
health services.

Note that there tends to be more females than males in the older age groups. This is
because females tend to have a longer life expectancy.

Types of population pyramid

While all countries population pyramids differ, three types have been identified by the
fertility and mortality rates of a country.

Stationary pyramid - A population pyramid showing an unchanging pattern of fertility

and mortality.

Expansive pyramid - A population pyramid showing a broad base, indicating a high

proportion of children, a rapid rate of population growth, and a low proportion of older
people.

Constrictive pyramid - A population pyramid showing lower numbers or percentages of

younger people.

Uses of population pyramids

Population pyramids can be used to find the number of economic dependents being
supported in a particular population. Economic dependents are defined as those under 15
(children who are in full time education and therefore unable to work) and those over 65
(those who have retired). Of course, in some less economically developed countries
children start work well before the age of 15, and in some more economically developed
countries it is not usual to start work until 18 or 21, and people may work beyond the
official retirement age of 65, but the definition provides an approximation. The
government must plan the economy in such a way that the working population can
support these dependents.
Population Dependency Ratio
The dependency ratio tells us how many young people (under 16) and older people (over
64) depend on people of working age (16 to 64). The dependency ratio is worked out
with this formula

A worked example should make this clearer. Pakistan, which is a developing country, has
41% of its population less than 15, and 4% over 65. This makes 55% (100 - (41+4))
between the ages of 15 and 64.

New Zealand, a developed country, has 23% of its population less than 15, and 12% over
65. This makes 65% between 15 and 64.

Countries that have a high dependency ratio have more people who are not of working
age, and fewer who are working and paying taxes. The higher the number, the more
people that need looking after.

Human Population – impact on environment

EPS 103 Nov. 13th, 2000

Lecture 19

Human population clock: http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/ipc/popclockw

Up until this point we have been talking about the world before (independent) of man.
There have been more changes in our environment in the last 10,000 years than in any
time in Earth’s history (except for rare catastrophic events, such as meteorite impacts).
For the next half of the class we will be talking about the human impact on the
environment.
One big question is natural resources.
• Exploitable resources (iron, coal, wood, etc.) are commercial resources
• Noncommercial resources are free (clean air, the aesthetic value of a landscape,
noncommercial organisms) provide no monetary gain and are generally not
referred to as natural resources.

Natural resources: These are either renewable or non-renewable: Minerals, coal, oil, gas
are non-renewable. Wind, water, wood, are renewable.

We have changed the courses or rivers, produced bountiful agricultural lands, developed
immense infrastructures, found ways to get to the moon. However, soil degradation,
deforestation, desertification, loss of species, pollution, acid rain, greenhouse effect,
radioactive wastes, poverty for some and great affluence for others are products of the
human situation.

Most of the wealth is in the northern hemisphere. Most of the population is in the
south. Why? Let’s consider it from a historical perspective.

Historical review

• Universe 12 billion years

• Earth 4.65 billion years
• Life 3.5 billion years
• First hominids 4 million years
• Early homo sapiens 400,000 years
• Modern humans (Cro Magnon) ~40,000 years
• Agricultural revolution 10,000 years
• Industrial revolution <200 years

Early man came onto the scene about 400,000 years ago. The earth was well-stocked for
them in terms of food and places to live.
Modern humans, Cro-Magnon evolved some 30,000 to 50,000 years ago. They
developed their hunting skills, and were able to control their environment, so by the end
of the Pleistocene, 10,000 years ago, human population was about 10 million. Then the
agricultural revolution began. This was the first population explosion and the first
impact on the environment. Slash-and-burn techniques were developed. The countryside
could be modified. Animals were domesticated. Agricultural communities developed –
Pakistan, China, Africa, Egypt and the Tigris-Euphrates Valley in Iraq. More people
could live in a smaller area.

Changes occurred: The Mediterranean region went from vast primordial forests to what
it is today.
Consider that the Romans went as far as Great Britain to get wood. They had eliminated
so many of the forests. Part of the reason that the Unites States has been so prosperous is
that it did not have the centuries of modification that was seen in Europe.

Things were relatively unchanged until the last two centuries. Then a profound change
occurred.
The Industrial Revolution in the 19th century. Labor was no longer a limitation as power
was much less limited. More people and natural resources were needed to sustain
the new industrial system and the needs of growing societies.

Up until this point, birth and death rates were equal. Now, the birth rates far outweighed
the death rates due to improved medicine, sanitation and disease control. Standards of
living went way up, with coincident increase in energy consumption.

By the end of the 17th century, the Atlantic forests in N. and S. America were cleared.
Only small parts of primordial forests remain in the United States, and these are
threatened today. Our ocean fisheries are being seriously depleted.

According to the Food and Agricultural Organization, between 1981 and 1990, tropical
forest areas were lost at a rate of roughly 0.7% per year.

We are using our coal and oil at an unprecedented rate. How long will that last? For oil,
some estimates are early 21st century. This is soon, folks. (More on this later).

The next great revolution that we are entering is the technological revolution.
Consumption has mushroomed along with the technological advances.

The World’s population has increased dramatically in the past several hundred years.
Beginning with the agricultural revolution, humankind became able to manipulate his
environment. This started with slash and burn techniques. For the first time, CO2 levels
were modified.
• • People were able to live more closely together (Cities and civilizations)
• • Closeness of cities led to desertification (Extreme example is the Middle East—
Mediterranean. The primordial forests of Lebanon are replaced by desert). In fact,
primordial forests are rare in the United States. Only in Pacific Northwest.

The population really started growing with the Industrial Revolution. Now, power was
no longer a limitation.
• • Manpower and oxen were replaced by machines. “More people and natural
resources were needed to sustain the new industrial system and the needs of
growing societies”. Who’s feeding who?
• • More forests needed to be stripped for agriculture and fuel.
• • Better sanitation, better medicine. Birth rates remained the same, but death
rates declined.

Can this growth maintain sustainable development?

Sustainable development:
• • economic progress
• • investment in human resources
• • stable population growth
• • technology that does not degrade the environment
• • does not deplete natural resource base

Different parts of the world have dealt with the problem of development differently.
• • 1st world: US, Western Europe, Japan have an enormous consumption of raw
goods to ‘fuel’ their economy. At the same time, they are ‘rich enough’ to afford to
be concerned about environment.
• • 2nd world: Former Soviet Bloc: The only concern during communist rule was
economic growth (examples of E. German factories, and pollution in the East). Now
they are trying to deal with a crippling, unbelievable problem
• • 3rd world. Their concern is more survival. Generally in the South – South
America and Africa. Their resources are limited. Unfortunately, their political
system is corrupt. They have large population increases, land degradation, extreme
poverty.
• • There are also rapidly developing countries, such as Indonesia, Malaysia,
Thailand, Mexico, Brazil and Chile. Air and water pollution, environmental
degradation are not a concern.

Population growth
• 10,000 years ago, 10 million people
• by 1850, population was 1 billion
• 80 more years to reach 2 billion (1930)
• 45 years, it doubled again (4 billion in 1975)
• 12 years to reach to reach 5 billion (1987)
• 6 billion in 1999
• by the year 2020, there will be 8 billion?

There are ¼ million people added to the planet per day.

This is exponential growth and it is mostly happening in developing nations.

How does exponential growth work? Imagine having 1 penny. Each day you double the
number of pennies you have.

After 6 days, you’ll have 32 cents

10 days $5.12
After 1 month, there will be 5.3 million dollars
After 40 days, you’ll have 10 billion dollars

So what is in store for the future?

It depends on the growth rate. See following figure

Following figure illustrates the growth rate of the developing countries.

In 1950, 66% of the world’s population were in underdeveloped countries. By the early
1990s, it was up to 77% --4.4 billion people in developing nations. By 2025, it is
projected as 84%. The developed countries are experiencing near zero population
growth, while the underdeveloped countries are undergoing a population explosion.
By 2025, the population of Africa and Asia are expected to reach 6 billion, equal to the
total in the world today! How population increases depends on the mortality/fertility
rates.

But it isn’t growth everywhere. Europe and many countries in the former Soviet bloc
have a zero-rate population growth. Between 1995 and 2025, Ukraine, Belarus, Bulgaria,
Hungary, Romania, etc. Also for Denmark, Greece, Italy Spain and Portugal. (Notice
that Catholic countries have declines. So the strict dictates of the Pope are not a major
problem for population growth).

Urbanization: Another concern is the centralization of population development.

• • 1950’s, less than 30% of the population lived in cities.
• • Today, it is over 40%.
• • By 2025, it is expected to be more than 60%.

Where is it occurring? The developing countries, the

ones least able to manage it.
• • 40% are slums

Providing for the following is a Herculean task,

especially given the limited resources in these
communities.
• • Water
• • Sanitation (waste, sewage)
• • health services
• • education
• • employment
• • transportation
• • security

This is an unmanageable nightmare!

Demographic transition
Demographers have organized the growth of a population into 4 stages:

1. 1. birth rate, death rate. Early on. Disease, lack of health care, limited food kept
population stable. (Most of human population).
2. 2. birth rate, ↓ death rate. A time of ‘prosperity’. Better health care, better
organized society, higher food supply, etc. Same high birth rate, lower death rate.
Population grows. (Industrial revolution was the classic conversion from 1 to 2).
3. 3. ↓ birth rate, ↓ death rate. As conditions improve, there is less need to have
children. Higher standard of living – affluence increases.
4. 4. Continued low birth and death rate. Stabilized population. This has nearly been
achieved in first-world countries. The U.S. is an exception because of immigration.

We have the following situation:

The developed nations survive by ‘feeding’ off the less-developed nations for their
energy and natural resource needs.
The developing nations are poor. They have often had corrupt governments, and their
economies are based on fueling the richer countries. This does not help them in the long
term. Environmental degradation on a huge scale is occurring.

The Population pyramid

One problem with reducing the population drastically is that the population pyramid is
inverted.
GNP. The developed countries use far more than their share of materials. They export
(exploit) poorer countries to maintain their standard of living. Poorer countries striving
to achieve the same wealth exploit their resources. Minerals, natural resources
(forests) are traded for goods from the wealthier countries.

It doesn’t balance, however. There is a net cash flow of $50 billion to the North. This
requires further destruction of resources to pay off the debt. It is exacerbated by
inequality between rich and poor and is not helped by the politics of governments.

In summary: 3 billion people live on the edge of poverty and consume very little.
1 billion live in extreme poverty.

Why care about other countries? For this course?

1. 1. Changes the Earth’s climate – desertification, deforestation, CO2 increase
2. 2. Disease; Ebola, aids.
3. 3. Energy consumption. What is China to do with it’s coal and energy needs.
Standard of Living, Physical Quality of Life
Index
Standard of living

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Standard of living refers to the quality and quantity of goods and services available
to people and the way these services and goods are distributed within a population. It is
generally measured by standards such as income inequality, poverty rate, real (i.e.
inflation adjusted) income per person. Other measures such as access and quality of
health care, educational standards and social rights are often used too. Examples are
access to certain goods (such as number of refrigerators per 1000 people), or measures of
health such as life expectancy. It is the ease by which people living in a country are able
to satisfy their wants.

The idea of a 'standard' may be contrasted with the quality of life, which takes into
account not only the material standard of living, but also other more subjective factors
that contribute to human life, such as leisure, safety, cultural resources, social life, mental
health, environmental quality issues etc. More complex means of measuring well-being
must be employed to make such judgements, and these are very often political, thus
controversial. Even among two nations or societies that have similar material standards of
living, quality of life factors may in fact make one of these places more attractive to a
given individual or group.

However, there can be problems even with just using numerical averages to compare
material standards of living, as opposed to, for instance, a Pareto index. Standards of
living are perhaps inherently subjective. As an example, countries with a very small, very
rich upper class and a very large, very poor lower class may have a high mean level of
income, even though the majority of people have a low "standard of living". This mirrors
the problem of poverty measurement, which also tends towards the relative. This
illustrates how distribution of income can disguise the actual Standard of living.

There are many factors being considered before measuring standard of living. Some
factors are gross domestic product, the per capita income, population, infrastructural
development, stability (political and social), and many other indicators.

Physical quality-of-life index

 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The physical quality-of-life index (PQLI) is an attempt to measure the quality of life or
well-being of a country. The value is a single number derived from basic literacy rate,
infant mortality, and life expectancy at age one, all equally weighted on a 0 to 100 scale.

It was developed for the Overseas Development Council in the mid-1970s by Morris
David Morris, as one of a number of measures created due to dissatisfaction with the use
of GNP as an indicator of development. PQLI might be regarded as an improvement but
shares the general problems of measuring quality of life in a quantitative way. It has also
been criticized because there is considerable overlap between infant mortality and life
expectancy.

The UN Human Development Index is a more widely used means of measuring well-
being.

The physical quality of life is an average of three statistics; literacy rate, infant mortality
rate, and life expectancy. However before these statistics can be averaged, infant
mortality and life expectancy must be indexed. It is the indexed infant mortality rate,
indexed mortality rate and the literacy rate that is averaged out to give the Physical
Quality of Life value.

Steps to Calculate Physical Quality of Life:

1) Find percentage of the population that is literate (literacy rate).

2) Find the infant mortality rate. (out of 1000 births)

INDEXED Infant Mortality Rate = (166 - infant mortality) × 0.625

3) Find the Life Expectancy.

INDEXED Life Expectancy = (Life expectancy - 42) × 2.7

4) Physical Quality of Life =

(Literacy Rate + INDEXED Infant Mortality Rate + INDEXED

Life Expectancy)
________________________________________________________
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3
Food Availability, Allocation, Changes in
Global Food Provisions

1. Visit this website and do the exercises: Feeding the Planet:

http://perso.orange.fr/julia.thompson/popgrowth_food_2g2a.ht
m
2. Visit the following website and choose one country to examine
the impact of human activity on the availability of food
resources. Sahel:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/africa/explore/sahel/sahel_overview.h
tml
3. Visit the following website and research how the Green
Revolution has been used as an attempt to increase global food
production. Green Revolution:
http://www.indiaonestop.com/Greenrevolution.htm

Developmental Aid

Developmental aid is aid from richer countries to poorer countries. This is

often done for humanitarian reasons if disaster strikes and a serious
emergency situation arises that could result in the starvation of thousands of
people as a result of famine from crop failure or other natural disasters.
These forms of assistance are often short-term and are organized through the
International Red Cross or the World Health Organization. In the past,
famous rock groups have also held benefit concerts to raise funds for such
places as Ethiopia.
Long-term assistance is usually organized through such organizations as the
International Monetary Fund, or the World Bank, CUSO, World Vision,
OXFAM, or CIDA. This long-term assistance can be financial aid but more
often is done through loans, such as micro-loans, doctors without borders,
or, more recently, engineers without borders.

Your task is to do some research into the different, current forms of

international developmental aid and assess the value of such aid for both the
receiving nations as well as the donor nations.