Demography

Question 1

Demography

Answer 1

The study of the characteristics of human populations, such as size, structure and how they change over time.

Question 2

What does Demography include?

Answer 2

This includes studying how factors such as fertility (the rate at which children are being born) and mortality (the rate at which people are dying) affect the size and make-up of the population. Key demographic changes have occurred in the UK which have affected family life.

Question 3

Death Rates

Answer 3

The Ratio of deaths of the population in a particular area

Question 4

Infant Mortality

Answer 4

Number of deaths of infants under the age of one per 1000 live births

Question 5

Falling Death Rate Statistics

Answer 5

Since 1901 the numbers of death in the UK have steadily decreased while the population has grown, so the death rate has fallen. Life expectancy has also risen but death rates and life expectancy vary between social groups and placed.
There were 533,253 deaths registered in England and Wales in 2017, a 1.6% increase from 2016 and the highest number registered annually since 2003.
Both the number of deaths and age-specific mortality rates for people aged 90 years and over increased in 2017, by 4.4% and 2.9% respectively; most notably for females.
ASMRs for cancers, respiratory diseases and circulatory diseases continued to decrease in 2017, whilst rates for mental and behavioural disorders and diseases of the nervous system increased by 3.6% and 7.0% respectively.

Question 6

Infant Mortality Rate Statistics

Answer 6

The infant mortality rate increased for the first time in five years to 4.0 deaths per 1,000 live births; the neonatal rate also increased by 3.6% compared with 2016, whilst the postneonatal rate remained the same.
It is estimated that the TFR in 1900 was 3.5 and reached a record low of 1.63 in 2001, while in 2012 it was 1.94.

Question 7

Reasons for the falling death rates and falling infant mortality rates?

Answer 7

1. ) Improved Sanitation and Hygiene
2. ) Advances in Medicine and Science
3. ) Higher Living Standards
4. ) Public Health and Welfare
5. ) Health Education
6. ) Improved Working Conditions

Question 8

Improved Sanitation and Hygiene

Answer 8

The declining death rates, they claim, are also due to hygiene and improved nutrition, as well as a lack in absolute poverty. (Griffths and Brock)

Question 9

Advances in Medicine and Science

Answer 9

After the 1950s, improved medical knowledge/techniques helped reduce death rates (e.g. the introduction of antibiotics/immunisation/setting up of the NHS (1948)
Vaccinations like the Tetanus Jab, MMR, HPV/Antibiotics like penicillin
Harper argues that the greatest fall in recent decades is due to fewer smokers; obesity has replaced smoking as the new lifestyle epidemic
Infectious diseases have declined to low levels, with the epidemics of the early part of the century no longer occurring. Major causes of death are now heart disease and cancer over bacterial infections.

Question 10

Higher Living Standards

Answer 10

Higher wages and more disposable income allowing for healthier lifestyles
Better, cheaper food that is mass produced and more accessible
Better Housing Conditions (No Damp and Housing Authority)
McKeown argues that improved nutrition accounted for 1/2 the reduction in death rates as it increased resistance to infection/increased survival chances in those who became affected.
Better storage techniques for preserving food so less chance of them going off and best before dates are a legal necessity for packaging

Question 11

Public Health and Welfare

Answer 11

More effective government led to improvements in public health and quality of the environment (e.g. improvements in housing: drier, less crowded, better ventilated)
The 1944 Beverage Report and the development of the National Health Service led to greater government help for the elderly, sick and the young as health care became free to all at the point of delivery. However, there are still significant differences in death rates between various social groups which shows that economic and social factors continue to be important in determining how healthy a person is. 

Free school meals for those who couldn’t afford them
Welfare State introduced in 1945 allowed for benefits aiding the survival of those less well off
Post and Prenatal care as well as Health Visitor Visits

Question 12

Health Education

Answer 12

In 2007 the Government banned smoking in public places and the number of smokers in Britain has fallen by 1.9 million since the smoking ban was introduced in England a decade ago, according to Cancer Research UK.
5 - a -Day Promotion and Unhealthy Food Education

Question 13

Improved Working Conditions

Answer 13

Technology has taken over factory workers so there is less chance of injuries
Health and Saftey Regulation
Shorter working hours, less overworked and less stressed and less stress-related illness and mental health issues
Middle class less likely to work as long so less likely to develop illness that impacts health

Question 14

Consequences of declining death rates

Answer 14

Greater life expectancy
Greater dependency ratio
more pressure on elderly services and female family members as they tend to take care of older family members
Pensions are a cost to the state
Grandparents paying a greater role in their grandchildren’s lives
Increasing Bean-Pole families
Older Pople continue to contribute to society
Increase in sandwich generation (the middle-aged
the population who feel pressure to care for elderly parents and children/ grandchildren at the same time)

Question 15

The Ageing Population

Answer 15

The average age of the population is increasing. From 1985 to 2010, the median age of the UK population (that is, the age at which half the population is younger and half the population is older) increased from 35.4 years to 39.7 years (ONS 2012e). It is predicted that it will reach 42.2 by 2035.

Question 16

Ageing Population Statistics

Answer 16

From looking at past patterns, we project that more than a quarter of UK residents will be aged 65 years or over within the next 50 years
In 1997, around one in every six people (15.9%) were aged 65 years and over, increasing to one in every five people (18.2%) in 2017 and is projected to reach around one in every four people (24%) by 2037.
ONS (2018)

Question 17

Causes of the Ageing Population

Answer 17

1.) Lower Birth Rates: Fewer people are being born in the younger generations than before, reducing the size of the youthful population.
2.) Increased Life Expectancy: UK population is generally living longer than it has before; a baby born in 2015 to 2017 can expect to live to 79 years if male or 83 years if female. As more people live into old age, the proportion
of the population who are elderly is increasing. Improved due to factors such as improved medical treatments, housing and living standards, nutrition and changes in the population’s smoking habits.

Question 18

Problems of an Ageing Population

Answer 18

1. ) Increasing Age Dependency Ratio
2. ) Increased public spending
3. )Loneliness and isolation for older people
4. ) Retirement Age Increasing: Have To Work Longer
5. ) Housing Troubles/Pension Crisis: Continue to live in family homes reducing their availability

Question 19

Increasing Age Dependency Ratio

Answer 19

An increasing dependency ratio. The dependency ratio refers to the number of dependents (aged 0–14 and over the age of 65) to the total population (aged 15–64).
The proportion of dependents per 100 of the working-age population has increased from 51 per cent to 54 per cent between 1994 and 2013.

Question 20

Increased public spending

Answer 20

The greater strain on public services such as the health care system and social services, as when people get older they have a higher rate of illness and poverty. Also, increasing costs to the government for public services and pensions may lead to higher taxes for the working population.

Question 21

Loneliness and Isolation

Answer 21

The number of isolated older people is likely to be increasing as more people live alone and a growing number of older people are likely to be divorced or single.

Question 22

Positives of the Ageing Population

Answer 22

1. ) Older Workers: A report for the WRVS, Gold Age Pensioners (2011), found that in 2010, over- 65s, through taxes, spending power, provision of social care and the value of their volunteering made an astonishing net contribution of £40 billion to the UK economy.
2. )The Voluntary Sector: The WRVS study (2011) suggested that ‘more than any other group in society, older people are the social glue of most communities’. Their research showed that every year, each older volunteer spends an average of over 100 hours ‘informally’ volunteering and more than 55 hours in formal volunteering roles. This is worth £10 billion to the UK economy.
3. ) Consumers: ‘grey pound’ in helping to sustain the UK economy.
4. ) Grandparents: Grandparents now make a huge contribution to family life. In most two-parent families, both parents are now in employment and one in three families dependent on grandparents for childcare; the figure rises to half in lone-parent families. Jones (2011) suggests that grandparents can be seen as part of the ‘reserve army of labour’.

Question 23

Solutions to the Issues caused by Ageing Population

Answer 23

1. ) Increase the availability of nursing homes to free up family homes. This will also reduce loneliness
2. ) Lower the Fees so they are more accessible
3. ) Start saving for Pensions younger
4. ) Reduce benefits so it also reduces dependency ratio
5. ) Encourage Labor Force Participation so they don’t become a liability

Question 24

Why do Women Live longer than Men

Answer 24

Women are more Health Aware: Studies have shown that, in general, women are more health conscious, and they have a higher awareness of their physical and mental symptoms. These all result in healthier lifestyles and better health care use. Women also communicate better about their problems, which helps the process of diagnosis.
A culture of Masculinity: Men feel they are too ‘manly’ to see doctors so are more likely to die from untreated illness or one developed too far. Men are less adherent to treatment. These issues collectively cause males to be vulnerable to therapeutic failure. Masculinity is a socially learned construct, and it can have unhealthy effects. Many men define unhealthy and risky behaviours as masculine, while they see health care use and health-promoting behaviours as feminine.
Testosterone puts men at risk biologically, but it also puts men at risk behaviourally. It increases aggressiveness, and, in a cascading effect, results in higher death rate from accidents and homicide.My colleague and I followed more than 250 youth and found that baseline testosterone predicts future violent behaviours. Women systematically overestimate risk of any type, while men consistently underestimate it. This pattern has been observed regardless of the context.
Suicide: The UK male suicide rate of 15.5 deaths per 100,000 was the lowest since our time-series began in 1981; for females, the UK rate was 4.9 deaths per 100,000, this remains consistent with the rates seen in the last 10 years.

Question 25

North/South Divide

Answer 25

England’s richest people live eight years longer than the countries poorest people. Showing that there is a difference in life expectancy between the South where the richest people live and the North were the poorest live. This may be because of the higher wages in the South, an increasing retirement age, services and social issues like housing to smoking. The statistics revealed that while the mortality rates in England have improved overall, there is a clear distinction between the statistics from the North and south of the country: those aged 35 to 44, for example, are a whopping 49 per cent more likely to die suddenly if they reside in the North.

Question 26

Reasons for the North/South Divide

Answer 26

North is poorer than south so south has more disposable income
So can afford luxuries in life with less stress due to healthier working conditions
More unserved roads in the North so higher chance of road accidents
Though government spending across the country is relatively equal, private-sector growth has historically been centred on London, meaning underlying economic inequalities remain. Even earlier this year, Theresa May’s announcement of a £556m investment for the Northern Powerhouse came just before the proposal of a £1bn inheritance tax cut which looks to benefit southern constituencies the most.
Quality of life statistics may show the north-south divide as of minimal significance, but the reality of day-to-day life up here continues to be, in a word, grim; reinforcing a social privilege – or lack of it – which takes hold from the moment of birth.

Question 27

Birth Rates and Fertility

Answer 27

There has been a long term decline in the number of births in the UK. There have been fluctuations in the birth rate, which increased with a ‘baby boom’ after both the First and Second World Wars, but overall the long-term birth rate is in decline.
Fertility has been below the level required to replace the population since 1973 in England and since 1974 in Wales and Scotland. Due to the decline in the birth rate there has been a decline in the fertility rate – women are choosing to have fewer children. The fertility rate rose slightly to 1.9 in 2009 due to patterns of immigration (people moving into Britain). Migrant families tend to have slightly larger families than non-migrants. The recent rise is also due to older women having more babies, sometimes with the use of reproductive technologies such as IVF.
Whatever measure of fertility is used, there has been a significant decline since the late nineteenth century. For example, in 1901 there were nearly 1.1 million births, whereas in 2012 there were 812,970 from a much larger population. This decline in fertility has been a feature of most societies that have undergone industrialisation.

Question 28

Reasons for Post War Baby Boom

Answer 28

Replenishing the Population after all the death
Women were sexually deprived due to husbands being away
The soldiers wanted to settle down into family life

Question 29

Reasons for Contemporary Baby Boom

Answer 29

More increase due to migration from Eastern Europe include many Catholics who don’t use contraception
More women over 40 having children due to advancements in technology like IVF

Question 30

Reasons for the Overall Decline of Births and Fertility

Answer 30

Women: Feminists would argue that the changing role of women has resulted in greater control over their fertility and less social pressure to conform to traditional gender roles; in other words, women having children. Women have many other options apart from marriage and child bearing and are therefore tending to delay having children until they have completed their education and become established in their careers, meaning that they are likely to have fewer children or in some cases remain childless. SHARPE.
Changing social attitudes: Up until the late nineteenth century, large
families were seen as desirable, but from the 1870s onwards, first middle-class and later working-class families began to see smaller families as a way
of improving their living standards. By the mid- twentieth century, small families of up to three children became the social norm. While the status of ‘childlessness’ was seen as unfortunate in the past, many couples now describe themselves as ‘child-free’, emphasising their lack of children as a freely chosen lifestyle option. 1 in 5 women is childless at 45 years old.
Abortion: However, in the twentieth century, contraception became more socially acceptable and the introduction of the birth control pill and other more reliable contraceptive methods meant that, for the first time, couples could plan when they wanted children and could engage in sexual relationships without risking pregnancy. In 1968 abortion was legalised for the first time in England and Wales
under the 1967 Abortion Act. Though there were a significant number of illegal abortions before this, it seems likely that far more pregnancies are terminated by abortion than in the past; a total of 185,331 were recorded in 2013.
People have become more concerned with their own individual needs. This view is shared by postmodernists such as Beck and Gernsheim (1995) who call this process individualisation. People no longer have to follow traditional norms and values and instead make their own decisions, for example about marriage and having children. This has resulted in fewer people feeling that they should have children.

Question 31

The consequences of the long-term decline in birth and fertility rates

Answer 31

changes in the dependency ratio–that is, the relationship between the economically productive part of the population and non-workers, or dependants such as children and the elderly – falling numbers of children mean there will be fewer people of a working age, which leads to greater numbers of dependent people
a strain on public services, such as hospitals, while schools may close as a result of the falling numbers of children.
falling fertility rates can lead to further changes in gender roles, giving women more time for their careers and perhaps leading to relationships between men and women becoming more equal.

Question 32

Migration

Answer 32

Migration, the movement of people in or out of a country, has always been a feature of life within the UK.
The first increase was a result of the Second World War, after which immigrants from Asia and Africa came to the UK to work and live. The second wave of migration occurred as a result of the addition of various European countries to the EU, giving people the opportunity to travel, live and work within other EU countries.

Question 33

Migration Trends

Answer 33

There are a number of reasons why people choose to move into or out of an area, and these are known as push or pull factors. Push factors might include war or conflict, lack of jobs, poor education and health system, and political or economic instability. Pull factors might be the reverse: a good education and health care system, political and economic stability, and employment. As well as this, pull factors might include climate and a better standard of living.
Net migration continues to add to the population of the UK as an estimated 273,000 more people moved to the UK with an intention to stay 12 months or more than left in the year ending June 2018. Over the year, 625,000 people moved to the UK (immigration) and 351,000 people left the UK

Question 34

Pros of Immigration

Answer 34

1. ) Immigrants can carry out jobs that Britons won’t consider doing
2. ) Immigrants accept a lower wage as it is still more than in their home country
3. ) Foreign students pay more for universities which helps the economy and reduces inflation- There are currently 460,000 foreign university students in the UK, generating £20 billion per year through education exports
4. ) Immigrants may have skills (manual) that people in the UK lack

Question 35

Cons of Immigration

Answer 35

1. ) Stretched for Resources: According to a 2012 report by the Office for National Statistics, there were 200,000 births to immigrant mothers in Britain in 2011, with forty per cent of these children born in London. The highest numbers of mothers not born in the UK were from Poland, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Nigeria.
2. ) Schools can get overcrowded and full, meaning less attention is paid to each individual student
3. )Rivalry for jobs can lead to racism as they are used as scapegoats for other economic problems
4. ) Increased Youth unemployment as migrants fill up entry level jobs as they have more experience