What factors affect birth and death rates?

Population pyramids show the structure of a population by comparing how many people of different ages are living in a place or country.

Population structures differ markedly between developed countries and developing countries.

• In developed countries (like in the UK) both birth rates and death rates are low.

• In developing countries (like in India) death rates have decreased but birth rates have remained extremely high.

Where birth rates are higher than death rates there is rapid population growth.

Factors affecting the birth and death rates vary between developed and developing countries but some include:

• status of women
• expectations of children
• availability of food
• availability of medicine

Watch this video to learn about how the world's population has grown, and how to interpret population pyramids.

Population pyramids show the structure of a population by comparing how many people of different ages are living in a place or country.

Population structures differ markedly between developed countries and developing countries.

• The shape of a population pyramid can tell us a lot about an area's population
• Population pyramids show the bars arranged sideways, rather than upwards:
  • The x-axis shows the number (or percentage) of people.
  • The y-axis shows their ages.
  • The bars on the left show the proportion of males in each age group.
  • The bars on the right show the proportion of females in each age group.
• A population pyramid gives us information about birth and death rates as well as life expectancy
• A population pyramid tells us how many dependants there are. There are two groups of dependants:
  • young dependants (aged below 15)
  • elderly dependants (aged over 65)
• Dependants rely upon the economically active for economic support. These are people of working age between 15 and 65

Many developing countries have a high birth rate, high number of young dependants and low life expectancy.

• The pyramid will have a wide base.
• The sides of the pyramid will decrease as fewer people will reach old age.
• The pyramid will be shorter.

However, many developed countries have a low birth rate, low death rate and high life expectancy. This causes a growing number of elderly dependants.

• Th pyramid will have straight sides or a barrel shape.
• The pyramid will be taller.

The population pyramid of the UK shows:

• low birth rates
• low death rates
• high life expectancy

What are the effects of this population structure?

The effects of this population structure are as follows:

• High numbers of elderly people put added strain on services e.g. health care
• Extra money is required to build more care homes to accommodate elderly people
• Government has to spend more money on pensions and less money elsewhere e.g. education
• Fewer children born means that fewer maternity hospitals and schools are needed
• Teachers and midwives are made redundant as they are surplus to requirements
• In the future, not enough people of working age will be available to fill job vacancies
• The Government may have to spend money recruiting foreign skilled workers to fill jobs
• People have to work longer as the age of retirement is raised

The population pyramid of India shows:

• high birth rate
• high death rates
• low life expectancy

What are the effects of this population structure?

The effects of this population structure are as follows:

• Large numbers of children and young people puts an added strain on services e.g. health care
• Extra money is required to build more schools to accommodate children
• Government has to spend more money on education and less money elsewhere e.g. industrial development
• More children born means that more maternity hospitals and schools are needed
• More teachers and midwives are required to be trained
• In the future, there is likely to be too many people of working age to fill job vacancies
• Unemployment and poverty increase
• Not enough homes, so improvised settlements increase

This graph shows the projected world population and growth rate from 1950-2050:

• The population of the world was relatively low and steady until the 1950s when there was a population ‘explosion’
• Since then, there has been a rapid increase in the world’s population so that in 2022 it passed 8 billion
• The majority of this population growth is, again, in developing countries

• The reason for this rapid expansion is mainly due to the decrease in global death rates while birth rates remained very high. This meant that many more people were being born than were dying so the population grew
• This difference between birth rates and death rates is called the natural increase

In developed countries (like in the UK) both birth rates and death rates are low.

Birth rates are low because:

• women's status has improved
• contraception and family planning is more readily available
• more career and job opportunities for women
• the cost of raising a family has increased
• more people are entering into relationships later, so there is less opportunity to have large families

Death rates are low because of:

• advances in modern medicine
• vaccinations against diseases, eg measles
• improvements in water and sanitation
• enhanced food production and storage
• better transport for food
• lower infant mortality rates

The population in developed countries is therefore fairly stable and neither rising nor falling significantly.

In developing countries (like in India) death rates have also decreased but birth rates have remained extremely high.

Birth rates are high because:

• children are needed to work and bring in an income for the family
• children are required to look after elderly parents because of a lack of pensions
• lack of availability and knowledge of contraception and family planning
• high infant mortality rates, so parents have more children in the hope that some survive
• religious beliefs – certain religions or religious groups encourage large families
• in some countries, children can be viewed as a sign of virility

Death rates are fairly high because of:

• lack of food caused by famine
• malnutrition caused by poor diet
• poor sanitation and lack of clean drinking water
• natural disasters destroying crops
• high levels of disease, eg malaria
• lack of doctors, medicines and healthcare
• war, eg Afghanistan

As birth rates are higher than death rates there is rapid population growth in countries in the Global South.

Population pyramids show the structure of a population by comparing relative numbers of people in different age groups.

Population structures differ markedly between developed countries and developing countries.

In developed countries (like in the UK) birth rates are low because:

• women's status and job opportunities have improved.
• contraception and family planning is more readily available.
• the cost of raising a family has increased.

Death rates are also low because of:

• advances in modern medicine.
• improvements in water and sanitation.
• better food production and storage.
• lower infant mortality rates.

In developing countries (like in India) birth rates have remained extremely high because of:

• children are needed to bring in an income and look after elderly family.
• lack of availability and knowledge of contraception and family planning.
• high infant mortality rates, so parents have more children in the hope that some survive.
• religious beliefs– certain religions encourage large families.

Death rates are still high because of:

• lack of food caused by famine.
• malnutrition caused by poor diet
• poor sanitation and lack of clean drinking water
• high levels of disease and lack of medicines and healthcare

As birth rates are higher than death rates there is rapid population growth in countries in the Global South.