World Facts

Today in class we talked about the world and its population.  The world's population today is over seven billion people.  The population is constantly increasing by 77 million per year.  90 percent of the world's population comes from developing countries such as Africa, South Asia, East Asia, and Latin America.  Developing countries are those countries that don't have their health care figured out or a strong government.  The United States is considered a developed country.  The life expectancy is the average number of years that a person or group of people from a certain year in that country will be estimated to live.  Males born in the year 2012 are estimated to live until they are about 76. Women are estimated to live until they are about 81 years old.  The average age between men and women born in 2012 is about the age of 78.  We also talked about the net migration rate.  The net migration rate is the difference of people entering and leaving the country during a year.  In the United States today, the net migration rate is 3.62.  There are 49 other countries that have a higher net migration rate than the United States.  People migrate for various reasons.  Some examples are that they want to leave their country because of civil war, environmental degradation, unemployment, religious or ethnic persecution.  They would go to a different country because that country could have better economic opportunities, religious freedom, and many more.  Another thing we talked about in class was the total fertility rate.  It is the average number of children born per woman.  If the rate is higher that 2.1 it affects the population with an increase, but if it is lower than 2.1 the population will fall.  The United States TFR is under 2.1.