Population outputs at Higher Level: The same two outputs as SL, through different real cases: Ukraine, which lost millions of people to emigration in 2022, and China, where deaths now outnumber births.
Practise this as you read
- Calculate a crude death rate and an emigration rate, formula first.
- Explain a gap between a growth rate and a natural increase rate.
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What removes people from a population: The population tank has two drains: people dying, and people moving away, called emigration.
The points to remember
- The outputs remove people from a population: deaths and emigration.
- Emigration = people moving out of a place to live somewhere else.
- One person's emigration is another place's immigration.
- More deaths or more emigrants make the population shrink, unless inputs rise as much.
- Emigrants are often young adults, so a place can lose its workers and future parents.
Remember it as: Died here or moved away: both are outputs.
Real example: after war began in Ukraine in 2022, about 5.7 million more people left the country than arrived that year, one of the largest outputs of people in modern times.
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Deaths are turned into a rate so that places of any size can be compared: the crude death rate.
Crude death rate
- Crude death rate (CDR) = the number of deaths per 1000 people in a population per year.
- Formula: CDR = deaths ÷ total population × 1000.
- Give the unit: per 1000 (per thousand) people per year.
- It is crude: it counts the whole population, whatever their age.
- So an old population has a high CDR even when people live long lives.
Worked example: China, 2023: about 11.1 million people died in a population of about 1.41 billion.
CDR = deaths ÷ population × 1000 = 11,100,000 ÷ 1,410,000,000 × 1000 = 7.9 per 1000 per year.
Real example: China's deaths (11.1 million) outnumbered its births (9.02 million) in 2023, as its large 1960s generation grows old.
High death rate does not mean short lives: A rich country with many old people can have a higher crude death rate than a poor country with many young people. 'Crude' means age is ignored.
People moving away are measured with the emigration rate. An emigrant}} is counted in the place they leave.
Emigration rate
- Emigration rate = the number of emigrants per 1000 people in the population per year.
- Formula: emigration rate = emigrants ÷ total population × 1000.
- Emigrants are counted in the place they leave: they are an output there.
- People leave to escape war or disasters, or because there are few jobs.
- Net migration = immigrants − emigrants: positive means more arrive than leave.
Worked example: Kilbane has 140,200 people. In 2023, 2,524 of them moved away and 1,402 moved in.
Emigration rate = 2,524 ÷ 140,200 × 1000 = 18.0 per 1000; net migration = 1,402 − 2,524 = −1,122 people.
War
- Ukraine, 2022: about 5.7 million more people left than arrived.
Few jobs
- Rural towns everywhere: young people leave for city or foreign jobs.
Disasters
- A hurricane or earthquake destroys homes and work, so families move away.
Real example: most of Ukraine's emigrants were women and children, as most men aged 18 to 60 could not leave.
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Put the inputs and outputs together and you get the change in a population. Births minus deaths is the natural increase; migration is the rest.
Inputs minus outputs
- Population change = (births − deaths) + (immigrants − emigrants).
- Natural increase = births − deaths only: it leaves out migration.
- If the growth rate is lower than the natural increase rate, more people left than arrived: emigration.
- If the growth rate is higher, more people arrived: immigration.
- A population can grow with more deaths than births, if immigration is large enough.
| China, 2023 | Millions |
|---|---|
| Births (input) | 9.02 |
| Deaths (output) | 11.1 |
| Natural change | −2.08 |
| Change in population | −2.08 |
Which migration?: If a country's growth rate is LOWER than its natural increase rate, the answer is emigration (people leaving). Writing only 'immigration' is wrong there.
Real example: China, 2023: almost no migration, so the whole fall of 2.08 million was natural: deaths outnumbered births.
Some countries are shrinking. Every reason comes back to an output going up, or an input going down.
Why a population can fall
- More emigration: people flee war or disasters, or leave because there are few jobs.
- More deaths: war, disasters, disease, or an ageing population.
- Fewer births: women educated and in work, easy access to contraception.
- Good healthcare means parents expect children to survive, so they have fewer.
- Anti-natalist policies, which push families to have fewer children.
Outputs go up
- Emigration: war, disasters, few jobs
- Deaths: war, disease, an old population
Inputs go down
- Fewer births: education, careers, contraception
- Few immigrants arrive
Real example: Ukraine lost people in three ways at once after 2022: refugees left, the war killed many, and births fell sharply.
Remember it as: Leave, die, or never born: the three ways a population falls.
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How this comes up: Identify or suggest why a growth rate differs from the natural increase rate [1]; read which places lost people from a chart [1]; outline factors that reduce a population [2]; calculate a crude death rate [1].
Ukraine's population fell sharply in 2022, the year Russia's full-scale invasion began.
Suggest two reasons why Ukraine's population fell in 2022.
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