What kind of information do we get from population pyramid ?Explain with an example how it helps us plan for the future.
Answers
Answer:
The age-sex structure of a country can be studied through population pyramids. A graphical representation of the age and gender structure of population ideally defines a population pyramid. The horizontal axis represents the population and vertical axis show the age groups, mostly by a gap of 5 years. Two bar diagrams,precisely for males, usually on left side and females on the right side of the graph,adds up to make a population pyramid.
This single graph holds the power to show the past, present and future of a country.
The slope of pyramid indicate the death rate while the width of the base is related to birth rate. The area of graph indicates total population, precisely based on age group or sex. Height of graph can indicate life expectancy while the kinks indicate reductions in birth rate or increases in death rate in the past.
This graph helps in distinguishing young dependants, old dependants and working population. As a part of policy making, this graph makes it easy to understand the comparison between developed and developing nation. For making decisions related to policies for future, a critical thinking and sufficient knowledge of the population age structure is being provided by these pyramid graphs. The shape of the pyramid can trace the past trend and also indicate the potential for future development.
For instances, estimation of job opportunities in future can be concluded by analysing the population trend. Similarly, the need of housing, education and food production in future is speculated according to the age-structure shown by the graph. Does a country require more old age homes or a number of schools have to increased? Are the medical services and healthcare to be improved for aged or is the population be incentivized to encourage more births? These questions holds impact over the socio-economic well being of the country. Assessment of the population pyramid can help in reaching out the solutions to these questions.
The population pyramid of China (below) from 1950 to 2050(expected) shows the impact of One-Child-only policy that was introduced in 1979 due to the extreme rise in population.
During 1970s, the population of China was exorbitantly rising. One-child policy was applied to around one-third of the population beginning in 1979 in order to curb population growth. Denial of social benefits and fining parents for having more children discouraged the large families. As a result the population over decades decreased relatively.
As shown in the picture in the population pyramid of China, post 2000 i.e almost after 25 years of the declaration of one-child-policy, there were large no. of labor force that was plunged into their 50s and hence unproductive. Since there was lower birth rate post 1979, the working force after 25 years is lesser as compared to the aged population. As a consequence, China decided to drop the one-child-policy in 2015. Births have increased by 7.9% to 17.86 million in 2016, according to China’s National Health and Family Planning Commission.
source:
https://medium.com/@megha0111/population-pyramids-and-their-implications-46b8fc44e3d5
Explanation:
A population pyramid can be used to compare differences between male and female populations of an area. They also show the number of dependents (children and, sometimes, elderly people) and general structure of the population at any given moment.