JAC Board Class 8th Social Science Notes Geography Chapter 6 Human Resource
→ Human resource is the ultimate resource. Healthy, educated and motivated people develop resources as per their requirements.
→ Distribution of Population:
- The pattern of population distribution is the way in which people are spread across the earth surface.
- The distribution of population in the world is extremely uneven.
- Almost three-quarters of the world’s people live in two continents Asia and Africa.
- In just 10 countries, sixty per cent of the world’s people stay. All of them have more than a 100 million people.
→ Density of Population:
The number of people living in a unit area of the earth’s surface is called population density. It is normally expressed as per square km.
→ Factors Affecting Distribution of Population Geographical factors:
- Topography: People always prefer to live on plains rather than mountains and plateaus because these areas are suitable for farming, manufacturing and service activities.
- Climate: People usually avoid extreme climates that are very hot or very cold such as Sahara desert, polar regions of Russia, Canada and Antarctica.
- Soil: Fertile soils provide suitable land for agriculture. Fertile plains are densely populated.
- Water: The river valleys of the world are densely populated while deserts have spare population.
- Minerals: Areas with mineral deposits are more populated.
- Social Cultural and Economic Factors
- Social: Areas of better housing, education and health facilities are more densely populated.
- Cultural: Places with religion or cultural significance attract people.
- Economic: Industrial areas provide employment opportunities.
→ Population Change:
- Population change refers to change in the number of people during a specific time.
- The world population has not been stable. This is actually due to changes in the number of births and deaths.
- The main reason for the growth of population was that with better food supplies and medicine, deaths were reducing, while the number of births still remained fairly high.
- Births are usually measured using the birth rate, i.e., the number of live births per 1,000 people.
- Deaths are usually measured using the death rate, i.e., the number of deaths per 1,000 people.
- Migrations is the movement of people in and out of an area.
- The difference between the birth rate and the death rate of a country is called the natural growth rate. It is one of the reasons for population increase.
- Migration is another way by which population size changes.
- The general trend of international migrations is from the less developed nations to the more developed nations in search of better employment opportunities.
→ Patterns of Population Change:
Rates of population growth vary across the world. Although, the world’s total population is rising rapidly, not all countries are experiencing this growth.
→ Population Composition:
- Population composition refers to the structure of the population.
- The composition of population helps us to know how many are males or females, which age group they belong to, how educated they are and what type of occupations they are employed in, what their income levels and health conditions are and many more things.
- The shape of the population pyramid tells the story of the people living in that particular country.
- The population pyramid also tells us how many dependents there are in a country.
- Skilled, spirited and hopeful young people endowed with a positive outlook are the future of any nation.