Rising U.S. Teen Fertility
The United States has higher fertility rates among teenage girls compared with other developed countries. Nonetheless, the fertility rate of girls ages 15 to 19 declined consecutively over the period from 1991 to 2005. But the latest data for 2006 may show a reversal of this trend. This reversal is of great concern because adolescent pregnancy has been associated with lower educational achievement, unemployment, poverty, repeated pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, infant mortality, and high risk pregnancy.

Population Policies, Programs, and the Environment
Human consumption is depleting the Earth's natural resources and impairing the capacity of life-supporting ecosystems. Humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively over the past 50 years than during any other period, primarily to meet increasing demands for food, fresh water, timber, fiber, and fuel, according to the United Nations-sponsored Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Increasing levels of consumption per capita, together with world population growth from 2.6 billion in 1950 to 6.7 billion today, have been major contributors to environmental damage. Population is growing by about 78 million each year. Strengthening family planning services in developing countries is key to slowing birth rates and limiting world population to 9.2 billion by 2050. If birth rates remain unchanged, world population will grow to 11.9 billion during the same time. Unintended pregnancy is the factor in continued population growth that is most amenable to program and policy intervention. Worldwide, 80 million pregnancies (38 percent of all pregnancies) are unintended. More than 200 million women in developing countries who would like to delay their next pregnancies, or stop bearing children altogether, must rely on traditional, less-effective methods of contraception (64 million) or are using no method because they lack access or face other barriers to using contraception (137 million). Family planning programs have a successful track record of reducing unintended pregnancies, thereby slowing population growth; however, family planning funding needs are estimated to be $15 billion a year with foreign aid providing at least $5 billion of the total. Current assistance is less than 15 percent of the amount needed.

Traversing the Mountaintop: World Fossil Fuel Production to 2050
During the past century, fossil fuels dominated world primary energy production. From 1950 to 2005, fossil fuels provided 88 percent to 89 percent of all primary energy production. All fossil fuels—petroleum liquids, natural gas, and coal—grew substantially during this period. This growth, however, was irregular, providing for rapidly growing per capita production from 1950 to 1980, stable per capita production from 1980 to 2000, and rising per capita produc­tion again after 2000. During the past half-century, growth in fossil fuel production was essentially limited by energy demand. During the next half-century, fossil fuel production will be limited primarily by the amount and characteristics of fossil fuel resources. Three possible scenarios—low, medium, and high—are developed for the production of each of the fossil fuels to 2050. These scenarios differ primarily by the amount of ultimate re­sources estimated for each fossil fuel. In these three cases, overall fossil fuel production peaks in 2020, 2030, and 2035, respectively. These peaks are robust; none of the fossil fuels, even with highly optimistic resource estimates, is projected to keep growing beyond 2045. Fossil fuel production per capita worldwide will thus begin an irreversible decline between 2020 and 2030.

Considering Population and War: A Critical and Neglected Aspect of Conflict Studies
This study analyzes the relationship between war and population. The impact of the growth and decline of population on important types of warfare—great power, small power, civil war as well as terrorism—is illustrated, with the objective in each case to be descriptive of risk. Population change has a significant impact on each, with the greatest causal impact on small power conflicts, civil war, and upon terrorism. It concludes with some reasons for guarded optimism about the incorporation of population as a component of analysis in the discipline of international studies, and for the potential to devise new solutions to prevent conflict.

Making Family Planning Accessible in Resource-Poor Settings
Evidence shows that it is imperative to make family planning more accessible in low re­source settings. The poorest couples have the highest fertility, the lowest contraceptive use, and the highest unmet need for contraception. It is also in the low resource settings where maternal and child mortality is the highest. Family planning can contribute to improve­ments in maternal and child health especially in low resource settings where overall access to health services. Four critical steps should be taken to increase access to family planning in resource poor settings: a) increase knowledge about the safety of family planning meth­ods; b) ensure contraception is genuinely affordable to the poorest families; c) ensure sup­ply of contraceptives by making family planning a permanent line item in health care systems' budgets; and d) take immediate action to remove barriers hindering access to family planning methods. Making family planning accessible in low resource settings would help decrease existing inequities in achieving desired fertility at individual and country level. In addition, it could help slow population growth within a human rights framework. The United Nations Population Division projections for the year 2050 vary between a high of 10.6 billion and a low of 7.4 billion. Given that most of the growth is expected to come from today's resource-poor settings, easy access to family planning could make a difference of billions in the world in 2050.

The Theoretical and Political Framing of the Population Factor in Development
The silence about population growth in recent decades has hindered the ability of those concerned with ecological change, resource scarcity, national security, health and educational systems, and other global challenges to look with maximum objectivity at the problems they confront. Two central questions about population—(1) is population growth a problem, and (2) what causes fertility decline—are intertwined, in that people who fear the second question implies possible coercion, or interfering with cultures, are often reluctant to talk about the first. The most widely respected theoretical explanations of fertility decline focus on couples' decisions based on exogenous change in social or economic conditions. It would be constructive to place greater weight on the wide range of barriers preventing women access to the methods and information they need to manage their childbearing. Many of the barriers reflect a patriarchal desire to control women, which can be largely explained by evolutionary biology. This patriarchal behavior in turn has been sustained largely through western Christian colonialism. Women should be given opportunities to manage their reproductive lives; and once it is understood that fertility can be lowered within a human rights framework, comfort with talking about the population factor in development will rise.

Rank Country / Territory Population Date % of world population Source
1 China (incl. Hong Kong and Macau)[4] 1,335,962,132 January 13, 2009 19.84% Chinese Population clock
Hong Kong Statistics
Macau statistics
Figure for Mainland China is 1,328,718,000
2 India 1,144,940,000 February 26, 2009 16.94% Indian Population clock
3 United States 305,880,000 February 26, 2009 4.53% Official USA Population clock
4 Indonesia 229,550,810 February 21, 2009 3.41% Indonesian Population clock
5 Brazil 190,790,000 February 26, 2009 2.8% Official Brazilian Population clock
6 Pakistan 165,730,000 February 26, 2009 2.46% Official Pakistani Population clock
7 Bangladesh 158,665,000 2.36% UN estimate
8 Nigeria 148,093,000 2.2% UN estimate
9 Russia 141,853,580 February 21, 2009 2.11% Russian Population clock
10 Japan 127,704,000 July 1, 2008 1.9% Official Japan Statistics Bureau estimate
11 Mexico 106,682,500 June 2008 1.58% INEGI projection
12 Philippines 90,457,200 June 2008 1.34% National Statistics Office projection



All of the people inhabiting a specified area.
The total number of such people.
The total number of inhabitants constituting a particular race, class, or group in a specified area.
The act or process of furnishing with inhabitants.
Ecology. All the organisms that constitute a specific group or occur in a specified habitat.
Statistics. The set of individuals, items, or data from which a statistical sample is taken. Also called universe.


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Accounting Dictionary: Population
Top Home > Library > Business & Finance > Accounting DictionarySet of data consisting of all conceivable observations of a certain phenomenon. A Sample contains only part of these observations. Examples of populations are: (1) number of defective and nondefective bolts produced in a factory on a given day; (2) heights and weights of students in a university; and (3) all possible outcomes (heads, tails) in successive tosses of a coin. Population can be finite or infinite. The first two examples are finite and the third example is infinite. Assume the auditor wants to verify promotion and entertainment expense of the company. The population is the total expense for the accounting period under examination. A sample can be derived on a random basis to check selected promotion and entertainment documentation so as to derive an inference about the population balance.

Dental Dictionary: population
Top Home > Library > Health > Dental Dictionary
n
All instances about which a statement is made; all events, organisms, and items of a stated kind occurring or in existence in a specified time. In statistics, a hypothetic infinite supply or universe of events or objects like those being studied and from which a sample was drawn.

Geography Dictionary: population
Top Home > Library > Science > Geographical Dictionary1. In ecology, a group of individuals of the same species within a community.

2. In statistics, the entire and complete collection of individuals under consideration, from which a sample may be taken. These individuals need not necessarily be living organisms.

British History: population
Top Home > Library > History, Politics & Society > British HistoryVery few conclusions have been agreed about the population of the British Isles before the Norman Conquest. Large-scale migrations of Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Danes, and Norsemen, and substantial movements between Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, make estimates very hazardous. The population of Roman Britain remains highly conjectural with a disturbing divergence of scholarly opinion between 1 million and 6 million for the later 2nd cent. A figure of 20, 000 has been proposed for Wales, though there is no way of checking it. Nor is it easier to offer figures for the subsequent Saxon period, since we cannot be sure to what extent devastation and warfare were offset by new arrivals. The consensus puts the figure for England towards the end of the Saxon period at about 1" million. The most prudent historians of Ireland and Scotland refuse to suggest or endorse any estimates for those countries.

There is little disagreement that the population of England increased greatly between 1066 and the plague disasters of the mid-14th cent. If the estimates for William I's reign, based on Domesday Book returns, are correct, the population was about 1" million and had more than doubled by 1300 to about 4 million. This was part of a general European pattern, assisted in England after the Conquest by the absence of major invasions and a lessening of internal conflict. Plague then struck four times between 1349 and 1375 with devastating consequences. It seems that over 40 per cent of the population died. The Black Death also visited Ireland, Wales, and Scotland. Only in Scotland does the mortality seem to have been significantly lower, perhaps because the plague was at its most deadly in crowded towns and ports.

Recovery from the Black Death was slow. The population of England may have been reduced to about 2" million. Not until the middle of the 15th cent. did the rate of increase pick up. But during Tudor times, the population reached its pre-plague position and by the end of the 16th cent. stood at just over 4 million. The population of Ireland was about 1 million, that of Scotland perhaps a little less. Wales was still very thinly populated with about 350, 000 people. At over 200, 000 London was already the largest town in western Europe and outstripping all its rivals.

From the 17th cent. the sources for demographic study improve. Thomas Cromwell ordered the keeping of parish registers from 1538, but many incumbents did not at first do so, and some registers have been destroyed by fire, flood, wars, and mice. The high Tudor growth rate was not sustained throughout the whole 17th cent., when emigration, civil war, and plague dampened the increase. The population of England and Wales rose to about 5.4million by 1656 and then steadied, or even declined slightly. Scotland was affected by plague in the 1640s, heavy emigration to Ulster, and by severe famine in the 1690s. Its population in 1700 was probably little higher than in 1600: Edinburgh, by far the largest town, had between 30, 000 and 40, 000 people. Despite heavy warfare, the Irish population may have doubled by 1687 and reached well over 2 million by 1700, with Dublin beginning to grow rapidly. London continued to grow disproportionately, had reached half a million by 1700, and was larger than all the other urban centres together.

There were few indications at the beginning of the 18th cent. that the British Isles were on the threshhold of a population explosion. The causes of the acceleration to come have been extensively debated. The establishment of voluntary hospitals and improved methods of combating smallpox were bound to be slow since they did not operate much outside urban areas. Plague at last disappeared. Agricultural yields were improving and the development of turnpike roads and canals later in the century enabled food to be transported more quickly to areas of shortage. But any explanation must have a European dimension since the increase was a general one. The early view that the population rise was largely due to a falling death rate has been increasingly challenged, partly because the increase accompanied widespread urbanization and 18th-cent. cities were by no means healthy places. More emphasis is now placed upon a significant rise in fertility rates, as a result of people marrying earlier, and because a smaller proportion of the population remained unmarried. The move to towns may have freed young men to marry.

Though the causes of the great acceleration are still far from agreed, the consequences are clear. From the 1740s onwards, the population began to rise, not to fall again as it had so often in the past, but a sustained and incremental growth. From 5.7 million in 1750, the population of England reached 8.6 million by 1800 and 16.5 million by 1850. The Scottish population also grew, particularly in the industrial and trading towns of the central region—from 1.2 million in 1750 to 1.6 million by 1800 and 2.8 million by 1850. But the most startling increase was in Ireland, where from about 3 million in 1750, it reached 5 million by 1800, and in 1845, on the brink of the famine, stood at well over 8million, dangerously dependent on the potato harvest.

The Irish Famine, from 1845 to 1848, was a unique event in modern European demography. One million people died of starvation and disease, the birth rate fell, and there was a large-scale exodus, mainly of younger people, in the decades after the disaster. Well over a million people left Ireland in the 1840s, another million in the 1850s, and 850, 000 in the 1860s—mainly for North America, and especially from Munster and Ulster. The Irish population was down to 6.5 million by 1851, 5.8 million by 1861, 4.4 million by 1901.

In the rest of Britain, the sustained growth was felt in every part of public life. Internationally, it changed Britain's relative position. In 1550 the population of Spain and Portugal was double that of the British Isles: by 1914 the position was reversed. Just before 1914 the population of the United Kingdom passed that of France. Despite Malthus' fears of extra mouths to feed, agricultural improvements meant that fewer farm labourers could support more and more factory workers. The increase provided labour for the industrial expansion and purchasing power to sustain it. The internal balance of England shifted as the great industrial towns of the north developed. In Scotland, Glasgow rose from a town of 10, 000 in 1688 to a conurbation of a million in 1901: in Wales, the balance of population moved to the mining areas of the south and Cardiff, a town of 1, 800 people in 1801, had 128, 000 inhabitants by 1901.

The population of England and Wales continued to rise in the 20th cent. By 1996, England and Wales totalled 50 million, Scotland 5 million, Northern Ireland 1" million, and Eire 3" million. England became by far the most densely populated of the major European powers—four times the density of France, and on a par with Holland and Belgium. From this stemmed many social problems: of law and order, bearing in mind that a second-division football match in the 1990s might well attract a crowd twice the size of the second largest city of Stuart England; of traffic jams, road rage, and general transport policy; of noise pollution and broader environmental questions. The slowing down of the birth rate after the Second World War meant an ageing population, with heavy demands on medical care and for pensions. The general movement out of older towns led to the problem of decaying city centres. Though demography is a rarefied and demanding discipline, its implications are profound.

Philosophy Dictionary: population
Top Home > Library > History, Politics & Society > Philosophy DictionaryMost ethical thinking supposes a fixed population, and considers such things as the distribution of resources amongst them. If population is itself made a matter of decision, then further problems arise. Do numbers matter by themselves, with it being a better world if more people live lives of some positive happiness? Or does only the average level of welfare matter? If a mother conceives in a way that she knows is likely to bring about the existence of a handicapped child, when she could have acted differently and avoided the risk, why has she done wrong? Nobody would have been better off had she acted otherwise, for the only child that does exist would not have existed. These and other questions are subtly explored in Parfit's Reasons and Persons (1984). See also Malthus.

Archaeology Dictionary: population
Top Home > Library > Science > Archaeology Dictionary
[Ge]

In sampling methods, the sum of all sampling units selected within a data universe.

Sports Science and Medicine: population
Top Home > Library > Health > Sports Science and MedicineIn statistics, the aggregate of individuals or items from which a sample is taken.

Columbia Encyclopedia: population
Top Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Columbia Encyclopediapopulation, the inhabitants of a given area, but perhaps most importantly, the human inhabitants of the earth (numbering about 6.2 billion in 2002), who by their increasing numbers and corresponding increasing needs can seriously affect the global ecosystem.
Population Growth

History and Evolution

General population increase in the world was negligible until the Industrial Revolution. From the time of the Roman Empire to the colonization of America, the world population grew from about a quarter billion to a half billion persons. By the mid-19th cent., however, it had grown to about one billion, and by 1930 it had risen to 2 billion; the United Nations estimates the world population will peak at 10 billion in 2200. In world terms, the population is growing at about 1.2% annually (compared with 0.1% in ancient times and a rate of 1.75% as recently as the 1990s) in population. Although a 1.2% growth rate may appear small, it annually adds some 77 million persons to the world's population, with nearly all of this growth taking place in less developed nations.

During the Industrial Revolution, advancements in sanitation, technology, and the means of food distribution made possible a drop in the death rate so significant that between 1650 and 1900 the population of Europe almost quadrupled (from about 100 million to about 400 million) in spite of considerable emigration. As the rate of population growth increased, so did concern that the earth might not be able to sustain future populations. The phenomenal increase in numbers led Thomas Robert Malthus to predict that the population would eventually outstrip the food supply. Karl Marx emphatically rejected this view and argued that the problem was not one of overpopulation but of unequal distribution of goods, a problem that even a declining population would not solve.

Modern Population Growth

In the late 20th cent., a major population difference arose in the comparative growth rates of the developed (0.6%) and developing (2.1%) nations. Africa's annual growth rate is about 3%, compared to 1.7% for Asia, 0.7% in Latin America, and 0.3% in Europe. If current rates hold steady, many developing countries will double their populations in 25 years or less, compared to 50 years or more for industrialized nations. Great Britain, for example, has a present doubling rate of 140 years, while Costa Rica has one of 19 years.

Great Britain has accomplished what is known as demographic transition, i.e., it has moved from a condition of high birthrate and high death rate (before the Industrial Revolution), to one of high birthrate and low death rate (during industrialization), and finally to one of low birthrate and low death rate (as a postindustrial society). Most of the countries in the Third World are in a condition of high birthrate and declining death rate, contributing to what is known as the population explosion.

Population Control

A declining birthrate depends to a large extent on the availability and use of birth control and on high living standards that make unnecessary the production of additional children to provide necessary and inexpensive labor. Family planning is national policy in many industrial countries, such as Japan and most of Europe. As a result, in most cases the birthrate has declined. Many developing countries have followed the lead of India (which has since 1952 conducted an extensive, but not totally successful, birth control program) in trying to promote family planning as national policy. These countries include China, Kenya, Pakistan, Taiwan, Turkey, Egypt, and Chile.

In the United States, aspects of the population question, such as birth control and abortion, are among the most bitterly debated subjects. The United States has opposed at times the use of foreign aid appropriations for family planning overseas; domestic family planning is mainly run by private groups such as Planned Parenthood.

A number of nongovernmental organizations concerned with population growth have also appeared. Zero Population Growth, an educational group founded in 1970, aims to stop population growth, first in the United States and then in other countries. On the international level, besides the International Planned Parenthood Federation, the United Nations Economic and Social Council provides birth control aid to underdeveloped nations.