Politics

3. Below please find the population pyramid of a country. Write an essay to discuss:

a) Fertility and mortality of the country; b) The status of women in this country; c) The level of economic development of the country; d) The major problems likely to be facing the country at present; e) The likely future direction of demographic change that this country will take and why you believe it would be so; f) The possible location of this country.

Population Structure Affecting Economic Development of a Developing Country

A population pyramid can reflect the demographic changes of a country (Yaukey, 1985). The demographic change includes fertility, mortality, age structure, sex ratio and status of women (Yaukey, 1985). Therefore, some long-term trends, such as fertility and mortality can be shown by the population pyramid while the population pyramid can also show the short term impact of baby-booms, population policies, migration, epidemics, etc (Clarke,1972).

Fertility is one of the most important criteria to distinguish between developed countries and undeveloped countries (Clarke,1972). Fertility refers to the the natural capability of giving life. As a measure, "fertility rate" is the number of children born per couple, person or population (Bras,2008). The base of the population pyramid is wide but narrow on the top with a triangular shape. From the population pyramid , it is shown that there is around 11,000,000 population in age group 0-4 and almost 12,000,000 population in age group 5-9.

In many undeveloped regions ,for example, Southeast Asia, Africa, Latin America, we can find continued high level of fertility (UN, 1989). According to Hauser(1969), the highest fertility are found in Latin America with fertility rate of 120 and over, and birth rate of 40 per thousand. Moreover, over 40% of population in the less developed region is under the age of 15 (Hauser, 1969). The fertility rate in less developed region is expected to be higher than the one in developed region at least twice (Clarke,1972). According to Dixon-Mueller (1993), a woman in western Africa is expected to have 6.7 children, while a woman in western Europe is expected to have 1.7 children.

The above information proved that the fertility rate in less developed countries is much higher than that of the more developed countries. The reasons of the extremely high fertility rate of the less developed countries are the low educational level and the lack of family planning (Coale, 1972). It is because of the agrarian societies’ social customs and the extended family structure. Moreover, the lack of concepts in contraception and early marriage also play important role in leading high fertility rate in these area. According to the statistic, most of the married women in less developed countries seldom use contraception methods to prevent unwanted pregnancy (Clarke, 1972). For example, in Kenya, 93% of the married women seldom use contraception methods to prevent unwanted pregnancy (Clarke, 1972).Therefore, it is believed that the statistic about the fertility is showing that the country is less developed.

Moreover, the mortality is also high as shown in the triangular-shaped population pyramid (Schoen, 2006). Mortality refers to the occurrence of death. According to the population pyramid, population drops from 10,000,000 in the age group 10-14 to 6,000,000 in the age group 15-19. It shows that the infant mortality is high which is regarded as the death of the age 0-4 years (Schoen, 2006). In many less developed countries, half of the total deaths are always composed of the age group 0-4 ( Coale, 1972).

Maternal mortality rate represents the number of women dying due to deliveries and complications of pregnancy and childbirth per thousand live births (Yaukey, 1985). Maternal mortality refers to deaths of female associated with pregnancy, labor (Dixon-Mueller, 1993) .It indicates the availability of health care service, marks the substantial difference between developed and underdeveloped countries (Nations, 1989).

Since there are very high infant mortality (over 100 per thousand) and low standards of living, medical care and hygiene causing low expectation of life (under 50 years, may even 30), high mortality is common found in less developed countries (Clarke, 1972) .Malnutrition, illiteracy and poverty are severe barriers to the decline of mortality in Asia and Africa (Coale, 1972). To sum up, the pyramid shows a country of high birth and death rate which is common in some least-developed countries like Tropical Africa as the birth rate of Africa is the highest in a global scale with 45 per thousand while its death rate is also the highest among the countries in the world (Clarke,1972). The status of women can be reviewed by the mortality rate and sex ratio between men and women from the population pyramid(Bras, 2008). From the pyramid, females seem to be outnumbered by males. In the age group 55-59, there are 800,000 males but 600,000 females only. In age group 15-19, there are 3,200,000 males but 3,000,000 females, with an excess of 200,000 males. With higher mortality rate of female, it shows that status of women is lower in this country (Dixon-Mueller, 1993). In several countries of Latin America, Africa and Asia, high maternal mortality and also the neglect of females contribute to the rising young adult female mortality above that for males and the overall excess of males (Norton, 1992). Males are more preferred in these countries. In Asia and Africa, men are preponderant and superior as the laboring force in rapidly growing industrial or mining centres (Yaukey, 1985). With a lower social status, women are usually regarded as a tool of reproducing, child rearing and homemaking in the less developed countries (Bras, 2008). The health of women is neglected generally in these regions. According to health officials, one to two hundred thousand women in developing countries die from the effects of clandestine abortion each year (Dixon-Mueller, 1993). Moreover, millions of women suffer from physical and emotional anguish and social stigma due to their clandestine attempts to halt a mistimed or unwanted pregnancy (Dixon-Mueller, 1993). The economic development of the country, which is measured by efficiency of productive technology, is slow in LDCs mainly because of the great burden of dependency (Norton, 1992). From the pyramid, it shows that there is a very young age distribution with a wide base of age 0-14 but much narrower population of age 15-54. It produces a population composed of a large proportion of children and a small percentage of adults who belong to the economically most productive ages (Clarke, 1972). The underdeveloped countries have 40-45% of their population under age 15, comparing to the maximum of 25-30% of population in the highly industrialized countries(Yaukey, 1985). In fact, population growth doesn’t demonstrate economic advance, but delaying economic development e.g. mechanization and industrialization, and ensure continued poverty (Coale, 1972). With the high population, more people are employed as labour force in the production process instead of utilization of machines and advanced technology (Clarke, 1972). Moreover, more resources are distributed to raise agricultural yields to feed the large and growing population rather than advancing the industrial and energy production (Davic Yaukey, 2007). Families with larger number of children find it more difficult to save. In turn, volume of savings are level of investment in the society is lower.(Nations, 1989) The growth rate of population in less developed countries is so high that there cannot be any quick economic solution (Davic Yaukey, 2007).As Mountjoy states: “The whole problem of development, particularly the furthering of industrialization, becomes more and more intractable with soaring population totals” (Clarke, 1972). It is difficult to meet the challenge of doubling production with ever increasing population with high dependency ratio (Hauser, 1969). Given the same gross national income and same labour force, a high fertility population will achieve a lower level of net investment than a lower fertility population(Bulatao, 2000). In less developed countries, population pressure upon pressures is commonly found (Clarke, 1972). Population with high child dependency feels a greater burden and constant pressure to divert limited investment funds to less productive uses like education and medical uses (Hauser, 1969). Compounded by the lack of education and training of labour, insufficient resources and productive equipment for labour to work with further hinder the slow economic development in LDCs (Hauser, 1969).

For LDCs, youth dependency is an overwhelming concern and problem of the country. A country with high fertility has a high dependency ratio and low productivity especially in a labour-intensive subsistence agricultural society (Hauser, 1969). High fertility brings forward problem of extraordinary pressure on resources (Coale, 1972) .There is an increasing number of children who needs schools, increasing number of youth who need jobs and increasing number of adults who must support families(Hauser, 1969) .In turn, fewer opportunities for increasing youth or outside agriculture and competition of resources among the communities are resulted (Nations, 1989). With high unemployment, it contributes to low economic development and social instability (Norton, 1992). Great demand on the establishment of infrastructure and provision of social welfare is another problem of LDCs to avoid social instability (Bulatao, 2000). It is because high fertility rate creates social pressure to raise the social welfare to the poorest earners particularly in those large families (Norton, 1992). With increasing population, it creates burden to the medical care services, education, agricultural products, and demand for better family planning program(Bras, 2008). Overcrowded classrooms with teacher shortages, and spread of diseases with early death of children are all the social problems found in LDCs (Clarke, 1972). It brings forward the urgent need of constructing sanitary engineering works, extending public health services and highly trained doctors and teachers and building up of well-established hospitals and schools (Clarke, 1972). The less-developed regions in 2030 will change from their triangular or pyramidal shape to the shape similar to the 1990 pyramid of the developed regions which shows a less contrast between the population of infants, youngsters, and old aged population (Davic Yaukey, 2007). According to the pyramid, the infant population has a drastic decrease at the base. It shows that there is a tendency in lower fertility rate in the less-developed country. There are a few reasons accounting for this trend. Firstly, modern means of family planning are increasingly available in the third world countries (Bulatao, 2000). Most of the populations in Latin America and Asia are becoming more aware of the family planning services and contraceptive methods (Clarke, 1972). Secondly, the demand for contraception is stronger in the third world (Nations, 1989). According to the World Fertility Survey, the indication of large proportion of married women who do not want any more children shows a rapid downtrend in fertility(Nations, 1989).

From the observation, the fertility curves tend to decline generally in the less developed countries. The total fertility rate for East, Central and West Africa will fall to 3.5 in 2020-2025 (Davic Yaukey, 2007). The sociological, cultural, economic and political changes encourage fertility to reduce in the beginning of the 20th century (Davic Yaukey, 2007). These causes will lead to a decline in fertility of about 40% in 20 years time (Davic Yaukey, 2007). The mortality rate is likely to fall gradually due to the primary health care policies, better medical service provision and general education on health to the general public (Bulatao, 2000). Due to better economic development in the future, more stable food production can ensure a lower infant mortality and early death of children because of malnutrition and poverty (Bulatao, 2000) .As a result, the old age population (age 60 onwards) will grow further in proportion in the country. To conclude, the possible location is the less developed countries probably tropical Africa and South East Asia because of the high fertility rate and high infant mortality rate. (Clarke, 1972).High fertility and high mortality are the best socio-economic criteria to indicate the country as a less developed country (Clarke, 1972). Moreover, the low status of women shown by the sex ratio in the population pyramid and the underdeveloped economy shows that the possible location is the less developed countries. References:
Bras, Herve Le. (2008). The Nature of Demography. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Bulatao, John Bongaarts and Rodolfo A. (Ed.). (2000). Beyond Six Billions : Forecasting the World 's Population. Wahington, D.C.: National Academy Press.

Clarke, John I. (1972). Population Geography (Second edition ed.). Oxford: Pergamon Press.
Coale, Ansley J. (1972). The Growth and Structure of Human Populations: Princeton University Press.

Davic Yaukey, Douglas L. Anderton, Jennifer Hickes Lundquist. (2007). Demography. Long Grove: Waveland Press, Inc.

Dixon-Mueller, Ruth. (1993). Population Policy & Women 's rights: Prarger Publisher.
Hauser, Philip M. (Ed.). (1969). The Population Dilemma (second edition ed.): American Assembly, Columbia University.

Nations, United. (1989). World Population at the Turn of the Century. New York: United Nations Publication.

Norton, William. (1992). Human Geography. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Schoen, Robert. (2006). Dynamic Population Pyramid. The Netherlands: Springer.

Yaukey, David. (1985). Demography - The Study of Human Population. New York: St. Martin 's Press.

References: Bras, Herve Le. (2008). The Nature of Demography. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Bulatao, John Bongaarts and Rodolfo A. (Ed.). (2000). Beyond Six Billions : Forecasting the World 's Population. Wahington, D.C.: National Academy Press. Clarke, John I. (1972). Population Geography (Second edition ed.). Oxford: Pergamon Press. Coale, Ansley J. (1972). The Growth and Structure of Human Populations: Princeton University Press. Davic Yaukey, Douglas L. Anderton, Jennifer Hickes Lundquist. (2007). Demography. Long Grove: Waveland Press, Inc. Dixon-Mueller, Ruth. (1993). Population Policy & Women 's rights: Prarger Publisher. Hauser, Philip M. (Ed.). (1969). The Population Dilemma (second edition ed.): American Assembly, Columbia University. Nations, United. (1989). World Population at the Turn of the Century. New York: United Nations Publication. Norton, William. (1992). Human Geography. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Schoen, Robert. (2006). Dynamic Population Pyramid. The Netherlands: Springer. Yaukey, David. (1985). Demography - The Study of Human Population. New York: St. Martin 's Press.