Human Resources

Here is the notes for Class 8 NCERT Geography – Chapter 6: Human Resources

Human resources like other resources are not equally distributed over the world. They differ in their educational levels, age and sex.
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.
Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojna (PKVY) was started in 2015 aiming to train one crore Indian youth from 2016 to 2020.
- The objective of this scheme is to encourage aptitude towards employable skills by giving quality training to probable and existing wage earners.

The way in which people are spread across the earth surface is known as the pattern of population distribution.
More than 90 per cent of the world’s population lives in about 30 per cent of the land surface.
Almost three-quarters of the world’s people live in two continents Asia and Africa.
Sixty per cent of the world’s people stay in just 10 countries.
Some areas are very crowded and some are sparely 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.

Population density is the number of people living in a unit area of the earth’s surface.
It is normally expressed as per square km.
The average density of population in the whole world is 51 persons per square km.
Average density of population in India is 382 persons per square km.
South Central Asia has the highest density of population followed by East and South East Asia

Topography: People always prefer to live on plains rather than mountains and plateaus because these areas are suitable for farming, manufacturing and service activities.
Climate: People usually avoid extreme climates that are very hot or very cold like Sahara desert, polar regions of Russia, Canada and Antarctica.
Soil: Fertile soils provide suitable land for agriculture. Fertile plains such as Ganga and Brahmaputra in India, Hwang-He, Chang Jiang in China and the Nile in Egypt are densely populated.
Water: People prefer to live in the areas where fresh water is easily available. The river valleys of the world are densely populated while deserts have spare population.
Minerals: Areas with mineral deposits are more populated. Diamond mines of South Africa and discovery of oil in the Middle east lead to settling of people in these areas.

Social: Areas of better housing, education and health facilities are more densely populated
Cultural: Places with religion or cultural significance attract people. Varanasi, Jerusalem and Vatican city are some examples
Economic: Industrial areas provide employment opportunities. Large number of people are attracted to these areas. Osaka in Japan and Mumbai in India are two densely populated areas.

The population change refers to change in the number of people during a specific time.
until the 1800s, the world’s population grew steadily but slowly. Large numbers of babies were born, but they died early too.
In 1804, the world’s population reached one billion.
A hundred and fifty five years later, in 1959, the world’s population reached 3 billion. This is often called population explosion.
In 1999, 40 years later, the population doubled to 6 billion.
- The main reason for this growth was that with better food supplies and medicine, deaths were reducing, while the number of births still remained fairly high.

Birth rate: the number of live births per 1,000 people.

Death rate: the number of deaths per 1,000 people.

Natural growth rate: The difference between the birth rate and the death rate of a country is called the natural growth rate.

Migration: movement of people in and out of an area.

Emigrants are people who leave a country
- Example: Sudan
Immigrants are those who arrive in a country.
- Example: United States of America and Australia

Rates of population growth vary across the world.
Although, the world’s total population is rising rapidly, not all countries are experiencing this growth.
rapidly, not all countries are experiencing this growth. Some countries like Kenya have high population growth rates. They had both high birth rates and death rates.
In other countries like United Kingdom, population growth is slowing because of both low death and low birth rates.

The composition of population helps us to know how many are males or females, which 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.

The percentage of the total population, subdivided into males and females, in each of those groups.
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).
It also shows economically active groups or working age.
The population pyramid of a country in which birth and death rates boths are high 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.
- Example: Kenya
In countries 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.
- Such populations contain a relatively large number of young people and which means a strong and expanding labour force.
- Example: India
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