Population Change

What Population Change covers

Population change is examined in Unit AS 2, Human Geography. It covers fertility and mortality measures, and why crude rates are crude, the demographic transition model and the epidemiological transition.

The 3 subtopics

Each one has its own page.

• Fertility and mortality measures, and why crude rates are crudeCrude birth rate, crude death rate and total fertility rate.Open →
• The demographic transition modelDemographic transition model and why the death rate falls before the birth rate.Open →
• The epidemiological transitionEpidemiological transition and double burden of disease.Open →

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Take Population Change further

The same content, four other ways.

Commonly confused

Pairs that lose marks when they are blurred together.

• Crude birth rate vs Total fertility rate

  Crude birth rate: births per thousand of the whole population in a year. Total fertility rate: the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime.

• Demographic transition vs Epidemiological transition

  Demographic transition: the shift from high birth and death rates to low ones as a country develops. Epidemiological transition: the shift from infectious to degenerative disease as the main cause of death.

Questions from this topic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   Describe the crude birth rate, and state its denominator.

   Model answer

   The crude birth rate is the number of live births in a year per thousand of the total population, per year. The denominator is the whole population — every person of every age and both sexes — not the number of women, and not the number of women of childbearing age. It is written, for example, as 15 per thousand per year.

2. 2

   Describe the crude death rate, and state its denominator.

   Model answer

   The crude death rate is the number of deaths in a year per thousand of the total population, per year. As with the birth rate, the denominator is the entire population of all ages, with no adjustment for how old that population is. It is written, for example, as 9 per thousand per year.

3. 3

   How would you actually calculate a crude birth rate from raw figures?

   Model answer

   Divide the number of live births registered during the year by the total mid-year population, then multiply by one thousand. If a country of 4 million people recorded 60,000 live births, the calculation is 60,000 divided by 4,000,000, multiplied by 1000, which gives 15 live births per thousand population per year. The crude death rate is worked out the same way, using deaths instead of births.

4. 4

   Describe the total fertility rate.

   Model answer

   The total fertility rate is the average number of children a woman would bear over her whole childbearing lifetime if she experienced, at each age, the age-specific fertility rates recorded in a given year. It is expressed as children per woman — not per thousand of anything — so a total fertility rate of 1.6 means an average of 1.6 children each. It is a synthetic figure built from one year's rates, so it describes the fertility of that year rather than the completed families of any real generation of women.

5. 5

   Describe the infant mortality rate, and state its denominator.

   Model answer

   The infant mortality rate is the number of deaths of children under one year of age in a year, per thousand live births in that same year. The denominator is live births, not population. So a rate of 40 means that of every thousand babies born alive, forty died before their first birthday.

6. 6

   Students routinely write that infant mortality is measured per thousand population. Why is that wrong, and does it matter?

   Model answer

   It is wrong because the babies at risk of dying come from the live births, not from the whole population. Using total population as the denominator would make the figure depend on how many adults happened to live in the country, which has nothing whatever to do with the risk facing a newborn. It matters because it destroys comparability: two countries with identical risks to babies would show different rates purely because one had more adults. The correct denominator, live births, isolates the thing being measured.

What is inside Levo

Six ways to work the same material.

Population Change revision questions

What does Population Change cover in CCEA A-Level Geography?

3 subtopics: fertility and mortality measures, and why crude rates are crude, the demographic transition model and the epidemiological transition. Each one has its own page with questions and model answers.

How is Population Change organised?

By the CCEA 3910 specification, subtopic by subtopic, so it matches the order you are taught it in.