Population, Gender, and Disparity - Dragons and Tigers: A Geography of South, East and Southeast Asia - page 67

replace itself in the future. In developed countries the
RFR is about 2.1. This assumes that two parents will have
two children to replace them after they die. The extra 0.1
is meant to account for the facts that many children will
never reach adulthood and couples might choose not to
have any children.
Look at the Percent Change by 2050 column. This in-
dicates the anticipated percentage increase or decrease of
a population from 2009 to 2050 given the current NIR.
Pakistan' s population, with its NIR of 2.3 percent and
TFR of 4.0, is expected to increase 85 percent. This means
that Pakistan' s population will grow from its current
180.8 million to 335.2 million by 2050. Notice that Japan
is predicted to have 25 percent fewer people in 2050. Hav-
ing both low BR and DR, Japan' s NIR of -0.0 percent and
TFR of -25 are insufficient to replace its population. Does
this mean that the Japanese will ultimately disappear?
Read more on this topic in Chapter 12.
It is important to note that these are “snapshot” pro-
jections of current conditions. In fact, long-term trends
show an overall decline in NIRs. For instance,
Bangladesh' s NIRs dropped from 2.2 percent in 2003 to
1.6 percent in 2009, and South Korea' s from 0.7 to 0.4
percent. More education for women, greater government
support for family planning, increasing urbanization, and
improving economic status all contribute to the reduction
of population growth. Nevertheless, while women are
bearing fewer children than they did in the past (TFRs),
countries with large percentages of youth will have more
women to have children as time ensues. Consequently ,
population growth is expected to continue.
Although India and China do not stand out in
terms of NIRs and TFRs, they are notable in terms of
their current population totals and projections for the
future. Because of the size of these base populations,
even a small percentage increase adds many people to
the total. So, while India' is NIR is only 1.6 percent, if
current growth rates continue, it will add another 577
million people by 2050. China, with its low NIR of 0.5
percent, nevertheless will grow by nearly 106 million
people by 2050. We will learn more about India' s and
China' s population issues separately in the regional
chapters.

contribute to these patterns. People tend to avoid extreme
environments such as deserts and rugged, high-elevation
terrain. Access to resources is crucial to survival. For ex-
ample, arable land is found on plains and along water-
ways, and this is where most populations reside. Past
circumstances have led to a phenomenon known as his-
toric inertia —people migrate to and continue to live in
places where other people are already established and
opportunities are perceived to exist. Consequently ,
densely populated areas most likely will continue to be
densely populated areas.
Density figures are misleading. Arithmetic density
indicates how many people exist per square mile (km) of
land in a particular country . The Philippines, for in-
stance, had a density of 160 persons per square kilometer
in 1980. Now its density is 307 per square kilometer.
However, people are not evenly distributed throughout
the islands. The northern island of Luzon is home to mil-
lions more than the south of Mindanao, and numerous
islands have no inhabitants. Moreover, there are parts of
metropolitan Manila that have population densities 100
times those of many outlying regions. Clearly , arithmetic
densities reveal nothing about actual spatial distribution
of people.
An alternative to arithmetic density is nutritional
density , which relates numbers of people to amount of
cultivated land. Nutritional density assumes a direct rela-
tionship between the number of people and land produc-
tivity potential. This information is interesting but still
misleading because it assumes that each person has the
same amount of land and equal access to food supply . Of
course, we know that this is not the case.
Density data provide only crude measures. Laos is a
relatively sparsely populated country yet it is regarded as
one of the poorest in Asia. Taiwan, one of the most
densely populated, is seen as one of the richest. Densely
populated Singapore, also one of the richest, has virtually
no arable land. On the other hand, some say that
Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated coun-
tries in the world and it suffers from extreme poverty .
Density does not account for variation in human or land
productivity such as differences in dietary requirements,
or quality of available diet, food imports, or unequal access
to food supplies.

DENSITY AND DISTRIBUTION
Density and distribution data measure spatial characteris-
tics of populations. Refer back to Figure 3-2 and note that
some areas are densely populated while others are sparsely
populated. Environmental and historic circumstances

POPULATION COMPOSITION
Population composition data reveal the sex and age struc-
ture of a particular population. Population pyramids are
visual representations of relationships between males and