Human Resources

Q.1. Why population of a country is called its greatest resource?

Ans: The people of a country are its real wealth/ greatest resource because
1. It is they who make use of available resources, add value, make policies and implement them.
2. The all round development of a country, its progress, and optimum utilisation of resources
depends more on the quality of its population
3. Humans are the greatest resource of a country. With their knowledge, skills and available
technology, they can utilise various resources and make optimum possible development
Q.2. On what factors all round development of a country depends?
Ans:
1. The all round development of a country, its progress, and optimum utilisation of resources
depends more on the quality of its population.
2. It also depends on the physical and mental health of the people, their skills, awareness and
technical knowledge.
Q.3. What are the characteristics that determine the quality of population? Book D.1.
Ans: The characteristics that determine the quality of population are-
1. Physical and mental health of the people
2. Literacy rate or education
3. Their skill formation, training and innovation
4. Awareness and technical knowledge
5. Ability to face challenges and patriotic feelings of the people
Q.4. What do you mean by human capital?
Ans : The investment made to educate and train people for productivity is called human capital.
Q.5. Name the factors determining the ability of people in contributing to their country's progress.
Ans: The factors determining the ability of people are- (Book D.5 and E.5)
1. They must get balanced and nutritious food.
2. They should be literate with technical, vocational and professional skills.
3. They should be hardworking and understand the dignity of manual labour.
4. They must be provided with suitable technology and machines to increase production.
5. They should have sufficient employment opportunities for the population.
6. They should be trained to provide workforce outside the country and bring back wealth,
technology and intellectual resources.
Q.6. What is the total population of India?
Ans: The world population has crossed the 7 billion mark, as per the United States Census Bureau, in
2012. Of this, 60 per cent is in Asia. China and India together account for one-third of the total
world population.
Q.7. What do you mean by population distribution?
Ans: Population distribution refers to the way people are spaced out over the Earth's surface. The world
population is unevenly distributed.
Q.8. What are the factors affect the distribution of population of a country? (Book E.2.)
Ans: The distribution of population is influenced by various factors. and others are non-physical
influences.
Physical factors-
1. Relief and topography= People prefer to live in the plains and on gentle slopes because they are
well suited to construction of roads. canals, railway lines and buildings. Agriculture and
manufacturing are more successful in the plains.
2. Climate= People generally avoid harsh climate, be it very hot or very cold. Regions of moderate
climate and abundant rainfall are densely populated.
3. Soil quality = Soil quality determines the success rate of agricultural production. All river valley
plains are areas of fertile soil that are densely populated. For eg: the Ganga and Brahmaputra in
India, the Nile in Egypt.
4. Water resources= Water resources are most essential in the formation of settlements. People like
to settle in river valleys, near springs, lakes, etc., to have a source of freshwater nearby. Even in
deserts, oases are the only places that have some sort of a permanent settlement.
5. The availability of mineral deposits attracts people to move to such locations. The gold mines in
the hot Australian Desert are good examples.
Non-Physical Factors
1. The development of industries in a region provides employment opportunities and attracts people
not only from surrounding areas, but also from far-off places.
2. Urbanisation and growth of an area attracts people for jobs, medical facilities, a better living
standard and trade. Thus, the density of population in urban areas is high.
3. Government policies also influence the distribution of population.
4. Developed transport and communications network attracts industry and trade. People prefer to
live in such places.
5. Religious centres or places with cultural importance also attract large populations (as in Varanasi,
Haridwar, Jerusalem and Tirupati).
Q.9. How areas in the world is divided according to population status?
OR
Q. What is density of population? Mention the densely populated countries and scantily populated
countries with one main reason for their population status. (Book E.1. only A and B)
Ans: The number of people living in one sq km area, is called the density of population of that area.
On an average, the world population density is 45 persons per sq km,
if we assume that the people are spread over the entire land area.
The world is divided according to population status in following ways=
(A) Densely populated= Densely populated areas are in East Asia and West Asia. The reasons are-
1. There are fertile river valleys and plains with a large agricultural population.
2. Western Europe and Central North America are densely populated because of urbanization and
industrialization.
(B) Sparsely populated= The hot deserts, cold deserts and high mountain areas of the world, the polar
lands of Antarctica in the South and the tundra region in the North, are sparsely populated. The reasons
are-
 1. Sparsely populated areas have unsuitable physical and climatic conditions like The high
mountains, thick forest.
(C) Moderately populated= Moderately populated areas, are generally the transition zones between the
densely and sparsely populated areas, for example, in deltas of river valleys, Deccan Plateau of India.
Q.10. What do you mean by Population Growth?
Ans: The change in population in a particular area between two points of time, is called growth of
population. Population Growth is a result of natural growth and migration.
When growth of population is expressed as a percentage it is called the growth rate
of population.
Q.11. Define birth and death rate. Discuss the change in population of India in the last decade with
respect to these factors. (Book E.3.)
Ans: The number of birth per 1000 people in one year is called birth rate.
Death rate is the number of deaths per 1,000 persons in a year.
The population of India in 1991, was 886.3 million. In 2011, it was 1.221 billion.
Q.12. What do you mean by natural growth rate or natural growth rate of population?
Ans: The difference between birth rate and death rate is known as the natural growth rate. It tells as
whether the population has increased, decreased or remained stable.
Q.13. What are the major causes of population growth in the world?
Ans: The population increase in the world is mainly due to rapid increase in the natural growth rate. In the
past, the difference between birth rate and death rate was low. As a result, the population change was very
slow. After the Industrial Revolution, improved production led to trade and an improved standard of
living. This resulted in an increase in the natural growth rate.
Q.13. What are the reason of population growth in a region/area?
Ans: 1. High birth rate or fertility rate 2.Low death rate or mortality rate
3. Low literacy rate 4. Migration .
Q.14. Which continent experiencing rapid population growth?
Ans: At present, the continent of Africa, Asia and South America are experiencing a higher rate of
population growth.
Q.15. What do you mean by census?
Ans: The process through which a country's population is officially counted is known as census. In India,
it is undertaken every ten(10) years.
Q.16. What do you mean by life expectancy?
Ans : The average number of years a person is expected to live after birth is known as life expectancy.
Life expectancy is increasing due to improved medical facilities.
Q.17. What are the reason behind increasing population of India?
Ans: due to improved medical facilities there has been a fall in the death rate, birth rate has not declined
in India. As a result, our population is increasing.
Q.18. What do you mean by population composition?
Ans: Population composition refers to the structure of the population. From population composition, we
mean the sex ratio, age structure, life expectancy, literacy rate etc.
Q.19. What do you mean by age structure?
Ans: Age structure classifies the population into different age groups. It is an important indicator to
determine the percentage of productive population.
People aged between 15 and 65 years comprise the working population. People below 15 years
and more than 65 years are considered to be dependent population.
Q.20. What do you mean by sex ratio?
Ans Sex ratio is the ratio between females and males in the total population. It is defined as the number of
females per thousand (1000) males.
Q.21. What is population pyramid? How population pyramid is helpful?
Ans: Population pyramid is a diagrammatic visual description for understanding age structure, gender
wise distribution of population.
The bottom of the pyramid shows the level of birth
Top of the pyramid shows the numbers of age of people and death
1. The components of population of a country can be understood by looking at the pyramid.
2. A population pyramid tells us about the percentage of people (males and females) living in that
particular country
3. It also tells us dependent population of a country.
Q.22. Write some features of population of India
Ans:
1. About 70 per cent people live in rural areas and 30 per cent live in urban areas.
2. In general, urban areas of India have higher literacy level than rural areas. It is higher in males than
females. State wise literacy rate is highest in Kerala (93.28 per cent) as per 2011 Census.
3. India has more than 50 per cent of its population, below the age of 25 and more than 65 per cent
below the age of 35. India's dependency ratio should be just over 0.4.
Q.23. What steps should be taken to make India's growing population an effective human resource.
Ans:
1. The growing population of our country must be provided with proper civic amenities, health care,
education, technical training.
2. They must be provided politically stable environment-where there is freedom, equality, justice;
besides a suitable social religious atmosphere.
Q.24. What does a a population pyramid shows?
Ans:
1. Age of total population divided into various age group
2. The percentage of the total population
Q.24. How do developing vs. developed country population pyramids differ? (Book D.4)
Ans: Developing country has expanding pyramid. That has broad base because of high birth and death rate
with very few old people.
Developed country has constant pyramid. That is evenly distributed pyramid because of
falling birth rate, low death rate with old people because of increase in life expectancy.