Question

Find the absolute change and the relative change in the following cases.The number of refugees in the world increased from 8.7 million in 2005 to 16.1 million in 2015.

Answer 1

absolute change is determined by the absolute value of the subtraction of the number of refugees in both years:

absolute change = | 16.1 million - 8.7 million | = 7.4 million

Relative change is given by the quotient between final value and initial value, just as follow:

relative change = final value / initial value

= 16.1 million / 8.7 million

= 1.85

Hence, the absolute change is 7.4 million and relative change is of 1.85