Rate of natural increase

Rate of natural increase is a way of measuring how fast a population is growing. Just like when you water a plant, it grows bigger and bigger over time, a population of living things, like people or animals, can also grow bigger and bigger if they keep having babies and if nothing else changes.

To figure out the rate of natural increase, we look at two main things. The first thing we need to know is how many babies are being born in a certain place over a certain amount of time. Like, how many babies are being born in a town in a year. This gives us an idea of how fast the population is growing because each new baby adds to the total number of people who live in that town.

The second thing we need to know is how many living things are dying in that same place over that same amount of time. For example, how many people in that town are passing away every year. This helps us understand if the population is shrinking or staying the same, which would make the rate of natural increase slower.

If there are more babies being born than there are deaths, then the population will grow faster and the rate of natural increase will be higher. It’s like if you put more water in a plant pot than you soak out with a sponge, the plant will grow faster. But if there are more deaths than babies being born, then the population will shrink and the rate of natural increase will be lower. It’s like if you take more water out of the plant pot than you put in, the plant won't grow as fast, or might even start to wither away.

So, to make it simple, when we talk about the rate of natural increase we are looking at how much a population of living things, like people or animals, is growing or decreasing over a certain amount of time. It tells us how fast they are adding or losing numbers, kind of like a scorecard for populations.