Activity 3.1 – Human Population

Demographic Profile

I have built a demographic profile for the countries Ireland, located in Northern Europe, and Canada, located in Northern America. According to chapter 2 in the text “Introduction to environmental science”, demography is used to study how populations change and what causes those changes in terms of age, gender, births, deaths, immigration, and emigration. Using the 2021 World Population Data Sheet, I will be able to see these factors.

Ireland's Demographic Profile

In Ireland, the birth rate per 1,000 population is 11 and the death rate per 1,000 population is 6. The population growth rate is 0.5% and the life expectancy for males is 80 and for females, it is 83. In addition, the total fertility rate is 1.6 and the Gross National Income is 69,190. Because of the high Gross National Income and a lower birthrate, Ireland is a more developed country. 

Canada's Demographic Profile in Comparison to Ireland's 

In Canada, the birth rate per 1,000 population is 10 and the death rate per 1,000 population is 8 which is very close to Ireland's birth and death rate per 1,000 population. The population growth rate is 0.2%, a bit lower than Ireland’s. The life expectancy of males is 80, the same as in Ireland, and for females, it is 84 which is one year higher than females in Ireland. The total fertility rate is 1.5, very close to Ireland’s total fertility rate and the Gross National Income is 47,500 and is respectfully lower than Ireland’s Gross National Income. 

The World's Demographic Profile in Comparison to Ireland's and Canada's 

Now, using the information above, I will compare Ireland’s and Canada’s statistics to the World’s. The World’s birth rate per 1,000 population is 18, considerably higher than both Ireland and Canada, and the death rate per 1,000 population is 8, much closer to Ireland and Canada. The population growth rate is 1.0%, which is double the amount of Ireland and five times the amount of Canada. The life expectancy for males is 71 and 75 for females and this is lower by several years compared to Canada and Ireland. However, the total fertility rate is 2.3 which is a little bit higher than both Canada’s and Ireland’s total fertility rate. Lastly, the Gross National Income for the world is 17,535, way lower than Ireland and a lot lower than Canada.

In conclusion, Ireland and Canada are more developed countries as represented in my findings above. The factors of either Ireland or Canada being more developed are important and could change. For example, if a birthrate is too high for a population then this creates problems that affect every other factor. A higher birthrate means the need for more resources that we take from nature and when we do that, it harms the environment which will make it harder to live in and could cause people to leave which will lower the population growth rate.

All in all, because I picked more developed countries, I limited myself to not seeing the drastic differences in less developed countries. However, I did see the similarities between Canada and Ireland in comparison to the world which had major differences. What surprised me the most while looking at the profile for the World was how much lower the Gross National Income was compared to Canada and Ireland. 

References

Bureau, Population Reference. “PRB's 2021 World Population Data Sheet Released.” PRB's 2021 World Population Data Sheet Released, 17 Aug. 2021, https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/prbs-2021-world-population-data-sheet-released-301357333.html. 

Mutiti, S., Mutiti, C., Manoylov, K., VandeVoort, A., & Bennett, D. (2018). Introduction to environmental science (3rd ed.). Biological Science Open Textbooks. University System of Georgia.