Demography

Birth rate

the number of live births per thousand of the population per year

Changes in women’s position

-          Increase educational opportunity

o   Girls can now access schools, this means that they would have an education, and with that, they are taught that they can be more than just a traditional housewife and mother

-          More women in paid employment

o   As women get paid equally, and there are laws and legislations to back it, the Equal Pay Act, they can focus on building a career, and prioritising their work

-          Access to contraception and abortion

o   Women now have the right and the voice to say that they do not want a child. And they can prevent that with measures such as contraception and abortion.

Harper argues that education is the most important, it leads to change in mindset and attitude amongst women, so they are choosing to delay childbearing and focus on a career.

In 2012, 1 in 5 women were childless.

Decline Infant Mortality Rate

Harper

IMR - the number of infants that died before their first birthday per thousand babies born alive per year

There has been a decline in IMR, in society, they used to have a high IMR, so their parents felt the need to replace them. However, now, there has been a fall in IMR, meaning lots of infants are surviving, therefore parents will have fewer children

The reason for the decline is that we live in better conditions today

-          Improved housing

o   For example, babies are in a suitable temperature for survival, in an improved condition house

-          Better Nutrition

o   For example, babies are receiving the correct food and supplements for development

-          Improved services

o   For example, in the medical field, they can get vaccinated for safety

Criticism by Brass and Kabir, the trend to smaller families did not happen in rural areas, and that is where there was the first decline in IMR, smaller families happened in urban areas, where there was a high IMR.

Children are an economic liability

Back in society, children were an economic asset to their parents, because they worked for them. There are now child labour laws, so children cannot work until a certain age, and they have to stay in school until a certain age, and there is a change in norms, and there are trends which a child demands their parents to get, and if they don’t, so they get stigmatised. Because the parents receive financial pressures from their children, they have fewer children.

Deaths

Mckeown

Improved nutrition resulted in a half of a reduction in death rates, especially deaths caused by TB (tuberculosis). With better nutrition, we have access to vitamins and minerals, we are taught about what our body needs, we can increase resistance against diseases, so with the access to all of these things, we can build our bodies’ immune system up, and we can increase our survival chances

 

Evaluation – he doesn’t explain why females who receive a smaller amount of family foods, live longer than males. He doesn’t explain why deaths from diseases, such as measles, rose at a time of improved nutrition.

 

Medical improvements

There has been an improvement in medical knowledge, so people can be educated about medicine, doctors and nurses will undergo lots of training, and there are more advances, for example, in antibiotics, blood transfusions, MRI scans and much more, we can treat people suffering from diseases and reduce deaths. Improved medications have reduced heart disease deaths by 1/3.

 

Smoking and Diets

Harper

Obesity has replaced smoking, more adults are obese than smokers, deaths by obesity have been kept low because of drug therapies. So we’re moving to an American health culture, where lifestyles are unhealthy but through the use of medication, there is still a long lifespan.

Ageism

Ageing Population – the average age of the UK population is rising

Caused by three factors

-          Increasing life expectancy

o   People are living longer

-          Declining IMR

-          Decline in Fertility

o   Less young people being born in general, a declining birth rate

 

Dependency Ratio

There are non-working young (children) and the non-working old (retired people), they are economically dependent groups, they cannot work themselves, so they need to be provided for by those of a working age, so this can be through taxation to pay for pensions and health care. As the number of old people/retired people increases, the dependency ratio increases, which increases the pressure put on the working groups.

 

Criticism

It is wrong to assume that just because you are old you are economically dependent on the working population. An increase in the elderly, should not raise the burden because there is a decline in children,

Ageism – negative stereotyping and bad treatment of old people because of their age

Modern society and old age

The old are excluded from paid work, they automatically become economically dependent on their families. This is called a structured dependency. The elderly are automatically deemed “useless” to production. In society, our status is determined by our role in production, those who are working, have high status, because the elderly are not productive, they are discriminated against and stigmatised.

 

Philipson

The elderly are of no use to capitalism, they are no longer cared for by the state, they are handed to the families.

 

Key word – status is determined by your role in production, structured dependency

 

Post-modern society and old age

In today’s society, the fixed stages have been broken down, so, for example, children dress up as adults, later marriage, and early retirement blur the boundary between the life stages. In modern society, your status was based on production, however, in post-modern society, it is based on consumption. Hunt argues that we can define ourselves by what we consume, meaning we can choose a lifestyle regardless of our age. For example, there are trends to break down this ageism, there is the centrality of the media, which means the media portrays positive aspects of the elderly. And the emphasis on surface features, the body becomes a surface, of which we can write our own identities, for example, there are anti-ageing products, cosmetic surgery, gym memberships, and all of this is involved in allowing the old to rebrand.

Immigration

movement into a society

Emigration

movement out of society

Net Migration

difference between the numbers of immigrants and numbers of emigrants.

Differentiation

Since the 1990s globalisation has led to what Vertovec calls super diversity. Even with a single ethnic group, individuals differ in terms of their legal status.

Cohen says there are also class differences among migrants:

-          Citizens

o   Full citizenship, voting rights, since the 1970’s the UK has made it harder for immigrants to get these rights

-          Denizens

o   Privileged foreign nationals welcomed by the state such as an oligarch or highly paid employees of multinational companies.

-          Helots

o    Most exploited group, states and employers regard them as disposable units of labour power, a reserve army of labour. Found in unskilled, poorly paid work and include illegally trafficked workers, and are legally tied to particular employers such as domestic servants. (litch slaves)

Transnational identities

Eriksen says that globalisation has created more diverse migration patterns with back-and-forth movements of people through networks rather than permanent settlement in another country. This means that migrants are less likely to see themselves as belonging to one country to culture, the globalised economy means that migrants may have more links to other migrants around the world then to either their country or origin of settlement, Eriksen describes the Chinese migrants in Rome who found mandarin more useful for everyday life then Italian, simple because e mandarin was more important for their global connections, with chines in other countries around the world,. Migrants in a globalised world are thus less likely to determine assimilation into the host culture.