Show that the same dependency ratio can mean two opposite things
Three steps, the way the exam actually works: work through the lab, write down your own observations, then answer a 7-point free response. What you recorded goes to the grader with your writing, so a conclusion that does not follow from your own evidence will cost you the point — exactly as it would with a real reader.
Predict before you look
- The dependency ratio compares people outside the working ages (under 15 and over 64) to people inside them. Does the ratio alone tell you whether the dependents are children or retirees?
- A population pyramid with a very wide base and one with a very wide top both depart from a rectangle. Would you expect them to place similar or different demands on a society?
Nothing to submit here — these are to think through, so the prediction below is an informed one rather than a guess.
Commit to an answer now. It is not graded and being wrong costs nothing — the point is to have something specific to reconcile against once you have the data.
Answer every prediction to unlock the lab. A sentence is enough.
Run the investigation
Predictions first
The procedure and the simulation unlock once you have committed above. Observing before predicting is how a wrong intuition survives a lab intact.
Record what you found
This is your reading of the source, not ours. The grader sees them, so your conclusions have to follow from what you actually recorded.
| Stage 1 dependency ratio | |
|---|---|
| Stage 2 dependency ratio | |
| Stage 3 dependency ratio | |
| Stage 4 dependency ratio | |
| Stage 5 dependency ratio | |
| How the lab describes the Stage 2 burden | |
| How the lab describes the Stage 5 burden |
Answer the free response
You have recorded the dependency ratio across all five stages of the demographic transition. (a) State whether the dependency ratio falls steadily across the transition, citing the two places in your data where it does not. (b) Stages 1 and 2 carry nearly identical dependency ratios, and Stages 4 and 5 are close to each other as well. Explain, using the pyramid shapes and the lab's own descriptions, why identical ratios do not mean identical situations. (c) Explain what a country in Stage 2 could do with the age structure you observed if it succeeded in employing and educating that cohort, and name the term for the opportunity. (d) Identify which stage a country would most want to be in on this measure alone, and then state one reason the dependency ratio is an incomplete measure of a population's prospects.
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