Factors Affecting Population Change: Death and Migration

Factors Affecting Population Change: Death and Migration

Published by: Mandira

Published date: 13 Jan 2022

Factors Affecting Population Change: Death and Migration in Grade 9

Factors Affecting Population Change: Death and Migration

The population of the world or the particular place does not remain the same. It keeps on changing. The are various factors that affect the population change. They are birth, migration, and death. In this note, we discuss death and migration. Death decreases the population while migration increases or decreases the population of the certain areas.

Death

Death is the permanent end of life of biological organisms. It is the natural process that occurs after birth. We cannot stop death process. It is one of the major factors that affects the population change. It results in the decrease in population size. Death is natural process does not mean it is only done by nature at the specific time but it occurs in different time due to different natural and unnatural process. It is also related to the quality of our life or the way of life we live. The crude death rate of Nepal was 9.6 in 2001 AD and it was reduced to 6.0 in 2011 AD. There is high death rate in underdeveloped or developing countries while less death rate in developed countries. There are various factors that affect the death.

Some of them are discussed below under three topics.

  • Social Factors
  • Economic Factors
  • Environmental Factors
  • Migration
  • Social Factors
  • Economic Factors
  • Environmental Factors

Social Factors

Illiteracy: Uneducated people are not aware of the importance of health. They don't know enough information about the family planning, caring for the infant, balance diet to the children, cleanliness etc. They follow the traditional way of living though it affects their health. As a result, many infant and child die due to the lack of proper health care. Many people at young age die due to simple diseases as they are not cured in time. When they suffer from some any disease, they go to traditional so- called doctors like Dhami and Jhakri instead of going to hospitals.

Diseases: As the population of the world is increasing, the pollution is also increasing day by day which invites various types of diseases. Some diseases are communicable diseases while some are non- communicable diseases. Some diseases are very dangerous while some are simple. Some examples of the disease that cause death are measles, cardio- vascular diseases, cancer, gonorrhoea, syphilis, HIV, and AIDS etc. So, the disease also increases mortality rate.

Lack of Health Services and Facilities: There are fewer health facilities in urban areas than in urban areas. Hospitals, Health Centres as well as doctors and health workers are not found in sufficient number in rural areas also if found they may be not in good condition. So, the people of rural areas suffer more health problems than the people of urban areas. Like this, lack of health services and facilities also increases mortality rate.

Economic Factors

Poverty: One of the main cause of death is also poverty. If people are poor then they do not get nutritious food, as a result they become weak and unhealthy. They had to work hard to get money and don't get time to care about their health. They are unable to live a healthy lifestyle. Aa result they get suffered from various diseases like malnutrition, communicable and non- communicable diseases and they don't have enough money to cure it. This situation leads to untimely death. Like this,poverty also increases mortality rate.

Lack of Balanced Diet: A balanced diet is a diet that contains the proper proportions of carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, minerals, and water necessary to maintain good health. If there is not required the proportion of carbohydrates, fats or proteins, we become unhealthy. Deu to the poverty and illiteracy, most of the people in Nepal cannot get balance diet. As a result, they become victims of various diseases. So, lack of balance diet is also one of the factors that increasethe death rate.

Environmental Factors

Climate:Climate is one of the dominant factors of mortality rate.The temperature of the earth is increasing day by day. Diseases get transferred faster in a hot climate than in cold climate. Similarly, people in the hot climatic zones get mature earlier and die earlier in comparision to the cold climatic zones. So, climate also increases the mortality rate, especially in hot regions.

Natural calamities: Natural calamities are extreme, sudden events caused by the environmental factors that cause huge loss of life and properties. Thousands of people die during natural calamities like flood, hurricane,tsunami, volcanic eruption, earthquake etc. Natural calamities increase the mortality rate very fastly.

Pollution: As the population of the world is increasing day by day, the pollution is also increasing day by day. Some of the examples of pollution are air pollution, water pollution, land pollution, water pollution etc. Pollution causes various types of diseases like air pollution causes diseases related to throat and lungs, noise pollution causes diseases related to ear, water pollution causes various water borne diseases etc.Many people die due to the diseases caused by pollution. So, pollution also increases the mortality rate.

Migration

Migration is the movement of people from one place to another in search of good facilities and opportunities. Migration affect the population of the two particular areas. It increases the population of the place (new place), where people migrate in search of good facilities and decreases the population of the area where people migrate from. It is an unnatural cause that changes the population.
Migration helps to balance the population distribution. It helps in the proper utilization of natural resources in a balanced way. People migrate from one place to another in search of employment opportunities, education facilities, health facilities etc. Migration is a demographic process. People leave their birthplace, family, friends, society etc and settled in a new year for the comfortable better lifestyle and to achieve success. It indicates the basic socio- economic transformation of the particular place. Talking about types of migration there are various types of migration.In this lesson, we discuss only two types of migration which are given below,

Internal Migration:The movement of people from one place to another place in the same country or inside the country in search of opportunities and facilities is known as internal migration. It changes the population of the two particular areas of the country but does not affect or change the total population of the country. In internal migration people usually migrate from rural areas to urban areas or from urban areas to main or capital cities. In the case of Nepal, it is increasing day by day as the people are moving from rural areas like Darchula, Mustang etc to urban areas like Kathmandu, Pokhara, Biratnagar etc.

International Migration: It is the movement of people from one country to another country or from one continent to another continent. It affects the total population of the both countries. Some of the causes of international migration are poverty, armed conflict, political instability, social strife, internal conflict and war etc. Talking about Nepal, a large number of young people are moving from Nepal to Arabian and European countries in search of good employment opportunities, education etc. Most of the people of Nepal are moving to Arabian countries as a labour.

There are various factors affecting migration. These factors are classified as pull factors and push factors. They are the main causes of migration. Some of the factors affecting migration are discussed below under three topic,

Social Factors

Education: Education is the key to all success. Everyone wants have good quality education. The education system in rural areas is not good. There are various problems of education like lack of books, no colleges, and universities for higher education, no quality education, no proper management etc. So people migrate from rural areas to urban areas or any other areas where there is good education system, colleges, and universities etc. People also migrate from one country to another country to have a good education.

Marriage: In our society, females should go to their husbands home after their marriage. It decreases the population of their birthplace and increases the population of their husband's areas. It does not affect the total population of the country if the marriage is done with the citizen of same countries but affects the total population of the countries if the marriage is done with the citizen of foreign countries. Like this marriage also causes migration which affects the population of the particular areas or countries.

Transportation: Transportation helps in the migration of people from one place to another. People can easily migrate from one place to another if there is good transportation. Using transportation people can travel miles of distance in just a short period of time. So, transportation is also one of the main factors that cause migration.

Health Services: As we know that 'Health is wealth'. So everyone wants to live a healthy life. People want to live in those areas where there are good health facilities. So, people also migrate from one place to another in search of good health facilities. They don't want to live in those areas where there are no health facilities.

Entertainment: Entertainment has become one of the important part of our life. No one likes to live a boring life. So people also transfer from one place to another to another place where there are good entertainment facilities like a fun park, cinema hall, for adventure etc.

Economic Factors

Employment: Employment is also one of the important factors that causes migration. People migrate from one place to another place in search of good employment facilities. People also transfer from one country to another country for employment. In Nepal, nearly 7,00,000 work overseas.If people get good employment opportunities then they will get good income which helps to secure their future and uplift the living standard of their family.

Fertile land: We can generate a large amount of income from agriculture if the land used for agriculture is fertile. It is very difficult to grow crops in fertile land. In Nepal, people of mountain region migrate to terai region for fertile land as the land of mountain region is infertile and rocky type. The crops are also cheap in those areas where there are fertile land but expensive in those areas where there is infertile land as they have to export crops from other areas. So, people also migrate in search of fertile land so they can generate good income from agriculture.

Industrialization: Industrialization simply means establishing industries for development. Industrilization creates large no. of employment opportunities. So, many people migrate in search of employment opportunities. People migrate more in those areas where there is a large number of industries. Areas with a large number of industries have good employment opportunities, transportation facilities, electricity etc. It is the pull factor.

Environmental Factors

Climate: The temperature of the world is increasing day by day due to the global warming and greenhouse effect. The trend of seasons is also changing. Some places of the earth are very hot whereas some places are very cold. It is very difficult for living organisms to sustain in these areas. There are also many places with a favourable climate. So, people migrate from difficult climatic condition to favourable climate areas.For example, in Nepal, the climate of terai region is very hot and the mountain region is very cold but the climate of a hilly region is suitable, so people from terai region and mountain region migrate to the hilly region to enjoy the good climate.

Natural Calamities: Many people die each year due to the various natural calamities like flood, earthquake, landslide, tsunami etc. People don't want to live in those areas where there are high chance of flood, landslide, volcano, tsunami etc. They always want to live in safe are and continue their life. So many people migrate from one place to another for safety and to escape from the disasters.