Birth Rates
Birth rates refer to the number of live births per 1,000 people in a given population over a specific period, usually a year. It is a key demographic indicator that reflects the fertility level of a population. High birth rates can lead to population growth and potential strain on resources, while low birth rates can impact workforce and economic growth.
7 Key excerpts on "Birth Rates"
eBook - ePub- Gerard Roland(Author)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...The total fertility rate in a country is the average number of children born to a woman of childbearing age. The birth rate is the number of babies born each year in a country per 1,000 inhabitants. The death rate is the number of deaths each year per 1,000 inhabitants. A country’s population growth rate is the difference between the birth rate and the death rate (we divide the birth and death rates by 10 to get a percentage growth rate). We must adjust this figure for the net migration rate, the difference between the number of persons entering and leaving a country per 1,000 inhabitants. 1 A country’s birth rate depends on the fertility rates and the number of women of childbearing age in its population, which in turn depends on the age distribution, the percentages of the population belonging to different age groups. If the average total fertility rate in a country is three children per woman of childbearing age, the birth rate in that same country can be high or low depending on whether the proportion of women of childbearing age in the population is high or low. The same is true for the death rate. If a country has many young adults and relatively few old adults, the death rate will tend to be low (and vice versa) because the frequency of deaths is higher among older people compared to young people. Age distribution is thus a key factor in explaining birth and death rates as well as population growth. Age Distribution Age distribution percentages vary greatly across countries. Developing countries, such as Uganda, Somalia, or Afghanistan, typically have a high proportion of young people, while developed countries, such as Japan or Germany, typically have a high proportion of elderly people. Age distribution directly affects population growth. Take two countries, A and B, with populations of 100 people each and the same age-specific fertility rates among the young and age-specific mortality rates among the old...
eBook - ePubPopulation Geography
A Systematic Exposition
- Mohammad Izhar Hassan(Author)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- Routledge India(Publisher)
...10 Fertility Fertility, one of the three components of population dynamics (the others being mortality and migration) holds a very important place in any population study. A positive force in population dynamics, fertility is responsible for biological replacement and continuation of human society. Fertility levels determine the age structure of a population, which in turn governs the social, economic and demographic characteristics of the population. The interest in the study of fertility also arises because it is a very complex phenomenon affected by a host of social, cultural, psychological, economic and political variables. The success of any population programmes, thus, depends upon a proper understanding of interplay between fertility and other variables. Fertility refers to the number of live births relating to a woman, or a group of women. It is the actual performance and should not be confused with fecundity, which refers to the physiological capacity to reproduce. Since it is not possible to measure the actual reproductive capacity of a woman, fecundity can only be assessed with the help of the maximum levels of fertility (or natural fertility) ever observed in a non-contraceptive population (Misra, 1982:160). Data on fertility are available mainly from Vital Registration or Civil Registration Systems. Besides, the periodic census counts and sample surveys also provide data on fertility. The data from the vital registration system relate to each calendar year. In the national periodic census, a direct question on ‘the number of children ever born’ is asked of ever married women, which forms an important source of data on the aspect. In countries where vital or civil registration is not accurate, a question on the number of birth to ever married women during the preceding 12 months is asked during the census enumeration. In India such a question was asked in the 1971 census, and the same has continued in the subsequent censuses also...
eBook - ePubDevelopment Economics
Theory and Practice
- Alain de Janvry, Elisabeth Sadoulet(Authors)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...The transition from high to low fertility—the demographic transition—is associated with children losing their income and protection functions for parents, maintaining their universal satisfaction function increasingly through quality as opposed to quantity. Understanding the determinants of fertility is key to designing population policy. With world population reaching 7.7 in 2019 and predicted to reach 9.7 billion in 2050 and nearly 11 billion in 2100 (UN Department for Economic and Social Affairs, 2019), population policy is a key, yet much neglected, aspect of international economic development. Definitions: Demographic Concepts We start with the definition of a number of concepts used in demographic analysis. The corresponding 2016 data for selected countries ranked by PPP-adjusted GDPpc are presented in Table 11.1. The crude birth rate (b) of a population is the number of live births per 1,000 people per year. In 2016, it was 48.1 in Niger, 35.0 in Sierra Leone, 31.8 in Ethiopia, 31.3 in Kenya, 18.1 in Mexico, 14.2 in Brazil, 12.0 in China, 12.4 in the US, and 7.8 in Japan. The crude death rate (d) of a population is the number of deaths per 1,000 people per year. In 2016, it was 12.8 in Sierra Leone, 12.5 in Nigeria, 9.7 in Niger, 6.8 in Ethiopia, 7.3 in China, 6.2 in Brazil, 4.9 in Mexico, 8.4 in the US, and 10.5 in Japan. Note that the birth and death rates of a population depend on the age structure of that population...
eBook - ePubWhen Reproduction meets Ageing
The Science and Medicine of the Fertility Decline
- Nolwenn Bühler(Author)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Emerald Publishing Limited(Publisher)
...404) as against ‘fecundity’, which designates the ‘capacity for procreation’ (Schwartz & Mayaux, 1982, p. 404) or, in other words, the ‘ability of men and women to bear children’ (Leridon & Slama, 2008, p. 1312) independent of the ability to give birth to a live child. Therefore, fertility rates describe statistically the number of live births in a given population. While the demographic study of mortality started in the seventeenth century with the counting of deaths by John Graunt, the study of fertility remained in the shadows until the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries within the context of fear about the degeneration of elites, the future of populations and eugenic concerns about races and social classes (Le Bras, 1981, 2000; Lettow, 2015). How has age become important in relation to the study of fertility? Age is basically defined as ‘the number of years that someone has lived’, but it has also a more normative definition, as ‘the time of life when you are allowed by law to do something’ or ‘the time of life when it is possible or typical for people to do something’ illustrated by the expression of ‘childbearing age’ referring to a population of women (MacMillan Dictionary Online). In demography, age along with sex is one of the main structural indicators allowing the study of the dynamic of populations through categories such as birth, fertility or mortality rates...
eBook - ePub- Nan de Graaf, Dingeman Wiertz(Authors)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...By subtracting the death rate from the birth rate, one gets the net balance of new people per thousand people already present, which can be transformed into a percentage simply by moving the decimal point. One very important model in which crude birth and death rates are compared is the demographic transition model. This is an interpretation of demographic history, which was developed independently by the American demographer Warren Thompson in 1929 and by the French demographer Adolphe Landry in 1934, and then developed into a more formal theory by the demographer Frank Notestein in 1945. The model, which comprises five stages, is illustrated in Figure 5.4. We summarize each stage below. Stage 1. In the first stage (pre-industrial society) population growth is close to zero, because both birth and death rates are high. The natural birth rate in a population where birth control is absent lies around 40 births per year per thousand people in the population. The death rate lies typically just above or below that, at a level of between 35 and 45 deaths per year per thousand people in the population, depending on whether there is a war, famine or an outbreak of disease. This stage describes most of human history to date. Stage 2. During the emergence of industrial societies, the second phase takes off. The quality of nutrition improves and institutions such as public sanitation and mass vaccinations are introduced, substantially reducing the death rate (especially childhood mortality). At the same time, the birth rate remains high, as families have not yet adapted their fertility behaviour to the reduced mortality levels. As a result, the population grows rapidly, with families having many children. Some of the poorest countries in the world are still stuck – and have been so for a long time – in this stage, as a consequence of stagnant overall development. Stage 3...
eBook - ePubDoing The Needful
The Dilemma Of India's Population Policy
- G. Narayana(Author)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...A case has even been made (Rele and Sinha,1970) for a birth rate of 45 for the decade 1951-61. It seems agreed that not until the decade of the 1970s was there unmistakable evidence of some downturn (Table 2.4). By the mid 1970s the birth rate had fallen to 38 per thousand and by the end of the decade, to 34 per thousand. There it remained from 1976 to 1984, as the country, stunned by the excesses of the Emergency period (1975-76), gave a wide berth to the Family Planning program. As the prevalence of contraception picked up in the mid 1980s, the birth rate resumed its decline, falling to around 32 by the end of the decade. A birth rate has a complicated anatomy. It is determined first of all by the underlying fertility of women exposed to the risk of pregnancy, conventionally, married women or, more generically, cohabiting couples. The fertility of such women is in turn determined by such considerations as the intensity of their exposure to the risk of pregnancy (e.g. frequency of intercourse), behavior that reduces the chances of conception (e.g. use of contraception, intensive and extended breastfeeding), and the fetus' chances of survival (e.g. voluntary or involuntary abortion). The birth rate, an aggregate measure, is determined also by the age structure of the population. A high proportion of reproductive age women in a population favors an elevated birth rate as does a youthful distribution by age within this group. Historically, the Indian birth rate has been undergirded by a high prevalence of marriage. The 1981 Indian Census showed over 80 percent of women aged 15-44 to be currently married. The comparable figure for the U.S. is about 60 percent...
eBook - ePubApplied Demography
An Introduction To Basic Concepts, Methods, And Data
- Steve H. Murdock(Author)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Fertility involves a biological process which results from sexual behavior that may or may not hav^ been intended to produce a conception and birth. Migration is a behavior involving moving from one area to another. Although migration often involves reactions to physical factors (e.g., shortages of food and other basic necessities for survival), migration is clearly the demographic process that is most often a result of non-physiological processes, such as employment, income, and other socioeconomic changes (Long, 1988). As a result, although deaths and births impact a population by decreasing or increasing its size, their effects on other nondemo-graphic and socioeconomic factors are usually long-term. Migration by contrast has a more immediate impact on an area because it is more likely to involve young adults in their family-formation ages. In terms of commercial activities, births and deaths are likely to have immediate impacts on only a few markets (such as markets for baby goods) and may lead to long-term growth or decline in markets for housing and other goods and services. However, migration tends to have immediate impacts, reducing markets for products and services in areas with net outmigration and creating immediate demands for all those goods and services necessary to establish a residence in areas with patterns of net immigration. The Demographic Processes (Components of Population Change) As noted above, the three processes that change populations are fertility, mortality, and migration. These involve births into a population, deaths from a population, and migration either into or out of a population. Although these processes are sufficiently well known as to not require the presentation of extensive definitions, selected aspects of each, and related terms often associated with each, require some description. Fertility. Fertility refers to reproductive behavior in populations. Fertility rates indicate the relative incidence of births in a population...
