Topic 2 - Demography

Question 1

What is demography?

Answer 1

The study of populations and their characteristsics.

Question 2

What are the characteristsics of demogrpahy?

Answer 2

• Size
• Age structure
• Births
• Deaths
• Immigration
• Emigration

Question 3

Births

Answer 3

• The number of lives per thousand of the population per year.
• Long term decline in number of births since 1900.
• Approx 29 in 1900, 12 in 2014.
• Baby booms

Question 4

Patterns of baby booms.

Answer 4

• A baby boom is a period marked by a significant increase of birth rate.
• The first 2 came after the world wars (1914-18 and 1939-45) as returning service men and their partners started families that they had postponed during the war.

Question 5

The total fertility rate (TFR).

Answer 5

• Average number of children women will have during their fertile years.
• The factors determining the birth rate are the proportion of women who are of childbearing age (15-44) and how fertile they are.
• UK’s TFR has steadily decreased since the 60’s
• More women are remaining childless
• Women are postpoining having children: average age of giving birth is approx. 31 and fertility rates for women in their 30’s and 40’s are increasing.

Question 6

Patterns of TFR.

Answer 6

• On average it has decreased since its all time peak in 1964 (aprox. 3) and had a steep decline in 1977 (approx. 1.7).
• Lowest rate was recorded in 2020 (approx. 1.6) due to the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

Question 7

Reasons for the decline in birth rate.

Answer 7

Include social, economic, cultural, legal, political and technological factors.

Question 8

1 - Changes in women’s position.

Harper (2012)

Answer 8

• Legal rights
• Education (women do better than men in school)
• More women in paid employement with equal rights
• Easier access to divorce
• Birth control and abortion
• Changes in attitudes

Harper - education is the most important reason for the long term fall in birth rates and fertitlity rates

• There has been a change in mindset - leading to fewer children
• Educated women are more likely to use family planning and see other possibilities.

Question 9

2 - Decline in infant mortality rates.

Brass and Kabir (1978)

Answer 9

• IMR is the number of children who die before their first birthday, per thousand babies born alive, per year.
  Harper - fall in IMR leads to fall in birth rate.
• In 1900, IMR in the UK was 154
• In 2018, IMR in the UK was 4
• Improved housing, better nutrition, better healthcare, better knowledge of hygiene,fall in number of married women working, improved services: antenatal and postnatal, mass immunisation, use of antibiotics and improved midwifery contributed to the fall in IMR in the 20th century.
• Brass and Kabir - the trend to smaller families began not in, rural areas where IMR originally began to fall, but in urban areas, where the IMR remained higher for longer.

Question 10

3 - Children are now an economic liability.

Answer 10

• Until the 19th century children were an economic asset
• Laws - banning children labour, compulsory schooling and raising shcool leaving age - children are dependent on parents for longer.
• Changing norms - what do children have the right to expect?
• Parents therefore feel less able or willig to have a large family.

Question 11

Child centredness.

Answer 11

Childhood is now socially constructed as a uniquely importnant period in the individuals life. Encouraged a shift from quantity to quality.

Question 12

Future trends in birth rates.

Answer 12

• Overall birth rates, fertility rates and family sizes have falllen in the last century.
• There was a slight increase in births after 2001 but sicne 2012 there has been a slow decrease.
• Immigration could be a reason for this - these mothers tend to have a higher fertility rate.

Question 13

Effects of changes in fertility.

Answer 13

• The family
• The dependency ratio
• Public services and policies

Question 14

1 - The family.

Answer 14

Smaller families mean women are more likely to be free to go to work, creating the dual earner couple, BUT, family size is only one factor - for example better off couples may be able to have large families and still afford childcare which allows both of them to work

Question 15

2 - The dependency ratio.

Answer 15

• The relationship between working and non-working parts of the population.
• Less children = ‘reduces the burden of dependency’ BUT in the long term there will be a smaller working population and the burden of dependency may begin to increase again.

Vanishing children
- Childhood may become lonelier, more childless adults might mean less voices speaking up for them OR childhoood could become more valued.

Question 16

3 - Public services and policies.

Answer 16

• Fewer schools, child health and maternity services needed.
• Affects to maternity and paternity leave and the type of home built BUT many of these are political decisions, for example instead of reducing the number of schools, the government could decide to have smaller classes.
• Ageing population - because women are having fewer babies the average age of population is rising. This will have an effect on the types of services needed.

Question 17

Deaths.

Answer 17

• The number of deaths per thousand of the population per year.
• In 1900, the death rate was 19
• In 2012, it had more than halved to about 9
• The death rate had begun falling from 1870 and continued to do so until 1930
• Rose slightly during 30/40’s - the period of the great depression followed by WWII but since 50’s it has declined slightly.

Question 18

Reasons for the decline in death rate.

Tranter (1966)

Answer 18

• Tranter found that over 3/4 of the decline in death rate from 1850 to 1970 was due to a fall in the number of deaths from infectious diseases such as measles, small pox, and tuberculosis (TB)
• Deaths from diseases were most common for the younger generation and msot of the decline of death rates occured among infants, children and young adults.
• By the 50’s, ‘diseases of affluence’ (wealth) such as heart disease and cancers had replaced infectious diseases as the main cause of death.
• These degenerative diseases affect the middle age and older generations more than the young.

Question 19

How/why does wealth impact health…

1 - Improved nutrition.

Mckeown (1972)

Answer 19

• Mckeown argues that improved nutrition accounted for up to half the reduction in death rates and was particularly important in reducing the number of deaths from TB. Better nutrition increases resistance to infections and increased survival chances of thsoe who become infected.
• However, he doesnt explain why females who receive a smaller share of the family food supply lived longer than males.
• He also fails to explain why deaths for some infectious diseases actually rose at a time of improving nutrition.

Question 20

2 - Medical improvements.

Answer 20

• After the 50’s, improved medical knowledge, tecnniques and organisation did help to reduce death rates
  …Introduction of antibiotics
  …Immunisation
  …Blood transfusion
  …Improved maternity services
  …NHS (1948)
• More recently, improved medication, bypass surgery, and other developments have reduced deaths from heart disease by 1/3.

Question 21

3 - Smoking and diet.

Harper

Answer 21

• Harper - the greatest fall in death rates has not come from medical improvements but from a reduction in the number of people smoking.
• In 1971, the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act made it illegal for tobacco companies to advertise cigarettes on TV/radio.
• 1st July 2007 - became illegal to smoke in any pub, restaurant, nightclub, most workplaces and vehicles anywhere in the UK.
• In the 21st century, obesity increased dramatically and has become the new lifestyle epidemic.
• Deaths from obesity has been kept low as a result of drug therapies.
• Harper - suggests we may be moving to an ‘American’ health culture where lifestyles are unhealthy but a long lifespan is achieved by use of costly medication.

Question 22

4 - Public health measures.

Answer 22

-20th century - governments with the necessary power passed and enforced rules such as:
…improvements in housing
…purer drinking water
…laws to combat the adulteration of food and drinks
…the pasteurisation of milk
…improved sewage disposal methods
- Clean Air Acts reduced air pollution such as the smog tht led to 4,000 deaths in 5 days in 1952.

Question 23

Other social changes.

Answer 23

• The decline in dangerous manual occupations such as mining.
• Smaller families reduced the rate of transmission of infection.
• Greater public knowledge of the causes of illness.
• Lifestyle changes, especially the reduction in the number of men who smoke.
• Higher incomes, allowing a healthier lifestyle.

Question 24

Life expectancy.

Harper

Answer 24

• How long on average a person born in a specific year is expected to live.
• As death rates have fallen, life expectancy has increased:
  …Males born in England in 1900 could expect on average to live until they were 50, and females 57.
  …Males born in 2018 were estimated to live until they were 79, and females 83.
• Over the past 2 decades, life expectancy has increased by about 2 years per decade.
• One reason for lower average life expectancy in 1900 was the fact that so many infants and children did not survive beyond the early years of life.
• A newborn baby today has a better chance of reaching their 65th birthday than a baby in 1900 had of reaching its 1st birthday.
• Harper predicts that we will soon achieve ‘radical longevity’ with many more ‘centenarians’. The number of centenarians in the UK rose to the highest level ever in 2020, reaching 15,120.

Question 25

Class, gender and regional differences.

Walker (2011)

Answer 25

• There are still class, gender and regional differences despite the overall increase in life expectancy snd decrease in death rate.
• For example, women usually live longer than men, however this gap narrowed due to changes in employment and in lifestyle - more women smoking.
• People living in northen England and Scotland have a lower life expectancy than those in the south, while WC men in unskilled or routine jobs are 3x more likely to die before they are 65 compared with men in managerial or professional jobs.
• Walker - those living in the poorest areas of England die on average 7 years earlier than those in the richest areas.

Question 26

3 - The ageing population.

Hirsch (2005)

Answer 26

• The average age of the UK population is rising.
• In 1971 it was 34
• In 2021 it was 42
• There are fewer young people and more old people.
• In 2021, the amount of people 65 and over is more than the amount of people 15 and under, whereas in 2014 there was an equal number.
• Age pyramid shows how older age groups are gorwing as a proportion of the population, while younger groups are shrinking.
• Hirsch - notes the traditional age pyramid is disappearing and being replaced by more or less equal sized ‘blocks’ representing the different age groups

Question 27

Causes for the ageing population.

Answer 27

• Increasing life expectancy - people are living longer into old age
• Declining IMR - less children dying before their 1st birthday
• Declining TFR - fewer young people are being born in relation to the number of old people in the population.

Question 28

What effects the ageing population has on…

1 - Public services.

Answer 28

• Older people consume a larger proportion of services such as health and social care than any other group.
• However, many people remain in relatively good health well into old age.
• The prevalence of long term health conditions increases with age, according to a 2010 estimate made by the Department of Health, such conditions account for 70% of total health and social care spending in England
• Around 55% of welfare spending is currently paid to pensioners with the state pension by far the biggest element of this.

Question 29

2 - One person - pensioner households.

Answer 29

• The number of over 65’s living alone in the UK has risen by 15% in the last decade from 3.4million in 2008 to 3.9 million in 2018.
• % of over 65’s living alone has increased from 45% to 48% over the same period.
• Most of these are female, because women generally live longer than men and and are usually younger then their husbands.
• Among the over 75’s, there are twice as many women as there are men = ‘feminisation of later life’.

Question 30

3 - The dependency ratio.

Answer 30

• Further fiscal pressure is also likely to result from a decline in the working population relative to the number of pensioners.
• A lower proportion of people in work means low tax revenues and a higher public expenditure.
• It’s expected that the pensioner population will continue to rise.
• In 2014 there were 3.2 people of working age for every person of pensionable age - this ratio is expected to fall to 2.7 by 2037.

Question 31

Ageism, modernity and portmodernity.

Answer 31

• One consequence of an ageing population - the growth of ageism. The negagtive stereotyping and unequal treatment of people based on their age. For example, discrimination in employment and unequal treatment in healthcare.
• Old age and ageing has been constructed as a problem in terms of the cost of pensions or health care for the old.

Question 32

Migration.

Answer 32

• Refers to the movement of people from
  place to place. It can be internal, within a society or international.
• For most of the 20th century until the 80’s, there were fewer immigrants than emigrants.

Question 33

Define net migration.

Answer 33

Difference between the numbers of immigrants and the number of emigrants.

Question 34

Immigration.

Answer 34

• Refers to the movement into a society
• 1900 - until WWII the largest immigrant group were the Irish, mainly economic reasons, followed by Eastern and Central European Jews and people from British descent from Canada and the USA.
• During the 50’s, black immigrants from the Caribbean began to arrive in the UK. During the 60/70’s South Asian immigrants from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka and East African Asians from Kenya and Uganda arrived.
• Creates more ethnically diverse society.
• 2011 - ethnic minority groups accounted for 14% of the population which increased to 19% in 2021.
• Immigration and nationality acts placed severe restriction on non white immigration. By the 80’s, non whites accounted for 1/4 of all immigrants, while the majority of white immigrans came from countries within the EU.

Question 35

Emigration.

Answer 35

• Refers to the movement out of a society.
• Mid 16th century to the 80’s - more emigrated to live elsewhere than came to settle in the UK.
• Since 1900 emigrants have gone to the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

Question 36

Reasons for emigration…

Answer 36

• Push factors: economic recession and unemployment at home.
• Pull factors: higher wages or better opportunities abroad.

Question 37

Population size.

Answer 37

• Increase in both immigration and emigration. These trends affect the size of the UK population, its age structure and the dependency ratio.
• Net migration is high
• Natural increase with births exceeding deaths. Births to non UK mothers account for 25% of all births. However, births remain below the ‘replacement level’ 2.1
• If not for net migration, the UK’s population would be shrinking.

Question 38

Age structure.

Answer 38

Immigration lowers the average age of the population both directly and indirectly.
- Directly - immigrants are generally younger: e.g., in 2011, the average age of UK passport holders was 41 whereas that of a non Uk pasport holder living in Britain was 31.
- Indirectly - being younger, immigrants are more fertile and thus produce more babies.

Question 39

Dependency ratio.

Answer 39

• Immigrants are more likely to be of working age and this helps to lower the dependency ratio. Many migrants return to their home countries in their older age to retire.
• However, the migrants are having more children which then increased the dependency ratio. Although overtime they will join the labour force and and help to lower the ration again.
• The longer a group is settled in a country the closer their fertility rate comes to the national average, reducing their overall impact on the dependency ratio.

Question 40

Define globalisation.

Answer 40

• The idea that barriers between
  societies are disappearing and people are
  becoming increasingly interconnected across
  national boundaries.
• There has been a speeding up of the rate of
  migration.
• Between 2000 and 2013 international migration has increased by 3%.

Question 41

Differentiation.

Steven Vetrovec

Answer 41

• Globalisation has increased the diversity types of migrants.
• Different types of migrants: permenant settlers, temporary workers, spouses and forced refugees such as asylum seekers.
• In 2014 there were more Chinese born (26%) postgraduates students than UK born (23%).
• Steven Vetrovec: Super diversity - migrants now come from a wide range of countries. Individuals differ in terms of their legal status. A given ethnic group may also be divided by culture or religion and be widely dispersed throughout the UK.

Question 42

Differentiation

Robin Cohen (2006)

Answer 42

There are class differences among migrants that have been identified by Cohen:
- Citizens - have full citizenship rights. Since the 70’s, the UK has made it harder for immigrants to acquire these rights.
- Denizens - privileged foreign nationals welcomed by the state. For example, billionaire oligarchs or highly paid employees of multinational companies.
- Helots (slaves) - most exploited group. States and employers regard them as ‘disposable units of labour’. They’re found in unskilled, poorly paid work and illegally trafficked workers and those legally tied to particular employers.

Question 43

The feminisation of immigration.

Answer 43

• In the past most migrants were men, however today almost half of global migrants are women.
• This has been called the globalisation of the gender division of labour, where female migrants found that they are fitted into patriarchal stereotypes about women’s roles as carers or providers of sexual services.

Question 44

What do Ehrenreich and Hochschild say about the feminisation of migration?

(And Shutes 2011)

Answer 44

Ehrenreich:
- Observe that care work, domestic work and sex work in Western countries like the UK and the USA is increasingly done by women.
- This is a result fo several trends:
…Expansion of service occupations in western countries has led to an increasing demand for female labour.
…Western women have joined the labour force and are less willing or able to perform domestic labour.
…Western men remain unwilling to perofrm domestic labour.
…The failure of the state to provide adequate childcare.
- The resulting gap has been partly filled by women from poor countries.

• Shutes reports that 40% of adult nurses are migrants. Most of these being women.

Hochschild:
- Global transfer of women’s emotional labour, e.g. nannies providing care and affection for their employers children at the expense of their own children being left behind in their home country.
- Migrant women enter western countries as ‘mail orders’ brides - reflects gendered and racialised sterotypes.
- Women migrants also enter the UK as illegally trafficked sex workers, often kept in conditions amounting to slavery.

Question 45

Migrant identities - John Eade 1994

Answer 45

• Migrants may develop hybrid identities made of up of 2 or more different sources.
• John Eade - the 2nd generation Bangladeshi muslims created hierarchal identities: they saw themselves as muslim first, then bengali, then british.
• Those with hybrid identities may find others challenge their identity claims or accuse them of not really ‘fiiting in’.

Question 46

Transitional identities - Hylland Eriksen 2007

Answer 46

• Hylland Eriksen - gobalisation has created more migrant patterns wtith back and forth movements of people through networks rather than permenant settlement in another country.
• Migrants are less likely to see themselves as belonging completely to one culture or country. They may develop transitional ‘neither/nor’ identities and loyalties.
• Modern technology makes it impossible to sustain global ties without having to travel.
• Globalised economy means migrants have links to other migrants around the world than to either country or origin of settlement.

Question 47

The politicistion of migration

Answer 47

• States now have policies that seek to control, absorb migrants into society and deal with increased ethnic and cultural diversity.
• Immigration policies have also become linked to national security and anti-terrorism policies.

Question 48

Multiculturalism.

Eriksen

Answer 48

• Accepts migrants may wish to retain a separate culture identity.
• However this may be limited to superficial aspects of cultural diversity. Eriksen distinguishes between the two:
  …Shallow diversity - regarding chicken tikka masala as Britains national dish is acceptable to the state.
  …Deep diversity - arranged marriages or the veiling of a woman is not acceptable to the state.

Question 49

Assimilationism

Answer 49

- First state policy to approach to immigration.
- Aimed to encourage the immigrants to adopt the language, values and customs of the host culture to make them ‘like us’.
- However, these policies face the problem that transitional migrants with hybrid identities may not be willing to abandon their culture or to see themselves as belonging to just one nation state.

Question 50

Criticisms of the politicisation of migration - Castles and Kosack

Castles (2000)

Answer 50

• Critics argue that multricultural education policies celebrate shallow diversity while failing to address deeper problems facing children from migrant backgrounds such as racism.
• From the 60’s, there was a move towards multiculturalism but since 9/11, many politicians have gone back towards demanding that migrants assimilate culturally.
• In France, the veiling of the face was made illegal in 2010.
• Castles - assimilationalist policies are counter productive because they mark out minority groups as culturally backwards and ‘other’. This can lead to groups emphasising their differences in such a way that makes them seem like the ‘enemy from within’.

A divided working class- assimilationist ideas may also encourage workers to blame migrants for social problems such as unemployment, resulting in racist scapegoating.
- Castles and Kosack - benefits capitalism by creating a racially divided working class and preventing united action in defense of their interests.