Family and Households - Demography Flashcards
What causes an increase in population size?
Births and Immigration
What causes a decrease in population size?
Deaths and emigration
What is happening to the birth rate in the UK from the research done by the ONS?
- Birth rates are decreasing
- The average age of mothers is increasing
- Increasing number of children being born out of wedlock
- Infant mortality rate is decreasing
What are the reasons for a decline in birth rates?
- Changes in women’s positions in society
- Decline in infant mortality rate
- Changes in children’s childhood
How have changes in women’s positions in society affected birth rates?
- Women are more likely to choose a career before starting a family
- Contraception letting women have control over when they get pregnant, meaning they see more of a life for them than just being housewives
What does Harper (2012) say about changes in women’s positions in society
- Education of women is the most important reason for the fall in birth and fertility rates
- It led to a change in mindset among women
- Women see other possibilities in life than being a mother
- Almost 1/5 of 45 yr old women were childness
- This pattern of low fertility rates lasts longer than one generation as cultural norms change
What does lower infant mortality rates cause?
Lower birth rates as parents don’t have to try again for another child as often
What are the changes in childhood?
- How much it costs to have a child
- Changes in law
- Social attitudes
How are children now an economic liability?
The law prevents children from working, making them financially dependent on adults
How have family structures changed and what has this effected?
Family sizes are getting smaller, making it easier for women to seek employment
What is the dependency ratio?
How different demographics in a population are dependent on other for essential needs
The dependency ration in relation to low birth rates
- If the population shrinks, less people will be paying taxes, meaning less money for public services
- Increasing amount of elderly people puts pressure on public services
English men’s life expectancy in 1900 vs 2013
50 vs 80.7
What does Thomas McKeown (1972) say about nutrition?
- Argues improved nutrition accounted for up to 1/2 the reduction in death rates and was important in reducing the number of deaths from TB
- Better nutrition means an increased resistance to infection
What is a criticism of Thomas McKeown (1972)?
- He doesn’t explain why men live longer than women even though they receive a smaller share of food
- Fails to explain why deaths caused by measles and infant diarrhoea rose at the time
How have medical improvements helped the decline in death rates?
- NHS set up in 1948
- After the 1950s, improved medical techniques and organisation helped to reduce death rates
- Introduction of antibiotics, immunisation, blood transfusions, improved maternity services
Why is age a good example of social constructionism?
Different societies have different interpretations of age
Why is the population getting older?
- Increasing life expectancy
- Declining infant mortality
- Declining birth rates
How does an aging population affect public services?
- Older people consumer a larger proportion of services, such as health and social care, particularly those over 75
- Requires increased expenditure on healthcare and changes to policies
How does an aging population affect housing?
- The number of pensioners living alone has increased
- One-person pensioner households account for 15% of all households
- Most are female as they generally live longer (among the over 75s, there are 2x more women than men)
How does an aging population affect the dependency ratio?
- The non-working old are economically dependent
- Increases the burden on the working population
- The age you can draw from your pension will increase
What is structured dependency?
- Seen as how society treats the elderly
- When an individual reaches a certain age they are removed from the labour force and become dependent on others
How do Marxists say society views elderly people?
They are seen as useless as they have no way of producing good or wealth for society
How much is the state pension?
£221.20
What are individuals able to do in a postmodern society?
They can construct themselves on what they consume
How do anti-ageing products support postmodernism?
- The idea of ‘old age’ is changing
- People have the freedom to shape how they appear
- Removes stereotypes of old age
What is the centrality of the media?
The media plays a crucial role in shaping opinions, perceptions, discourse, and understanding
Explain the emphasis of surface features
In a postmodern world the body has become a surface on which we can write identities (for example, tattoos and anti-ageing products)
What is a criticism of postmodernists?
Not everyone is able to construct their identities as suggested, for example those in poverty
What inequalities in society exist for class?
- The middle class have better occupational pensions and greater savings from higher salaries
- Poorer people have shorter life expectancies and suffer more infirmity
What inequalities in society exist for gender?
- Women’s lower earnings and career breaks mean lower pensions
- They are also subject to sexist stereotyping
What is net migration?
The sum of immigrations and emigrations
What was the largest immigrant group in the 1900s?
The Irish
Largest immigrant group in the 1950s?
Carribbean
Where do a lot of Brits emigrate to?
The south of Spain
Migration push factors?
- Escaping poverty/famine
- Lack of jobs
- War/political or religious movements
- Persecution
Migration pull factors?
- Jobs
- Education
- Better standard of living
- Political/religious freedom
- Joining relatives
After Brexit, what has happened to UK immigration patterns?
- EU immigration has gone down
- Non-EU immigration has gone up
Impact of migration on age structure
- Immigrants tend to be younger
- Many young and single, creating more single person households
- More likely to go onto have children
Impact of migration on the dependency ratio
- More workers generated more taxes
- More likely to have children due to their age, increases the demand on schools etc
- The longer spent in a country the closer their fertility rate comes to the national average
What is Super-diversity?
Immigrants come from a broader set of individuals rather than specific countries
What 3 groups does Robin Cohen (2006) classify?
Citizens, Denizens, Helots
What is a citizen?
Robin Cohen (2006)
An immigrant with full citizenship rights (voting, access to benefits)
What is a Denizen?
Robin Cohen (2006)
Privileged foreign individuals welcomed by the state
What is Helot?
Robin Cohen (2006)
The most exploited immigrant group, found in unskilled poorly paid work
What did Ehrenreich and Hochschild (2003) say about migration?
Care work, domestic work, and sex work in the UK and USA is being increasingly carried out by women from poorer countries
What reasons did Ehrenreich and Hochschild (2003) give for the feminisation of migration?
1) Expansion of service occupations in Western countries has led to an increasing demand for female labour
2) Western women are less willing/able to perform domestic labour
3) Western men remain unwilling to perform domestic labour
4) Failure of the state to provide adequate childcare
What did Schutes (2011) find?
40% of adult care nurses in the UK are migrants and mostly female
What term did Eriksen (2007) come up with?
Transnational identities, where second or third generation migrants identify as two or more nationalities
What’s an example of the politicalisation of migration?
Nigel Farage posing next to an anti-immigration poster
What is assimilationism?
First state policy approach to immigration, encouraging them to adopt the language
What is multiculturalism?
Accepts that migrants may wish to retain a separate cultural identity yet it may be superficial
What two types of diversity does Eriken say there are?
Shallow diversity - Accepting chicken tikka masala as Britain’s national dish
Deep diversity - Accepting arranged marriages and veiling of women
What do Castles and Kosack say about the impact of immigration policies?
They encourage workers to blame migrants for social problems such as unemployment, which benefits capitalism
