IB HL GEOGRAPHY
Clare Cole
Infant Mortality Rates
Number of deaths of children less than one year old per every 1,000 births
Source: www.childmortality.org
Judging by this map, infant mortality rates are lowest in the more ‘developed’ parts of the world, such as North America, most of South America, Europe, Russia, Australia, and East Asia. The highest infant mortality rates are in Sub-Saharan African, specifically in Angola, the Congo and Somalia. High infant mortality rates are also present in the Middle East, especially in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The countries that have the lowest infant mortality rates are all relatively developed countries, and have a strong healthcare system. The birth rates of these countries are also low, indicating that people have fewer, healthier children that are more likely to live trough childhood. Countries that have higher infant mortality rates are generally lesser developed countries, with a weaker healthcare system, or, in the case of Afghanistan and Somalia, are undergoing conflict and as a result of that, the majority of their populations are impoverished. The birth rates in these countries are also much higher than those with lower infant mortality rates. This suggests that families have more children in an attempt to ‘replace’ previous children who did not survive childhood.
Video Critique
I think that this video was very effective in explaining the relationship between birth rates and death rates, and how that effects population growth. It used the concept of different parts of the world being glasses, and them filling up over time. Birth rates are shown as water entering the glass, and death rates are shown as water leaving the bottom of the glass. At first, about 1,000 years ago, there was only 0.3 billion people on the planet. A lot of people were being born, but many were dying as there was no healthcare, a weak agricultural system, and there were predators and diseases that people were vulnerable to. Therefore, “births were being called out by deaths”, and the population stayed balanced. But over time, as medicine and agriculture improved, the rate of deaths slowed down, while the rate of births stayed the same, or in some places, increased. People were able to live long enough to reach reproductive age, and thus, repopulate the planet. Because of this, we have increased in size from 1 billion, to 7 billion, in only 200 years. The UN supposedly says that we will stop increasing exponentially by 2100, but until then, will the Earth be able to sustain us? In terms of space, yes, but in terms of resources, probably not. I think that this video helped me to understand the concept of global population growth rate, as it explained it visually, in a way that pretty much anyone can understand. It was clear with its message, and really signified how, if the population continues to grow at such a rapid and exponential rate, and we do not use our resources efficiently, the earth may not be able to sustain us.
Population Pyramid and Demographic Transition Model Activity
In this activity, I looked at three different countries, a high-income country (The Netherlands), a medium-income country (Chile) and a low-income country (Mali). Based on their population pyramids, I deduced their youth and old-age dependancy ratios, and what the future growth of their populations would look like. I then plotted them on the trinagle graph, which indicates where they are based on their dependancy ratios.
Click on any of the population pyramids for full analysis.
Is Africa Overpopulated?
In this activity, I read two articles that discussed the question of whether or not Africa is overpopulated. I then wrote a short essay on the ideas presented in the articles, as well as referencing to other sources.
Click on the image below for the full essay.
