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birthrate

 
Dictionary: birth·rate  birth rate (bûrth'rāt') pronunciation
also n.
The ratio of total live births to total population in a specified community or area over a specified period of time. The birthrate is often expressed as the number of live births per 1,000 of the population per year. Also called natality.


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Statistics Dictionary: birth rate
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The number of births occurring in a stated population during the stated period of time, usually a year, as a proportion of the number in the stated population. A total or crude birth rate utilizes all births, usually expressed as births per 1000, whereas an age-specific rate is usually reported on the basis of the number of births per 1 000 persons in this age group. The birth rate may be standardized when comparing birth rates over time, or between countries, to take account of differences in the age structures of the populations.



Insurance Dictionary: Birth Rate
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Number of people born as a percentage of the total population in any given period of time.

A population of a country, or other defined territory, grows as people are born or migrate into it, and it lessens as people die or migrate out. The birthrate, which is most often called the crude birthrate because it is a simple measure, is the rate at which the population grows due to births over a reference period. Conventionally, it is the number of infants born alive in a calendar year per 1,000 population at midyear. The rate is accurately calculated using live birth counts from a universal system of registration of births, deaths, and marriages, and population counts from a census. Otherwise, it may be satisfactorily estimated by application of specialized demographic techniques. If the death rate and migration rates are known, together with the birthrate, the population growth rate can be calculated accurately.

The birthrate alone may still be used as a proxy for population growth, because it is usually the largest component of population growth. As there exist better, noncrude measures of births— known as fertility rates—that take account of the age distribution, relative group size, and mortality of potential mothers, the principal use of the birthrate is as a summary indicator of population growth. Typically, a birthrate of 10 to 20 per 1,000 is low, and a rate of 40 to 50 per 1,000 is high. In the absence of other information, a high birthrate is assumed to be a general indication of health impairments and low life expectancy, low living standards, low status of women, and low levels of education. In the process of economic development and accompanying social change, the birthrate and population growth rate decline as conditions improve, and potential parents choose to have fewer children by practicing contraception, which may be made available by family planning programs. Accordingly, the birthrate is anticipated to respond to development and to the provision of family planning services and is monitored as evidence of their achievement.

The world birthrate is estimated to have been around 37 per 1,000 in the early 1950s, and it is estimated at 21 per 1,000 in 2000. Since the 1950s, the birthrate for all Europe is estimated to have fallen from 21 to 10 per 1,000 (in the United Kingdom, the birth rate fell from 16 to 11 per 1,000); in the United States from 24 to 14, Canada 28 to 11, Australia 23 to 13, and New Zealand 26 to 15 per 1,000; in Latin America to have dropped from 42 to 22 per 1,000; in Asia to have halved from 43 to 21 per 1,000 (in the People's Republic of China alone, the birth rate fell from 44 to 16 per 1,000); and in sub-Saharan Africa to have declined from 48 to 41 per 1,000. A well-conceived public health strategy is likely to include provision of a range of contraceptive and other family planning services as part of broadbased health interventions designed to attain sustainable economic as well as social improvements.

(SEE ALSO: Birth Certificates; Demography; Mortality Rates; Vital Statistics)

Bibliography

Shryock, H. S., Siegel, J. S. et al. (1971). The Methods and Materials of Demography. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office for the U.S. Bureau of the Census.

United Nations (1999). World Population Prospects: The 1998 Revision. New York: United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division.

— ODILE FRANK



Geography Dictionary: birth rate
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The number of births in a year per 1000 of total population taken at the mid-year mark. This is the crude birth rate since it is not adjusted to take account, for example, of the proportion of the population which is of childbearing age. The crude birth rate may be expressed as:

B/P × 1000
where B = the number of births, and P = total population. A characteristic figure for a developed country might be 11/1000 per annum: 2002 figures for EU countries ranged from 9.2/1000 (Italy) to 12.1/1000 (Ireland). For a developing country figures of around 30/1000 per annum are not uncommon.

This crude statistic does not take into account the age structure of the population, which indicates the number of women of childbearing age, so that it is difficult to compare crude rates between two very different populations. Because of this, many demographers prefer to use a standardized birth rate which indicates what the crude birth rate would have been for a population if the age and sex composition of that population were the same as in a population selected as standard.

Wikipedia: Birth rate
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Countries by birth rate in 2008

Crude birth rate is the nativity or childbirths per 1,000 people per year.[1]

According to the United Nations' World Population Prospects: The 2008 Revision Population Database, crude birth rate is the Number of births over a given period divided by the person-years lived by the population over that period. It is expressed as number of births per 1,000 population. CBR = (births in a period / population of person-years over that period).

According to the Dictionary of Geography by Audrey Clark, crude birth rate is also known as natural increase. It ranges from 12 to 50 per 1000 people. Furthermore, Clark describes that there is only a small tendency for birth-rates to fall even with more usage of birth control. During the period of 1960 to 1980, the world population has fallen 2% to 1.7 per cent per annum in the 1980s.

It can be represented by number of childbirths in that year, and p is the current population. This figure is combined with the crude death rate to produce the rate of natural population growth (natural in that it does not take into account net migration).

Another indicator of fertility that is frequently used is the total fertility rate, which is the average number of children born to each woman over the course of her life. In general, the total fertility rate is a better indicator of (current) fertility rates because unlike the crude birth rate it is not affected by the age distribution of the population. Fertility rates tend to be higher in less economically developed countries and lower in more economically developed countries.

World historical and predicted crude birth rates (1950-2050)
UN, medium variant, 2008 rev.[2]
Years CBR Years CBR
1950-1955 37.2 2000-2005 21.2
1955-1960 35.3 2005-2010 20.3
1960-1965 34.9 2010-2015 19.4
1965-1970 33.4 2015-2020 18.2
1970-1975 30.8 2020-2025 16.9
1975-1980 28.4 2025-2030 15.8
1980-1985 27.9 2030-2035 15.0
1985-1990 27.3 2035-2040 14.5
1990-1995 24.7 2040-2045 14.0
1995-2000 22.5 2045-2050 13.4

The birth rate is an item of concern and policy for a number of national governments. Some, including those of Italy and Malaysia, seek to increase the national birth rate using measures such as financial incentives or provision of support services to new mothers. Conversely, others aim to reduce the birth rate. For example, China's One child policy; measures such as improved information about and availability of birth control have achieved similar results in countries such as Iran.

There has also been discussion on whether bring women into the forefront of development initiatives will lead to a decline in birth rates. In some places, government policies have been focused on reducing birth rates through improving women's sexual and reproductive health and rights. Typically, high birth rates has been associated with health impairments and low life expectancy, low living standards, low status of women, and low levels of education. There are claims that as countries go through economic development and social change, population growth such as birth rate declines. Family programmes become widely accepted and birth rates decline

In 1974 at the World Population Conference in Bucharest, women's issues gained considerable attention. family programmes were seriously discussed and 137 countries drafted a World Population Plan of Action. In the discussion, many countries accepted modern birth control, such as the pill and the condom, but opposed abortion. In 1994, Another Action plan was drafted in Cairo under the United Nations. They discussed the concern on population and the need to incorporate women into the discourse. They agreed that a need to improve women's status, initiatives in defence of reproductive health and freedom, the environment, and sustainable socio-economic development were needed.

Generally, birth rate is calculated using live birth counts from a universal system of registration of births, deaths, and marriages, and population counts from a census or using estimation through specialized demographic techniques. Birth rate is also commonly used to calculate population growth. It is combined with death rates and migration rates to calculate population growth.

As for 2009, the average birth rate for the whole world is 19.95 per year per 1000 total population. Birth rate from 2003 to 2009 shows that there has been a -.48% decline from 2003's world birth rate of 20.43 per 1000 total population. According to the CIA - The World Factbook, the country with the highest birth rate currently is Niger at 51.6 births per 1000 people. The country with the lowest birth rate is Japan at 7.64 births per 1000 people. (Hong Kong as a Special Administrative Region of China is at 7.42 births per 1000 people.) As compared to the 1950s (birth rate was at 36 births per 1000 in the 1950s[3]), birth rate has declined by 16 births per 1000 people.

Countries with birth rates ranging from 10-20 births per 1000 is considered low and countries ranging from 40-50 births per 1000 is considered high. There are problems associated with both an extremely high birth rate and extremely low birth rate. High birth rates could cause stress on the government welfare and family programs to support the youthful population. Further problems of a country with a high birth rate include: how to educate growing number of children, creating jobs for these children when they grow up to be working age, and dealing with the environmental effects that a large population can produce. Low birth rates can also put stress on the government to prove adequate senior welfare systems and also the stress on families to support the elders themselves. There will be less children or working age population to support the constantly growing aging population.

Contents

Methods of measuring birth rate

  • General fertility rate (GFR): This measures the number of births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 or 15 to 49.
  • Standardised birth rate (SBR): This compares the age-sex structure to a hypothetical standard population.
  • Total fertility rate (TFR): The mean number of children a woman is expected to bear during her child-bearing years. It is also independent of the age-sex structure of the population.
  • Child-to-woman ratio: This measures the number of children below five to the number of women of child-bearing years (age 15 to 44). In the past, when there is no universal registration of births, porn this ratio is a relatively good indicator of fertility since it can be measure using data from the Census. However, high infant mortality rate would cause huge difference between child to woman ratio and general fertility rate (GFR).

Factors affecting birth rate

Birth rate and the Demographic Transition Model

The demographic Transition Model describes population mortality and fertility may decline as social and economic development occurs through time. The two major factors in the Demographic Transition Model is Crude Birth Rate (CBR) and Crude Death Rate (CDR). There are 4 stages to the Demographic Model and in the first and second stage, CBR remains high because people are still in agrarian cultures and need more labour to work on farms. In addition, the chances of children dying are high because medicine is not as advance during that phrase. However, in the third stage, CBR starts to decline due to more women's participation in society and the reduced need of families to have many children. In the fourth stage, CBR is sustained at a really low level with some countries below replacement levels.

See also

References

2. http://esa.un.org/UNPP/index.asp?panel=7 -- United Nations World Population Prospects: The 2008 Revision Population Database

3. Clark, Audrey. Longman Dictionary of Geography, Human and Physical. New York: Longman, 1985.

4. Douglas, Ian and Richard Huggett. Companion Encyclopedia of Geography. New York: Routledge, 2007.

5. Norwood, Carolette. "Re-thinking the integration of women in population development initiatives" Development in Practice. 19.7(2009):906 - 911.

6. http://www.indexmundi.com/world/birth_rate.html -- World Birth rate by IndexMundi.

7. http://www.answers.com/topic/birth-rate -- excert from Encyclopedia of Public Health

8. http://www.worldwatch.org/node/1631 -- "Demographic Fatigue Overwhelming Third World Governments" by Worldwatch Institute. 26 Sept 1998.

External links


Translations: Birthrate
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Dansk (Danish)
n. - nativitet, fødselshyppighed, fødselsfrekvens

Nederlands (Dutch)
geboortecijfer

Français (French)
n. - taux des naissances

Deutsch (German)
n. - Geburtenrate

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - βαθμός γεννητικότητας, δείκτης γεννήσεων

Italiano (Italian)
tasso di natalità

Português (Portuguese)
n. - taxa (f) de natalidade

Русский (Russian)
уровень рождаемости

Español (Spanish)
n. - natalidad, índice de natalidad

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - nativitet, födelsetal

中文(简体)(Chinese (Simplified))
出生率

中文(繁體)(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 出生率

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 출산율

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 出生率

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) نسبه المواليد‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮שיעור הילודה‬


 
 
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Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Statistics Dictionary. A Dictionary of Statistics. Second edition revised. Copyright © Oxford University Press, 2008. All rights reserved.  Read more
Insurance Dictionary. Dictionary of Insurance Terms. Copyright © 2000 by Barron's Educational Series, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Encyclopedia of Public Health. Encyclopedia of Public Health. Copyright © 2002 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Geography Dictionary. A Dictionary of Geography. Copyright © Susan Mayhew 1992, 1997, 2004. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Birth rate" Read more
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