Video Lesson

Lesson Objectives

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

• Explain the key factors attributed to population growth in developing countries
• Describe the positive and negative impacts of population growth.
• Explain how you compute measures of fertility.
• Discuss the relationship between educational level and population growth

Brainstorming Question

What are the major factors responsible for accelerated population growth?

In what ways does migration affect population growth?

How does the level of education contribute to accelerated population growth in less developed countries?

Dear Online Learner! Several variables may contribute to faster population increase on a global scale and in developing countries.

• The growth of organized agricultural communities allowed for more worker specialization,
• New social and economic developments.
• If people from diverse countries travel to a specific section of the world (for example, North America);

Key words

• Accelerated;
• Fertility measurements
• Population growth
• Mortality measurement

Measures of Fertility

• Is the actual occurrence of live births and reflects a population’s actual reproductive performance.
• The nature of fertility is determined by some factors.
• Marriage has undoubtedly been a fertility-promoting institution.
• Contraception is the other major factor that influences fertility in most developed countries.
• In Sub-Saharan Africa, fertility will decline from 4.6 live births per woman in 2019 to 3.1 in 2050, and then to 2.1 in 2100.

Fertility is measured by:

I Crude Birth Rate (CBR)

• CBR is the most basic measurement of fertility.
• CBR=(B/P)X1000, where B is the number of annual births, and p is the mid-year total population.
• Is simple to compute and can be used to determine fertility quickly.
• However, because it does not take into consideration a population’s age and sex structure, it cannot be used to compare populations or regions.

II. The Total Fertility Rate (TFR)

• Estimates the total number of children a woman will have throughout her reproductive career.
•  Often used to describe fertility patterns and to compare fertility rates across different regions, and it is a better measure of fertility than the CBR.
• TFR=[BX/PX]X100X5, where Bx is the number of live births to mothers of age x and Px is the number of resident women age x.

III. Gross Reproductive Rate (GRR)

• Estimates the number of female offspring a woman will have based on age-specific rates and assuming she survives her reproductive years.
• GRR=TFRX[Sum of FB/Sum of BX]X1000
• The GRR values close to 1.0 represent one female exactly replacing herself, so the population growth rate will be equal to 0.

IV. General Fertility Rate (GFR):

• Rectify the weakness of CBR by considering live births, not total births.
• GFR=[B/P1]X1000, where B is the total number of live births during a year, P1 is the mid-year population of women between 15 and 49 years age
• Measures the number of live births in a year per thousand women of reproductive age. It is calculated as follows:
• The demerit of GFR is that it does not account for the difference in age groups.
• It is well known that the different age groups are not equally fertile.
• That is, the child-bearing rate is appreciably higher in the age group of 20-29 than in the 15-19 and 40-49 age groups.

Measures of Mortality

Dear Online Learner! Mortality the occurrence of death can be measured in several ways, including the use of crude death rate and infant mortality rate.

I. Crude death rate (CDR)

• Simple measure of mortality.
• CRD=[D/P]X1000, where CDR is Crude Death Rate, D stands for total observed deaths, and P is total mid-year population.

II. Infant mortality rate (IMR):

• Is the number of death of infants under the age of one year for every 1000 live births, in a given year
• IMR=[d/b]x1000, where b is number of live births in the year and d is number deaths below the age of one year.
• Other measures of mortality include
• Age specific death rates
• Maternal mortality ratio…etc.