Causes of Population Change

The size of population keeps on changing. It increases or decreases according to time and space. The major factors affecting population are birth, death and migration.

Birth increases the population while death decreases the population. Migration also causes population change. Internal migration does not make any changes but international migration makes the differences in the size of population. But as a whole, migration does not affect in the size of population change.

Birth and death are considered as the natural factors of population but migration is considered to be an artificial effecting factor of population change.

Factors affecting the population change

The birth is a chief natural factor affecting the population change. It results into the increase of population. Higher birth rate, quicker the population growth.

The following are the prominent factors which plays an important role in increasing population, they are:

• Ignorance: Education plays a very important role in the population growth control. It helps to change the though, opinion and thinking of man. It brings important change in the life of people. It helps to make life happy. Uneducated people cannot decide what is wrong and what is right wrong and what is right. Because of illiteracy females produce more number of children and don't know about the adaption method for family planning. They cannot provide nutritious food to their children. They have less opportunity for employment. Therefore, most of the uneducated families are poor.
• Status of family: Fertility also depends upon the status of women. Women from the higher social status love to have small family. It is naturally interior social status likes to bear the burden of motherhood of a large family. Educated and employed woman also avoid having big families.
• Polygamy:The tradition of polygamy at certain places in our society even today. Thus, a man having more than one wife produces more children which naturally increase the population of the country.
• Lack of health education:Every people know that health is very necessary. Health education teaches man about nutritious food, measure for maintaining health, methods of protection from diseases, etc. people do not take nutritious food which causes malnutrition due to the lack of health education. It increases infant mortality rate.
• Unemployment:The people of developing countries are surrounded by the problem of unemployment. It plays vital role in growing the population. The majority of people have to sit without work. Thus, the male and female have to pass their lives without the source of entertainment, so they involved in sex. In such condition there is more possibility of more children. Therefore, problem of unemployment helps increase in population.
• Poverty:Poverty is one of the major factors of population growth. There are thirty eight percent of people of the total population who are below the poverty line. These people are facing a lot of problems and its hard for them to maintain day to day life. They think that their children are the only source of income for them. Therefore, they bear the children.

Death

Death is an important natural cause to bring change in population. It decreases the population of a country. Reduction in death rate automatically brings down the birth rate. The main reason for the decrease in death rate in Nepal is the decrease in the infant and child rate.

The following are the factors responsible for the death they are:

• Illiteracy:Due to lack of proper knowledge of child care, infant and child rate are increasing in Nepal. It is because of illiteracy, people go to seek the treatment from witch doctor instead of visiting doctors for medical treatment. They believe in superstition. They also die due to simple diseases because of their superstitious believe.
• Disease:The diseases are also one of the reason of high death. The people die most often due to chronic disease, and fatal diseases.
• Climate:The climate of a place or region or country plays a vital role in the determination of death rate. The people living in hot place die quickly more in number than the people living in cold climate. The people living in hot place becomes old very soon. Due to hot climate, disease is immersed and transmits. But people living in cold climate do not suffer from it and there is less chance of transformation of diseases.
• Lack of nutritious food:Easily available local cereals like pulses, food grains, green vegetables and fruits, etc. and animal products like fish, meat, eggs and milk products are the sources of nutrition. Nutritious food helps in growth and development of the body and protects the body from different diseases. There must be a good combination of protein, vitamin, carbohydrates, minerals, fat, etc. in our food helps for our healthy development and increases our immune power. But lack of nutritious is most common problem in our country and it is one of the causes of death in our country.
• Natural calamities:The unwise and unethical activities of human beings such as deforestation, establishing industries in urban areas and other irresponsible activities are responsible for the degradation of environment.

Migration

Movement of people from one place to another is called migration. Migration causes change of population. As we migrate from one place to another the population of one place decreases while of other place increases. It is considered as unnatural element of population change. The number of immigrants is gradually increasing like Nepalese emigrants. People come for business and employment and starts to live permanently. People also migrate towards the place where their relatives are residing. Migration plays vital role to change the population of particular area.

The following are the determining factors to population change:

• Marriage: Marriage is social factor that cause change in population of a particular area. For example, if a woman is married to foreigner, the population of origin decreases whereas the population of her husband's country increases.
• Availability of services and facilities: The facilities like education, transport, communication etc also inspire people to migrate from one place to another. People from village area migrate towards urban areas to get more facilities which cause change in population.
• Employment: People are compelled to migrate from their origin place due to lack of employment opportunities.People migrate to place where they can get job and earn money so that they can fulfill their basic needs.
• Natural calamities: Natural calamities is considered as environment factors that cause change in population. Natural calamities like flood, landslides, volcano etc are compelling people to migrate people from one place to another.