Statistics and Measurements in Population

      According to the Globalization and Diversity textbook (Source 1), there are many factors to examining a country’s population. This includes: rate of natural increase (RNI), total fertility rate (TFR), young and old populations, and life expectancy. The first term the text mentions is the rate of natural increase (RNI). This statistic is calculated by subtracting the number of deaths from the number of births in a given year. This is an important factor to determining if the country you are studying is increase or deceasing in its population. The next term in the Globalization and Diversity textbook is total fertility rate (TFR). Demographers place more emphasis on this factor because it gives more insight into a country’s condition than just the birthrates. The third term stated in the text  (Source 1) is young and old is “one of the best indicators of the momentum (or its lack) for continued population growth is the youthfulness of a population, since this shows the proportion of a population about to enter the prime reproduction years.” The other end of the scale is also important because this number is useful for interring the needs of a society in providing social services for its senior citizens. The last demographic indicator that the textbook states is life expectancy. This information has to do with the health and well-being in a society. This data tells the life expectancy of a man and woman in their specific country; which also gives insight into the health services, nutrition, and sanitation in that country. According to the textbook, the best indicator for a population’s age and gender structure is the population pyramid. This graph will also show if the population is increasing or decreasing.
                                                                                                                                    Figure 1: United States population growth pyramid

According to a chart census (Source 2), the United States 2014 population is categorized under

a slow growth pyramid. Slow growth can be defined as the ratio 1:2 people thus for every one person there are two people. Even though the United States is expressing a slow growth their population is around 329,115,000.

                                     

                                       Figure 2: Australia's population growth pyramid

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics’(Source 3), Australia’s population is around 23 million people. However, Australia 2013 population (Chart above) is categorized by a slow growth and could possibly be on its way to a negative growth.

By: Christie Johnson and Gabrielle Ramsay

Work Cited: 

(Source 1) Textbook- Globalization and Diversity: Geography of a Changing World Textbook 4th Edition by Rowntree

(Figure 1) www.indexmundi.com – 

(Source 2) Census.gov 

(Figure 2) Prezi.com

(Source 3) Theconversation.com