What is the relationship between healthcare and population age structure?
In this A-level worksheet, students explore the relationship between medical care and population age structure using population graphs for the UK and Afghanistan.
They describe graphs of population age structure from 1950 and 2022 and explain how changes in healthcare provision and general standard of living could explain the changes over time, taking into account factors such as lower infant mortality rates, increased life expectancy, better availability of contraception and lower birth rates.
They also consider the connection between healthcare provision and a country's level of development, deciding where to place Afghanistan on the demographic transition model.
Suggested answers are provided.
One of the questions and model answers:
2a. Explain how changes in healthcare and society account for the decline in the percentage of people under the age of 10 in the population of the UK between 1950 and 2022.
Better medical care and standards of living in 2022 result in a lower infant mortality rate, so families have fewer children.
Better availability of contraception and family planning by 2022 results in lower birth rates.
Better career opportunities for women mean that women delay pregnancies until a later age or forgo having children in favour of a career.
