Economic Sectors
How and why places vary
- A place is shaped by:
- The physical nature of the place
- What its residents do for a living
- Connections:
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- Internal - people, employment, housing, services
- External - government policies, globalisation
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- Changes:
- Locally e.g. counter-urbanisation
- Nationally e.g. government policies
- Globally e.g. climate change, pandemics
- The nature of a place affects the type of work on offer and therefore the type of employee required e.g.
- The town of Reading, due to its proximity to London, has a lot of professional people living there
- The industrial town of Middlesbrough, located in North East England, has more manual workers living there
The location of Middlesbrough and Reading
Exam Tip
For this unit on Regenerating Places, you will have studied your own two contrasting places. These revision notes will focus on two contrasting places, Reading and Middlesbrough. You could use these notes as additional case studies, alongside your own, in your exam answers
Classifying economic sectors
- Economic activity and job type vary from place to place within the UK
- The structure of the local economy can affect the characteristics of a place e.g.
- The income of the locals
- The lifestyle of individuals and communities
- The perception of a place
The Four Economic Sectors
Economic Sector |
Characteristics |
Primary |
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Secondary |
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Tertiary |
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Quaternary 8.5 |
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- A place’s main economic industrial sector is likely to change over time.
- These changes are depicted in the Clark-Fisher Model
- Pre-industrial - The majority of the population works in the primary sector with only a small percentage of people employed in the secondary sector
- Industrial - The proportion of employees in the primary sector declines due to the mechanisation of farming, and as land is taken up by manufacturing, the secondary employment increases
- Post-industrial - There is a decrease in amount of secondary jobs due to the movement of factories overseas and cheaper imports; this coincides with an increase in employment in the tertiary and quaternary industries due to higher incomes and more demand for holidays, technology etc
The Clark-Fisher Model
- The UK has followed the expected trends in the model:
- A decline in the primary and secondary sectors due to deindustrialisation - employing just 1% of the workforce in primary, and 15% in secondary
- A huge growth in the tertiary and quaternary sector, known as the new economy - employing around 84% of the population
Employment type
- Jobs can be classified on whether they are:
- Full-time (35+ hours per week) or part-time (less than 35 hours per week)
- Temporary or permanent
- Employed or self-employed
- A place can be defined by the nature of economic activity and people's employment:
- A less successful place can have a large amount of economically inactive people (retired, unemployed, long-term sickness or disability)
- A place with low levels of economic growth can have a large proportion of people on temporary, part-time or 'zero hours' contracts, who earn little
- A rural place can have lots of seasonal work (farming, tourism)
- A place with a higher percentage of self-employed people, who identify gaps in the local market and meet the needs of the area, can have a greater sense of community