2. Economic Sectors
An economy of our country is divided up into different categories. Each
category is called a sector and involves a different type of activity
Primary sector – working with natural resources e.g. farming, fishing, mining
Secondary sector – making things either by manufacturing them or
constructing them e.g. car factory or builder
Tertiary sector – provides a service. This includes commercial (shops and
banks), professional (lawyers and dentists) social, (schools and hospitals),
entertainment (restaurants and cinemas) and personal (hairdressers and
fitness trainers).
Quaternary – very new and mainly found in HICs it is concerned with
information, communication technology and pharmaceuticals (the designing
of new medicines).
3. Clarke-Fisher Model
This shows how economic sectors change as a country becomes more
developed. Most countries start off with a very high percentage of
employment in the primary sector, before becoming more developed and
industrial. Primary jobs give way to secondary work. As the country improves
and education improves more and more people are able to go into the more
skilled tertiary jobs which pay better and so the primary and secondary
sectors decline.
5. Decline in the UK Primary Sector
Agriculture
• Cheaper imports - The UK produces less than 60% of its own food because its
cheaper to import from abroad
• Mechanisation – a single combine harvester can do in a day what it used to take
tens of men to do in a week
• Agribusiness – Small family farms have gone out of business and been bought up
by much larger commercial farms
Fishing
• Over fishing – fish stocks have massively decreased due to mechanisation meaning
it is easy to locate and catch a whole shoal of fish.
• Fishing Quotas – these are laws about how much fish you are allowed to catch. If
you catch more than this then you have to pay a fine.
Mining
• Resource depletion – most of the coal in this country has been taken out of the
ground so mines have closed.
• Cheaper imports – its cheaper to import coal from Russia
• Reduced demand - modern power stations now run on natural gas not coal.
• Environmental concerns – coal is the most polluting of all the fossil fuels
6. Decline in the Secondary Sector
Factories in the UK have closed down and moved abroad because;
• There is cheaper land and labour in poorer parts of the world
• Less concerns about factories environmental impacts
• Fast, cheap and efficient transport means it doesn’t really matter
where you manufacture your products anymore
• The global superhighway created by modern communication
networks means
employers can transfer information across the world at a click of a
button.
• Globalisation means every country is
connected to one huge global economy.
Each country has a part to play whether it
is supplying raw materials or being part of
the consumer marker.
7. Case Study: Rise of industrial nations - Made in China
Reasons for growth
• Global demand for cheaply manufactured goods
• Investment by foreign companies such as Apple
• Not many laws to stop factories from growing rapidly
• Large labour force – China’s population is 1.3 billion
• Cheap labour – no minimum wage until 2013
• Rich in natural resources
Results of growth
• China now produces;
• Half the world’s clothes
• Two thirds of the world’s shoes
• One third of all mobile phones
• Two thirds of all photocopies
• Half the microwaves
Thanks to these industries China is now the 3rd largest economy in the world. Between
1995 and 2005 China’s economy grew by approximately 12% every year. This is
compared to the UK whose economy grew by 3% every year during the same time
period.
8. Costs and Benefits of being an Industrial Nation
Costs Benefits
• Damage to the environment
caused by working with natural
resources
• Having to find new reserves of raw
materials as they run out
• Much pollution of air, water and
land
• Massive rural to urban migration
as people leave the countryside for
jobs in factories
• A widening gap between the very
rich and very poor.
• Better wages
• Better standard of living
• Improved working conditions in
some cases
• Country makes more money
• Better housing in cities
9. Growth of the Tertiary Sector
More personal
income
More personal
spending
More demand
for goods and
services
Tertiary sector
growth
More and
better jobs
Over the past 50 years, as the
tertiary sector has grown, the
services have changed:
• There are more of them as
population and disposable
income have increased
• Advances in technology
have led to new services
• Peoples tastes have
changed – cinemas have
closed because people
watch DVD’s at home
• Bigger demand for services
for the elderly as people
live longer.
10. The Grey Pound
• The UK population is getting older
• 17% of them are over 64
• The rate of spending for this age
group is set to rise faster than any
other.
• Saga is now a multi-million pound
business only available to over 50s
offering cut price holidays as well as
car, holiday and pet insurance.
• B&Q has also started selling
products for over 50s including stair
lifts and special gardening tools
• L’Oreal now uses 70 year old actress
Jane Fonda to sell its products to
the older generation.
11. Economic Locations – Power Stations
Locating a power station
• Power stations need two things; fuel and water
• They are also huge buildings that need a lot of space
• Not so long ago power stations were burning coal and so were located
near the coal mines.
• More recently power stations have been burning oil which comes from
either the North Sea or abroad so it makes sense to put them near the
coast
• Since the 1990’s there has been a ‘dash for gas’ and gas fuelled power
stations now supply 40% of the countries electricity. These are often built
on the sites of old coal power stations.
There are two types of location factor – physical e.g. land and water and
economic e.g. cost of land, fuel and where they sell to (the market)
The locations of economic activity can change over time, particularly as a
result of new technology
12. Economic Locations – Supermarkets
Locating a supermarket
• New supermarkets spring up on the edges of towns and
cities where there is plenty of space to display goods and
also for car parks.
• Edges of towns mean they are easily reachable by car but
don’t suffer from traffic congestion like the city centre
The location of shops has changed a lot in the last 50 years
moving from the urban city centre to the rural urban fringe
The reason for this shift is linked to accessibility, the rise of big
supermarkets and changes in lifestyle.
13. Case Study of Economic Location – Shepton Mallet
Past
• In the 17th and 18th century the main industry in Shepton Mallet was primary
and secondary.
• The Mendips were the perfect environment for sheep farming
• Factories were set up to produce wool and cloth. Clarkes shoe factory was also
located here.
• However, when mechanisation happened it became too expensive to compete
with the cheaper labour over seas and the facotries relocated abroad.
Present
• The main employers of Shepton now are secondary and teriary.
• There are 2 cider factories; Blackthorn, and Gaymers as well as Frampton’s
which is a packaging factory.
• Teriary sector employment mostly comes in the form of retail. Tescos has
replaced the old Clarkes factory site turning it from secondary to teriary
employment as well as a new retail park in this area.
Future
• In the future Shepton will become increasingly more and more teriary. Factory
jobs will be replaced by office jobs as companies take advantage of the cheap
brownfield land in the middle of town.
• In addition to this Shepton will begin to cash in on the tourism aspect of the
Mendips which is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
14. Costs and Benefits of Deindustrialisation
Deindustrialisation is when factories close and/or move away.
This brings both costs and benefits
Costs Benefits
• Loss of jobs
• Break up of rural communities as
people move to towns and cities
to find work
• Disused buildings scar the
landscape
• The need to clean up old
industrial sites to stop pollution
• Less environmental pollution
• Old industry buildings can be
made into tourist attractions
• The opportunity to remove ugly
buildings from the landscape
• The chance to return land to
farming
• Create wildlife habitats
• Can use brownfield sites for new
housing.
15. Case Study – Deindustrialisation of Cotswold Gravel
Pits
Industrial past
• Deposits of gravel are widespread in rural areas, particularly on river flood plains.
• The gravel is extracted by digging a hole in the ground called a pit.
• The water table is so high near a river, 50 years ago the first quarries were dug 'wet'.
• The gravel deposits range in depth from a few centimeters to 6 metres, and begin about 1 metre
below the surface.
• Since the deposits of gravel are quite thin they quickly become exhausted (no more material left)
and the industry moves on.
A future in tourism
• There are three options for the abandoned pit:
• Leave the pit as it is and let it become a wildlife area
• Make the pit into a water sports area for use by local people
• Fill it up with rubbish and rubble and convert it into usable land – perhaps for housing
• At the Cotswold Water Park the pits are lined with clay, which make great habitats for wildlife such
as aquatic plants and fish.
• Planting of the lake edges with reeds often takes place in order to soften the profile and create
more excellent places where wildlife can thrive.
• It is an area of 40 square miles and 150 lakes.
• There is lakeside holiday accommodation
• 100km of footpaths and cycle routes
• Since 1967 it has grown to become a major tourist destination in its own right, attracting more than
500,000 visitors every year.