1. The Peopled Planet: Standing Room Only?
Unit 3-Population
The Peopled Planet:
Standing Room Only?

2. Demography
The gathering and analysis of information about human populations.
Population size
Composition (age/sex ratios)
Density
Growth (birth/death rates)
What implications do these factors have for the future?

3. Census A census is a count of the population of a country.
facts about the population-age, sex, jobs, type of house, language spoken.
usually taken every 5 years.
“census” comes from the Latin word meaning “to tax”
1790 – U.S. conducted first national census
Canada

4. MDCs (vs) LDCs MDCs LDCs List of questions can be several pages long
Distribute census forms to all households and are to be mailed back to the government by a certain date
A few basic questions (numbers, genders, ages)
Door-to-door (talk and write down necessary information)
Very time consuming and requires many enumerators

5. Why?
The government needs to know how many people live in each part of their country; it then knows where to spend its money
Info about population trends; allows them to plan ahead
find out population structure - how many old, middle aged and young people there are
allows the government to target their spending - on old folks homes or schools
Curiosity, taxation, military, etc..

6. Inaccuracies
-Usual cause is a failure to account for all citizens.

7. Issues with Census taking
$$$ expensive! poor countries can’t afford them
Some people live in remote areas
Wars
Nomads
illiterate - unable to fill out the forms
Some people do not tell the truth for political or religious reasons

8. Inaccuracies & Problems
Fill-out table!
Page

9. Misleading information
Definitions.
Example: page 160 – Urban
Boundary changes
* Example: page 160 – Amalgamation of Halifax

10. Canadian Census Statistics Canada Every five years
Very expensive (1996 census – 8 yr budget million
80% receive short form (7 questions), while the rest receive a significantly longer version (55 questions – income, occupation, ethnicity)
Fines of $500 or three months imprisonment

11. Must complete it!
nal/woman-79-who-refused-to-fill-out-census- found-guilty-of-violating-statistics- act/article /
18 people prosecuted in 1991

12. Further study… Page 162 - #5 Group Assignment Page 162 - #6, 7
Brainstorm possible topics/questions as a class.