ARTICLE 1
QUESTION 1
The population diagrams show the prediction that the population of Barbados will increase by a small percentage. In this case, it is seen that the age structure is more likely to experience a higher level of change.
It is clearly shown that from the years 2000-2025, the birth rate drops, while more people live to be older – people living in the year 2025 have longer life span than the people living in the year 2000. This basically goes to show that there will be more of the elderly than the infants in the year 2025.
Many things alter when societies modernize, but it is not clear as to which factors are the direct cause of the declining birth rates, or the increasing life spans. There have been no shortage of reasons proposed, but unfortunately, only a handful is convincing enough to be accepted by the norm (Foster & Shrira 2009).
Decreasing birth rates could very well be associated with the idea that children can be financial burdens to their parents as the cost of raising a child exceeds what the child could ever contribute, even in past societies. A more reasonable possibility, however, is that parents have begun to limit the size of their family so that more resources can be allocated to each child (Foster & Shrira 2009).
This again brings the reasoning back to the ever-increasing costs of raising children. For example, decent education is now perceived to be an important component of a good life, so parents are now more likely to encourage their child to pursue education in prestigious colleges and universities – all which would pretty much add to the cost of raising their child (Foster & Shrira 2009).
The increasing life spans, on the other hand, could be associated with changes in the shape of the survival curve, which can be characterized by the decline in premature mortality (Basheer 2010).
This decline is caused by