one way of looking at population change is with a type of graph called a population pyramid It is called a pyramid because that used to be the most common shape we can see this shape with 5 japan s population in 1950 in Chart A. The population was largely young then, and it was the end of an era when most people lived in the countryside In these rural areas, children often worked together with their parents and helped to produce the food, goods, and household products 10 that the family ded. There were many diseases without cures and these often killed children, so families were large to increase the chance that some children would live to become adults. In Chart B, the pyramid for the year 2000 shows a big difference from the previous chart. There are two reasons for this change. 1s First, children increasingly went to school instead Rather than add to the family estate, children became an ofworking. expense Second, new medicines cured children's diseases like smallpox. measles, and polio, so large families were no longer needed. 20 while it is always difficult to give an accurate forecast, it seems that Japan and other countries with similar population structures, such as South Korea, will ultimately have a pyramid like the one in Chart The big question is how society will pay for the large 2s number of elderly people Taxes on workers wages will mot be enough, so we may see major changes in those societies