Families- T6- Demographic Trends and Family Life Flashcards
What is the definition of demography?
The study of Demography is concerned with how the number of birth rates, and migration have affected the size, sex, age and structure of the population
What are the factors that influence the family life in the lat 100 years
- Birth rates
- Fertility
- Death rate
- Immigration
-Emigration - Net Migration
How may these changes have had an impact on family diversity
- Reduced number of nuclear families
- More single parent families
- Greater number of births outside of wedlock
- Beanpole families
- Extended families
- More cohabiting couples, less married
What has happened to the life expectancy of society?
in 1851 life expectancy was:
- 44 years for females
- 40 years for males
In 2000 life expectancy had nearly doubled to 78 years!
in 2013
- 79.1 years for males
- 82.8 years for females
in 2020
- 79 for males
- 82.9 for females
What has happened to the death rate of society?
1960- 17 per 1000
1980- 10 per 1000
2019- 7 per 1000
What are the conclusions of death rate and life expectancy
The number of elderly people is increasing
- improvements in medical science means that people are being kept alive longer
The number of young people is decreasing
- careers mean that some choose not to have children
- improvements in contraception make this possible
- medical science has also decreased the numbers of infant moralities meaning people need to have multiple children that have decreased
What are the factors that cause ageing population
- Increased life expectancy
- declining infant mortality
- Declining fertility
How may the ageing population affect society?
- Pension contributions is high
-Dependency ratio= unbalanced - Retirement age is increased therefore working age is older
- Increase in extended families
- More one person households
- Social policy changes to focus on the elderly
- NHS hospitals increased demand
- Housing crisis
What is ageism in modern society
Negative stereotyping and unequal treatment of people on the basis of their age
What are the reasons for ageism
Structured dependency- exclusion from work leads to economic dependency on families
Philipson (marxist) no use to capitalism, not productive
Fixed life stages
How is ageism in postmodernism
- Fixed orderly life stages have broken down- children dressing as adults, later marriage early retirement- blurs the boundaries
- Greater lifestyle choices- consumption, defined by what we consume
- Hunt 2005- we choose a lifestyle and identity regardless of our age, age no longer determines who we are and how we live
- Old ages is a market for identity creation
- Undermines ageist stereotypes
Impact of migration on population structure
Population size- UK population is growing, net migration is high, non UK born women have higher birth rates
Age structure- lowers the average age of the population
- Directly, as immigrants are younger
- Indirectly, as more fertile so have more babies
Dependency Ratio-
1. Immigrants are younger/working age- lowers the ratio
2. BUT they have more children so the ratio
3. The longer they settle the more they reduce the overall DR
what is Assimilation
It is an approach to immigration policy that believes immigrants should adopt the language, values and customs of the host community and country in which they settle
- This was 1st state policy to immigration
-However it faces problems that transnational migrants may not be willing to abandon their culture
What is Multiculturalism
a society or institution that recognises and gives value to different cultures and/or ethnic groups
- accepts migrants may wish to maintain separate identity
- although this acceptance may be limited to superficial aspects of cultural diversity
How is the working class divided
Assimilationist may also encourage workers to blame migrants for social problems, e.g. unemployment, resulting in racist scapegoat
