Making a Living

Employment can be divided into four main groups or sectors:
Primary industry - Extracting raw material from the land or sea such as farming.
Secondary industry - Those involved in manufacture such as building and factories.
Tertiary industry - Those who provide a service such as selling goods and nursing.
Quaternary industry - Those who provide information and expert help such as IT and scientists.

Employment structures - the proportion of people working in each of the industries.

Triangulation graphs are methods of showing employment structure and should be read in the direction of the arrows. LEDC's have high amounts of primary industry due to the lack of education - they are mainly subsidence farmers. MEDC's such as the UK and USA tend to focus on Tertiary activities due to high education rates and tertiary jobs are higher paid. Primary is low due to the fact that most MEDC's have taken to importing food as it is cheaper. 

This model tells us how employment changes over time and how the balance of employment changes as a country develops. However it does assume that there is a simple straight development path from LEDC's to MEDC's.

Industrialisation is a social and economic process which changes pre-industrial societies to industrial ones. The industrial output is a good way of measuring how industrial a country is.
De-industrialisation is the decline in manufacturing industry and the growth of tertiary and quaternary industry.

Reasons for de-industrialisation include a reduced demand for traditional products due to new technologies and mechanisation has increased productivity and reduced the number of workers needed.

Mexico was originally focused on agriculture but the growth of industry meant many people moved from the rural areas to cities. In the 1950's, manufacturing became the biggest provider of wealth. Manufacturing has been attracted here due to:
A large and highly skilled work force,
A large consumer market,
Low distribution costs,
Close to government who make the decisions.

Re-export businesses have sprung up which are located close to the USA boarder, they are owned by foreign companies who process goods imported from the USA and re-export duty free. This has caused many problems such as the growth of the 'informal sector' such as shining shoes.

Mexico City has seen the growth of its manufacturing industries which in turn attracts over 1000 people per day to the city. The growth of industry has created many problems including:
Pollution of the air by both factories and cars which becomes 'photo-chemical' smog,
New firms and around 20 million people are demand fresh water. Providing this is an issue as the city takes water from the underground aquifers which are becoming empty - also causing the land to sink 9mm per year.
Water supply is polluted by the firms who dump chemical waste into rivers,
Waste disposal cannot cope, although the authorities collect 10 000 tones per day, the city produces 11 000 per day - the rest is thrown into the streets.

Germany has the 4th largest economy in the world. De-industrialisation in the 1980's forced manufacturing to move to lower cost sites and the growth of service industries. The decline in manufacturing meant that Germany had to act to save its economy by setting up small manufacturing businesses. Germany now has 31% of its people employing in manufacturing but many people are now employed in knowledge based industries.

Challenges for the country side include:
Local development - younger people move out of rural areas due to a lack of jobs,
Lack of affordable homes due to purchasing of second homes in rural areas which increases housing prices,
Change in farming - low wages, increasing mechanisation, cheaper imports, supermarkets have driven prices down,
Lack of transport links - public transport is infrequent and expensive,
Disappearance of local services - bus and health services have declined.

There has been a decline in farming which has meant that farmers have had to diversify their livelihoods in order to survive:
- Food Festival - e.g Ludlow Flood Festival - celebration of local food that attracts lots of people,
- Rural sports such as Trout Fishing in Cumbria, includes ideas such as paint balling,
- Farm diversification e.g. Runnage Farm Dartmoor has accommodation. Increase of 40% to UK farm incomes due to diversification.

Economic impacts:
UK used to be a large shipbuilding area but has declined over the years,
Loss of personal incomes,
Loss of taxes to national and local governments,
Rising demand for income support services,
Loss of incomes in the local areas due people's lack of spending power.

Social Impact:
Family breakdown,
Alcoholism and crime,
Permanent unemployment.

Environmental impacts:
Positive - more available land, less water used in industrial processes, less energy required for machines, reduced traffic congestion, reduced noise and air pollution.
Negative - derelict land, empty factory building, goods manufactured further away - transport issues. 

Greenfield sites - An area of land which has never been built on before.
Brownfield sites - An area of land which has been built on before and is suitable for redevelopment.

Developing Brownfield sites has some negatives. It is often more expensive to develop because of clean up costs, regulations for reclaiming the sites can often be a barrier to new development and some of these sites can be important wildlife habitats.

Example - Fort Dunlop, Birmingham
The West Midlands Regional Development Agency has helped to support the regeneration of the city areas affected by industrial decline. In its prime, Fort Dunlop employed around 120 000 people and in 1816 a village known as Tyretown was developed around it to accommodate for the worker. The factory closed in the 1980's when Dunlop moved its manufacturing abroad. It was empty for 20 years but in 2002 it received planning permission to redevelop into a mixed use sustainable 24 hour community.

Green employment attempts to improve air and water quality, recycle and reduce waste, promote conservation and to improve the environment. It does this by:
Making green products from natural renewable materials or recycled goods,
Constructing green buildings that use less energy, recycle water and are built from natural materials,
Offering green services such as eco tourism,
Quaternary services such as architects designing green buildings.

Eco tourism tried to respect the environment and local people but at the same time reduce the impact of tourism. It is growing at about 5% a year. Uluru (Ayers Rock) in Australia offers eco tourism by the local Anangu people who offer guided tours to cultural sites and teach about their desert life. It is high cost, low volume, the tourists arrive by air increasing the environmental impact as well as the fact that it is in the desert so everything has to be delivered by car.
 Curitiba in SE Brazil has a rapidly growing population of 1.6 million creating usual problems such as unemployment and poor housing. In 1989 Curitiba was the first city in Brazil to separate and recycle its waste. Two thirds of the city's waste is processed, this creates employment. Recovered materials are sold to local factories and the money is used to fund social programmes such as schooling. Curitiba also has a colour coded bus system and large urban parks.

Examples of regeneration include the London Docklands which now have leisure facilities, jobs, diversification of culture, a cleaner environment and the DLR tube line which is a greener method of transport.