Chapter 6 - Human Resources
Question 1: Why are people considered a resource?
Answer:
• People are a nation’s greatest resource. Nature’s bounty becomes significant only when people find it useful.
• It is people with their demands and abilities that turn them into ‘resources’. Hence, human resource is the ultimate resource.
• Healthy, educated and motivated people develop resources as per their requirements.
Question 2: What are the causes for the uneven distribution of population in the world?
Answer: More than 90 per cent of the world’s population lives in about 30 per cent of the land surface. The distribution of population in the world is extremely uneven. Some areas are very crowded and some are sparely populated. The crowded areas are South and South East Asia, Europe and North Eastern North America.
• Geographical Factors
→ Topography: People always prefer to live on plains rather than mountains and plateaus because these areas are suitable for farming, manufacturing and service activities. The Ganga plains are the most densely populated areas of the world while mountains like Andes, Alps and Himalayas are sparsely populated.
→ Climate: People usually avoid extreme climates that are very hot or very cold like Sahara desert, polar-regions of Russia, Canada and Antarctica.
→ Soil: Fertile soils provide suitable land for agriculture. Fertile plains such as Ganga and Brahmaputra in India, Hwang-He, Chang Jiang in China and the Nile in Egypt are densely populated.
→ Water: People prefer to live in the areas where fresh water is easily available. The river valleys of the world are densely populated while deserts have spare population.
→ Minerals: Areas with mineral deposits are more populated. Diamond mines of South Africa and discovery of oil in the Middle East lead to settling of people in these areas.
• Social, Cultural and Economic Factors
→ Social: Areas of better housing, education and health facilities are more densely populated e.g., Pune.
→ Cultural: Places with religion or cultural significance attract people. Varanasi, Jerusalem and Vatican City are some examples.
→ Economic: Industrial areas provide employment opportunities. Large number of people are attracted to these areas. Osaka in Japan and Mumbai in India are two densely populated areas.
Question 3: The world population has grown very rapidly. Why?
Answer: The population change refers to change in the number of people during a specific time. The world population has not been stable, it has been increasing later on. This is actually due to changes in the number of births and deaths. The main reason for this growth was that with better food supplies and medicine, deaths were reducing, while the number of births still remained fairly high.
Question 4: Discuss the role of any two factors influencing population change.
Answer: The population change refers to change in the number of people during a specific time. The birth rate and the death rate are two factors that influence population change.
• The birth rate is the number of live births per 1000 people while the death rate is the number of deaths per 1000 people. These are the natural causes of population change.
• When the birth rate is higher than the death rate, population increases. When the death rate is more than the birth rate, population decreases. When the two rates are equal, the population remains constant. In this way, the birth and death rates affect the balance of population.
Question 5: What is meant by population composition?
Answer: Population composition refers to the structure of the population. The composition of population helps us to know how many are males or females, which age group they belong to, how educated they are and what type of occupations they are employed in, what their income levels and health conditions are. An interesting way of studying the population composition of a country is by looking at the population pyramid, also called an age-sex pyramid.
Question 6: What are population pyramids? How do they help in understanding about the population of a country?
Answer: The graphical illustration that is used for studying the population composition of a country is called population pyramids. It shows the present number of males and females in a country along with their age groups. The age-group distribution of population tells us the number of dependents and the number of economically active individuals present in the population.
Question 7: Tick the correct answer.
i) Which does the term population distribution refer to?
a) How population in a specified area changes over time.
b) The number of people who die in relation to the number of people born in a specified area.
c) The way in which people are spread across a given area.
Answer: c) The way in which people are spread across a given area.
ii) Which are three main factors that cause population change?
a) Births, deaths and marriage
b) Births, deaths and migration
c) Births, deaths and life expectancy
Answer: b) Births, deaths and migration
iii) In 1999, the world population reached
a) 1 billion
b) 3 billion
c) 6 billion
Answer: c) 6 billion
iv) What is a population pyramid?
a) A graphical presentation of the age, sex composition of a population.
b) When the population density of an area is so high that people live in tall buildings.
c) Pattern of population distribution in large urban areas.
Answer: a) A graphical presentation of the age, sex composition of a population.
Question 8: Complete the sentences below using some of the following words.
(sparsely, favourable, fallow, artificial, fertile, natural, extreme, densely)
When people are attracted to an area it becomes ____________ populated. Factors that influence this include ___________ climate; good supplies of ___________________ resources and ________________ land.
Answer: When people are attracted to an area it becomes densely populated. Factors that influence this include favourable climate; good supplies of natural resources and fertile land.
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