DEFINITION
The average annual percent change in the population, resulting from a surplus (or deficit) of births over deaths and the balance of migrants entering and leaving a country. The rate may be positive or negative. The growth rate is a factor in determining how great a burden would be imposed on a country by the changing needs of its people for infrastructure (e.g., schools, hospitals, housing, roads), resources (e.g., food, water, electricity), and jobs. Rapid population growth can be seen as threatening by neighboring countries.
DEFINITION: The average annual percent change in the population, resulting from a surplus (or deficit) of births over deaths and the balance of migrants entering and leaving a country. The rate may be positive or negative. The growth rate is a factor in determining how great a burden would be imposed on a country by the changing needs of its people for infrastructure (e.g., schools, hospitals, housing, roads), resources (e.g., food, water, electricity), and jobs. Rapid population growth can be seen as threatening by neighboring countries.
Taylor, one of the reasons for population booms is if the birth rate is not decreasing as fast as the death rate, which can be lowered considerably by new medical procedures, new medicines, and, probably most importantly, the seemingly simple factors of better nutrition, sanitation and access to clean water.
Lowering the birth rate requires education about family planning, birth spacing and, of course, access to birth control. Encouraging the use of birth control is sometimes difficult due to religious prohibitions or superstitious or paranoid beliefs (some people may believe that a medication, such as a birth control pill, is actually being used by a foreign government to sterilize people). Other times, it’s because of a lack of money or political will.
Age structure is also a factor. Most childbearing is done by women between the ages of 15 and 49. So if a population has a large number of young people just entering their reproductive years, the rate of growth of that population is sure to rise.
Edria Murray Staff Editor 31st May 2005
In response to Taylor:
The population in these areas is growing quickly as the birth rate is high and life expectency is increasing. Most of the countries in Sub Sahara Africa and the middle east still have a total fertility rate greater than 4 children per woman. A total fertility rate of 2.1 children per women would cause zero population growth.
Fertility rates are declining and this trend is expected to continue over the next fifty years causing the world population to eventually stabilise (probably between 8 and 12 billion), however the rate of decline is unknown. According to United Nations estimates, if the total fertility rate of almost every country reached 2.1 children per woman, the world population would be 9.4 billion by 2050. If worldwide fertility only declined to 2.6 children per woman, the world population in 2050 would be 11.2 billion (almost double today's value).
Suchita Staff Editor 23rd January 2005
The world took 454 years to go from a population of 345 million in 1310 AD to a billion by 1655 but only 344 years to reach 6 billion by 1999. While China remains the most populous country, its population growth rate has actually fallen to 0.9% far below the global average of 1.2% and the Asian average of 1.3%. Yet, five Asian countries — Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia and Pakistan — are projected to account for nearly 45% of the world’s projected population growth between 2002 and 2050. India is expected to have a population count of 1.9 billion by 2015.
The world’s population is expected to cross 9 billion by 2050 and 10 billion by the turn of the century, the developing countries accounting for the bulk of the growth.
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