1.1 - Population Change Case Study: Nigeria (Paper 1)

Question 1

Explain the causes of population change in Nigeria: (3)

Answer 1

• The age if marriage in some areas can be as low as 13 and 45% of women are married before they turn 18. Therefore they give birth with a fertility rate of 5.32 births per woman. (1)
• In 1990, the infant mortality rate was 125 per 1000 and this number has decreased to 72 per 1000, meaning less babies are dying after 1 year of birth. (1)
• The death rate in 1990 was 19 per 1000 as of now, the death rate has fallen to just 11 per 1000, this means that less people are dying a year. (1)

Question 2

Explain the problems of population change in Nigeria: (3)

Answer 2

• Due to the increasing population, the government is attempting to preserve land for food which leads to 40 million people in northern Nigeria at risk of losing their homes to make way for farming. (1)
• Due to the increasing population, pollution is starting to become a major problem in Nigeria, especially in the financial hub of Lagos where they are 133rd out of nearly 4 million towns and cities in the world. (1)
• The government of Nigeria may not be able to handle this concerning growth in population mainly due to Poor Management and Corruption. Due to mismanagement in the government, around 21.5% of the population of Nigeria’s youth population are unemployed. This causes more poverty due to loss of income. (1)

Question 3

Explain the solutions for population change in Nigeria: (4)

Answer 3

• In 1988, Nigeria adopted a population policy with an ambition to reduce fertility rates. (1)
• It aims to cut fertility rates from 6 to 4 children. This will help reduce the population growth because if less children are being born, the rate of population growth to decrease. (1)
• It aims to restrict reproduction to the age of 18 to 35. If women give birth at a later age, they are likely to reproduce less babies because the fertility rate decreases as you increase in age. (1)

-In the 1980s, the number of child brides in the population was 44%, this means that a lot of girls were getting married as young as 13 years old. In order to tackle this, the government established the minimum age of marriage which is 18 for women and for men it was 24. (1)