Do Physical or Human Factors Play a Greater Role in Determining Population Change? - Akshaya

Both physical and human factors play key roles in determining population change, as they both affect fertility rates, child/infant mortality rates and death rates. Fertility rate is the number of children born per woman per 1000, and is key when observing change in birth rates. Infant mortality rate is the number of infants (aged 0-1) dying per 1000, and child mortality rate is for children under 5. Many factors influence these rates and thus affect population change, such as soil fertility, anti/pro-natalist policies and healthcare. However, some factors have a greater effect than others.

Physical factors such as climate play an important role, because they can determine how much agriculture occurs in an area. Rainfall, temperature, wind velocity and levels of solar insolation all determine food productivity, type of farming system adopted and which species are selected for cultivation. The more agriculture there is in an area, the higher the birth rate usually is, especially with less economically developed countries (LEDCs). When a country is reliant on the primary sector, such as Niger, they tend to have a higher birth rate, as lots of children are required for the manual labour involved in farming. There are many subsistence farmers in Niger, so child labour is vital to keep families alive, resulting in a very high birth rate of 49.4 in 2014 which is almost 5 times greater than the UK birth rate. A high birth rate such as this can cause a high natural increase, thus indicating the important role physical factors play on population change. 

However, human factors like gender equality influence population change greatly as well. Many countries such as Qatar and India have concluded that social change is imperative for reducing birth rates and stabilising population growth. On the Statistical Authority of Qatar webpage, they stated “The most important factors are as follows: increased age at first marriage, increased educational level of Qatari women, and more women integrated [into] the labor force”, further heightening the importance of gender equality to maintain a sustainable population. An estimated 31 million girls of primary school age and 32 million girls of lower secondary school age were out of school in 2013, with Sub-Saharan Africa having the lowest proportion of countries with gender parity. This is due to lack of girls’ education being tied to poverty, as educated women are less likely to marry early and against her will; less likely to die in childbirth; more likely to have healthy babies; and are more likely to send their children to school. Girls that attend school and delay marriage and child bearing are less vulnerable to diseases including HIV and AIDS too. Thus, providing girls with education helps to break the cycle of poverty, and is therefore more important than physical factors which influence the wealth of a country due to the primary sector, as countries can utilise other sectors, which depend on education, to come out of poverty. Gender equality also reduces the birth rate of a country, and reduces the death rate.  In Kerala, India, the government has focused on social change to encourage small families. They did this by improving education standards and treating girls as equals with boys and encouraging a higher age of marriage. This focus has resulted in a dramatic decrease in fertility rate to just 1.7, the lowest in India, highlighting the significance of this human factor. In Niger, where many men are polygamous, cultural dynamics largely represent male interests and many women do not have autonomy, leading to women feeling a need to prove their worth and compete with other wives by having the greater number of children. Women use their fertility to establish their value, which causes the country to have a very high birth rate.

Furthermore, political human factors have key roles in population change and can bring about huge changes in population. China adopted the One-Child Policy in 1979 when China had ¼ of the world’s population, as a method of slowing their rapid population growth of 1.4% a year. The policy allowed just one child per family, however in rural areas a second child was generally allowed after 5 years. Violations of this policy resulted in punishments, ranging from fines to loss of job. This controversial policy prevented 400 million births was therefore successful, despite the increase in human trafficking and female abandonment. Policies such as this can also increase the birth rate, showing the great influence political policies have on population change. Singapore established a pro-natal policy, as they wanted to increase their economically active population, due to their currently ageing population. This policy included incentives of cash gifts and paid child care as an attempt to increase the declining birth rate; there was a 13% increase in the birth rate in the year the policy was introduced (1988). But, despite the government’s efforts, the birth rate continued to decline, with the rate declining by nearly 4 births per 1000 from 2003 to 2008. This indicates that policies to control birth rates aren’t guaranteed to be successful and may require extreme and unethical measures to ensure positive results (like in China). Hence, human factors may not be as significant as physical as they do not have a guaranteed effect. 

Physical factors like water supply do have definite effect on population change as water is vital for life. There are many uses of water, such as irrigation to maintain food production, hygiene, sanitation and industrial processes, and so it greatly affects the birth rate and death rate in a country. An example of this is in Egypt where 95% of the population live near the River Nile as the large water supply allows for development and has enough resources for population growth. This factor is very important for population growth, as humans cannot do much to develop an area with a small water supply, resulting in a small population in the area. It can also cause high fluctuating death rates as periodic famines and disease epidemics can be caused by very arid subtropical desert climates in areas such as Niger, where even non-desert areas are threatened by periodic drought and desertification. This causes low food productivity resulting in high death rates, therefore, water supply is a deciding factor.

On the other hand, medical science and healthcare are substantial human factors that play very important roles in population change, as they greatly affect death rates. During the early 21^stcentury in Niger, the death rate decreased due to improved medical science as the country is supported by nom-governmental organisations (NGOs) like Save the Children. This is also seen in the UK during the early 20^thcentury, where death rates were falling due to medical advances, such as the training for midwives in 1907, and the discovery of penicillin in 1929. 

As well as this, discovery of contraceptive methods in the UK during the late 20^thcentury, with the birth control pill becoming available in 1961, resulted in a decrease in birth rates. The availability and acceptance of contraception are vital factors for reducing birth rates. The birth rate continues to fall in Canada due to the increased availability of contraception and social change with small families being the norm. In the Gambia, West Africa, religious beliefs that don’t allow contraception and family planning (country is 95% Muslim) has resulted in the country having very high birth rates of 40 per 1000, which is 3 times greater than many MEDCs. The population doubling time in the Gambia is just 28 years, mainly due to the lack of contraception and the poor healthcare. The infant mortality rate is 73 per 1000, which is extremely high and forces families to compensate for the death of a child with another child. This ultimately leads to very high birth rates, as well as many mothers dying in birth (11 mothers die for every 1000 births), causing the young dependency rate to be 45%. The lack of medical science has also caused a very low life expectancy of 53 years for males and 57 years for females. Overall, medical science and contraception are incredibly important factors due to the immediate effects they have on population. 

Geology is a highly significant physical factor, as it can lead to much greater wealth in a country, such as in USA, India and China, which often leads to a dense population. High concentrations of fossil fuels and other valued minerals leads to a rise in industrialisation; the birth rate tends to decrease as countries develop, as shown by many countries in stage 3 of the demographic transition model (DTM) being newly industrialised countries (NICs), for example Argentina. This is due to greater wealth allowing better healthcare and more food, resulting in a lower infant mortality rate and families have less of a need to compensate. Greater attention is placed on child welfare. The death rate also decreases as more money goes into education (brings people out of poverty) and medicine. Geology is therefore fairly important for a country’s wealth and development, and thus influences the population.

In conclusion, population change depends on a variety of factors that interlink with one another. But ultimately, human factors generally play a greater role in determining population change, due to the countless ways they effect birth, fertility, infant/child mortality and death rates. On a global scale, human factors also affect migration much more than physical factors, especially in the 21^stcentury, where tertiary sector jobs are more desirable than primary. Migration affects population growth as a multicultural society that welcomes immigrants causes population to increase. This can be seen in Canada. Of the factors mentioned, I think gender equality and eradication of poverty are most important, both of which are influenced much more by other human factors than physical. Furthermore, Hans Rosling said that to stabilise population growth and lower fertility rates children must survive (better healthcare), children must not be needed for work, women get education and join the labour force, and family planning is more accessible. Each of these are dependent upon human factors, showing how fundamental human factors are.