Demographics and logic

Demographics and Logic

I once asked my Chinese students a question having to do with population growth, comparing China to Canada.  The question was: If Canada and China have about the same modern-day birth rates/1000, why does China have a population so much greater than Canada’s. 

My students were truly baffled by the seemly conflicting data and could not answer the question.  I gave them further information on which to base their answer.  We had been studying demographics and Canadian history, so this question was actually in the context of the course.  I was just curious as to their reasoning and problem-solving skills as to what I thought was a relatively easy question.

Champlain a French explorer, I had explained, had established a fort where Quebec City now stands eventually earning him the title Father of New France for his many contributions in the New World.  At the Quebec, settlement (July 3, 1608) he came with 28 men, unfortunately that first winter was a hard one and 20 men died from scurvy and one was executed for treason leaving Champlain with a mere eight living loyal men by spring.  Therefore, in Canada the European population in 1608 was approximately 9.

As for the native population, anthropologists using pseudo-scientific number crunching statistical analysis put the number of natives in Canada, at about the same time as Champlain, at 500 000.  Of course, due to the introduction of European diseases such as mumps, tuberculosis, cholera, measles, influenza, pneumonic plagues, yellow fever, smallpox and malaria, oh yes and the added factors of warfare and genocide the native population went into rapid decline in inverse relation to the rapidly growing European populations.

At about the time of Champlain the population in China was about 60 000 000 people.  Again, I asked my students the same question.  Given similar modern-day birth rates why does China have more people than Canada.  No answer, not a clue.

Next, I showed the class a three-minute U Tube video on why China and India have such large populations.  In animation format it spoke to the river valleys, fertile soils and the abundance of food that allowed early populations to flourish thousands of years ago.  I compared the population dynamics between China and Canada to a race between athletes of equal ability, but one set of athletes had a significant head start in the race over the others.

 

I asked my class who would win such a race, hoping they would make the leap in logic to the China/Canada population question.  They didn’t.

In fact, because of China’s one child policy some of my students were getting over loaded, overwhelmed and frustrated with the question.  Eventually, dealing with my own frustration and thinking that I can lead them to water, but I can’t make them drink I decided to move on to easier topics not requiring so much thought, like defining Canadian nationalism.