Skip to Main Content

Introduction to Environmental Science, 2017 edition

revised edition

Chapter 3: Human Demography by Dr. Caralyn Zehnder

Chapter 3 Outline

3.1  The human population
3.2  Demography
3.3 Age structure diagrams
3.4  The demographic transition model
3.5  Life expectancy
3.6  Fertility

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this chapter students will be able to:

  1. State the current size of the human population.
  2. Interpret age-structure diagrams.
  3. Explain what the demographic transition model represents and describe the societal changes that cause the demographic transition.
  4. Describe what happens to birth rates, death rates, population growth rate, and population size as a country moves through the stages of the demographic transition model.
  5. Give examples of countries in the different stages of the demographic transition models and match age-structure diagrams with the stages of the demographic transition model.
  6. Define life expectancy and explain how it changes as a country moves through the demographic transition model.
  7. Define fertility and explain how it changes as a country moves through the demographic transition model.

More information about ...

United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Reports

http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/demography-and-human-development

Carrying capacity of ecosystems and human demography

http://institutmichelserres.ens-lyon.fr/spip.php?article38

Read the Chapter

Supplemental Reading:

Kunzig, Robert. "SEVEN BILLION." National Geographic 219.1 (2011): 36-69.