Topic 4: Demography Flashcards
What is demography?
The study of populations and their characteristics is called demography. These characteristics include:
What are the characteristics of demography
Size: is the population large or small, growing or declining?
• Age structure: is the average age of the population rising or falling?
As Figure 4.1 shows, the factors that most directly affect the size of a country’s population are:
• Births: how many babies are born.
• Deaths: how many people die.
• Immigration: how many people enter the country from elsewhere.
• Emigration: how many people leave the country to live elsewhere.
What are the main testifies of the UK population
In this Topic, we examine some of the main features of the UK population, and how and why it has changed. Britain in 1801 had a population of 10.5 million. By 1901, this stood at 37 million. The current population of the UK is approximately 65 million and one projection is that it will rise to 71 million by 2031.
Until the 1980s, UK population growth was largely the product of natural change - that is, the result of there being more births than deaths. However, since the 1980s, most of the growth has come from net migration - that is, more immigration than emigration.
Births
The number of births obviously affects population size.
Sociologists use the concept of birth rate to measure births. The birth rate is defined as the number of live births per thousand of the population per year.
As Figure 4 2 shows, there has been a long-term decline in the number of births since 1900. In that year, England and Wales had a birth rate of 28.7, but by 2014 it had fallen to an estimated 12.2.
However, as Figure 4.2 shows, there have been fluctuations in births, with three ‘baby booms’ in the 20th century. The first two came after the two world wars (1914-18 and
1939-45), as returning servicemen and their partners started families that they had postponed during the war years.
There was a third baby boom in the 1960s, after which the birth rate fell sharply during the 1970s. The rate rose during the 1980s, before falling again after the early 1990s, with some increase since 2001.
The total fertility rate
The factors determining the birth rate are, firstly, the proportion of women who are of childbearing age (usually taken to be aged 15-44) and, secondly, how fertile they are - that is, how many children they have. The total fertility
rate (TFR) is the average number of children women will have during their fertile years.
The UK’s TFR has risen in recent years, but it is still much lower than in the past. From an all-time low of 1.63 children per woman in 2001, it rose to 1.83 by 2014. However, this is still far lower than the peak of 2.95 children per woman reached in 1964 during the 1960s baby boom.
These changes in fertility and birth rates reflect the fact that:
• More women are remaining childless than in the past.
• Women are postponing having children: the average age for giving birth is now 30, and fertility rates for women in their 30s and 40s are on the increase. Older women may be less fertile and have fewer fertile years remaining, and so they produce fewer children.
Reasons for the decline in the birth rate
Sociologists have identified a number of reasons for the
long-term decline in the birth rate since 1900. These reasons
involve a range of social, economic, cultural, legal, political
and technological factors.
Reasons for the decline in the birth rate
Change in the position of women
There were major changes in the position of women during the 20th century. These include:
• Legal equality with men, including the right to vote.
• Increased educational opportunities - girls now do better at school than boys.
• More women in paid employment, plus laws outlawing unequal pay and sex discrimination.
• Changes in attitudes to family life and women’s role.
• Easier access to divorce.
• Access to abortion and reliable contraception, giving women more control over their fertility.
According to Sarah Harper (2012), the education of women is the most important reason for the long-term fall in birth and fertility rates. It has led to a change in mind-set among women, resulting in fewer children. Not only are educated women more likely to use family planning, they now see other possibilities in life apart from the traditional role of housewife and mother. Many are choosing to delay childbearing, or not to have children at all, in order to pursue a career. For example, in 2012, one in five women aged 45 was childless - double the number of 25 years earlier.
Harper also notes that, once a pattern of low fertility lasts for more than one generation, cultural norms about family size change. Smaller families become the norm and large ones come to be seen as deviant or less acceptable.
Reasons for the decline in death rate:
Decline in infant mortality
The infant mortality rate (IMR) measures the number of infants who die before their first birthday, per thousand babies born alive, per year.
Harper argues that a fall in the IMR leads to a fall in the birth rate. This is because, if many infants die, parents have more children to replace those they have lost, thereby increasing the birth rate. By contrast, if infants survive, parents will have fewer of them.
In 1900, the IMR for the UK was 154. In other words, over 15% of babies died within their first year. These figures are higher than those of less developed countries today. For example, in 2014, the world’s highest estimated IMR was that of Afghanistan, at 117.
During the first half of the 20th century, the UK’s IMR began to fall. This was due to several reasons:
• Improved housing and better sanitation, such as flush toilets and clean drinking water, reduced infectious disease. Infants are much more susceptible to infection because of their less developed immune system.
• Better nutrition, including that of mothers.
• Better knowledge of hygiene, child health and welfare, often spread via women’s magazines.
• A fall in the number of married women working may have improved their health and that of their babies.
• Improved services for mothers and children, such as antenatal and postnatal clinics.
Before the mid-20th century, it is doubtful whether specifically medical factors had much effect on the IMR - although indirectly, the medical profession had a significant impact through its campaigns to improve public health measures.
However, from about the 1950s, medical factors began to play a greater role. For example, mass immunisation against childhood diseases such as whooping cough, diphtheria and later measles, the use of antibiotics to fight infection and improved midwifery and obstetric techniques, all contributed to a continuing fall in the IMR.
As a result of all the above developments, by 1950 the UKS IMR had fallen to 30 and by 2012 it stood at 4 - barely one fortieth of its 1900 figure.,t
However, while many sociologists claim that the falling IMR ted to a fall in birth families began not in (1978) argue that the trend to smaller to tailles bein u not in rural areas, where IMR remained higher for longer.
the MR first began to for longein urban areas,
Reasons for the decline in the birth rate
Children are an economic liability
Until the late 19” century, children were economic assets to their parents because they one. He sent out to work from an early age to earn an income. However, since the late 19* century children have gradually become an economic ability. (See Topic 2, page 181)
• Laws banning child labour, introducing compulsory schooling and raising the school leaving age mean that children remain economically dependent on their parents for longer and longer.
• Changing norms about what children have a right to expect from their parents in material terms mean that the cost of bringing up children has risen.
As a result of these financial pressures, parents now feel less able or willing than in the past to have a large family.
Reasons for the decline in the birth rate
Child centredness
As we saw in Topic 2, the increasing child centredness both of the family and of society as a whole means that childhood is now socially constructed as a uniquely important period in the individual’s life. In terms of family size, this has encouraged a shift from ‘quantity’ to ‘quality’ - parents now have fewer children and lavish more attention and resources on these few.
Future trends for the birth rate
As a result of the above factors, birth rates, fertility rates and family sizes have fallen over the last century. However, as we saw earlier, there has been a slight increase in births since 2001.
One reason for this is the increase in immigration because, on average, mothers from outside the UK have a higher fertility rate than those born in the UK. Babies born to mothers from outside the UK accounted for 25% of all births in 2011. However, as Figure 4 2 shows, the projection for the period up to 2041 expects the annual number of births to be fairly constant, at around 800,000 per year.
Effects of changes in fertility
Changes in the number of babies born affect several aspects of society. These include the family, the dependency ratio, and public services and policies
Effects in the change of fertility
The family
Smaller families mean that women are more likely to be free to go out to work, thus creating the dual earner couple typical of many professional families. However, family size is only one factor here. For example, better off couples may be able to have larger families and still afford childcare that allows them both to work full-time.
Effects on the change in fertility
The dependcey ratio
The dependency ratio is the relationship between the size of the working or productive part of the population and the size of the non-working or dependent part of the population.
The earnings, savings and taxes of the working population must support the dependent population. Children make up a large part of the dependent population, so a fall in the number of children reduces the ‘burden of dependency’ on the working population.
However, in the longer term, fewer babies being born will mean fewer young adults and a smaller working population and so the burden of dependency may begin to increase again.
Vanishing children Falling fertility rates mean fewer children. As a result, childhood may become a lonelier experience as fewer children will have siblings, and more childless adults may mean fewer voices speaking up in support of children’s interests. Conversely, fewer children could mean they will come to be more valued.
Effects of the change in fertility
Public services and policies
A lower birth rate has consequences for public services.
For example, fewer schools and maternity and child health services may be needed. It also affects the cost of maternity and paternity leave and the types of housing that need to be built. However, we should remember that many of these are political decisions. For example, instead of reducing the number of schools, the government could decide to have smaller class sizes.
An ageing population One effect of women having fewer babies is that the average age of the population is rising: there are more old people relative to young people. This ageing of the population has a number of important effects, which we deal with later in this Topic,
The death rate
The death rate is the number of deaths per thousand of the population per year. In 1900, the death rate stood at 19, whereas by 2012 it had more than halved, to 8.9
The death rate had already begun falling from about 1870 and continued to do so until 1930. It rose slightly during the 1930s and 1940s - the period of the great economic depression, followed by World War II - but since the 1950s it has declined slightly.
Reasons for the
Reasons for the decline in the death rate
There are several reasons why the death rate declined during the 20* century.
According to Tranter (1996), over three-quarters of the decline in the death rate from about 1850 to 1970 was due to a fall in the number of deaths from infectious diseases such as diphtheria, measles, smallpox, typhoid and above all tuberculosis (TB). Deaths from infectious disease were commonest in the young and most of the decline in the death rate occurred among infants, children and young adults.
By the 1950s, so-called ‘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 aged and old more than the young.
There are several possible reasons for the decline in deaths from infection. It is possible that the population began to develop some natural resistance or that some diseases became less virulent (powerful).
However, social factors probably had a much greater impact on infectious diseases. These include the following:
Reasons for the decline in the death rate
Improved nutrition
Thomas McKeown (1972) 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 increased resistance to infection and increased the survival chances of those who did become infected.
However, McKeown does not explain why females, who receive a smaller share of the family food supply, lived longer than males. Similarly, he fails to explain why deaths from some infectious diseases, such as measles and infant diarrhoea, actually rose at a time of improving nutrition.
Reasons for the decline in the death rate
Medical improvements
Before the 1950s, despite some important innovations, medical improvements played almost no part in the reduction of deaths from infectious disease.
However, after the 1950s, improved medical knowledge, techniques and organisation did help to reduce death rates. Advances included the introduction of antibiotics, immunisation, blood transfusion, improved maternity services, as well as the setting up of the National Health Service in 1948. More recently, improved medication, bypass surgery and other developments have reduced deaths from heart disease by one-third.
