Comparison of Nairobi Slums, Nairobi City and Kenya population figures

Tom Gilchrist Nairobi Cross Sectional Slum Survey 27th September

Comparison of Nairobi Slums, Nairobi City and Kenya population figures

I will apologise ahead of time for not giving quantitative relationships within the population pyramids; this is because the scale on the x-axis gives no reference to exactly what the numbers stand for in terms of hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands, etc – so I would feel that I would not be accurately representing the true situation if I merely used the random figures given.

The population pyramid that depicts singularly the populace figures for the Nairobi slums in 2000 shows there to be consistently more younger females than younger males; which the majority of 0 – 25 year olds being female. It is only after 25 years of age that the population density balances out briefly, before favouring the male portion; this trend continues till 80+ at which point the women once again become dominant. The bulk of the inhabitants would appear to fit into two age categories of roughly equal proportions; 0 – 4 and 20 –24 being the densest for any age category. The number of 5 – 19 year olds is fairly constant for both males and females and, indeed, overall when looking at both males and females across that age group. There appears to be a very small proportion of the population over the age of 50 – 54, suggesting that the life expectancy of those living in slums is not much above this; indeed – it could be said that the life expectancy is around 40 – 44 for males and females, as this is the age where the population peters out. There is evidence of a small fraction of the population living into their later years beyond 60 however. It should also be noted that the overall structure of the slum population can only be described as erratic and, apart from the general trends described above, there is no distinct pattern as observed in the following two pyramids.

This is a preview of the whole essay

The population pyramid that shows purely the general population figures for Nairobi city as a whole in 1999 (including the slums) shows there to be the massively consistent trend of the bulk of the population being between the ages of 0-14, giving the pyramid a wide base. There is a more equal distribution throughout this pyramid of males to females, suggesting that there are a significant number of males who do not live in the slums, and therefore can account for this new balance (or that there are noticeably less females who live outside of the slum areas.) There are many more younger people in Nairobi City than older; with more than half the population being under the age of 35 – 39; however, the life expectancy seems to be higher in the city overall than in the slums, as would be expected – with males and females living on average to 60 – 64. There are a couple of slight discrepancies in the female population, in the age categories of 30 – 34 and 45 – 49; the population dips out of the general pattern and is slightly less than would have been expected – there could simply have been less women born in this generation. Or, as a possibility, some of these women could have died in childbirth – this would explain the appreciably large number of 10 – 14 year olds in Nairobi City, 15 years ago the women in the discrepancy categories would have been childbearing – and possible medical complications could account for the ‘loss of women.’ Birth control could also account for the drop in population/live births over the past 9 years as is shown by the decreasing population in categories 0 – 4 and 5 – 9.

The population pyramid that shows the population figures for Kenya in its entirety as a country in 1999 (this is rural/urban inclusive) shows a much more progressively linear pattern. There is a huge base of children aged between 0 –19 and then continual decreases in population density as we increase in age categories up the pyramid structure. It stands to reason that as one population category increases, there will be more females who can bear children in that generation who will, in turn, produce more babies than there were in their generation or those before them. This new generation will be larger than any that have gone before, and will have more fertile females who again in turn bear children; this gives continual exponential population increase as can be seen in the pyramid. There is a fairly equal distribution of males and females in each population age category, with neither sex being conspicuously more populous than the other. Life expectancy is high, again, and is comparable nationally to that of Nairobi city – and stands at around 65 – 69. There are again two discrepancies in the population diagram; one at 5 – 9 and one at 75 – 79 but both occur in the male and female sexes. This suggest that there could have been a famine around 75 – 79 years ago, causing a drop in the population of young children then, which has continued in that generation throughout the population pyramid to where they are now at 75 – 79. The drop in population at 5 –9 could indicate famine in that time period, pollutants in the drinking water causing still births, or simply effective birth control – it is impossible to be certain without conducting further studies.