Core 1 • Section 2
Changing Population & Places
How fertility, mortality, urban growth and migration reshape populations and the places in which people live.
Processes of population change and their effect on people and places
Population change & the demographic transition
Natural increase, fertility, mortality and changing population structure.
The demographic transition model links changes in birth and death rates to changing rates of natural increase. Treat it as a model rather than a fixed pathway: countries move at different speeds and do not always follow the same sequence.
Population pyramids
Connect age–sex structure with past and future fertility, mortality and migration.
Describe the shape first. Compare the base, working-age population and older cohorts, then explain what the structure suggests about dependency and population momentum.
Pyramid check
- Identify evidence of high or low fertility.
- Look for unusually large or small cohorts.
- Estimate the dependency pattern.
- Predict how the structure could change.
Fertility
Changing fertility and the social, economic, political and cultural factors influencing family size.
Fertility changes with education, healthcare, contraception, the cost of raising children, women’s opportunities, cultural expectations and government policy.
Life expectancy
Patterns and trends in mortality and the factors creating differences between places.
Connect life expectancy differences to healthcare, income, nutrition, sanitation, education, conflict and lifestyle.
Megacities: consequences of growth
Rapid urban population change, using Shanghai as a mapped example.
Megacity growth concentrates people, infrastructure and opportunity, but can intensify housing shortages, congestion, pollution, inequality and pressure on services.
Migration & internal displacement
Causes and consequences of migration and displacement at different scales.
Separate voluntary migration from forced displacement. Identify push and pull factors, then evaluate consequences for migrants, origin areas and destinations.
The Rohingya case study
Forced migration: causes, routes, destinations, lived impacts and protection.
Build the case study through cause → movement → destination → consequences → responses, keeping the dates of evidence clear.