Population Growth

POPULATION GROWTH

Populations increase as people are born or immigrate into a country, and decrease as people die or emigrate. Rates of population growth, usually expressed as a percentage, vary greatly. In the late twentieth century, growth rates in many European nations were extremely low, and in some parts of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union the growth rate was negative—that is, populations were declining in number. On the other hand, in some African and Latin American nations, the growth rate was around 4 percent, which is a doubling time of less than twenty years. The United States, as of the year 2000, had a growth rate of about 1 percent per annum.

JOHN M. LAST

(SEE ALSO: Demography; Doubling Time; Population Density; Population Forecasts; Population Policies; Zero Population Growth)