Rapidly growing countries typically have age structure diagrams with what characteristic?

• A. A higher proportion of older people
• B. A higher proportion of younger people
• C. Equal distribution across ages
• D. No children

Answer: (B)

Age structure diagrams reveal how many people are in each age group, which mirrors birth and death rates over time. In countries experiencing rapid growth, birth rates are high, so there are many children and young people relative to other ages. This creates a diagram that is wide at the bottom and narrows toward the top, indicating a large share of the population is younger. So the best description is a higher proportion of younger people.

The other patterns don’t fit rapid growth: more older people would point to an aging population, roughly equal sizes across ages suggest a stable population with low growth, and having no children would make the base very narrow rather than broad.