Population Pyramid

We talked about the population pyramid in today's class and discussed how it changes over the years. A population pyramid shows how the population changes due to how many people die and how many are born. The chart shows the percentage of people in the country its focus is on and its death and birth rates. Some things that might affect these rates are natural disasters that could kill many people and wars. Also industrialization and the change of women getting good education affects how many babies are born. For example, a woman trying to get her college degree might wait until she gets out of school to have a child which means the birth rates decreases. Another example of how the pyramid changes is when the baby boom happened after World War II. When soldiers came home from battle, a huge amount of babies were born and this still affects the pyramid today. The baby boomer babies aren't such babies anymore, in fact they are entering their older years now and taking up the elder population. The pyramid also tells us about the country's health care for people. In many African countries, the oldest people on the chart are at the most 70 years old. This makes the birth rate sky rocket because they have children younger since they won't live long enough to have them later. If a pyramid looks almost even on the sides, you have an example of a advanced industrialized country. This means that the country has a low death and birth rate, good living conditions, long life expectancies, and a stable population. This chart is a flashback to the past and a fast track to the future as well and can show us a lot about our population and surrounding world.