Theorists - Demographics Flashcards
Key Theorist - Harper (2012): Birth and Fertility Rates
WHAT DOES HARPER ARGUE WITH REGARDS TO EDUCATION AND BIRTH AND FERTILITY RATES?
- Education of women is the most important reason for the long term fall in birth and fertility rates.
- Education has led to a change of mindset in women.
- Educated women are likely to use family planning and now see other opportunities in life rather than just becoming a housewife and mother.
- Once a pattern of low fertility lasts for more than one generation, cultural norms about family size change.
Key Theorist - Harper (2012): Birth and Fertility Rates
WHAT DOES HARPER ARGUE WITH REGARDS TO CHANGES IN FAMILY SIZE?
Smaller families are now the norm.
Key Theorist - Harper (2012): Birth and Fertility Rates
WHAT DOES HARPER GIVE AS THE REASON FOR WHY A FALL IN THE INFANT MORTALITY RATE HAS LED TO A FALL IN DEATH RATE?
If infants survive parents are less likely to have children to replace them.
Key Theorist - Harper (2012): Birth and Fertility Rates
HOW CAN THIS THEORY BE EVALUATED?
- The ideas of this theory are supported by the fact that in 2012, 1 in 5 women aged 45 were childless - double the amount of 25 years earlier.
Key Theorists - Brass and Kabir (1978) Infant Mortality Rates
WHAT DO THEY ARGUE?
Trend of smaller families began in urban areas where the IMR remained higher for longer, and not in rural areas where the IMR first began to fall.
Key Theorist - Tranter (1996): Death Rate Decline
WHAT DO THEY ARGUE?
- Over 3/4 of the decline in death rate, from 1850-1970 was due to a fall in the number of deaths caused by infectious diseases.
- Deaths from infectious diseases were most common in young people, and most of the decline in death rate occurred among infants, young children and young adults.
Key Theorist - McKeown (1972): Decline in Death Rates
WHAT DOES THIS THEORY ARGUE?
- Improved nutrition accounted for up to half of the reduction in death rates - particularly important in reducing deaths caused by TB.
- Better nutrition increased resistance to infection and better survival chances for those who did become infected.
Key Theorist - McKeown (1972): Decline in Death Rates
HOW CAN THIS THEORY BE EVALUATED?
- Does not explain why females, who receive a smaller share of food, live longer than men.
- Fails to explain why deaths from infectious diseases actually rose at a time of improved nutrition.
Key Theorist - Harper: Death Rates
WHAT DOES HARPER ARGUE WITH REGARDS TO DEATH RATES?
- The greatest fall in death rates has not come from medical improvements, but from a reduction in the amount of people smoking.
- We are moving to an ‘American’ health culture where lifestyles are unhealthy but lives are long due to costly medication.
- If trend in greater lifespan continues, we will soon achieve ‘radical longevity’ with more people aged over 100 years.
Key Theorist - Harper: Death Rates
HOW CAN THIS THEORY BE EVALUATED?
- Idea cannot be fully applied to today’s society as obesity as replaced smoking as the new lifestyle epidemic.
Key Theorist - Walker (2011): Class, Gender and Regional Differences
WHAT DO THEY ARGUE?
- Those living in the poorest areas of England, die on average 7 years earlier than those in the richest areas.
- The average in disability-free life expectancy is 17 years.
Key Theorist - Hirsch (2005): Ageing Population
WHAT DID THEY FIND WITH REGARDS TO AGE PYRAMIDS?
- The traditional age ‘pyramid’ is disappearing and being replaced with more equal size ‘blocks’ representing different age groups.
Example:
- By 2041 there will be as many 78 year olds a 5 year olds.
Key Theorist - Hirsch (2005): Ageing Population
WHAT DO THEY ARGUE?
- Social policies will need to change in order to tackle the new problems imposed by an ageing population.
- The main problem will be how to finance a longer period of old age.
- Policies also require a cultural change towards attitudes of old age.
- Old age is socially constructed - not fixed
Key Theorist - Hirsch (2005): Ageing Population
WHAT DO THEY ARGUE CAN BE DONE TO FINANCE A LONGER PERIOD OF OLD AGE?
1) Paying more from our savings and taxes whilst we are working
2) Working longer
Key Theorist - Hirsch (2005): Ageing Population
HIRSCH ARGUES THAT HOUSING POLICIES MAY NEED TO CHANGE, WHAT DO THEY SUGGEST SHOULD HAPPEN?
- Encourage older people to trade down into smaller houses. This would:
1) Release their wealth - improved standard of living
2) Free up housing for younger people
Key Theorist - Phillipson (1982): The Elderly
WHAT DO THEY ARGUE?
- Elderly are no use to capitalism - no longer productive
- State are unwilling to support them adequately so the family have to take responsibility for their care.
Key Theorist - Hunt (2005): Identity
WHAT DO THEY ARGUE?
- Postmodern society promotes consumption rather than production as an identity.
- People can choose their own identity and lifestyle regardless of age.
- Age no longer determines who are person is or how they live.
Key Theorist - Pilcher (1995): Inequalities among Elderly
WHAT DO THEY ARGUE?
1) Equalities in class and gender remain important.
2) Many of these inequalities are related to someone’s previous occupational position.
Key Theorist - Pilcher (1995): Inequalities among Elderly
WHAT EVIDENCE IS THERE TO SUPPORT THIS THEORY?
- The middle class have better occupational pensions and greater savings from higher salaries
- Poorer older people have a shorter life expectancy
- Lower earnings of women and possible career breaks result in lower pensions.
- Women are subject to sexist and ageist stereotyping.
Key Theorist - Cohen (2006): Migrant Types
WHAT DO THEY ARGUE?
Believes there are three types of migrants:
1) Citizens:
- have full citizenship rights (i.e. voting and access to benefits)
- Since the 1970s, the state has made it harder for citizens to acquire these rights.
2) Denizens:
- privileged foreign nationals - welcomed by the state (i.e. highly paid employees of multinational companies)
3) Helots:
- most exploited group
- state and employers regard them as ‘disposable units of labour power’
- found in unskilled, poorly paid jobs, and include illegally trafficked workers or domestic servants.
Key Theorist - Vertovec (2007): Migration
WHAT DO THEY ARGUE?
- Globalisation has led to ‘super diversity’
- Migrants now come from a much wider range of countries.
Key Theorists - Ehrenreich and Hochschild (2003): Feminisation of Migration
WHAT DID THEY FIND?
- Care work, domestic work, and sex work in many western countries including the UK and USA is done increasingly by women from poorer countries. This is a result of the following trends:
1) Expansion of service occupations in western countries - led to an increasing demand for female labour.
2) Western women have joined the labour forced - less wiling to perform domestic labour.
3) Western men remain unwilling to perform domestic labour.
4) The failure of the state to provide adequate childcare.
Resulting gap has been partly filled by women from poorer countries.
Key Theorist - Shutes (2011): Migrants
WHAT DID THEY FIND?
- 40% of adult care nurses in the UK are migrants - mostly female.
Key Theorist - Eade (1994): Migration
WHAT DID THEY FIND?
- Second generation Bangladeshi Muslims in Britain, created hierarchal identities. They saw themselves as Muslim first, then Bengali, then British.
Key Theorist - Hylland Eriksen (2007): Transnational Identities
WHAT DO THEY BELIEVE GLOBALISATION HAS DONE?
- Created more diverse migration patterns.
- Back and forth movements of people through networks rather than permanent settlement in another country.
- Meant that migrants may have more links to migrants around the world rather than their country of origin or settlement.
- Caused migrants to be less likely to desire assimilation into the host culture.
Key Theorist - Hylland Eriksen (2007): Transnational Identities
WHAT DO THEY ARGUE?
- Chinese migrants in Rome who found Mandarin are more useful for everyday life than Italian’s because Mandarin is more important for their global connections with the Chinese in other countries.
- Migrants are less likely to see themselves as belonging to one culture completely. Instead, they may develop transnational ‘neither/nor’ identities and loyalties.
- Technology makes it possible to sustain global ties without travelling.
- There are two types of diversity:
1) Shallow diversity - accepted by the state (i.e. regarding chicken tikka masala as Britain’s national dish)
2) Deep diversity - not accepted by the state (i.e. arranged marriage or the veiling of women)
Key Theorist - Castles (2000): Assimilationalist Policies
WHAT DO THEY ARGUE?
- Assimilation policies are counterproductive because they mark out minority groups as being culturally backward or other.
- This can lead to minorities responding by emphasising their difference and this may promote the creation of anti-terrorist policies as the host has a suspicion about them.
Key Theorists - Castles and Kosack (1973): Migration
WHAT DO THEY ARGUE?
- Assimilationist ideas benefit capitalism by creating a racially divided working class and preventing united action in defence of their actions.
