Population, Gender, and Disparity - Dragons and Tigers: A Geography of South, East and Southeast Asia - page 60

Chapter 3

Population,Gender,and
Disparity

Somehow or other man has dominated
women from ages past,and so woman
has developed an inferiority complex.
She has believed in the truth of man's
invested teaching that woman is inferior
to man.But the seers among men have
recognized her equal status.

(M OHANDAS “M AHA TMA ” G ANDHI ) 1869-1948

Population Growth and Dispersal

Although worldwide high-mortality disasters have
been largely quelled, regional catastrophes continue to
make dents in population totals. For instance, 17,000 died
in Bombay from plague in the late nineteenth century . A
famine and government policies killed at least 30 million
Chinese from 1959 to 1961. A million Bangladeshis per-
ished in a hurricane in 1970. And, in one of the worst dis-
asters in human history , at least two million Cambodians
were exterminated by government policy from 1975 to
1978! Nevertheless, overall numbers remain sizable and
provide large base populations to generate notable incre-
ments of increase even though population growth rates
have been declining in recent years.
Figure 3-2 shows the distribution of Asian popula-
tions. What accounts for this pattern? A combination of
historical and geographical factors provides the answer.
Asian populations originated in and expanded from a se-
ries of core areas over a period of more than 4,000 years.
However, where they cluster today reflects the availabil-
ity of resources such as water supplies, fertile soils, and
minerals.

Eight thousand years ago, a mere 5 to 10 million people
inhabited the Earth. T Today, , the Earth' is population is
more than 6.8 billion. Most of this growth has taken
place since 1830, when the world population first
reached 1 billion. In 2009, South, East, and Southeast
Asians accounted for more than 3.7 billion, or about
54 percent of the global population (Figure 3-1). How
and why did this happen? What are the ramifications?
Estimates of early Asian populations indicate that
they were relatively small, with sporadic periods of in-
crease and decrease. By the mid-nineteenth century , pop-
ulation numbers had jumped significantly . However,
growth was not an even progression. Before the advent of
modern medicine, population numbers fluctuated across
the globe with environmental disasters, war, famine, and
disease. For example, in 1279, the Mongol conquerors of
China exterminated some 35 million peasants. A plague
pandemic from 1347 to 1351 killed 75 million of the
then 300 million Eurasians.

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