Practice question · Select all that apply
Spain’s fertility has been below replacement since the early 1980s, and its population is nonetheless larger now than it was then. Which mechanisms explain why that is possible?
Hints
- Three of these are real components of population change; one confuses a rate with a count.
- Ask which of the four terms of the balancing equation each option touches.
Show the answer
- B. Population momentum, since many women were already of childbearing age when fertility fell
- C. Net immigration, which has exceeded natural decrease in most years since 2000
- D. Rising life expectancy, which reduces deaths at every age
Why
Momentum, migration and falling mortality all add to the total while fertility subtracts from it. The first option is the error the lesson is built around: a TFR below replacement means a cohort does not replace itself, and it says nothing on its own about whether the total population rises or falls this year.
Practise Population: Structure and Dynamics
The app has 5 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. Sociology I is free to start.
More questions on Population: Structure and Dynamics
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