Students should be able to:

(i) Describe the main fertility and mortality

measures – crude birth rate, crude death rate,
total fertility rate and infant mortality rate

Population Change

Population characteristics change all the time, as a result of variations in fertility and mortality, as well as
migration.

The balance between the number of births and the number of deaths is known as natural population
change. It is calculated through a number of fertility (birth) measures and mortality (death) measures.

Fertility measure 1: CRUDE BIRTH RATE

Crude birth rate is the total number of live births per thousand of the population per year

Strengths Weaknesses

TASK: Use your blank map to create a choropleth map. Once complete, describe the world trends for
crude birth rate.

There are a number of reasons for the trends identified:

MEDCs LEDCs
Fertility measure 2: TOTAL FERTILITY RATE

Total Fertility Rate records the average number of children a woman will have during her reproductive
years, assuming she will live to the end of her reproductive life.

A TFR of 2 children per woman is referred to as the replacement level fertility (where two children replace
two parents and the population neither increases nor decreases)

TASK: Complete questions 2-4 on pages 148-149 of the CCEA textbook

Mortality measure 1: CRUDE DEATH RATE

Crude Death Rate is the total number of deaths per thousand of the population per year.

Strengths Weaknesses
 Students should be able to:

(ii) Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of

the demographic transition model and the
epidemiological transition

The global patterns for CDR are much less clearly defined. Mortality levels do fall with increased
development, so MEDCs generally have low levels of mortality. However, with ageing populations in many
MEDCs mortality levels are actually higher than some LEDCs.

Mortality measure 2: INFANT MORTALITY RATE

Infant Mortality Rate is the number of deaths per thousand children in the first year of life.

Strengths Weaknesses

MEDCs have very low rates of Infant Mortality, averaging 5 per thousand in 2015. LEDCs recorded values
ranging from 42-64 per thousand.

TASK: Use the resource to describe the trends for Infant Mortality Rates between 1980 and 2012. Include
dates, places and figures in your answer.

TASK: Use the resource to compare and contrast the trends apparent in Infant Mortality Rate for Chile
and the United Kingdom
The Demographic Transition Model

 The Demographic Transition Model (DTM) is based on historical population trends of two
demographic characteristics – birth rate and death rate .
 It suggests that a country’s total population growth rate moves through stages as that country
develops economically.
 Each stage is characterized by a specific relationship between birth rate (number of annual births per
one thousand people) and death rate (number of annual deaths per one thousand people).

TASK: Complete the table below. The first row has been completed for you.
 BIRTH PER DEATH PER EXAMPL TOTAL
RATE 1000 RATE 1000 E POPULATIO
N
STAGE High 35-40 High 35-40 N/A RISING
1 SLOWLY
STAGE
2
STAGE
3
STAGE
4
STAGE
5

TASK: Read the following statements and decide what stage they apply to on the DTM

1. Billy White loses his job as a grave digger

2. Parents start to think about family planning

3. Children are warm in bed at night because they have more brothers and sisters

4. Vaccination against smallpox discovered

5. A mother sobs over the grave of the last of her six children

6. Fewer children share a bedroom

7. Grandparents are rare

8. Molly, aged 14, is unable to continue attending the local school

9. Mary is very lonely at home, she has no brothers or sisters

10. Voluntary hospitals are founded

TASK: Can you think of any flaws of the DTM?

TASK: With reference to place (s), describe and explain how birth rate, death rate and total population
change through the stages of the Demographic Transition Model [15]
The Epidemiological Transition

Epidemiology is the study of disease. IT has been suggested that an epidemiological transition occurs as
countries proceed through development. The model focuses on the cause of death and there are three stages

Pre-transition
 

Receding Pandemic

Age of degenerative and man-made diseases


Global trends

Countries occupy different stages in this transition. In Europe, infectious diseases account for less than 10%
of all deaths, yet in Africa infectious diseases including HIV/AIDS, malaria and measles account for over
60% of deaths.

United Kingdom Ethiopia

Life
expectancy

GDP Pc

Top 5 causes
of death

TASK: Using the Hong Kong resource, outline how the epidemiological transition relates to levels of
development [6]