Deck 15: Population and Global Inequality

Question 1

Over the course of the twentieth century, global population

A)stayed about the same.
B)doubled.
C)tripled.
D)quadrupled.

Answer 1

D

Question 2

Which term refers to the incidence of death in a country's population?

A)mortality
B)morbidity
C)the crude death rate
D)the infant mortality rate

Answer 2

A

Question 3

The series of numbers 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, and so on reflect

A)a geometric progression.
B)an arithmetic progression.
C)a binary sequence.
D)a binomial distribution.

Answer 3

A

Question 4

Malthus predicted that food production would increase

A)arithmetically.
B)geometrically.
C)little if at all.
D)to produce more than humanity could consume.

Question 5

High-income nations such as the United States grow

A)as much from immigration as from natural increase.
B)almost entirely from immigration.
C)almost entirely from natural increase.
D)by means of demographic transition.

Question 6

There are many reasons that population increase has slowed in high-income nations.Which of the following is NOT one of them?

A)increased mortality rates
B)more families have both partners in the labor force
C)a trend toward later marriage
D)more widespread use of contraceptives

Question 7

Subtracting a nation's crude death rate from its crude birth rate yields which of the following?

A)rate of natural expansion
B)national expansion index
C)natural growth rate
D)refined demographic index

Question 8

Who was the English economist, clergyman, and pioneer demographer who predicted in 1798 that population would increase geometrically, but food production would increase arithmetically?

A)Herbert Spencer
B)Charles Horton Cooley
C)Thomas Robert Malthus
D)Robert Michels

Question 9

The United Nations projects that global population in the year 2050 will be

A)9.7 billion.
B)11 billion.
C)13.7 billion.
D)greater than 15 billion.

Question 10

For any country, as the number of women with access to contraception goes up, a woman's average number of children

A)stays the same.
B)goes up.
C)goes down.
D)cannot be predicted.

Question 11

Which term refers to the incidence of childbearing in a country's population?

A)fecundity
B)fertility
C)reproduction
D)demography

Question 12

Which term refers to the study of human population?

A)demography
B)popology
C)human ecology
D)ethnology

Question 13

Which term refers to the level of reproduction that maintains population at a steady state?

A)inert fertility
B)zero fertility rate
C)zero population growth
D)demographic balance

Question 14

In 2015, the human population of the planet was about

A)23 billion.
B)14.3 billion.
C)7.3 billion.
D)100 million.

Question 15

Nafis Sadik, representing the United Nations' efforts at population control, explains: "Give a woman more choices about how to live and she will

A)choose marriage."
B)stay single."
C)have fewer children."
D)have more children."

Question 16

What is calculated by dividing the number of live births in a year by the society's total population, and then multiplying the result by 1,000?

A)refined fertility rate
B)crude birth rate
C)population-growth rate
D)childbearing rate

Question 17

Which rate results from dividing the number of deaths of children under one year of age by the number of live births during the same year, then multiplying the result by 1,000?

A)infant mortality rate
B)crude infant death rate
C)crib death rate
D)abortion rate

Question 18

A sharp increase in global population began about the time of

A)the Agricultural Revolution.
B)the Industrial Revolution.
C)World War I.
D)the Information Revolution.

Question 19

Worldwide, what share of global population increase is taking place in the low-income nations of the Southern Hemisphere?

A)none
B)less than half
C)slightly more than half
D)almost all

Question 20

Global population reached 1 billion about the year

A)1950.
B)1900.
C)1850.
D)1800.

Question 21

A factory owner enslaves workers of all ages by paying them too little to cover their debts; this practice illustrates the concept of

A)servile forms of marriage.
B)child slavery.
C)debt bondage.
D)chattel slavery.

Question 22

According to the International Labour Organization, the number of people in the world living in conditions that amount to slavery is estimated to be about

A)20,000.
B)2 million.
C)20 million.
D)2 billion.

Question 23

Of the 194 nations in the world, how many are considered high-income?

A)76
B)46
C)26
D)6

Question 24

In which one of the four demographic transition theory stages is Western Europe?

A)preindustrial
B)early industrial
C)mature industrial
D)postindustrial

Question 25

Which of the following concepts refers to a lack of resources that is life threatening?

A)absolute poverty
B)temporary poverty
C)relative poverty
D)immediate poverty

Question 26

The poorest 20 percent of the world's population earns about what share of the world's income?

A)40 percent
B)20 percent
C)12 percent
D)2.1 percent

Question 27

How many nations fall within the category of "low-income countries"?

A)8
B)18
C)28
D)48

Question 28

A life-threatening lack of resources is called

A)relative poverty.
B)absolute poverty.
C)temporary poverty.
D)immediate poverty.

Question 29

Some severe poverty exists in the United States; but in low-income nations, what the United Nations calls severe poverty typically affects

A)5 percent of all people.
B)15 percent of all people.
C)30 percent of all people.
D)the entire population.

Question 30

During Stage 4 (a postindustrial economy) of the demographic transition,

A)birth rates are very low, but death rates increase.
B)the birth rate falls into line with the death rate, and population growth slows down.
C)birth rates remain very high, and the death rate declines even further.
D)birth and the death rates are both low, so there is little or no natural increase in population.

Question 31

People living in middle-income countries have incomes ranging between

A)$2,500 and $12,000.
B)$5,000 and $15,000.
C)$15,000 and $25,000.
D)$25,000 and $50,000.

Question 32

High-income nations are home to roughly what percentage of the earth's population?

A)4 percent
B)24 percent
C)44 percent
D)64 percent

Question 33

Which region of the world faces the greatest problem of poor, homeless children?

A)Latin America
B)Europe
C)India
D)the Middle East

Question 34

In India, Thailand, and some African nations, families marry off women against their will, with many ending up as slaves performing work for their husband's family or forced into prostitution.This practice falls into which of the following categories?

A)servile forms of marriage
B)indentured slavery
C)chattel slavery
D)debt bondage

Question 35

About 14 percent of the global population lives in low-income nations, but these people earned just ________ of the world's income.

A)3 percent
B)13 percent
C)23 percent
D)43 percent

Question 36

The world's three richest people, each with at least $70 billion in wealth, have combined wealth that roughly equals the wealth of all the people in

A)the world's poorest country.
B)the world's two poorest countries.
C)the world's 25 poorest countries.
D)110 of the world's 194 countries.

Question 37

During Stage 1 (preindustrial, agrarian societies) of the demographic transition, birth rates are __________ and death rates are __________.

A)high/high
B)high/low
C)low/high
D)low/low

Question 38

Most of the low-income nations of the world are located in

A)North America.
B)Latin America.
C)Africa or Asia.
D)Europe.

Question 39

Demographic transition theory links demographic changes to a society's

A)level of schooling.
B)level of social inequality.
C)level of technological development.
D)cultural patterns.

Question 40

In the United States, a home that lacks a telephone or a television set is the rare exception.Not being able to afford a television set in a wealthy country illustrates

A)immediate poverty.
B)temporary poverty.
C)absolute poverty.
D)relative poverty.

Question 41

Which of the following theories is a model of economic and social development that explains global inequality in terms of technological and cultural differences between societies?

A)social-conflict theory
B)modernization theory
C)world-system theory
D)cultural-transmission theory

Question 42

If you were a conservative, you would most likely see the solution to global poverty in terms of the productive power of

A)government.
B)the market.
C)tradition.
D)global cooperation.

Question 43

Which theory is a model of economic development that explains global inequality in terms of the historical exploitation of poor societies by rich societies?

A)modernization theory
B)world system theory
C)neocolonial theory
D)structural-functional theory

Question 44

Which political point of view accepts the fact that the capitalist market system is highly productive, but rejects the position that the capitalist market by itself is the solution to global poverty?

A)liberal
B)conservative
C)radical left
D)radical right

Question 45

Critics of modernization theory

A)see the approach as an attack on capitalism.
B)claim that using developed countries as the standard for the rest of the world is helpful for less-developed countries' economic growth.
C)point out that the approach says little about the ways in which rich nations often prevent poor countries from developing economically.
D)agree that poor societies are responsible for their own poverty.

Question 46

According to world system theory, high-income nations occupy which part of the capitalist world economy?

A)the core
B)the periphery
C)the semi-periphery
D)the boundary

Question 47

Which term refers to the process by which some nations enrich themselves through the direct political and economic control of other nations?

A)modernization
B)neocolonialism
C)colonialism
D)assimilation

Question 48

According to Immanuel Wallerstein, the world economy not only exploits poor nations, it also places them in what position with respect to rich nations?

A)a position of dependency
B)a position of dominance
C)a position of relative affluence
D)a position of cooperation

Question 49

The first stage in W.W.Rostow's theory of modernization is

A)the take-off stage.
B)the drive to technological maturity stage.
C)the traditional stage.
D)the high mass consumption stage.

Question 50

Frank and Joe are hunger activists who point out that the world already produces plenty of food for everyone, and that the capitalist system of growing food for export in poor countries means there are too few staples like beans and corn for the poor to eat.Frank and Joe most likely agree with which political viewpoint?

A)conservative
B)radical right
C)liberal
D)radical left