Human Resources Summary Class 8 NCERT Summary Chapter 5

Introduction

• People with their demands and abilities are considered as Human Resources.
• Human resources like other resources are not equally distributed over the world.
  • They differ in their educational levels, age and sex. Their numbers and characteristics also keep changing.

Distribution of Population

• The way in which people are spread across the earth surface is known as the pattern of population distribution.
• The distribution of population in the world is extremely uneven.
  • More than 90 per cent of the world’s population lives in about 30 percent of the land surface.
• Crowded areas: South and south east Asia, Europe and north eastern North America.
• Almost three-quarters of the world’s people live in two continents Asia and Africa.
• Sixty percent of the world’s people live in just 10 countries.
• These are China, India, USA, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Russian Fed. and Japan.

Density of Population

• Population density is the number of people living in a unit area of the earth’s surface.
  • It is normally expressed as per square km.
• The average density of population in the whole world is 51 persons per square km. 
• South Central Asia has the highest density of population.

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.
  • Example: The Ganga plains are the most densely populated areas of the world while mountains like Andes, Alps and Himalayas are sparsely populated.
• Climate: People usually avoid extreme climates that are very hot or very cold.
  • Example: Sahara desert is very hot and polar regions of Russia, Canada and Antarctica are cold are sparsely populated.
• Soil: Fertile soils provide suitable land for agriculture.
  • Example: Fertile plains such as Ganga and Brahmaputra in India, Hwang-He, Chang Jiang in China and the Nile in Egypt are densely populated.
• Water: People prefer to live in the areas where fresh water is easily available.
  • Example: The river valleys of the world are densely populated while deserts have spare population.
• Minerals: Areas with mineral deposits are more populated.
  • Example: Diamond mines of South Africa and discovery of oil in the Middle east lead to settling of people in these areas.

Social, Cultural and Economic Factors

• Social: Areas of better housing, education and health facilities are more densely populated.
  • Example: Pune.
• Cultural: Places with religion or cultural significance attract people.
  • Example: Varanasi, Jerusalem and Vatican city.
• Economic: Industrial areas attract large number of people as it provide employment opportunities. → Example: Osaka in Japan and Mumbai in India.

Population Change

• Population change refers to change in the number of people during a specific time.
• The change happens due to changes in the number of births and deaths.
• Until the 1800s, the world’s population grew steadily but slowly
  • Large numbers of babies were born, but they died early too as there were no proper health facilities.
  • Also, Sufficient food was not available for all the people.
• In 1804, the world’s population reached one billion.
• In 1959, the world’s population reached 3 billion which is often called population explosion.
• In 1999, 40 years later, the population doubled to 6 billion.
  • The main reason for this growth was that with better food supplies and medicine, deaths were reducing, while the number of births still remained fairly high.

Natural Growth Rate

• Birth rate: The number of live births per 1,000 people.
• Death rate: 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.
• The population increase in the world is mainly due to rapid increase in natural growth rate.

Migration

• Migration is another way by which population size changes.
• Emigrants are people who leave a country.
  • Countries like the United States of America and Australia have gained in-numbers by in-migration or immigration.
• Immigrants are those who arrive in a country.
• Sudan is an example of a country that has experienced a loss in population numbers due to out-migration or emigration.

Patterns of Population Change

• Rates of population growth vary across the world.
• Countries like Kenya have high population growth rates as they had both high birth rates and death rates.
• Countries like United Kingdom, population growth is slowing because of both low death and low birth rates.

Population Composition

• Population composition refers to the structure of the population.
  • It tells about age, sex, literacy level, health condition, occupation and income level of population.
• Population pyramid, also called an age-sex pyramid is a way to study the population composition of a country.
• A population pyramid shows
  • The total population divided into various age groups, example: 5 to 9 years, 10 to 14 years.
  • The percentage of the total population, subdivided into males and females, in each of those groups.
• There are two groups of dependents
  • Young dependents (aged below 15 years)
  • Elderly dependents (aged over 65 years)
• Those between the age of 15 years and 65 years are working age and are the economically active.
• The population pyramid tells us how many dependents there are in a country.
• The population pyramid of a country in which birth and death rates both are high is broad at the base and rapidly narrows towards the top because although, many children are born, a large percentage of them die in their infancy, relatively few become adults and there are very few old people.
  • Example: Kenya.
• The countries where death rates (especially amongst the very young) are decreasing, the pyramid is broad in the younger age groups, because more infants survive to adulthood.
• These countries contain a relatively large number of young people and which means a strong and expanding labour force.
  • Example: India.
    
• he countries where death rates are decreasing allow numbers of people to reach old age.
  • Example: Japan.