IB MYP Individuals and Societies – Demographics and Human Movements Revision Notes

These are condensed notes for the final weeks. For full explanations and worked examples, read the demographics and human movements study guide first.

The notes are for IB MYP Individuals and Societies and follow the International Baccalaureate Organization, Middle Years Programme Subject Brief – Individuals and societies, from 2014. They cover demographics and human movements, a topic the brief lists for the individuals and societies on-screen examinations, and suit MYP years 4 and 5. There is no SL/HL split in MYP, and the notes are written for the on-screen examinations at the end of MYP year 5. MYP has no prescribed content list – schools design their own units – so check the depth of your own unit with your teacher, who will share the task-specific clarifications.

Course links: MYP Individuals and Societies hub · printable checklist · practice questions for this unit · how MYP Individuals and Societies is assessed · criteria in practice revision notes · related unit: settlement and urban morphology.

Where this sits in the course

• The brief lists “demographics and human movements” first among the on-screen examination topics.
• On-screen tasks: Investigating 26 marks (A and B), Communicating 18 marks (A and C), Thinking critically 36 marks (A, C and D).
• Useful concepts from the brief: key concepts change, global interactions, time, place and space, systems; related concept examples causality, globalization, culture, sustainability.
• Global contexts that fit: orientation in space and time, globalization and sustainability, fairness and development.

Formulas

Measure	Formula	Unit
Crude birth rate	births ÷ population × 1,000	per 1,000 per year
Crude death rate	deaths ÷ population × 1,000	per 1,000 per year
Natural increase rate	(CBR − CDR) ÷ 10	% per year
Net migration	immigrants − emigrants	people
Population change	births − deaths + immigrants − emigrants	people
Infant mortality rate	deaths under age 1 ÷ live births × 1,000	per 1,000 live births
Dependency ratio	(0–14 + 65+) ÷ (15–64) × 100	dependants per 100 of working age
Doubling time	70 ÷ NIR (%)	years (estimate)

Replacement level fertility is about 2.1 children per woman. Total fertility rate is the average number of children per woman over her lifetime. Life expectancy is the average years a newborn can expect to live.

Method in steps: describing a population pyramid

1. Shape – wide base / column / narrow base. Link to birth and death rates.
2. Base – size of the 0–4 and 5–9 bars; is it getting narrower?
3. Top – proportion aged 65+; more women than men is normal.
4. Irregularities – name the age band: notch (war, famine, epidemic, low births), bulge (baby boom, immigration), sex imbalance (labour migration).
5. Figures – quote at least two values from the axis, with units (% or thousands).

Small reminder: a notch at ages 30–34 in a pyramid drawn in 2020 points to low births or losses around 1986–1990.

Pyramid shapes

Shape	Birth and death rates	DTM stage
Wide base, concave sides, narrow top	Both high; short life expectancy	1–2
Base narrowing, wider middle	Births falling, more surviving to middle age	3
Straight sides, column-like	Both low; many older people	4
Base narrower than the middle	Births below replacement; ageing	5

Method in steps: placing a country on the DTM

1. Calculate NIR = (CBR − CDR) ÷ 10.
2. Compare the two rates: both high → stage 1; high CBR, falling CDR → 2; falling CBR, low CDR → 3; both low → 4; CBR below CDR → 5.
3. Check the pyramid shape agrees.
4. Give one reason for each rate (medicine, sanitation, family planning, education of women, cost of children).

The five DTM stages in one line each

• 1 High stationary: high births, high fluctuating deaths, little growth.
• 2 Early expanding: high births, deaths fall fast (clean water, vaccination), rapid growth.
• 3 Late expanding: births fall (contraception, urban living, women’s education), growth slows.
• 4 Low stationary: both low; stable, older population.
• 5 Declining: births below deaths; population falls unless immigration makes up the gap.

Limitations: based on Europe; ignores migration; no timescale; ignores policy (for example China’s one-child policy from 1980 to 2016) and disease.

Migration terms

• Migration: a change of usual home across a boundary for a significant time.
• Emigrant leaves; immigrant arrives.
• Internal (within a country) vs international (across a border).
• Voluntary vs forced; temporary/seasonal vs permanent.
• Refugee: fled their country with a well-founded fear of persecution (1951 UN Refugee Convention).
• Asylum seeker: has asked for refugee protection; decision not yet made.
• Internally displaced person: forced from home, still inside their own country.
• Economic migrant: moves mainly for work or income.
• Remittances: money migrants send home. Brain drain: loss of skilled workers from the origin.

Push, pull and Lee’s model

	Push (from origin)	Pull (to destination)
Economic	Unemployment, low wages	Jobs, higher wages
Social	Poor schools and health care	Family already there, better services
Political	Conflict, persecution	Safety, freedom
Environmental	Drought, flooding, land degradation	Better climate, fertile land

Lee (1966): origin factors + destination factors + intervening obstacles (distance, cost, borders, language) + personal factors (age, skills, family).

Examples you can use

• Forced migration: the Partition of India in 1947, when millions crossed the new borders.
• International, voluntary: emigration from Ireland after the Great Famine of 1845–1852; post-war migration from the Caribbean to Britain, often studied through the arrival of the Empire Windrush in 1948.
• Internal: the Great Migration of African Americans from the rural US South to northern cities in the 20th century.
• Labour migration on a pyramid: some Gulf states, such as Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, have far more men than women of working age.
• Population policy: China’s one-child policy (1980 to 2016).

Must-know distinctions

• NIR vs growth rate: NIR is births minus deaths only; the growth rate includes migration.
• Refugee vs asylum seeker vs IDP: status decided / status pending / never crossed a border.
• Crude birth rate vs total fertility rate: births per 1,000 people vs children per woman.
• Stage 4 vs stage 5: stable population vs natural decrease.
• Describe vs explain: describe says what the data show with figures; explain gives reasons.

Impacts to balance

• Origin: + remittances, returning skills; − brain drain, ageing, separated families.
• Destination: + labour, taxes, younger workforce, diversity; − pressure on housing and services in some areas, political tension.
• Migrants: + income, safety; − discrimination, separation, risky journeys.

Quick self-test

1. A country of 5,000,000 people has 60,000 births in a year. Calculate the crude birth rate.
2. CBR = 32, CDR = 8. Calculate the NIR and estimate the doubling time.
3. Births 40,000; deaths 35,000; immigrants 12,000; emigrants 20,000. Calculate the population change.
4. 18% of a population are aged 0–14, 62% are 15–64 and 20% are 65+. Calculate the dependency ratio to 1 d.p.
5. 540 babies died before their first birthday out of 36,000 live births. Calculate the infant mortality rate.
6. State the DTM stage where the birth rate falls quickly but the death rate is already low.
7. Give two causes of a notch in a population pyramid.
8. Distinguish a refugee from an internally displaced person.
9. Name the two ideas Lee added to push and pull factors.
10. Give one limitation of the DTM.
11. A country’s NIR is 0.4% but its population grew by 0.9% last year. Suggest why.

Answers

1. 60,000 ÷ 5,000,000 × 1,000 = 12 per 1,000.
2. NIR = (32 − 8) ÷ 10 = 2.4%; doubling time ≈ 70 ÷ 2.4 ≈ 29 years.
3. 40,000 − 35,000 + 12,000 − 20,000 = −3,000 (the population falls).
4. (18 + 20) ÷ 62 × 100 = 61.3.
5. 540 ÷ 36,000 × 1,000 = 15 per 1,000 live births.
6. Stage 3 (late expanding).
7. Any two: war, famine, epidemic, a period of low births, emigration of that age group.
8. A refugee has crossed an international border; an internally displaced person is still inside their own country.
9. Intervening obstacles and personal factors.
10. Any one: based on European experience; ignores migration; gives no timescale; ignores government policy or disease.
11. Net migration was positive: more immigrants than emigrants added about 0.5% on top of natural increase.

Where marks are usually lost

• Writing an NIR of 9% when CBR − CDR = 9 per 1,000. The answer is 0.9%.
• Leaving out units: “per 1,000”, “%” or “people”.
• Describing a pyramid shape without quoting any values from the axes.
• Explaining a trend before describing it, when the question asked you to describe first.
• Using “refugee” and “migrant” as if they mean the same thing.
• Listing push and pull factors that are not in the source or not relevant to the named place.
• One-sided “to what extent” answers with no counter-argument or no final judgement.
• Judging a source only by its content, without its origin or purpose.
• Forgetting that the dependency ratio divides by the 15–64 group, not the whole population.

Official syllabus

These notes are aligned to the International Baccalaureate Organization, Middle Years Programme Subject Brief – Individuals and societies, from 2014. The brief lists “demographics and human movements” among the topics explored in the individuals and societies on-screen examinations. The full MYP individuals and societies guide is available to schools through the IB.