The population of the Earth is steadily changing every year. In some regions, stagnation and even a decrease in the indicators of natural growth are planned, while others are experiencing rapid growth and are even forced to limit the birth rate through legislation. A thousand years ago, the world's population was estimated at millions of people, today we are already billions. Some scholars worry about repeating overpopulation, while others consider this a natural process regulated by nature.
Description of the concept
A population is a collection of people living within a certain, limited area or territory, or state. Using additional criteria, you can isolate a group of citizens of a particular state or city, a specific mainland or one of the races living on the planet.
The meaning of the word “population” can be global. For example, the population of the planet, where absolutely all people living on Earth will be counted. Many disciplines use indicators and characteristics of groups of inhabitants for their research. The main science for studying this concept is demography, which studies qualitative and quantitative indicators, population models, the ratio of rural and urban residents, and so on.
Categories
Population is a rather vague term. The citizens of the country will be people with citizenship, as well as persons temporarily residing in its territory. Even within the framework of this state alone, people periodically change their cities of residence and leave its borders.
When conducting a population census, it is mainly established whether a person lives in a city or rural area permanently or is temporarily here. In order for the study to obtain clear, structured data, the general population is usually divided into the following categories:
The permanent category includes people living in the study area, regardless of where they are at the moment, which make up the main population of cities or villages. This category is characterized by a temporary criterion by which it is determined whether it is possible to rank absent persons in this area or not. As a rule, we are talking about several months: in the Soviet Union, a person was included in the population of a certain area if his absence lasted no more than 6 months. The legal population is officially (registered) assigned to a particular territory.
Demographic characteristics of the population
Demography studies the population. This is an interesting science devoted to the study of its characteristics, the dynamics of growth or contraction, the processes of movement. The main tool of demography is the census of residents, as well as sociological studies aimed at identifying demographic characteristics. Thanks to this science, not only data are available on the population, but also on its age characteristics, gender, marital status, etc.
Domestic population movement can be natural, mechanical and social. Under the natural understand changes in the status of a person - marriage or, conversely, divorce, fertility and mortality. The mechanical movement to which the population is exposed is the processes of migration, the influx of residents from other areas, countries and cities. This movement can be seasonal, when people come to rest in the summer or, on the contrary, leave in large numbers at the end of it. Social movement determines the movement of a person from one social group to another.
Another important criterion is the division into classes of the population. The so-called social stratification has been a key factor in creating a society within the country at all times. Traditionally, the main classes are lower, working, middle and upper. In different years, they could be called differently: the bourgeoisie, the labor aristocracy, the clergy, etc. However, the key parameter that determines a person’s commitment to a particular class was his social status, income, and sphere of employment.
Resettlement of people
The main criterion for classifying the inhabitants of the planet is the division into urban and rural populations, as well as the dispersal of citizens across different settlements: farms, villages, cities. The main difficulty in studying this concept is the high migration of people from one region to another: for example, to work or study.
With the division of the population into urban and rural, the division of labor into industrial-craft and agricultural production is associated. Currently, there is a tendency towards urbanization throughout the world, the influx of residents in many cities is due to the migration of people from villages. The decrease in the number of villagers indicates the development of production and industry of the country, indicates its high culture and educational level.
Earth population
Today, more than 7 billion people live on the planet. The largest jump in population growth in the entire history of the Earth’s existence fell on the 20th century: if at its initial stage there were about 1.6 billion people, then by the end this figure exceeded 6 billion.
At present, the rapid growth of mankind has stopped; it is expected that in 40 years the population of the Earth will be more than 9 billion individuals. An increase in the number of citizens causes concern for most scientists: there is a great chance that soon there will be practically no sites left on the planet with untouched nature. Leaders in terms of population are China, India, USA, Indonesia and Brazil.
Population of Russia
In the list of countries in terms of the number of people living in them, our country ranks ninth with an indicator of 143 million people. Most of the citizens are localized in the European part. In the 1920s, the country's population decreased by 2 million people, despite the fact that the natural increase in people due to the birth rate was about 5 million. Thus, during the years of the revolution and World War I, the country lost at least 7 million people.
After these tragic events, there has been a rapid population growth. If in 1920 there were about 90 million inhabitants in Russia, then after 30 years its population exceeded 100 million. The country's population is extremely diverse and multifaceted: representatives of 140 different nationalities live here , the Russian people make up about 80% of the total number of inhabitants of the country.