Demography is a science that measures the world's population and identifies trends in its change. To make the data easier to comprehend, their visualization is used: a graph of the population change is built. It is such a graph that is called the demographic curve.
Instruction manual
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A demographic curve is formed by adding up two components: population growth and its reduction. The increase has a positive sign, and the decrease is negative. The curve may vary according to various laws. If the population is constantly decreasing, then it is heading down, then it is called descending. And if the population increases, then the line goes up - this is an upward curve.
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The population growth rate varies quite significantly from era to era. They are usually associated with the general well-being of mankind, which depends on technology. For hundreds and thousands of years, science has slowly and gradually progressed, beyond it the population of the planet has grown. The explosive jump in living standards occurred at the beginning of the 20th century, it was then that the population level jumped up very strongly. Then two world wars followed, which not only claimed a huge number of human lives, but also stopped the population growth in developed countries.
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Currently, the natural population growth in countries with a high standard of living, oddly enough, is not too high. Moreover, if we compare it with the mortality rate, it turns out that the demographic curve is downward, that is, the population naturally decreases. It is possible to maintain it at the proper level with the help of immigrants from other countries, but a similar method of increasing the population has a number of minuses, so it is kept under control and not used too actively.
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It is generally accepted that population growth is directly related to the economic well-being of residents. This is partly true, but only to a certain extent. At some point, it turns out that economic prosperity ceases to increase fertility. At present, demographic scientists believe that fertility largely depends on the lifestyle of people and the type of families that form a large part of society.
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For example, a traditional family is characteristic of people engaged in agriculture. Several generations of people live in a large house, couples have many children. A traditional family is beneficial because it needs working hands to support agriculture, so the birth of a large number of children becomes vital for the prosperity of people.
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At the same time, in a modern industrial society, a person’s income is not related to how many children he has. It much more depends on what kind of education he managed to get and what skills he possesses. Raising children requires serious financial investments, since they also need to be given a good education in order to ensure a decent future. This is one of the reasons why fertility is declining in economically developed countries.
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In Russia, the problem also lies in the fact that the mortality rate is very high due to rather strange reasons. In the first place among the causes of mortality is the use of alcohol. This includes not only health problems due to excessive drinking, but also all kinds of domestic hassles and accidents that occurred with people intoxicated.
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A feature of protracted demographic crises is that they are inertial in nature. If the birth rate does not increase for a long time, then the country's population as a whole is aging, and women of childbearing age are much less than necessary to ensure a normal level for reproduction. To stabilize the situation, it is required that the number of children per woman on average increase quite strongly.
