Population - Research Paper Example

The interrelationship that exists between these parameters has been exploited as determinants of the constraints that are evidenced in the world’s geographical scope, and as platform to control and fight against world poverty. The essence of this paper is to examine the world population growth trends by analyzing the population characteristics in different countries in Africa, US, Europe, Asia, Middle East and South America. The Total Fertility Rate and Maternal Mortality rate The total fertility rate refers to the number of children per woman in a country and it provides the potential of the population of a given country to grow or increase.

On the other hand, the maternal mortality rate refers to the number of women who die while in the process of delivering a child and is a unique characteristic that is variable in many countries depending on various factors such as health and nutrition. The charts below indicate the ranking of different countries both by total fertility rate and maternal mortality rate. The statistics indicate that there is a great tie between the total fertility rate and the maternal mortality rate in the different sample countries.

Countries with high total fertility rate have high maternal mortality rate and those with low fertility rate indicate low maternal mortality rate. . Table 1: Ranking based on Total Fertility rate COUNTRY TFR 1       Burundi 6.06 2.       Ethiopia 5.99 3.       Malawi 5.54 4.       Tunisia 5.49 5.       Uganda 5.31 6.       south Africa 5.31 7.       Egypt 5.26 8.       Kenya 3.76 9.       Nigeria 2.9 10.   S. America, Brazil 2.25 11.   Asia, Afghanistan 2.06 12.   Europe, Spain 2.01 13.   Middle East, Iran 1.86 14.   US 1.81 15.   Angola 1.

48 Table 2: Ranking based on Maternal Mortality Rate The Infant Mortality Rate and the Life Expectancy at Birth The infant mortality rate refers to the number of children who die at the age of one year for every 1000 children who are born alive in a year (Sharma p. 32). On the other hand, the Life expectancy at birth refers to the age at which a child is expected to attain at if the mortality rate in a given environment is assumed to be constant throughout the life period. The infant mortality rate is used to measure the quality of maternal care and health during the early ages of child bearing while the life expectancy at birth is a measure of the optimal life span of individuals in a country.

The charts below indicate the ranking of sample countries both by infant mortality rate and the life expectancy at birth. The population growth rate is dependent on the infant mortality as the number of individual in a country will only increase is depends on the number of children who are born and are able to live a full life. If a country has a high infant mortality rate, then a high number of children die at a tender age, meaning that the population of such a country will grow slowly. Again, the life expectancy