Demography topic revision notes. The study of populations and their characteristics is called demography.

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Demography

The study of populations and their characteristics is called demography. These characteristics include:

* Size: is the population large or small, growing or declining?

* Age structure: is the average age of the population rising or falling?

The factors that most directly affect the size of a country's population are:

* Births: how many babies are born.

* Deaths: how many people die.

* Immigration: how many people enter the country from elsewhere.

* Emigration: how many people leave the country to live elsewhere.

Britain in 1801 had a population of 10.5 million. By 1901, this stood at 37 million. By 2007, the population of the UK had reached nearly 61 million and one projection is that it will rise to 71 million by 2031.

Until the 1980s, UK population growth was largely the product of natural change - that is, the result of there being more births than deaths. However, since the 1980s, most of the growth has come from net migration - that is, more immigration than emigration.

Births

The number of births obviously affects population size. Sociologists use the concept of birth rate to measure