Introduction to Population studies and the Caribbean
This paper is geared to assist students sitting CAPE sociology Unit 2, module 1. This paper seeks to help students better interpret common sociological terms used when assessing population distribution and policy. In some cases some formulas will be explained. It is important these terms be examined so as to better understand population dynamics. Scholarly explanation of terms such as, migration, fertility rate, birth and death rate, mortality ratio and natural increase will be explained. In every population birth control plays a significant role in the replenishing of a given population structure.
What is meant by birth rate? According to Weeks (2001), birth rate refers to the total number of live births per thousand of population per year. Birth rate is different than crude birth rate. Unlike birth rate which looks at the total birth per 1000 population per annum, crude birth rate is the number of live births occurring among the population of a given geographical area during a given year, per 1,000 mid-year total population of the given geographical area during the same year. The difference between total crude births and crude deaths is called natural increase or decrease. Death refers to the cessation of life. Death rate is calculated so as to allow the correct computation of a population size.
Death rate refers to the ratio of deaths to the population of a particular area or during a particular period of time usually calculated as the number of deaths per one thousand people per year. One should also be careful not to confuse the meaning of crude death rate with death rate. Crude Death rate is the total number of deaths amongst a given population in a specified geographic area (country, state, county, etc.) divided by the total population for the same geographic area (for a specified time period, usually a calendar year) and multiplied by 100,000. During a given year, death rate is calculated per 1,000 mid-year total population of the given geographical area during the same year.
What are some of the factors which affect Death Rates? The rapid growth of the world's population over the past 100 years is not the result of a rise in the crude birth rate. Instead, it has been caused largely by a decline in crude death rates, especially in developing countries. Changes in crude birth and crude death rates for developed and developing countries began between 1775-2002.
These changes include the availability of social services, improvement in technology and the change in the diet of the population. The nature of one’s labour to earn income has also contributed to death rates over the years. Over the years between the mid 1600’s and 1838 black African slaves were accustomed to seeing their fellow Africans beaten and torched resulting in death. Slavery ended thus the magnitude of this episode in many now free coloured’s life ended. Life journey was extended for black African free slaves throughout North America and the Caribbean. The life span of many improved. Life expectancy increased from age 40 to as old as age 55 then the 60’s. The dawn of a new population structure began here throughout the Caribbean region.
The term population can be defined as the permanent occupation of a geographic area. A country’s population structural dynamics can be illustrated on a population pyramid. A population pyramid, also called an age pyramid or age picture diagram. It is a graphical illustration that shows the distribution of various age groups in a population (typically that of a country or region of the world), which forms the shape of a pyramid when the population is growing. The structure of the population pyramid concave or convex can easily be interpreted. What to look for when evaluating a population pyramid? 1. Read the title e.g. country or city or racial group 2. Comment on general shape of the pyramid ( convex or concave) 3. Note the proportion of people in various age groups ( size of each group) 4. Note the sex ratio ( how many males, how many females) 5. Interpret the data A population pyramid, also called an age pyramid or age picture diagram, is a graphical illustration that shows the distribution of various age groups in a population (typically that of a country or region of the world), which forms the shape of a pyramid when the population is growing. There are three main types of population pyramids used to describe population distribution by demographers; namely Expansive or expanding, stable and Contractive or contracting population pyramids. They both have the classic triangular/pyramid shape. The wide base of this population pyramid indicates a high birth rate and the narrow top indicates a high death rate.
Generally speaking an expanding population is characteristic of a lower standard of living; high birth rate due to poor access to birth control, lack of education etc.; high death rate due to poor medical care & nutrition. See example of an expanding population below:
Expanding population pyramid
Concave or expanding population pyramid refers to a population pyramid which curves inward see example below. On this pyramid, the base of the pyramid is broad, as the age group increases the population size deceases. This usually occurs in countries/ areas with a high mortality rate. Fewer persons exist within the within the category labeled as aged.
Contractive population pyramid
Contractive or contracting population pyramids have a narrower base than the reproductive age population. This indicates a decreasing population trend. The low birth rate is indicative of a well developed country. On the other hand, Stationary or Stable population pyramids have a 1/2 ellipse shape. The base of this population pyramid is similar in width to the population of the reproductive ages which indicates a stable population.
A country’s population stability is dependent on the ability the inhabitants to reproduce. In demography and biology, fecundity is the actual reproductive rate of an organism or population, measured by the number of gametes (eggs), seed set or asexual propagates. Fecundity is similar to fertility. Fecundity rate refers to the number of children who would be born per woman (or per 1,000 women) if she/they were to pass through the childbearing years bearing children according to a current schedule of age-specific fertility rates.
The total fertility rate is the most widely used fertility measure in program impact evaluations for two main reasons: (1) it is unaffected by differences or changes in age-sex composition, and (2) it provides an easily understandable measure of hypothetical completed fertility. Interestingly fertility rate informs the reader on the actual increase in population count due to increase birth. Unlike fecundity which just focuses on the ability to reproduce, fertility rate focuses on the actual birth especially between specific age group.
Although derived from the age specific fertility rate (ASFR), a period fertility rate, the total fertility rate (TFR) is a measure of the anticipated level of completed fertility per woman (or per 1,000 women) if she/ they were to pass through the reproductive years bearing children according to the current schedule of ASFRs. The TFR is only a hypothetical measure of completed fertility, and thus women of reproductive age at any given point in time could have completed family sizes considerably different from that implied by a current TFR, should age-specific fertility rates rise or fall in the future.
There are several issues of concern to many demographers; because the TFR is derived from a schedule of ASFRs, the comments and caveats regarding the ASFR also apply to the TFR (i.e., method of computation from different sources of data, effects of changing exposure to pregnancy, and implications of computation for currently married versus all women of reproductive age). As was also the case for the ASFR, the TFR may be computed for women who were continuously married or in union during the reference period of the measure in order to decrease the potentially confounding effects of differences in exposure to the risk of pregnancy (to the extent that differences are associated with marital status). This measure is known as the Total Marital Fertility Rate (TMFR).
Interestingly, one should note that whereas the standard age range for the TFR is ages 15-49, TFRs for other age ranges (e.g., 15- 34) are sometimes used for analytic purposes, for example, in order to decrease the influences of truncation when examining cohort trends from birth history data.
The opposite of birth is death. When assessing population the average birth rate is important. Mortality within the population may begin during pregnancy, during birth and during the first few years of life. The above stated is usually referred to as infant mortality. According to Weeks (2001) Infant mortality refers to the death of children under the age of one year. Infant mortality rate or (IMR) is the number of deaths of children less than one year of age per 1000 live births.
The rate for a given region is the number of children dying under one year of age, divided by the number of live births during the year, multiplied by 1,000.
So what is the formula for the above described calculation?
Number of Resident Infant Deaths X 1000
Number of Resident Live Births
Infant mortality rate (or IMR) is considered a primary and important indicator of a geographic area’s (country, state, county) overall health status or quality of life. Regardless of the above stated importance of the infant mortality rate ( IMR), there are some concerns about the quality of reporting of infant mortality internationally. It is believed that within many regions, especially in terms of defining a live birth and/or complete reporting of both birth and death certificates for very low birth weight babies. In addition the IMR is usually calculated using the annual number of resident infants who died; during a year in the numerator and the total annual number of resident live births during the same year in the denominator.
By matching infant death certificates to the corresponding birth certificates, much more additional and valuable data are obtained (birth weight, smoking status of mother, when prenatal care began, etc.) for infant mortality risk analysis. It is also important to note also that, in less densely populated areas, annual numbers of infant deaths may be small (<10 or 20) which would result in an infant mortality rate considered to be too unstable or unreliable for analysis. Adding additional years (three or five-year average annual rates) and/or expanding the area to be studied should result in a larger number of deaths and more reliable rates for analysis. The age in which children die affects the dependency ratio. The dependency ratio is the ratio of dependents-- people younger than 15 or older than 64 through to the working-age population and those ages 15-64 (labour force). Data are shown as the proportion of dependents per 100 working-age population.
The working age of people varies. Traditionally people worked until they were 65 years old. The common trend now is for people to retire closer to 55 years of age. However, for statistic purposes we recognize people between 15 and 65 as the workers of a society. People under 15 and over 65 are considered dependent upon the working population. The dependency ratio (DR) of a population indicates how many people are dependent upon every 100 workers.
The formula is
DR = (pop. 0-14) + (pop. 65+)x100 (pop. 15-64)
While death and birth contributes to population distribution within any geographic region, one should be mindful of the fact that also plays a significant role. The term migration is used by many to describe the geographical movement of individuals/ animals from one area/ location to a next. Factors influencing migration vary. These factors are grouped as push factors and pull factors. The underline factors influencing migration most developing countries and regions like the Caribbean are ( push factor) unemployment, high rate of crime and violence and the lack of social amenities. Pull factors may include the availability of employment, the availability of very good social services, and a sense of security.
Throughout the years after slavery and renaissance and reformation years known as the dawn of industrialization, many persons have started to live longer (and fewer infants died). According to research the following are factors which have influenced population change:
increased food supplies and distribution
better nutrition
improvements in medical and public health technology (such as immunizations and antibiotics)
improved sanitation and personal hygiene
safer water supplies (which has curtailed the spread of many infectious diseases)
Two useful indicators of overall health of people in a country or region are:
life expectancy - the average number of years a newborn infant can expect to live
infant mortality rate - the number of babies out of 1000 born who die before their first birthday
Some good news is that global life expectancy at birth:
increased from 48 years to 67 years (76 years in developed countries and 65 years in developing countries) between 1955 and 2002.
is expected that in some countries developed and developing life expectancy which is the age in which the average human is expected to live to within a specific location/ country or political region to reach 73 by 2025.
Between 1900 and 2002, life expectancy in the US increased from 47 to 77 years and is projected to reach 81 years by 2025.
Some bad news is that in the world's 49 poorest countries, mainly in Africa, life expectancy is 55 years or less. In many African countries life expectancy is expected to fall further because of increased deaths from AIDS. Distribution of the 40 million people infected with HIV in 2001. Numbers in parentheses give the number of deaths from AIDS in 2001.
Because it reflects the general level of nutrition and health care, infant mortality probably the single most important measure of a society's quality of life. A high infant mortality rate usually indicates:
insufficient nutrition (under nutrition)
poor nutrition (malnutrition)
a high incidence of infectious disease (usually from contaminated drinking water)
Between 1965 and 2002, the world infant mortality rate dropped from:
20 per 1000 live births to 7 in developed countries.
118 to 60 in developing countries.
This is an impressive achievement, but it still means that at least 8 million infants (most in developing countries) die of preventable causes during their first year of life.
Between 1900 and 2002, the US infant mortality rate declined from 165 to 6.8.
This sharp decline was a major factor in the marked increase in US average life expectancy during this period.
Despite this improvement, 37 countries had lower infant mortality rates than the US in 2002.
Three factors keeping the infant mortality rate higher than it could be:
inadequate health care for poor women during pregnancy and for their babies after birth
drug addiction among pregnant women
the high birth rate among teenagers
The good news is that the US birth rate among girls ages 15-19 in 2002 was lower than at any other time since 1940. Some bad news is that the US has the highest teenage pregnancy rate of any industrialized country. Each year about 872,000 teenage girls become pregnant in the US (78% of them unplanned) and about 253,000 of them have abortions. Babies born to teenagers are more likely to have low birth weights, the most important factor in infant deaths. Teenage births increase the rate of crude infant mortality. There are defined factors which influences increased or decreased crude death rate. Some countries want to increase the crude birth rate, including Malaysia and Italy; thus, these countries use financial and social support services to do so. However, some countries want to decrease the crude birth rate, including China and Iran; thus, these countries use education programs, financial incentives, and birth control to do so. Demographic transition theory states that as women become more educated within a country that is becoming more modernized, the birth rate actually decreases naturally. This theory is supported by countries that have high birth rates caused by large populations of women that are not educated about safe sex or birth control methods.
On the other hand, there are defined factors affecting birth rate. Many factors can affect the birth rate of a particular country; however, the most powerful factors that can affect birth rates are government policy, the availability of family planning services, the access to and safety of abortions and childbirth, and infant mortality rates. If a government is pro-birth, then more people are likely to have children within that particular country. However, if a country is not pro-birth, then more people are likely to decide not to have children or as many children as they would have initially liked to have. Access to birth control and sex education can greatly reduce the number of children born per 1,000 people. Moreover, if infant mortality is high in a particular country, people may or may not choose to have more children due to the fear of infant mortality. While some countries seek to increase crude birth rate, some countries are looking to decrease it. However, the overall population of the world is just shy of seven million, and it will continue to grow as people and nations expand. Some experts think that the Earth cannot support a population of this caliber, while some geographers and population experts think that new farming techniques can easily support a population of 10 billion. Regardless of the numbers, many factors can affect the crude birth rate of a country, such as political issues, infant mortality rates, and migration rates. Thus, several countries around the world are focusing on learning more about these factors in order to control whether their populations will grow or shrink in the future.
A comprehensive analysis of the above stated term should allow for greater comprehension of population studies and conclusions. This paper sought to explain the basics of population studies. To a great extent much effort was made in stating formulas use in specific calculations and the rationale behind specified calculations. It is hoped that this paper be of great assistance in fully comprehending and appreciating the unit population and development found within Module 1 of the Caribbean Advance Proficiency curriculum. So as to assess carefully your comprehension and use of knowledge of the content shared within this paper a list of review questions were constructed.
Review Questions
a) Why calculate crude birth rate and Crude death rate?
b) What are some possible factors influencing birth and deaths today with the Caribbean society?
c) Compare the rate of death and birth before the early 1900’s throughout the Caribbean, how much improvement have been made in the sustenance of life and the reduction of mortality throughout the region.
d) What are the main factors contributing to reduced death and birth rate?
e) To what extent do you agree with the statement which suggest that population size encourage and discourage economic development with a country or region?
f) Which type of population pyramid demonstrates economic development is evident within a specific country.
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