Birth rate and death rate are two of the most important parameters for the calculation of population growth. Population growth is measured by the difference between birth and death rate.

Birth and Death Rates Important

Birth Rate and Death Rate

The birth rate is the number of people born in a population during a particular period. The human birth rate is expressed as the number of births per 1000 population per year. The Crude Birth rate is calculated as:

Crude Birth Rate (CBR) = (Annual births/ Annual mean population) × 1000

Death rate or Mortality rate is a measure of the number of deaths (generally or due to a particular cause) in a particular population, scaled to the size of that population per unit of time. The rate is usually expressed as 1,000 people. For example, a crude mortality rate of 9.5 (per 1,000) in a population of 1 million means 9,500 deaths per year in the total population. The Crude Death rate is calculated as:

Crude Death Rate (CDR) = (Annual deaths/ Annual mean population) × 1000

Significance of Birth rate and death rate in the population

Both Birth rate and Death rate are highly significant to the population growth. Consider a situation where the birth rate is regularly decreasing and the death rate is steadily increasing then in this situation the population size will decrease. And population size increases when the birth rate is higher than the death rate.

Significance of Birth Rate

The birth rate speaks a lot about community health and is an important indicator of general health science. Governments generally advocate higher fertility rates to maintain the labor tax base required for pensions, health care, and other government benefits for the elderly, but it is the family, not the government who provides most of the costs for raising a child. Therefore, higher fertility rates bring higher costs to the family. 

Significance of Death Rate

The importance of the death rate arises from both the importance of mortality in human life and the potential to improve public health when used to systematically assess and monitor the health of the entire community. 

In most developed countries, mortality data is the only complete medically relevant statistic that describes the health and illness of the population. Mortality data reflects the exact opposite of population health, but mortality at a particular age and gender is an important indicator of population health and even the social system. For the effectiveness of the medical services subsystem.

Related Links

1. The rate of population growth in India declining since 1981
2. Major Components of Population Growth

Frequently Asked Questions

Q 1. Why is it important to know about the birth as well as death rates?

Answer-

It is important to know about the birth as well as death rates as it provides an important insight into whether the population is increasing or is it decreasing.

Q 2. What is the importance of the birth rate?

Answer-

The importance of the birth rate is many. If the proportion of the younger population is more, the faster is the population grows as the rate of birth is higher and death rate is lower.

Q 3. What is the birth rate in India?

Answer-

According to 2023, the birth rate in India is 16.9 births per 1000 people.