The population of the Earth is steadily changing every year. In some regions, stagnation and even a decrease in natural growth rates are planned, while others are experiencing rapid growth and are even forced to limit the birth rate with the help of legislation. A thousand years ago the world's population numbered in the millions, today we are already in the billions. Some scientists worry about overpopulation, others consider it a natural process regulated by nature.
Characterization of the concept
Population is a set of persons living within a certain, limited area or territory, state. Applying additional criteria, it is possible to isolate a group of citizens of a particular state or city, a particular continent 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, which will include absolutely all people living on Earth. Many disciplines use the indicators and characteristics of groups of inhabitants for their research. The main science for studying thisthe concept remains demography, which studies qualitative and quantitative indicators, population patterns, the ratio of rural and urban residents, and so on.
Categories
Population is a rather vague term. Residents of the country will be people who have citizenship, as well as persons temporarily residing in its territory. Even within this one state, people periodically change cities of residence, leave its borders.
The census mainly establishes whether a person resides permanently or temporarily in an urban or rural area. In order for the study to obtain clear, structured data, it is customary to divide the general population into the following categories:
- permanent;
- cash;
- legal.
The permanent category includes people living in the study area, regardless of where they are at the moment, constituting the main population of cities or villages. This category is characterized by a temporal criterion by which it is determined whether it is possible to classify the absent from this locality 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.
Population demographics
Demography studies the population. This is an interesting science dedicated to the study of its characteristics, the dynamics of growth or contraction,movement processes. The main tool of demography is the population census, as well as sociological research aimed at identifying demographic characteristics. Thanks to this science, not only population data is available, but also its age characteristics, gender, marital status, etc.
The movement of the population within the country 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 subject is the processes of migration, the influx of inhabitants from other regions, countries and cities. This movement can be seasonal, when people come to rest during the summer period or, on the contrary, leave en masse after it ends. Social movement defines 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 the creation of 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 determining a person's commitment to a particular class was his social status, income and employment.
Resettlement of people
The main criterion for classifying the inhabitants of the planet is the division into urban and rural population, as well as the dispersal of citizensin different settlements: farms, villages, cities. The main difficulty in studying this concept lies in 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, handicraft and agricultural production is connected. Currently, there is a trend towards urbanization of the population all over the world, the influx of residents in many cities is carried out due to the migration of people from villages. The decrease in the number of villagers indicates the development of the country's production and industry, indicates its high culture and educational level.
Population of Earth
Today, more than 7 billion people live on the planet. The biggest 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. The increase in the number of citizens causes concern among most scientists: there is a high probability that soon there will be practically no areas with untouched nature left on the planet. The leaders in terms of population are China, India, USA, Indonesia and Brazil.
Population of Russia
In the list of countries by the number of people living in them, our countryranks ninth with 143 million people. Most of the citizens are localized in the European part. In the 20s of the XX century, the country's population decreased by 2 million people, despite the fact that the natural increase of people due to the birth rate was about 5 million. Thus, during the years of the revolution and the First World War, the country lost at least 7 million people.
After these tragic events, there has been a rapid increase in the population. If in 1920 there were about 90 million inhabitants in Russia, then after 30 years its number exceeded 100 million. The composition of 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.
