Patterns of Fertility, Mortality, & Health - AP Human Geography

The “Green Revolution” is the name given to a series of technological innovations in the 1940s, 50s, and early 60s that led to a massive growth in agricultural production around the world in the late 1960s. This led to massive population growth, particularly in the developing world.

The “natural increase rate” is a statistic used to measure the growth of population in a region, exclusive of immigration and emigration. It only considers the crude birth rate and the crude death rate. If the death rate is higher than the birth rate, then the region has a “negative natural increase rate.”

The total fertility rate is the average number of children born to each woman in a given region during the course of her lifetime. Anything higher than four is a very high total fertility rate and anything lower than two is a very low total fertility rate. Most of the developed world is fairly close to two and much of the developing world is close to, or in excess of, four.

The maternal mortality rate reflects the number of women, per thousand, who die during childbirth. So, if the maternal mortality rate is high (like in Sierra Leone or Bangladesh) then the number of women who die during childbirth is high. To provide possible clarification, “maternal” means motherly and “mortality” means death.

The "baby boom" generation began in 1946, the year after the end of the Second World War, and lasted until 1964. This generation is primarily unique to the United States, although other Western countries experienced a similar spike in birth rate and lowering of the death rate. The baby boom generation began when the millions of soldiers returned home from war and were offered unprecedented job opportunities and access to higher education. Marriage rates and fertility rates both rose as the population skyrocketed.

Although gender is a relevant factor in determining life expectancy in the United States, it is far less variable than race. While in general women have a life expectancy of two or three years more than men, the difference between life expectencies of white people and black people in the United States can be as much as ten years. There is a number of reasons why this is, including black people being much more likely to experience violence and receive poor healthcare; however, the primary reason is that institutional racism remains a part of American society and white Americans are much more likely to be wealthy.

Maternal mortality rate refers to the number of mothers who die in childbirth for every thousand births. The infant mortality rate refers to the number of babies who die before their first birthday for every thousand births. In countries where both these numbers are high (like South Asia or Sub-Saharan Africa), the total fertility rate is also likely to be high. The total fertility rate reflects the number of children who are born on average to a woman during her lifetime. In societies where a large proportion of children die young, the total fertility rate is likely to be much higher than in countries where the vast majority of children survive to adulthood.

Improved healthcare can have conflicting and widely variable influences on the rate of population growth. It rather depends on the starting point from which you are improving. For example, in South Sudan, increased access to medicine and better prenatal care would lead to a rapid growth in population in a short space of time; however, in Germany, improved healthcare would provide contraception and family planning advice, which would lead to a declining rate of population growth.

The period from 1964 to around 1980 is often called the “Baby Bust.” This is because the total fertility rate declined significantly from the era of the “Baby Boom” generation. The total fertility rate declined for many different reasons, but the primary reason was the relatively dramatic increase in female empowerment during this time period. More women were university-educated, more were entering the workforce, more were using contraception, and more were waiting longer to have children. The cumulative effect was a decline in the natural increase rate and the total fertility rate.

Italy, like many Western European countries, is currently experiencing a negative natural increase rate (which means the population is falling). The United States of America continues to experience population growth, although a lot of it is driven by immigration. Brazil and Mongolia, you might infer, have modest levels of natural increase. But, Angola is in Sub-Saharan Africa and represents the most likely correct answer for this question.

The child mortality rate is an important piece of demographic information that helps geographers identify and contextualize the relative levels of wealth, public health, nutrition, and other important factors in various regions. The child mortality rate reflects the number of deaths per thousand children in the first five years of those children’s lives. So if the child mortality rate was twenty-seven, this means that for every thousand children born twenty-seven die before their fifth birthday.

Total fertility rate measures the number of children conceived by the average woman over the course of her lifetime. The total fertility rate of most of the developed world is around, or slightly less than, two, whereas in much of Africa, the total fertility rate is in excess of four. Other than Sub-Saharan Africa, which has the highest total fertility rate, most of the world’s countries with total fertility rate in excess of four can be found in the Middle East, stretching from Jordan in the West to Pakistan in the East.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, marriage and fertility rates dropped as the Baby Boom generation came to an end. The primary reason why the birth rate declined in the United States in this time period was the relative liberation of women in American society. Women gained greater access to higher educational and were given more opportunities in the work place. Additionally, contraception became available and widely used for the first time. As a general rule, where education of women is high and contraception is easily available, fertility rates will be low.

The infant mortality rate is one of the most important statistics for comparing healthcare, development, disease, and nutrition across various regions. The infant mortality rate of a region reflects the number of deaths within the first year per thousand births. So, any individual who dies less than twelve months after he or she was born will be included in the infant mortality rate.

Generation X is the name collectively given to people born after the Baby Boom generation between the late 1960s and the early 1980s. Birth rates were lower for Generation X than for the Baby Boom generation, which means the United States will soon have to deal with the consequences of a slightly aging population where fewer people are working to support more retirees.

In a triangular population pyramid, the youngest people in a society make up the highest percentage of that society. It is symptomatic of high birth rates and high death rates, so the best answer choice here is Liberia. South Africa is somewhat more developed than Liberia, so it has a population pyramid closer to a rectangle. The same is true for Moldova and to a greater extent Andorra and the United Kingdom.

Infant mortality rate measures how many babies, per thousand births, die before their first birthday. In many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, the number is as high as one hundred. In almost all of the developed world, this number is less than ten. In what may seem like an illogical paradox, a high infant mortality rate generally correlates to a high rate of population growth—this is in part because when a culture believes many of its children will die before reaching adulthood (or even childhood), people of that culture tend to have more babies.

Since the population is expected to double over the period of those 35 years, it is most appropriate described as "doubling time." Since we know nothing of the death rate, crude or otherwise, we cannot determine the natural increase rate or even speak of life expectancy. Similarly, as we know nothing of the demographics, we cannot determine the demographic transition rate.

Crude birth rate (CBR) is the number of live births per year for every 1,000 people alive. When the crude death rate (CDR) is subtracted from the crude birth rate (CBR), you can determine an area's rate of natural increase. A higher CBR indicates population growth in an area, while a higher CDR indicates population decline.