A STATISTICAL EVALUATION ON BIRTH AND DEATH RATES AND ITS IMPACT ON NIGERIA’S ECONOMY. (A CASE STUDY OF OSUN STATE)

Background of the study: Economic development and progress in Nigeria are unavoidable for a better and more successful way of life. Many predictors or variables must be investigated in order to have a full understanding of the nation's socioeconomic progress (Edward, Ansari, Ameen, and Matthew Christenson. 2017). Despite its façade, Nigeria's economic progress has been uneven throughout time. The birth and mortality rates are two critical aspects that can impact the socioeconomic growth of any nation, including Nigeria. The performance of every nation's economy is heavily dependent on these two elements. Increased or decreased birth or mortality rates have ramifications for a country's socioeconomic progress. According to Onifade, & Oyewumi (2015), countries that aspire to be prosperous must not make light of the study of birth and death rates in relation to their economy. 

According to the World Bank, the birth rate in Nigeria was 41.24 in 2013. The crude birth rate is the number of live births that occur during the year per 1,000 people calculated at midyear or quarterly. When the death rate is subtracted from the birth rate, the rate of natural growth is equal to the rate of population change in the absence of migration. The birth rate (officially, births/population rate) is defined by Edgar (2018) as the total number of live births per 1,000 people in a given year. A population's birth rate may be measured in numerous ways: live births from a universal registration system for births, deaths, and marriages; population counts from a census; and estimates using specialist demographic techniques. The birth rate is used to determine population and economic growth, together with death and migration rates. The average worldwide birth rate in 2012 was 19.15 births per 1,000 total people, down from 20.09 births per 1,000 total populations in 2007. The global raw birth rate is 4.3 births per second (2014 EST.).

On the other hand, The death rate is defined as the ratio of total deaths to total population in a certain community or area over a given time period. The death rate is sometimes represented as the number of deaths per 1,000 people each year. It may alternatively be defined as a measure of the number of fatalities (generally or owing to a specific cause) in a given population, scaled to the population's size, per unit of time. A mortality rate of 9.5 (out of 1,000) in a population of 1,000 would represent 9.5 deaths per year, or 0.95% of the total population. It differs from the so-called "morbidity rate" (a broad word that can refer to either the prevalence or incidence of a disease), as well as the incidence rate (the number of newly appearing cases of the disease per unit of time). Essentially, we may define birth rate as a figure that reflects how many individuals died in a certain location or time period, or the number of deaths from a specific cause in a specific area over a specified time period.