Introduction to Population Growth

Growth is the act and the result of growing: enlarge, increase, increase. Demographic, on the other hand, is that related to demography (the statistical analysis of a human group, linked to its evolution or to a certain moment of it).

Demographic or population growth is called the change that is registered in a population in a specific period. The quantification of this change is reflected as the change in the number of inhabitants per unit of time.

Suppose that, at the beginning of 2000, a region X had 5,000 inhabitants. That same region, at the beginning of 2010, already had 8,600 inhabitants. In a decade ( 2000-2010 ), therefore, region X had a population growth of 3,600 inhabitants.

Population growth shows how the number of inhabitants of a region changes in a given period.

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What is demographics

Continuing with the definition of demography, it is the science that is dedicated to the study of human populations, taking into account many of its properties, such as its evolution, its structure and its dimension.

The demography approach is of a statistical type, in such a way that it relates data of different types (such as the number of inhabitants of a region and the sampling date), analyzes them and draws conclusions, both to understand its current state and to anticipate potential changes and prevent certain problems.

Due to the scarcity of resources, population growth can become a problem.

The analysis of population growth

There are various theories that explain and analyze the evolution of population growth. Because material resources are scarce, population growth can become a problem, since there are not enough resources to meet the needs of all people.

The population growth rate, on the other hand, expresses as a percentage the change in the number of members of a population in a given period. For example, a country may record a population growth rate of 4% in one year: its total population therefore grew by 4% in twelve months.

Population growth is linked to the difference between the number of births and the number of deaths : if more people are born than die, the population increases. In any case, there are other factors that affect demographics, such as the movement of immigrants and emigrants.

Population in balance

A concept strongly linked to population growth is that of population in equilibrium, which is also known as stable or constant population . It belongs to the field of demography and it is about the population whose demographic growth is nil. The technical terms used in this case are zero population growth, zero population growth, or zero population growth.

For this phenomenon to occur, it is necessary that between two dates of population analysis, the net difference between migration, deaths and births is equal to zero. In a case like this, it should be possible to construct the following equality: the number of deaths plus the number of emigrants is equal to the number of immigrants plus the number of births.

Why population growth may be nil

It is important to point out that the fact that population growth is zero does not indicate that the region studied is, so to speak, frozen in time; on the contrary, it is possible that it undergoes major changes in its death and birth rates, in addition to its immigration rates and the age distribution of the inhabitants between the two sampling dates, although this depends on the size of the population . new or incoming population (the result of births plus immigration) equals the amount of unemployed or outgoing population (the sum of emigration plus mortality).

Depending on the particular country and region, population growth has different characteristics, which are linked to the culture and needs of the inhabitants. For example, while in some cities it is very common for most of their young people to emigrate to study abroad, in others the opposite effect occurs, new students arrive every year.

POPULATION GROWTH