Question

Which of the following is/are causes of underpopulation ?
A) Low fertility rate
B) Emigration
C) Disease and Famines
D) All the above

Answer 1

Hint: Underpopulation is the condition when in a region, there are more resources and insufficient people or workers to use the resources. This means that the yearly birth rate is very low.This can be caused by certain factors, for example death of child during birth or unable to conceive etc

Complete answer:
Low fertility, emigration, Disease and Famines. Lets understand the reason one by one going through all the options.
Population decline or depopulation or underpopulation is a term coined when there is a reduction in human population size caused by certain factors like pandemics, war, disease, famine, low fertility rate or emigration. After about the 1800s, the growth rate in population accelerated to a peak of 2.1% annually in 1962 but since then, due to collapse of the total fertility rate worldwide, it has declined to 1.1% today in 2020.

1) Emmigration - Emigration is when people leave one's own country and settle permanently in another country. So when a lot of people emigrate to another country, this leads to a decline in their origin country causing underpopulation or population decline.
2) Low Fertility Rate - Low fertility rate means the number of children a woman can be expected to have during her child-bearing years. While in males, the number of sperm in semen is low. The reason of this can be the social structure, economic prosperity and urbanisation
3) Diseases and Famines - Sexually transmitted diseases like syphilis, gonorrhea, genital warts, chlamydia and HIV have proven to be a reason for population decline too.

Hence the correct answer is option ‘D’.

Note: Tuvalu is the least populated county in the world having a total population of 11,192 residents only. Some examples of declining population trends are as follows - Japan’s population is currently declining at the rate of 0.2% per year from 2015-2020 and China, most populous in the whole world, its population could start declining in 2027 or sooner.By 2050, Europe’s population is projected to be declining at the rate of 0.3% per year.