Demography

Question 1

What are the factors affecting population size?

Answer 1

Factors causing population increase:

• Births
• Immigration

Factors causing population decrease:

Deaths
Emigration

Question 2

Birth rate numbers

Answer 2

Long term decline in number of births since 1900
28.7 in 1900 11.4 in 2021
Baby booms

Question 3

What is the total fertility rate?

Answer 3

Proportion of women of childbearing age and how fertile they are.
TRF = average number of children women will have during their fertile years (15-44)
Risen in recent years from 1.63 in 2001 but is now almost as low again 1.65 (2019)

Peak = 2.95 in 1964

More women are remaining childless. Postponing having children. (Average age of mothers at child birth = 31 years old 2021)

Question 4

What are the reasons for a decline in birth rate?

Answer 4

1. Change in women’s position
2. Decline in the infant mortality rate
3. Children are now an economic liability
4. Child centredness
5. Growing individualisation

Question 5

How has changes in women’s position led to a decline in the birth rate?

Answer 5

• Legal rights
• Education (women do better than men at school)
• More women in paid employment with equal rights.
• Easier access to divorce
• Birth control and Abortion
• Changes in attitude

Harper (2012) - Education is the most important reason for the long term fall in birth and fertility rates. There has been a change in mindset - leading to fewer children. Educated women are more likely to use family planning and see other possibilities. Many delay childbearing to pursue a career. 1 in 5 women aged 45 was childless. This has doubled 25 years later. Cultural norms about family are changing.

Question 6

How has the decline in the infant mortality rate led to a decline in the birth rate?

Answer 6

IMR = the number of infants who die before their first birthday per thousand babies born alive, per year.

Harder - fall in IMR leads to fall in birth rate.

1900 IMR in the UK was 165. In 2021 = 3.5 per 1000

During the first half of the 20th century the UK IMR began to fall. There were several contributing factors:

• Improved housing
• Better nutrition
• Better health care
• Better knowledge of hygiene
• Fall in number of married women working
• Improved services, antenatal and postnatal
• Pre mid 20th century medical factors probably had little effect on IMR.
  From 1950s things such as mass immunisation, use of antibiotics and improved midwifery contributed to continuing fall in IMR.

Brass and Kabir (1978) - the trend to smaller families began not in rural areas, where the IMR originally began to fall, but in urban areas, where the IMR remained higher for longer.

Question 7

How does children being an economic liability lead to a decline in the birth rate?

Answer 7

Until the 19th century children were an economic asset. Laws banning child labour and implementing compulsory schooling and raising school leaving age - children are dependent on parents for longer. Changing norms - what do children have the right to expect? Parents therefore feel less able or willing to have a large family.

To raise a child to 18 costs more than £160,000 and more than £190,000 for lone parents in 2021 in the UK.

Question 8

How does child centredness lead to a decline in the birth rate?

Answer 8

Childhood is now socially constructed as a uniquely important period in the individuals life. Encouraged a shift from ‘quantity’ to ‘quality’.

Question 9

How does individualisation lead to a decline in birth rate?

Answer 9

Now, people enjoy more individualisation than ever before. People, especially women, are less ready to start childbearing when they now how it’ll impact their everyday lives. People are less likely and ready to give that up in the early stages of their life.

Question 10

What are the future trends in birth rates?

Answer 10

Overall birth rates, fertility rates and family sizes have fallen in the last century. There was a slight increase in births in 2021 but since 2010 there has been a slow decrease. Immigration could be one reason for this - these mothers tend to have a higher fertility rate.

Question 11

What effects on daily life have changed fertility?

Answer 11

• The family
• The dependency ratio
• Public services and policies

Question 12

How has the family changed fertility?

Answer 12

Smaller families mean women are more likely to be free to go to to work, creating the dual earner couple. But family size is only one factor e.g. better off couples may be able to have larger families and still afford childcare which allows them both to work.

Question 13

How has the dependency ratio changed fertility?

Answer 13

Dependency ratio = relationship between working (independent) and non-working (dependent) parts of the population. Less children = “reduces the burden of dependency” but in the long term there will be smaller working population and the burden of dependency may begin to increase again. Childhood may become lonelier, more childless adults might mean less voices speaking up for them or childhood might become more valued.

Question 14

How has public services and policies changed fertility?

Answer 14

Fewer schools, child health and maternity services needed. Affects to maternity and paternity leave and the types of homes built but means of these are political decisions - e.g. instead of reducing the number of schools the government could decide to have smaller classes.

Ageing population - became women are having fewer babies the average age of the population is rising. This will have an effect on the type of services needed.

Question 15

What is the death rate?

Answer 15

The death rate is the number of deaths per thousand of the population per year. In 1900, the death rate stood at 19, whereas by 2017 it was 9.1.

The death rate had already begun falling from about 1870 and continued to do so until 1930. It rose slightly during the 1930s and 1940s - the period of the great economic depression, followed by WWII - but since the 1950s it has declined slightly.

Question 16

What are the reasons for the decline in death rate?

Answer 16

According to Tranter (1996) over three quarters of the decline in the death rate from about 1850 to 1970 was due to a fall in the number of deaths from infectious diseases such as measles, smallpox, typhoid and above all tuberculosis (TB). Deaths from infectious disease were commonest in the young and most of the decline in the death rate occurred among infants, children and young adults.

By the 1950s, so called ‘diseases of affluence’ (wealth) such as heart disease and cancers had replaced infectious diseases as the main cause of death. There are several possible reasons for the decline in deaths from infection. It is possible that the population began to develop some natural resistance or that some diseases became less virulent. However, social factors probably had a much greater impact on infectious diseases. These include the following:

• improved nutrition
• medical improvements
• smoking and diet
• public health measures
• other social changes

Question 17

How has improved nutrition led to a decline in the death rate?

Answer 17

Thomas McKeown (1972) argues that improved nutrition accounted for up to half the reduction in death rates, and was particularly important in reducing the number of deaths from TB. Better nutrition increased resistance to infection and increased the survival chances of those who did become infected.

McKeown does not explain why females, who received a smaller share of the family food supply, lived longer than males. Similarly he fails to explain why deaths from some infectious diseases such as measles and infant diarrhoea, actually rose at a time of improving nutrition.

Question 18

How have medical improvements led to a decline in death rates?

Answer 18

Before the 1950s, despite some important innovations, medical improvements played almost no part in the reduction of deaths from infectious disease.

However, after the 1950s, improved medical knowledge, techniques and organisation did help to reduce death rates. Advances included the introduction of antibiotics, immunisation, blood transfusion, improved maternity services, as well as the setting up of the National Health Service in 1948. More recently, improved medication, bypass surgery and other developments have reduced deaths from heart disease by one - third.

Question 19

How has smoking and diet led to a decrease in death rate?

Answer 19

According to Harper, the greater fall in death rates in recent decades has come from a reduction in the number of propel smoking. However, in the 21st century, obesity has replaced smoking as the new lifestyle epidemic. For example, in 2019, 28% of adults were obese.

Yet, death from obesity has been kept low as a result of drug therapies. Harper suggests that we may be moving to an ‘American’ health culture where lifestyles are unhealthy but where a long lifespan is achieved by use of costly medication.

Question 20

How does public health measures lead to a decline in death rate?

Answer 20

In the 20th century, more effective central and local government with the necessary power to pass and enforce laws led to a range of improvements in public health and the quality of the environment. These included improvements in housing (producing drier, better ventilated, less overcrowded accommodation), purer drinking water, laws to combat the adulteration of food and drink, the pasteurisation of milk, and improved sewage disposal methods. Similarly, the Clean Air Acts reduced air pollution, such as the smog that led to 4000 deaths in five days in 1952.

Question 21

What are the other social changes that have led to a decline in death rates?

Answer 21

• The decline of dangerous manual occupations such as mining.
• Smaller families reduce the rate of transmission of infection
• Greater public knowledge of the causes of illness
• Lifestyle changes, especially the reduction in the number of men who smoke
• Higher incomes, allowing for a healthier lifestyle.

Question 22

What is life expectancy?

Answer 22

Males born in England in 1900 could expect on average to live what until they were 50 (57 for females).

Males born in England in 2019 can expect to live for 79.4 years (83.1 for females)

Over the past two centuries, life expectancy has increased by about two years per decade.

One reason for lower average life expectancy in 1900 was the fact that so many infants and children did not survive beyond the early years of life. To put the improvement in life expectancy into perspective, we can note that a newborn baby today has a better chance of reaching its 65 birthday than a baby born in 1900 had of reaching its first birthday.