Posts tagged demographic transition

[Source: commons.wikimedia.org Author fargomeD License GNU Free Documentation License]

A population pyramid (or age sex structure) often tells a story. Detective Discussion points:

1. What are the unusual features of the above age-sex structure?
2. Can you suggest possible reasons?

So how might this story look if we plotted the birth rates and death rates on the same line graph, over time – in other words China’s actual demographic transition.

Click the thumbnail below to see the graph in full (source unknown).

The extreme demographic events of 1958-1961 can be understood by viewing the following 5 minute clip:

Interested the discussion points above? Read more details at the following excellent page by geographyfieldwork.com:

China: Demographic Transition

The One Child Policy

[Source: opengecko.com]

The next steps of this learning activity concerns the well-known one-child population policy first introduced in 1979. You can follow the activities on the following link from here:

Population Policies at geographyalltheway.com

To gain more understanding of the impact of the population policy you can watch this ten minute video:

The main things to be aware of are:

1) Why was the policy introduced?

2) How did the policy work?

3) What were the successes of the policy?

4) What were the problems with the policy?

Some other websites can help here. As always, reference any sites you refer to.

Wikipedia on the One Child Policy

geography.about.com on China’s One Child Policy

BBC News Article asks Has China’s one-child policy worked?

 Time.com on China’s One-Child Policy

Very recent news at time of writing this post:

MailOnline has an article called ‘One-child China is a success, says Labour aide Adair Turner’

Any Google search for key words china one child will reveal masses of information. Always try to be aware of bias in the websites you access.