Workshop 3: Demographics Lab
2.
Think of three social factors that contribute to lower birth rates in the countries farther along in the demographic transition.
How might these social conditions be encouraged to emerge in less developed countries?
Looking at the countries that have the lowest birth rate we see that Japan, Italy, and China are in those bottom 3. Some of the social factors that contribute to lower birth rates in these countries is overpopulation
which China had for a long time a 1 child rule but now have reversed that because of the low birth rates. Another social factor is the accessibility to birth control and modern medication. Access to birth control helps women to avoid unwanted or unplanned pregnancies.
In places such as Nigeria if they had access to more modern medications such as birth control this could help
limit those unwanted or unplanned pregnancies but a lot of this comes from one of their social factors of poverty.
Read The Demographic Transition: Step 2. For each country, look at the 2015 population pyramid (Population by Age Group graph). Given the population growth data that you collected in Step 1, predict the shape of the country’s population pyramid in 2050 and record your prediction in the data table below. You will write either, “wider base: growing, narrower base: declining, or consistent middle: stable” next to each country. Then, run the transition simulation and record the actual shape of the population pyramid in 2050. Complete the lesson by reading For Your Consideration
.
Lesson 1: Step 2
Country
Shape of Pyramid: Prediction
Shape of Pyramid: Simulation
USA
consistent middle: stable
consistent middle: stable
Brazil
consistent middle: stable
consistent middle: stable
China
consistent middle: stable
narrower base: declining
India
wider base: growing
wider base: growing
Indonesia
consistent middle: stable
wider base: growing
Iraq
wider base: growing
wider base: growing
Italy
narrower base: declining
narrower base: declining
Japan
narrower base: declining
narrower base: declining
Nigeria
wider base: growing
wider base: growing
Step 2 Analysis Questions: answer the following using complete sentences.
1.
How does the shape of the population pyramid differ from most developed nations, such as the USA compared with developing nations, such as Nigeria?
The shape differs from countries such as the USA to Nigeria through a more consistent middle versus a wider base. In developing nations such as the USA it is more likely that folks will live until they are in their 80s and 90s whereas in Nigeria where they don't have modern medicine life expectancy is a lot shorter. There are many younger people in Nigeria (less access to birth control) but the older population is less.
2.
People in the “prime of life” (aged roughly 20-60, depending on local conditions), support the populations younger and older than themselves. How might this impact the quality of life in countries with population pyramids similar to Nigeria?
You would think that most countries have more children than older people. Especially in the US we see that people who are aged between 20 and 60 work in order to support not only their families but families that have younger kids as well as those who are retired and older in age. When we think about the impact on quality of life with countries that have similar pyramids to Nigeria where the majority of their base is younger folks there might not be enough resources to go around. Once these younger folks do you make it into the workforce then resources might even out. When it comes to The United States, we're seeing a trend where the base or younger and the older and not so much in the middle there is a resource shortage mostly money for support.
Lesson 3: Social Impacts
