Demography Flashcards
Define birth rate
Number of live births per thousand of the population per year
What are 2 reasons for the changes in fertility and birth rates?
- More women are remaining childless
- Women are postponing having children
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What are the 4 reasons for the decline in birth rate?
- Changes in women’s position
- Decline in the infant mortality rate
- Children are now an economic liability
- Child centredness
What were some major changes for women during the 20th century?
- Legal equality (right to vote)
- Increased educational opportunities
- More women in paid employment
- Changes in attitudes to family life and women’s role
- Easier access to divorce
- Access to abortion
What did Harper say was the most important reason for the fall in birth and fertility rates?
Education
Define infant mortality rate
The number of infants that die before their first birthday, per thousand babies born alive, per year
What was the main reason for the decline in IMR?
Fall in birth rate, once a pattern of low fertility lasts for more than one generation cultural norms on the family changes
What were some reasons for the fall in IMR?
- Improved housing and sanitation
- Better nutrition
- Better knowledge of hygiene
- Better services for mothers and children
How did children transition from being an economic asset to an economic liability?
- Laws banning child labour and introducing compulsory schooling
- Changing norms
How is child centredness decreasing birth rate?
- Childhood is socially constructed and it has encouraged a shift from ‘quantity’ to ‘quality’
How has the changes in fertility affected the family?
- Smaller families may mean women are more likely to be free to go out to work
What is the dependency ratio?
- The relationship between the size of the working population and the size of the non-working part of the population
- The earnings, savings and taxes of the working population must support the dependent population
What is the ‘vanishing children’?
- Falling fertility rates mean fewer children, childhood becomes a lonelier experience
- Conversely, fewer children could mean they will come to be valued more
How does a lower birth affect the public services?
- Fewer schools and maternity and child health services may be needed
- Affects the costs of maternity and paternity leave and the types of housing however these are political decisions
Define death rate
Number of deaths per thousand, per year
Why did the death rate rise between 1930-1940s?
It was the period of the Great Depression followed by WWII
What were the reasons for the decline in death rate?
- According to Tranter over 3/4 of the decline in death rate between 1850-1970 was because of the fall in the number of deaths from infectious diseases
- ‘Diseases of affluence’ replaced infectious diseases
What were the 4 social factors that had a great impact on the decline of infectious diseases?
- Improved nutrition
- Medical improvements
- Smoking and diet
- Public health measures
Who argued that improved nutrition accounted for up to half of the reduction in death rates?
McKeown
What did McKeown fail to explain?
- Does not explain why females who received a smaller share of the family food supply lived longer than males
- Does not explain why deaths from infectious diseases actually rose at the time of improving nutrition
Before the 1950s did medical improvements play a part in reducing deaths from infectious diseases?
No it played almost no part
What did Harper argue was the reason for the greatest fall in death rates? What came to replace this?
- Reduction of people smoking
- Obesity replaced smoking as the new lifestyle epidemic
What other social changes also played a part in reducing the death rate during the 20th century?
- The decline of dangerous manual occupations
- Smaller families
- Greater public knowledge
- Lifestyle changes
- Higher incomes
What was one reason for lower life expectancy in 1900?
So many infants and children did not survive beyond the early years of life
What did Hirsch say?
The traditional age ‘pyramid’ is disappearing and being replaced by more or less equal-sized ‘blocks’
What are 3 reasons for the ageing population?
- Increasing life expectancy
- Declining infant mortality
- Declining fertility
What are some consequences of an ageing population?
- Public services, increased expenditure on healthcare
- One-person pensioner households
- The dependency ratio, a lot of old people are economically dependent
- Ageism, discrimination
- Modern society and old age, those excluded from production by compulsory retirement have a dependent status and a stigmatised identity
- Postmodernity and old age, fixed orderly stages of the life course has been broken down
What 2 other features of postmodern society also undermine old age as a stigmatised life stage?
- The centrality of media, media images now portray positive aspects of the lifestyles of the elderly
- The emphasis on surface features, the old become a market for a vast range of ‘body maintenance’ and ‘rejuvenation’ through which they can create their identities
What does Hunt argue?
Our age no longer determines who we are or how we live
What does Pilcher argue?
Inequalities such as class and gender remain important
What did Hirsch argue needs to happen to tackle problem of old age?
Policy changes also requires a cultural change in our attitude towards old age, old age is a social construct
What is the difference between immigration, emigration and net migration?
Immigration = movement into a society
Emigration = movement out a society
Net migration = difference between the number of immigrants and emigrants
How is migration impacting UK population size and age structure?
Population size = growing
Age structure = immigration lowers the average age of the population both directly (they are generally younger) and indirectly (being younger means more fertile)
How does immigration impact the dependency ratio?
- Younger immigrants means more likely to be of working age so lowers the dependency ratio
- Immigrants have more children which increases the ratio but when they go out to work it goes back down
What is globalisation and how does it happen?
- Globalisation is the idea that barriers between societies are disappearing and people are becoming increasingly interconnected
- It happens through the growth of communication systems, global markets and the fall of communism
What 3 class differences does Cohen distinguish between migrants?
Citizens = full citizenship rights Denizens = privileged foreign nationals welcomed by the state Helots = the most exploited groups
What is assimilationism?
- The first state policy approach to immigration, it aimed to encourage immigrants to adopt the language, values and customs of the hosts culture to make them ‘like us’
What is multiculturalism?
- Accepts that migrants may retain a separate cultural identity
- Eriksen found that we were only accepting surface elements of other cultures and not issues surrounding ‘deep diversity’
