Demography

What is birth rate?

Number of live births per thousand of the population per year

What is total fertility rate?

Average number of kids a woman will have during their fertile years

How does the change in women’s positions decline the birth rate?

Women devote their time to their education rather than having children

According to Sarah Harper (2012), it is the most important reason. Evidence shows as 1/5 of women aged 45 was childless

How does child centeredness affect the decline in birth rate?

Childhood is seen as an important period of a child’s life, encouraging shift from ‘quantity’ to ‘quality’. Parents focus on their one kid rather than having more continuously.

How does the decline in IMR affect the birth rate?

It dropped due to better sanitation and nutrition, leading to more babies surviving and there being less of a need to ‘replace them’.

How does the laws banning child labour affect the birth rate?

Children are seen as an economic liability and the financial pressures may lead to parents feeling less willing to have a large family.

What social factors affect the death rate?

According to Thomas Mckeown (1972), improved nutrition accounted for up to half the reduction in death rates

Things like antibiotics and the introduction of the NHS helped reduce the rate also.

According to Harper, reduction in smoking led to the greatest fall in death rates.

Public health measures, such as Clean Air acts and housing.

What does life expectancy mean?

How long on average a person is expected to live for

What was the life expectancy of a baby boy in 1900 compared to 2013

50 years old in 1900

90.7 years old in 2013

Why do manual workers have a lower life expectancy than professionals?

They are in dangerous working conditions, usually live in poorer areas and cannot afford good healthcare

What are the causes of an ageing population?

Increasing life expectancy

Declining infant mortality rate

Declining fertility

What are the effects of an ageing population on public services?

They consume a larger proportion of services than other age groups

There will be an increased expenditure on health care as well as changes to policies.

What are the effects of an ageing population on the dependency ratio?

They are an economically dependent group.

As the number of retired rises, the burden on working population increases. However, it is wrong to assume that ‘old’ necessarily means ‘dependency’ as they work for longer since the age to draw pensions is 66.

What is ageism?

A negative stereotype of people based on their age.

How does age work in a modern society?

Age determines people’s roles as life is structured into a fixed series of stages.

Age becomes imoortant in role allocation

What type of dependency is there in a modern society?

Structured dependency (E.g; the old are excluded from paid work, leaving them economically dependent.

What is the Marxist view of old age in capitalist society?

According to Phillipson (1982), the old are of no use to capitalism as they’re no longer productive

The stage provides for them unwillingly

How is age seen in post-modern society?

The fixed, orderly stages of have been broken down so people have a greater choice of lifestyle. (E.g; Later marries or early retirement)

So, according to Hunt (2005), we can choose an identiy regardless of age as we define ourselves by what we consume.

How are the elderly seen in postmodern society?

The media portrays positive aspects of the elderly (going against ageist stereotypes), as there are a large range of ‘rejuvenation’ goods and services through which they can create their own identity.

Examples include, cosmetic surgery and exercise equipment

What is immigration?

Movement into society

What is emigration?

Movement out of society

What is net migration?

Difference between numbers of immigrants and emigrants

How does migration affect the UK population?

It causes a natural increase as more non-uk born women are having children who are now uk born.

How does immigration affect the age structure in the UK?

Directly: As immigrants are generally younger

Indirectly: As being younger means they’re more fertile

How does immigration affect the dependency ratio in the UK?

Immigrants are more likely to be of working age (lowering the ratio).

However. they have more children, increasing the ratio until they join the labour force

How does the declining fertility rate affect the UK population?

There is a smaller workforce and an increased pressure on public services and finances to meet the needs of an ageing population

How does the increased life expectancy, combined with low birth rates affect the UK population?

The working age population will shrink and there’ll be a greater proportion older people

What is globalisation and how does that affect migration?

Barrier between societies are disappearing and people are becoming increasingly interconnected across nation barriers.

Migrants come from a much wider rage of countries instead of a narrow range of former British colonies

What is the feminisation of migration?

Female migrants find they fit into patriarchal stereotypes about women’s roles as carers or providers of sexual services in western countries.

How does the feminisation of migration reflect the gender division of labour in western societies?

Failure of the state to provide adequate childcare

Western men remain unwilling to perform domestic labour

What did Ehrenreich and Hochschild observe about female migrants from poor countries?

They do more domestic and care work in western countries than western people

What is assimilationism?

An approach to immigration and encourage immigrants to adopt the language, values and customs of the hold culture to make them ‘like us’

Why is assimilationism controversial?

Transnational migrants may not be willing to abandom their culture

However, there’s been a move towards these policies after the 9/11

What did Castles say about assimilationist policies?

They’re counterproductive as they ‘other' minority groups

This may lead to them responding by emphasising their difference and soon defeat the goal of assimilation

What is multiculturalism and what is usually accepted about it?

Migrants are able to retain a separate cultural identity

According to Eriksen, ‘shallow diversity’, such as national dishes is acceptable but ‘deep diversity’, such as child marriages aren’t. This is because they’re corrupt and challenges the values of the state.