Population growth rate
Also called: Average annual growth rate of population · Topic: Measuring Development: Income, HDI and Sustainability · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 8 "Comparative Development Experiences of India and its Neighbours"; Class 11, Ch 2 "Collection of Data"; Class 11, Ch 3 "Organisation of Data"
Meaning
Population growth rate is the percentage change in a country's population in one year. Three things drive it: births, deaths and net migration (people coming in minus people leaving). A fast growth rate means more mouths to feed and more jobs to create every year. A negative rate means the population is shrinking.
Formula: Growth rate (%) = (Population at end of year − Population at start of year) ÷ Population at start of year × 100
Example
The note uses 2021–23 data (WDI 2024). Pakistan's population grew by 1.96% a year, the highest of the three countries. India's growth has slowed to 0.81%, below 1%. China's has turned negative at −0.10%. That is partly a result of its one-child norm, introduced in the late 1970s.
Don't confuse with
- Total Fertility Rate (TFR): this is the average number of children a woman would have in her lifetime. It covers births only. It is not the yearly change in the whole population.
Related concepts
- Population density
- Sex ratio
- Son preference
- Total fertility rate
- Replacement level fertility
- Urbanisation
- Dependency ratio
- Demographic window of opportunity
- Ageing population
- Population pyramid