Final answer:
The population growth rate is determined by subtracting the Crude Death Rate (CDR) from the Crude Birth Rate (CBR), which measures the number of births and deaths per 1,000 people, respectively. The difference indicates whether the population is growing or shrinking, and this value can be converted into a percentage to represent the annual growth rate.
Step-by-step explanation:
The population growth rate is the percentage by which a population grows in a year. To calculate this rate, one must subtract the Crude Death Rate (CDR) from the Crude Birth Rate (CBR). The CBR is defined as the total number of live births in a year for every 1,000 people alive in the society, while CDR is the number of deaths per year per 1,000 people. The difference between these two rates, if positive, indicates that the population is growing, and if negative, it signifies that the population is shrinking.
For example, if a country has a CBR of 35 per 1,000 people per year and a CDR of 15 per 1,000 people per year, the population grows by 20 per 1,000 people (35 - 15 = 20) each year. To express this growth as a percentage, one would convert the per 1,000 figure into a percentage by simply dividing by 10, resulting in a 2% annual population growth rate.