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Lesson Note

Topic: Population
Sub Topic: Determinant of Population Size And Growth.
Lesson Objectives: by the end of the lesson, the learners should be able to:
1. Identify and discuss the factors responsible for population size and growth;

2. Define the term migration;
3.Identify the factors affecting migration;
4. State the advantages of migration;
5. Suggest the solutions to rural-urban migration.


Lesson Discussion

PERIOD 1
In our previous lesson where we looked at Population Census, We defined population as the total number of people living within a country or a geographical areas at a particular time. In this lesson, we will be discussing the determinants of population size and growth. By Determinants, we mean those elements that can cause a rise or fall in a country’s population. These factors are three and they include birth rate, death rate and migration. These are discussed below:

(A) Birth Rate

The birth rate (or natality rate) of a country refers to the rate at which children are being given birth to in that country. Generally, high birth rate may lead to increase in population or over population while low birth rate can lead to local population.

Factors Affecting Birth Rate

i. Early marriage: In many communities, people encourage early marriage and this gives rise to increase in population as many children are being given birth to.
ii. Desire for large families: In most communities, people tend to have many children as this places them in a special class. To achieve this, they will go ahead to marry many wives.
iii. Religious belief: While certain religion, e.g Christianity, discourages polygamy, others like Islam encourage the marrying of many wives that will give birth to many children.
iv. Improved medical services: As a result of improved medical services, death rate has reduced while birth rate has been boosted.
v. Government aids: What the government increases the aids it gives to people, families are encouraged to have more children thereby increasing the population.

(B) Death Rate

Death rate (or mortality rate) of a country refers to the rate at which people (both adult and children) die in a country. Generally, high death rate leads to popular decrease or low population, while low death rate leads to increase in population.

Factors Affecting Death Rate

i. Ratio of male to female: When there are more males than females, there will be a low child-bearing rate, which will reduce the population.

ii. Poor medical services: When medical services are poor, death rate tends to increase.
iii. High rate of infant mortality: High rate of infant mortality leads to decrease in population.
iv. Poverty: High level of poverty among the people leads to high death rate, as such people may not have the means of taking care of their families.
v. Natural disasters: Natural disasters like earthquakes, flooding can lead to high death rate.
vi. Man-made disasters: The occurrence of man-made disasters like wars, conflicts, environmental pollutions, is capable of leading to high death rate.

(C) Migration

Migration is defined as the movement of people from one geographical area to another, involving permanent or temporary residence or settlement. In migration, the region where people are leaving is called the source region while the region people are entering is called the receiving or destination region.PERIOD 2

Types Of Migration

There are two many types of migration. These are emigration and immigration.

I. Emigration: This is the type of migration in which people leave their own countries, i.e, movement out of a country.
II. Immigration: This is the type of migration in which people enter into another country, i.e, movement into another country.

Forms Of Migration

Migration from one place to another takes different forms. These includes:

i. Rural-urban migration: This is the movement of people from rural areas, e.g village, to urban centres like Ibadan
ii. Rural-rural migration: This is the movement of people from one rural area to another rural area.
iii. Urban-rural migration: This is the movement of people from one urban centres to rural areas.
iv. Urban-urban migration: This is the movement of people from one urban centre ( town or city) to another.
v. International migration: This is the movement of people from my country into another.
vi. Seasonal migration: This is the movement of people from one place to another at a particular season, e.g summer holidays abroad.



PERIOD 3

Factors Affecting Migration

The following factors account for the migration of people from one area to another.

i. Natural disasters: The occurrence of natural disasters like floods, famines, drought, earthquakes, etc could make people to migrate out of a place to another.
ii. Physical conditions: The physical conditions of a place such as climate, soils, relief may also be responsible when such conditions are unfavourable.
iii. Insecurity: Fear of insecurity arising from war, political instability, etc could make people to migrate.
iv. Differences in economic opportunities: As a result of these, people tend to migrate to where there are more economic opportunities like jobs and business transactions.
v. Change in status: Change in status, e.g high level of education and wealth, could make people to migrate, e.g from rural to urban centres.
vi. Differences in social amenities: Owing to differences in the availability of water, roads, electricity, etc people tend to move to where these amenities are present.

Advantages of migration

i. It reduces population pressure on agricultural land at the source region.

ii. It reduces population pressure on social amenities at the source region.
iii. It supplies migrant labour at the receiving region.
iv. It ensures the flow of capital to the receiving region.
v. It leads to the development of social amenities at the receiving region.
vi. It boosts markets at the receiving region.
vii. It promotes cultural integration, e.g intermarriage at the receiving region.

Disadvantages Of Migration
i. It breeds social vices like crime and armed robbery at the receiving region.
ii. It increases high cost of living at the receiving region.
iii. It leads to pressure on social amenities at the receiving region.
iv. It leads to the loss of able-bodied men and youth at the source region.
v. It leads to congestion in housing and transportation at the receiving region.
vi. It leads to decline in production at the source region.

Solutions to rural-urban migration

One of the major forms of migration that tends to create problems in all developing countries is that of rural-urban migration. Since we recognise that this form of migration is a major problem, solutions have to be provided in order to prevent the occurrence of over population at the receiving regions. The solution to the problems of rural-urban migration include:

i. Provision of social amenities: The provision of social amenities such as water, roads, electricity, and telephone in rural areas will go a long way in reducing the rate at which youth move to urban areas.
ii. Transformation of traditional agriculture to modern agricultural system: Modern agricultural practices such as farm mechanization will enable the youth to engage in agriculture as the system will make farming interesting.
iii. Establishment of industries: The establishment of industries, projects and businesses that will absorb the rural working population and reverse labour movement will go a long way in reducing rural-urban drift.
iv. Establishment of educational institutions: The establishment of colleges and other institutions of higher learning in rural areas will also help to reduce movement to urban centres.
v. Establishment of corporate branches: Government departments, business firms and financial institutions should be encouraged to establish their branches in turns areas.
vi. Provision of recreation facilities: If recreational facilities such as stadia, swimming pools, cinema houses, amusement park, etc are made available in rural areas, this will reduce the propensity of our youth to move to urban areas.


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Take a quick test for this lesson
1. What are the determinants of population size and growth? Mention and discuss.
2. What is migration?
3.What are the factors affecting migration?
4. State the advantages of migration.
5. What are the solutions to rural-urban migration?
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