CBSE Notes Class 8 Social Science Geography Chapter 6 Human Resources

The Government of India has a Ministry of Human Resource Development. The Ministry was created in
1985 with an aim to improve people’s skills. This just shows how important people are as a resource for
the country. Human resources, like other resources are not equally distributed over the world. They
differ on a range of levels, such as their educational levels, age and sex. Their numbers and
characteristics also keep changing. Students can learn more about Human Resources from Chapter 6 of
CBSE Class 8 Geography. One of the best resources for the students to understand the concepts and
revise thoroughly for the exam are CBSE Notes Class 8 Social Science Geography Chapter 6-Human
Resources.

Revising the Chapter will ensure that the student will score well in the exam. Find below in this article,
the link to download the CBSE Class 8 Social Science Notes from Chapter 6 of Geography.

Download CBSE Notes Class 8 Social Science Geography Chapter 6-Human Resources
PDF

Human Resources
People are a nation’s greatest resource. Nature’s bounty becomes significant only when people find it
useful. It is people with their demands and abilities that turn them into ‘resources’. Hence, human
resource is the ultimate resource.

Distribution of Population
The way in which people are spread across the earth's surface is known as the pattern of population
distribution. Over 90% of the world’s population lives in about 30% of the land surface. Distribution of
population is uneven. Some areas are crowded and some areas are sparsely populated. The crowded
areas are south and south-east Asia, Europe and north-eastern North America. Very few people live in
high latitude areas, tropical deserts, high mountains and areas of equatorial forests. Many more people
live north of the Equator than south of the Equator. Almost three-quarters of the world’s people live in
two continents, Asia and Africa. 60% of the world’s people stay in just 10 countries. All of them have
more than 100 million people.

Density of Population
A number of people living in the unit area of the earth’s surface are the density of population- normally
expressed as per square metre. The average density of population in the whole world is 51 persons per
square km. South-Central Asia has the highest density of population followed by East and South East
Asia.

Factors Affecting Distribution of Population

Geographical Features
Topography: People prefer to live on plains rather than mountains and plateau as these areas are
suitable for farming, manufacturing and service activities.
 The Ganga plains- most densely populated areas of the world
 Andes, Alps and Himalayas---sparsely populated.

Climate: People usually avoid extreme climates that are very hot or very cold.
Examples: Sahara desert, Polar Regions of Russia, Canada and Antarctica.

Soil: Fertile soils provide suitable land for agriculture.

Examples: Densely populated fertile plains such as Ganga and Brahmaputra in India, Hwang-He, Chang
Jiang in China and the Nile in Egypt.

Water: People prefer to live in areas where freshwater is easily available. River valleys of the world are
densely populated while deserts have spare population.

Minerals: Areas with mineral deposits are more populated.

Example: Diamond mines of South Africa and the discovery of oil in the Middle East lead to settling of
people in these areas.

Social, Cultural and Economic Factors

Social: Areas of better housing, education and health facilities are more densely populated e.g., Pune.

Cultural: Places with religion or cultural significance attract people.

Examples: Varanasi, Jerusalem and Vatican City

Economic: Industrial areas provide employment opportunities so it attracts a large number of people.
Examples: Osaka in Japan and Mumbai in India are two densely populated areas.

Population Change

The population change refers to change in the number of people during a specific time. The world
population is not stable. It has increased manifold due to changes in the number of births and deaths.
Until the 1800s, the world’s population grew steadily but slowly. Large numbers of babies were born,
but they died early too. Causes: no proper health facilities- no sufficient food available for all the
people-farmers not able to produce enough to meet the food requirements of all the people. This
resulted in a low increase in population. In 1804, the world population hit 1 bn and later about 155
years later in 1959, the population reached 3 billion-is also known as population explosion. Also, later in
1999, about 40 years later, the population doubled reaching 6 billion. The main reason for this
growth: better food supplies and medicine, deaths were reduced, while the number of births still
remained fairly high.
Births are usually measured using the birth rate i.e. the number of live births per 1,000 people. Deaths
are usually measured using the death rate i.e. the number of deaths per 1,000 people. Migrations are
the movement of people in and out of an area. Births and deaths are the natural causes of population
change. Difference between the birth rate and the death rate of a country is called the natural growth
rate. The population increase in the world is mainly due to a rapid increase in natural growth rate.

Another cause for population size change- Migration. People may move within a country or between
countries. Emigrants are people who leave a country; Immigrants are those who arrive in a country.
Countries like the United States of America and Australia have gained in-numbers by in-migration or
immigration. Sudan is an example of a country that has experienced a loss in population numbers due to
out-migration or emigration.

The general trend of international migrations is from the less developed nations to the more developed
nations in search of better employment opportunities. Within countries, a large number of people may
move from the rural to urban areas in search of employment, education and health facilities.

Patterns of Population Change

Rates of population growth vary across the world- Even if, the world’s total population is rising rapidly,
and not all countries are experiencing this growth. Kenya has a high population growth rate, as well as
high birth rates and death rates. With improving health care, death rates have reduced, but birth rates
still remain high leading to high growth rates. In other countries like the United Kingdom, population
growth is slowing because of both low death and low birth rates.

Population Composition
Economic development has little to do with how crowded a place is. Bangladesh and Japan-densely
populated. But, Japan is more economically developed than Bangladesh. People vary in age, sex, literacy
level, health condition, occupation and income level. Population composition refers to the structure of
the population.

The composition of the population helps to know- the number of males or females, age group they
belong to, how educated they are and what type of occupations they are employed in, what their
income levels and health conditions are. People can study the population composition of a country by
looking at the population pyramid or the age-sex pyramid.

A population pyramid shows

• The total population divided into various age groups, e.g., 5 to 9 years, 10 to 14 years.
• The percentage of the total population, subdivided into males and females, in each of those
groups.
The numbers of children (below 15 years) are shown at the bottom and reflect the level of births. The
size of the top shows the numbers of aged people (above 65 years) and reflects the number of deaths.
The population pyramid also tells us how many dependents there are in a country. There are two
groups of dependents — young dependents (aged below 15 years) and elderly dependents (aged over
65 years). Those of the working-age are economically active.

The population pyramid of Kenya

The population pyramid shown above for Kenya has birth and death rates both high, hence it is broad at
the base and rapidly narrows towards the top. This is because although many children are born, a large
percentage of them die in their infancy, relatively few become adults and there are very few old
people.
Population Pyramid of India

In countries like India where death rates (especially amongst the very young) are decreasing, the
pyramid is broad in the younger age groups, because more infants survive to adulthood. This can be
seen in the pyramid above for India. Such populations contain a relatively large number of young people
and which means a strong and expanding labour force.

In countries like Japan, low birth rates make the pyramid narrow at the base. Decreased death rates
allow numbers of people to reach old age. Skilled, spirited and hopeful young people endowed with a
positive outlook are the future of any nation.