![]() Millions of people left Europe to emigrate to other parts of the world-North and South America, Australia, South Africa, and elsewhere. One effect of this increase in the rate of natural population growth was increased migration. The change is especially spectacular when viewed in the context of doubling time-the number of years it takes a population to double-which was 150 years in 1750 but only 35 years in 1850. Death rates declined markedly-by 50 percent between 17-while birth rates remained high. Disease prevention through vaccination introduced a new era in public health. This was immediately followed by the Industrial Revolution, during which sanitation facilities made the towns and cities safer from epidemics, and modern medical practices became wide spread. At this time better farming methods and improved organization resulted in increased food supplies, especially to cities and towns. Europe's rapid growth occurred during the nineteenth century, the result of the Second Agricultural Revolution. Rapid population growth varies over time and space. It is still possible that there will be 10 billion human inhabitants on the planet by the middle of the twenty-first century. ![]() It now is taking only a decade to add each new billion. It took from the dawn of history to the year 1820 for the Earth's population to reach 1 billion. The population explosion of the past 200 years has increased the world's population from under 1 billion to approximately 6 billion. Never before in human history have so many people filled the Earth's living space, and never has world population grown as rapidly as it has during the past 100 years. ![]() This is an extremely important chapter, and when you have studied it, you will have a much better understanding of the complex issues of world population. The list goes on but you get the point: a population is far more than mere numbers. A country where the population is "aging," such as the United States or France, can face shortages of younger workers and problems with their retirement systems. A country that has a large percentage of its population at 15 years of age or below will have enormous needs for education, jobs, and housing in the years ahead. The differences include age, gender, life expectancy, and geographic distribution, and may be identified between countries but are more significant internally. Population does not increase in an even manner from country to country.
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