Page 38 - 3rd-year-tourism-2021_Neatترم اول

Demography

The field of social science that concerns itself with the study of population
characteristics and trends is termed Demography. Demography have developed
concepts, analytical tools, paradigms, and theories to examine the size. Distribution,
and age-sex structure of populations and to understand and explain any temporal,
inter or intra societal variations that exist. Demography is invaluable, therefore, to
planners and decision-makers in society because it enables them to formulate and
implement policies and projects on a scientific basis and to avoid the pitfalls of
relying on guesswork and trial and error. Doubling time, total fertility ratios, life
expectancy, infant mortality, and immigration and emigration rated are all examples
of the indicators that demographers have developed to study and analyze population
trends.

Doubling time is an estimate of how many years it will take for the number of
people living in a given geographic area to double. Knowledge of this makes it
possible to determine what facilities, products, and services a given society will
require in the future and the number of years that its planners have to design, finance
and provide these requirements. Total fertility ratio refers to the average number of
children that a woman in the society under study is likely to have over her lifetime.
Knowledge of this ratio is obviously very useful for educational authorities for
example. They need to know how many primary schools will be needed in the future
and how many years they have to build them. Both life expectancy and the infant
mortality rates are useful indications of the well-being of the population generally
and of the health of newborn babies, and officials rely on them to identify health
problems and to evaluate the efficacy of their health policies and practices.

Emigration refers to the people leaving a given society, and immigration refers
to those joining it. Examining these trends, together with in-immigration rates and
out-migration rates, which refer respectively to people moving into and out of certain
designed areas, contributes to the identification of possible problem areas that may

37