Tarun Singh

Worked with: Paris Salgado

Societies of the World 24 – Problem Set 1

Problem 1

a. Life expectancy at birth is the average number of years a newborn baby could expect

to live if current mortality trends were to continue for the rest of the newborn’s life.

b. Age-specific mortality rates would be useful to the Ministry of Health as it would

allow them to compare mortality at different ages, it would also be useful in comparing

mortality in the same age group over time and between countries and areas.

c. An advantage of using life expectancy at birth to describe the health of a population is

that it is a good overall indicator of the impact of health conditions on a country’s

population. A disadvantage is that it provides no information as to what parts of the

population are being impacted and due to what specific conditions.

d. Assuming that changes in average life expectancy tell us about changes in the entire

population it still may be misleading when assessing the overall health of a population as

it reveals little about the quality of life of individuals. Individuals may have high life

expectancies due to advanced medicine’s ability to deal with disabilities but their quality

of life is not as high as a healthy individual of the same age.

Problem 2

Neonatal mortality rate – The number of deaths to infants under 28 days of age in a given

year (numerator) per 1000 live births in that year (denominator).

Infant mortality rate – The number of deaths of infants under age 1 (numerator) per 1000

live births in a give year (denominator).

Under five mortality rate – The number of newborns that will die before reaching the age

of five (numerator) per 1000 live births (denominator).

Problem 3

I would choose Option C. Option C is the only combination that allows you to not only

monitor the health status of children but also gives a more concrete measure of the health

status of the population as it ages. Options A and B only look at individuals up to the age

of five and Option D provides two metrics which are identical. Further, knowing life

expectancy at birth, neonatal mortality and adult mortality would allow us to impute the

mortality for children, especially as we monitor the health indicators over time.

Problem 4

a. Country B has the highest life expectancy at birth since more of its infants survive

compared with the other countries. So although adults may have similar mortality rates

fewer infants ever get to experience adulthood in Countries B and C thereby lowering the

life expectancy at birth in those countries. This is because life expectancy at birth is how

long the average newborn is expected to live and this average is brought down if infant

mortality is higher in a country.

b. When comparing countries it is more useful to look at the infant mortality rate per

1000 live births rather than the number of infant deaths because the number of infant

deaths is directly related to how large the country is where as infant mortality rate per

1000 live births standardizes the measure making the comparison of countries of different

sizes easier.

c. If neonatal mortality is higher than child mortality it shows us that once a child lives

past 28 days its chances of survival increase. This higher neonatal mortality can be the

result of a lack of pre-natal care and a lack of resources such as obstetricians.

Problem 5

a. False – Total fertility is actually the number of children born alive to a woman during

her lifetime.

b. False – A decline in a country’s total fertility may not result in and immediate decline

in population growth as the decline can be counteracted by other factor such as increased

immigration to the country.

Problem 6

a. The program was characterized by the development of young, married women as

outreach workers, and provisioning of a wide range of possible methods to meet a range

of reproductive needs. The program also established family planning clinics in rural areas

to provide clinical contraceptive services and provisioned information, education and

communication activities.

b. Researchers had found that although women were in favor of family

planning, men’s attitudes were resulting in lower use of family

planning methods. Thus, Social marketing using mass media outlets

like minidramas for radio, television and movies and mobile vans were

designed to appeal to male audiences. The program also made

outreach workers more accepted through the use of a soap opera.

Problem 7

a. i. For male Afghanistan and Sierra Leone have the lowest life

expectancies at birth (41 and 39 respectively). For female

Afghanistan and Sierra Leone also have the lowest life expectances

at birth (42 and 43 respectively).

 ii. HALE is always a lower number than life expectancy because it

counts a year of being unhealthy as less than a year of healthy life.

iii. For males the difference between LE and HALE is largest for Chile

and the United States, and for females the difference between LE

and HALE is largest for Bangladesh, Chile, Norway and the United
Male Female
1990 2000 2007 1990 2000 2007
Afghanistan 41 40 41 42 42 42
Bangladesh 54 61 63 54 62 64
Chile 69 74 75 76 80 81
Norway 73 76 78 80 81 83
Sierra Leone 36 34 39 40 42 43
United States of
America 72 74 76 79 80 81
Zimbabwe 57 43 45 63 46 44
States. The pattern is not too surprising since it is the countries

where LE is higher (aside from Bangladesh) that individuals are living

longer with diseases due to better care thus making the difference

between LE and HALE greater.

iv. The difference between LE and HALE is greater for females in

these countries. This may be due to the fact that females live longer

and the longer you live the more health conditions you develop, so

although the females are living longer they are not in full health.

b. i. Bangladesh and Sierra Leone had the greatest positive change in

life expectancy at birth between 2000 and 2007.

ii. No country had negative change in life expectancy at birth

between 2000 and 2007 across genders, but Zimbabwe had a

 negative growth in life expectancy at birth for females during that

period.

iii. The gender differences in the changes in life expectancy

between 2000 and 2007 are most prominent in Sierra Leone and

Zimbabwe. In Sierra Leone male life expectancy increased by 5

years and 1 year for females and in Zimbabwe male life

expectancy increased by 2 years and declined by 2 years for

females.

iv. Afghanistan had almost no change in life expectancy at birth –

life expectancy overall only increased by 1 year, for males the

increase was 1 year, yet there was no increase for females.

Problem 8

a. Ethiopia has the highest fertility rate.

b. Italy has the highest proportion of older individuals.

c. Demographic transition is the shift from high fertility and high

mortality to low fertility and low mortality.

d. The other two main factors influencing the population structure are

mortality rates and immigration/emigration.