Demography

Question 1

What is demography?

Answer 1

The study of characteristics in a human population considering migration, birth/death rates, and average age

Question 2

What are the reasons women are having fewer children?

AO1/2

Answer 2

• Sharpe: changing position of women - women are now more career focused and no longer prioritise having families
• Increased access to contraception and legalisation of abortion
• Increased access to divorce - don’t want to have children as likelihood of divorce is higher - will wait until certain family is secure
• Harper: decline in infant mortality - adults had a lot more children to replace the kids they had lost - as there has been a fall in infant mortality couples no longer feel the need to have extra children
• Children are an economic liability: child labour is no longer legal so children are no longer an economic asset - cost a parent £271,000 by the age of 18
• Beck and Beck-Gernshein: increased child centeredness - people are now more ‘selfish’ in family planning and plan a child around their career and have them when they feel settled and ready

Question 3

How can we analyse the reasons why women are having less children?

AO3 (includes statistics)

Answer 3

• Harper said that women are now more career-focused due to increased education opportunities e.g. GIST and WISE which made them more career focused
• Hakim notes an increase in voluntary childlessness
• Infant mortality is 10% higher in the UK’s most deprived areas
• 2010 Coalition Government: capped child benefits to first 2 children - exacerbates economic strain of children
• Marxist view of pester power reflects economic liability children pose
• Average household size has halved since 1990
• In 2020 fertility rate was 1.56 whereas 3.5 in 1900

Question 4

How can we evaluate the reasons why women are having less children?

AO3

Answer 4

• Myth of the March of Progress: women becoming more career focused is not true for everyone as working class and ethnic minority women still often feel like their place is in the home
• Functionalists would criticise voluntary childlessness as Murdock states reproduction is a function of the family
• Idea that people only have children for economic reasons is deterministic - ignores the role of genuine love and desire to be a parent

Question 5

What are the reasons for the decline in infant mortality?

AO1/2 - potential 6 marker if anything

Answer 5

Infant mortality rate was 150 in 1900 and only 4 as of 2021. This drop can be due to:
- Better living standards
- Better healthcare
- Better hygiene and sanitation
- Pregnant woman get free immunisations
- Better anti-natal and post-natal care
- The welfare state - NHS makes healthcare both during and after pregancy more accessible thus reducing risk of infant death as they can get the help they need

Question 6

What are the impacts of the decline in birth rate on institutions?

AO3

Answer 6

• Smaller families means that women are more likely to be free to go to work
• Smaller working population would increase the dependency ratio as less children = less people to grow up and work and pay taxes
• Fewer schools are needed as there are fewer children - those who work with children e.g. teachers, midwifes, social workers will be made redundant - this could pose issues if there ever were to be a baby boom as there wouldn’t be a workforce capable of handling this

Question 7

What is the difference between immigration, emigration and net migration?

Answer 7

Immigration = number of people entering a country (per 1000)
Emigration = number of people leaving (per 1000)
Net migration = overall population change

Question 8

Why can’t we trust immigration statistics?

Answer 8

Don’t account for illegal immigrants

Question 9

What are the key points of immigration in UK history?

Answer 9

1930s - many white migrants due to WW1 and people fleeing countries of war
1950s - Windrush generation - Carribean and Commonwealth immigration
60s/70s - More South Asian migrants coming for work and Ugandan and Knyan refugees
2000s - New EU migrants - Eastern European migrants came in search for work as they could now come here without a VISA
2011 - by this point 10% of the British population were minority ethnics
2016 - BREXIT proposal causes a sharp decrease in immigration and increase in emigration

Question 10

What are the push and pull factors of migation?

Answer 10

PUSH = War, persecution, corruption, natural disaster
PULL = Better jobs, healthcare and education, human rights, quality of life

Question 11

What legislation has impacted migration?

AO2

Answer 11

• 1962 + 68 Commonwealth Immigration Acts: restricted immigration from Commonwealth countries
• 1971 Immigration Act: gave commonwealth migrants the right to stay indefinitely
• 1999 Assylum and Immigration Act: difficulty to claim assylum unless had substantial proof
• 2012 Hostile Environment Policy: migrants that came during Windrush were told they did not have the indefinite right to remain e.g. landlords could not rent to undocumented people, employers would be fined if they hired people without checking for documents

Question 12

What are the pros and cons of immigration?

AO3

Answer 12

PROS:
- Immigrants are net contributors - 95% work full time and pay taxes
- Take jobs the indegenous population do not want e.g. cleaners, care workers
- Average age of UK passport holder is 41 whereas non-UK passport holder is 31 - this decreases the dependency ratio
- Make up largest proportion of key workers - especially NHS

CONS:
- Increased strain on housing - higher demand than supply causes prices to inflate - ONS estimates immigration has caused housing prices to rise by 20% over the last 25 years
- Ethnic tension between minority groups - racial conflict

Question 13

How has immigration impacted family structures?

(ethnic minorities) AO1/2

Answer 13

• Increase in South Asian families which are typically nuclear or extended. Victor et al found 90% in south england live in multi-generational extended families - stronger family values so more likely to take care of elderly
• Increase in Afro-Carribean families which are more likely to be matrifocal (50% are single parent). Chamberlain - fictive kin - uncles, aunts, family friends and wider community play a greater role in the family and help fill the absent father role
• Increase in Eastern European families has led to the rise in global family networks - father sends back money to family at home - Beck and Beck-Gernsheim - ‘distant love’

Question 14

How can we analyse the impact of immigration on family structures?

AO3

Answer 14

• Bhatti said that ‘izzat’ (family honour) was a strong focus in south asian households - causes patriarchal gender roles and emphasis on taking care of elderly relatives
• May: People construct their own network of individuals - often draw support from members outside of family
• Levin: geographical mobility has led to the rise in LAT families

Question 15

What is super diversity?

Answer 15

Due to globalisation, migrants now come from a much wider range of countries and
even within the same ethnicity people come with varying statuses, which leads to a ‘super diversity’

Question 16

What are Cohen’s 3 types migrants?

AO1/2

Answer 16

1. Citizens = given full citizenship rights (e.g. voting rights and access to benefits) e.g. Windrush Generation (can analyse with Windrush Scandal if necessary)
2. Denziens = privileged foreign nationals welcomes by the state (billionaires
   ‘oligarchs’ or highly paid employees of multinational companies) e.g. Al Fayed
3. Helots = the most exploited groups. State and employers regard them as
   ‘disposable units of labour power’ - a reserve army of labour. They are found in unskilled, poorly paid work and include illegal trafficked workers, and those legally tied to particular employers such as domestic servants

Question 17

What is the feminisation of migration?

AO1/2

Answer 17

Almost half of all migrants are female
- Ehenreich and Hochschild – care, domestic, and sex work in western countries is increasingly done by women from poor countries. Western women have joined the labour force (due to march of progress) – have less time for domestic labour – men don’t perform domestic labour – failure of the state to provide adequate childcare
- Shutes – 40% of adult care nurses are migrants
- Chambers - Mail order brides – racialized stereotypes e.g. oriental women are subservient and men can ‘purchase their intimacy’

Question 18

How can we analyse the feminisation of migration?

AO3

Answer 18

• Laws like 2010 Equality Act, 1970 Equal Pay Act encourgae western women to work
• Mail order brides would be ‘helots’ according to Cohen’s theory

Question 19

How was migration impacted indentities?

AO2

Answer 19

• Eade: People now form hybrid identities - made up of two or more different sources e.g. a british nigerian muslim
• Erikson: Rather than seeing themselves as belonging to one country, migrants may develop transnational identities, particularly due to globalisation as technology has made it possible to keep global ties without the need to travel.

Question 20

What is assimilation?

Answer 20

Policy, which aims to encourage immigrants to adopt language, values and customs of the host culture rather than maintaining their own e.g. France banning hijabs

Question 21

What are the reasons for the decline in death rate?

AO1/2

Answer 21

The death rate has halved in the last century. This because of:
- Mckeown: Improved nutrition - accounts for half the reduction in death rate. People now understand the impacts of smoking, drinking and exercise and purposefully make healthier choices
- Tranter: Medical improvements - over ¾ of the decline in death rate from 1850 to 1970 was due to a fall in the numbers of deaths from infectious diseases such as measles and TB. This is due to medical improvements like NHS, vaccines, antibiotics, etc
- Public heath improvements: the government has implemented laws to protect public health e.g. Clean Air Acts reduced pollution such as smog that led to 4000 deaths in 5 days in 1952
- Decline in manual labour: less people do dangerous jobs such as mining and there are now more health and safety laws

Question 22

How can we analyse the causes for the decline in death rate?

AO3

Answer 22

• Every pack of cigarettes has ‘smoking kills’ or other health warnings such as ‘smoking causes cancer’
• Medical improvements are relevant to all CAGE - cancer is an indiscriminate disease that even the ruling classes are vulnerable to and need help to treat
• Public health improvements are not applicable to all classes - WC are more likely to live in damp over crowded conditions which lead to illness (Shelter 2015)
• Postmodernists note the decline in industrialism in modern globalised society as we move away from fordist production

Question 23

How can we evaluate the causes for the decline in death rate?

AO3

Answer 23

• Half of men in the UK are expected to be obese by 2030 - shows that society isn’t placing as much value on nutrition as McKeown suggests
• Overestimation of improvements in healthcare - still no cure for cancer which is the second highest cause of death in the world
• In 2015 the number of deaths rose by 5.4%. Danny Dorling suggested that this was due to two reasons: cuts in the provision of healthcare for the elderly in the NHS, particularly in winter + severe cuts in social services leading to less provisions of services such as meals on wheels
• Mitsos and Browne see the decline in manual labour as a negative thing as it has caused a crisis in masculinity as men now lack the traditional breadwinner occupation

Question 24

What are the reasons for the ageing population?

AO1/2

Answer 24

• Increased life expectancy
• Decreased infant mortality
• Decreased fertility
• Hirsch: by 2041 there will be just as many 78 year olds as 5 year olds due to the increased life expectancy and decreased birth rate

Question 25

How can we analyse their being an ageing population?

AO3

Answer 25

Infant mortality rate is 2x higher in children from the lowest class (routine occupation) at 5.4% than those in the highest (managerial and large employers) - 2.2%

Question 26

What are the effects of the ageing population on society?

AO1/2

Answer 26

• Hirsch: increased dependency ratio will force taxes to rise as more pressure is put on the state to provide pensions and NHS
• Feminists: the burden of looking after older relatives typically falls on women
• Ageism: from employers and general public as they’re sterotyped as ignorant and bad with technology
• Brannen: rise in beanpole families and sandwhich generations as people have to be responsible for both very old and very young in their family
• Philipson: the elderly are no longer any use to capitalism as they are not productive and so are handed over to the family - added burden

Question 27

What are the potential benefits of having more old people?

AO1/2/3

Answer 27

• Lawton: Grey Pound - the purchasing power of older people makes an important contribution to the UK economy in the leisure and culture industries. There are also more old people working and engaging in community which helps social cohesion e.g. volunteering, neigbourhood watch, mentoring
• Lawton: Grey Wisdom - grandparents provide this by offering childcare services
• Hunt: we can choose our lifestyle regardless of our age and write our own identities e.g. anti-ageing/cosmetic surgery, many elderly people choose to get part time jobs after retirement that serve the community e.g. ‘lollipop ladies’