a) Population Growth
Many of the problems associated with underdevelopment in the world are linked to high population growth rates. For every minute that passes 300 babies are born in the world and 132 people die. This means that in the last minute 168 new people were added to the world's population. When you work out his figure for days, months and years, you will find that an additional quarter of a million people are added to the world's population every day and about 90 million people are added to the world each year. (these figures were true for 1996, they will be higher now)
If the worlds' population continues to grow at this rate, it is unlikely that there will be enough food, water and living space for all of us in the future. Unmanaged population growth can lead to disaster for the world. Apart from food shortages, population growth also puts incredible additional pressure on the environment in the form of pollution, deforestation and the use of natural resources like water and coal. Population growth has been far higher in the developing world than in the developed world, so that countries that are already struggling to look after large percentages of poor people are having a rapid increase in population.
We can calculate the growth rate by saying birth rate minus death rate = growth rate. These rates are usually measured as the number per thousand of the population, so if your birth rate is 20 babies per 1 000 of the population every year, and the death rate is 10 people per 1 000 of the population every year, then your growth rate is 10 people per 1 000. That is the same as one per hundred so that we could say there has been a one percent population growth.
Emigration and immigration also have an effect on the population growth rate. The population grows when people move into your country and shrinks when people leave your country.
Most of the developed countries or industrialised countries have low growth rates. Some European countries even have negative growth rates - more people are dying every year than being born and their populations are getting smaller.
Countries in the developing world are those with the fastest growing populations. In most developing countries the death rates are falling because of improved medicine and improved hygiene but birth rates remain high. In these countries a high percentage of the population is below 15 years old.
c) Fertility as an indicator of development
Fertility means the number of children the average woman has during her life. In general, developing countries have a much higher fertility rate and a much higher birth rate than industrialised countries. We measure the birth rate by the number of children born per thousand of the population every year. In order to work out the fertility rate and the birth rate, we first need to know how many women there are between the ages of 15 and 54, since these years are seen as the child bearing age of women.
There are many reasons for high fertility rates, and in most families the number of children goes up the further back you go in your family's history. So usually your mother or your grandparents would have had more children than you. There are many reasons for this. One of them is the traditional attitude to family size, where large families were seen as adding to wealth. Attitudes change as people become urbanised and as more women become educated and employed.
Accessible contraception is also relatively new and has only been around for about 50 years. In rural areas, people often lack access to family planning and also need more children to help with the labour intensive nature of their work. In more urban societies, people tend to have smaller families because often both parents are employed and bringing up children is more difficult without an extended family support system. If people are employed and have access to pensions, there is less dependence on children for future income. In urban areas food, water and other services are more costly and people often have to pay for childcare and transport for children.
In the rural area it is often cheaper to have children and it is more valuable for families to have a number of children. Some of them may die because of the high death rate among children in the rural areas, but the remaining ones can be used as labourers and a family with many children can rely on their children to look after them when they are old.
A general reduction in poverty is often seen as having a relationship to a general reduction in fertility. This is also often ascribed to the changing role of women as societies develop. There is a strong relationship between high fertility and low literacy among women. When women learn to read, new opportunities open for them in the job market and they tend to have fewer children. Therefore literacy and education are crucial for empowering and developing women.
In 1998 the fertility rate in South Africa was 2.9. As women get better access to education and economic opportunities, the fertility rate will continue to go down.