Statistics
Venezuela's birth rate is 20.92 per 1,000 births, while their death rate is 5.1 per 1,000 deaths, meaning that more people are being born than are dying. This can cause the population to increase over time. The infant mortality rate (babies that die at birth) is 21.54 per 1,000 births. The birth rate, death rate, and infant mortality rate all factor in to and determine how much the population increases. Venezuela has a natural increase in population of 1.42%. The total population, as of July, 2014, is 28,868,486 (The World Factbook). This overall population is dispersed throughout Venezuela, therefore, 76 people live per square mile (Pearson Education, 2007). Population Pyramid The age structure of Venezuela's population pyramid has varied throughout the years. The population pyramid for this year (2014) displays a large amount of people under the age of 24 and a decreasing amount of people above the age of 25. As the population goes up the age ladder, it begins to get much smaller. This means that the birth rates are still high, but the death rates are beginning to fall. Age Structure: 0-14 years of age: 29.5% 15-64 years of age: 64.9% 65+ years of age: 5.6% Demographic Transition Venezuela is at stage 2 of the demographic stages. The reasoning behind this is that Venezuela still has high birth rates, but the death rates are beginning to fall rapidly. The population growth rate (PGR) is still rapid. The cause of birth rates being so high is due to little family planning, meaning people having children unexpectedly, and families starting to get larger. The death rate starts falling because of more access to health care and improved sanitation. Venezuela isn't at stage 1 because it doesn't have high and fluctuating birth rates or high and fluctuating death rates. The PGR isn't as slow as a stage 1 country's would be. The first sign that Venezuela isn't at stage 3 yet is that it doesn't have rapidly decreasing birth rates. Instead, the birth rates of Venezuela are still high. The second sign that Venezuela isn't at stage 3 is that the PGR isn't beginning to stabilize yet. Population Situation Venezuela has many factors that contribute to the population growth rate (PGR), such as the status of women in society, urbanization, agriculture, and religious beliefs. Women's status in society is very low, meaning they are not as important as the men in Venezuela. Venezuela is a typical sexist country. Men occupy the most important political, economic, social, and religions jobs in society, while the women are put to work in a common household or doing a domestic service. This can lower the PGR significantly because women are treated unfairly compared to men, which can cause women to emigrate to a different location (Leader of Global Medicine Education, 2013). Women are discriminated by men, which gives some men the thought that they are allowed to sexually harass women. This can spread HIV/AIDS rapidly. In Venezuela, there is an estimated 107,900 currently living with HIV/AIDS (The World Factbook, 2014). Urbanization also contributes to the PGR. In Venezuela, urbanization between the 1940s and 1970s was rapid. Due to the mass oil production taking place and many diseases being eradicated, people began moving to urban areas rather than rural areas. The oil boom also attracted many people form different countries who were in search of earning profit from the oil found in Venezuela. This decreased the rural population and increased the population in major cities like Caracas. Therefore, urbanization has increased the population drastically in Venezuela (Lieuwen, 2014). Although urbanization increases the population, it also creates issues for Venezuela. The crime rates in Venezuela have increased significantly in large cities. In 1998, the murder rate per 100,000 people was just below around 25 people. In 2013, the murder rate increased to nearly 80 people per 100,000 people. The kidnapping rate also increased drastically. In 1998, there were under 50 reported kidnappings. In 2013, the reported kidnappings increased to nearly 1,200. These statistics show the urbanization has significantly increased the crime rates of Venezuela (Pons, 2014). Between the 1960s and 1980s, about 20,922,295 acres of land were given to Venezuelan citizens who had never owned land before. This caused the population of urban areas to decrease, but this change was countered by the previously mentioned urbanization between 1940 and 1970. Agriculture has both positively and negatively affected the population growth of urban and rural areas. Overall, agriculture hasn't severely changed the population growth. Currently, about 4% of the total land area in Venezuela is used for agricultural purposes. This means agriculture slightly increases the population because there are a small amount of people living in these rural areas. Although agriculture only attracts a small number of people to rural areas, it still contributes to the population growth (Encyclopedia of the Nations, 2014). In the Venezuelan constitution, freedom of religion is protected by laws under certain conditions: "the practice of that religion does not violate public morality, decency, or public order." Although this is written in the constitution, the government still harasses some religious groups. In past occasions, the government has restricted the use of religious cites by certain members of religious groups (United States Department of State, 2012). Citizens that practice Catholicism have undergone many issues involving the government and other people within the Venezuelan community. Their churches have been attacked, they have had problems with their ministries, and have even had government interference within their religion (USCCB, 2012). In 2011, Venezuela was placed on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom's list for the third time (Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs). These issues are major push factors to the population. Due to violence and controversy towards Catholics, the citizens that practice Catholicism may choose to leave the country in search of a more preferable place to live. Therefore, religion in Venezuela greatly decreases the population growth. Impact of Population Situation on People and Environment The main natural resources in Venezuela is petroleum (oil). Venezuelans export large amount of oil to other countries, including the U.S. They also use oil for themselves and their everyday activities. As petroleum continues to be taken out of the ground and used, it begins to become depleted. As population increases, more petroleum is needed to sustain the population, which depletes the oil. This also happens with other resources. In Venezuela, the population percent of young people is high and beginning to rise, while the population percent of older people is small. This makes the economy rely on younger people to work. The age dependency ratio of the total working-age population is 54%. 45.4% of this is younger citizens, while the other 8.6% is older citizens. As the birth rates continues to increase, there will be a substantial percentage of young people for future employment. Population Density In Venezuela, the population density in the north is distinctly different than the population density in the south. There are a variety of reasons for this. The southern population is less dense because there are fewer cities than there are in the north. Where the population is dense, there are an abundance of cities, one of those being Caracas, the capital city of Venezuela. Due to urbanization, more people live in cities than in rural areas. This makes the population denser in the northern parts of Venezuela. Another reason for the difference in population density is the location of natural resources. Although there are many resources located in the Guiana Highlands in midwest Venezuela, there are even more resources around the cities. The availability of these resources can open up jobs for people because the resources need to be harvested. Since there are so many oil preserves in Venezuela, there are many job openings with work regarding oil. Oil isn't the only resource job in Venezuela, however. The other natural resources require people to harvest them. Therefore, the population density is higher in the north than in the south due to urbanization and natural resource availability. |