Demography

• Trends of Birth rate

  • Fallen since the 20th century
  • 2014 there were nearly 700,00 births in England and Wales nut 1 million in 1901
  • Fertility was high after the first and second world war
• Reasons for decline in birth rate: Changes in women's position

  • Legal equality with men - Equality Act 2010
  • Increased education
  • More women in paid employment
  • Harper notes these changes has led to a change in mind set for women - women may delay having children
• Reasons for decline in birth rate: Decline in infant mortality

  • Harper argues that a fall in IMR leads to a fall in the birth rate - this is because if many infants die parents may have more
• Reasons for decline in birth rate: Children are now an economic liability

  • Can no longer work from young ages so are more reliant are parents
  • Parents now feel less able to care for bigger families
• Effects of changes in fertility rates

  • Smaller families mean women are more likely to go out and work
  • Reduces burden of dependency on working population
  • Due to fewer babies there will be fewer young adults working so dependency ratio may begin to increase again
  • Lower fertility means there are fewer schools, maternity and child health services to be needed
• Overall trend in death rate

  • In 1900 the rate stood at 19 whereas by 2-10 it had more than halved to 9.1
  • According to Tranter this is because over 3/4 of the decline in death rate from around 1850-1970 was due to a fall in number of deaths from infectious dieses
• Reasons for decline in death rate: Medical improvements

  • After 1960s improved medical knowledge, techniques and organisations helped death rate
  • Advances include - antibiotics, immunisation, blood transfusion, better maternity care and the introduction of the NHS in 1948
• Reasons for decline in death rate: Smoking and Diet

  • According to Harper this is the greatest reason for the fall in death rate because there has been a massive reduction in how many people smoke - EVAL: However this has been replaced by obesity as the new lifestyle epidemic - in 2012 1/4 of the UK adults were obese
  • Deaths from obesity has been kept low due to drug therapies - Harper suggests we are moving to American culture
• Reasons for decline in birth rate: Improved nutrition

  • McKeown argues improved nutrition accounted for up to half the reduction in death rates - Better nutrition increased resistance to infection and increased the survival chances of those who did become infected
  • EVAL: McKeown does not explain why females who have a smaller share of the family food supply live longer than men. He also fails to explain why deaths from diseases such as measles, rose during the time of improving nutrition
• Reasons for decline in birth rate: Public health measures

  • Improvements in housing
  • Clean air act reduced air pollution such as smog that led to 4000 deaths in five days in 1902
• Trends in ageing population in UK

  • The average of the UK population is rising, in 1961 it was 34.1 years but by 2020 it stood at 40 and by 2037 it is expected to reach 42.8.
  • There are fewer young people and more old people
  • The number of people aged 65 or over equalised the number of under 25s in 2018
• Age pyramids

  • Show how older age groups are growing as a proportion whilst the younger groups are shrinking
  • Hirsch - note the traditional age pyramid is disappearing and being less or more equal sized blocks representing different age groups - For example by 2041 there will be as many 78 year olds as there are 5 year olds
• Effects of an ageing population

  • Public services - increasing spending needed for health care to care for the ageing population
  • One-person pension housing - Over 15% or one in seven of all households
  • Dependency ratio - more dependent on tax - in 2022 there were 3.5 people of working age for every one pensioner
• Ageing population and Modernity

  • Modern society and old age - in modern society our identity and status are largely determined by out role in production. Those excluded from production by compulsory retirement have a dependent status and stigmatised identity
  • Marxist, Phillipson argues that the old are no use to capitalism because they are no longer productive. As a result the state it unwilling to support them so the family especially females must take responsibility for their care
• Ageing population and Postmodernity

  • Argue today the fixed, orderly stages of life course have broken down. For example trends such as children dressing in adult styles, later marriages and early retirement all begins to blur the boundaries between life stages
  • Hunt argues this means we can choose a lifestyle and identity regardless of out age - our age no longer determines how we live or who we are
  • Postmodernists also argue that two features of postmodern society which undermine old age as a stigmatised life stage:
  • Centrality of media
  • Emphasis on surface features
• Ageing population and Postmodernity (2)

  • Inequality among the old - whilst the orderly stages of the life course have broken down - Pilcher argues inequalities such as gender (ageist stereotypes, old hags) and class (lower class older people have shorter life expectancy and suffer more infirmity making it more difficult to maintain a youthful social identity) remain important
  • Seen to understate the importance of inequalities - issues are related to the structure of wider society - play a major part in shaping the experience of old age often restricting freedom of the elderly
• Ageism and Postmodernity (3)

  • Policy implications - Hirsch argues that several important social policies will need to change to tackle the new problems which arise by the ageing population - for example paying taxes, housing policies encourages older people to trade down into smaller homes to make room for young people - Hirsch also argues we need a cultural change in attitudes towards older people and illustrates the notion that old age is a social construct
• Migration - Key terms

  • Migration refers to the movement of people from place to place, this can be internal within a society or international
  • Immigration - movement into a society
  • Emigration - refers to movement out of a society
  • Net migration - difference between the numbers of immigrants and the number of emigrants
• Immigration trends

  • 1900 - second world war the largest immigrant group were the Irish due to economic reasons, followed by eastern and central European jews who were often refugees fleeing persecution and people of British descents from Canada and the USA
  • However during the 1950s Black immigrants from the Caribbean began to arrive in the UK, followed during the 1960s and 70s by south Asian immigrants from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and East African Asians
  • One consequence of this is a ethnically diverse society - 2021 minority ethnic groups accounted for 14.4% of the population
• Emigration trends

  • From the mid-16th century until the 1980s the UK was almost a net exporter of people - people emigrated to live elsewhere than came to settle in the UK
  • Since the 1900s emigrants have gone to the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa
  • Push factors - such as economic recession and unemployment
  • Pull factors - such as higher wages or better opportunities abroad
• Impact of migration on the UK population

  • Population size - Net migration of EU citizens fell down sharply after Brexit in 2016 - 133000 to 49000 - Births to UK born mothers remain low, births to Non-UK are higher accounting for 28% of all births
  • Affects age structure - immigration lowers the average age of the population both directly (immigrants are generally younger - 48% of UK born were aged 24-54 compared to 70% of migrants) and indirectly (younger immigrants more fertile so have more children)
  • Dependency ratio - immigrants are more likely to be working age so dependency ratio decreases
• Trends in global migration - Acceleration

  • Rate of migration has been speeding up
  • EG - International migration increased by 33% between 2000 and 2013
  • In the same year, 862000 people entered or left the UK
• Trends of global migration - Differentiation

  • Vertovec - Super-diversity due to globalisation - there is increased diversity due to globalisation - there is increased diversity of migrants - permanent settlers, spouses, temporary workers, forced migrants life refuges
  • Cohen - migrants have class differences - citizens (full rights) Denizens (privileged foreign nationals our state welcomes, like paid employees in multi national companies) and Helots (poorly paid reserved army of labour
• Trends of global migration - Feminisation of migration

  • Migrants only used to be men but now over half are female. This has been called the globalisation of the gender division of labour - where female migrants find they are fitted into patriarchal stereotypes about women's roles as carers
  • Stutes - 40% of adult care nurses are migrants - mostly female
  • Hochschild - care, domestic and sex work in western countries is being done more and more by women from poor countries - due to demand for female labour for work traditionally done by men more women now join labour force
• Policies and Migration

  • States now have policies to control immigration, absorb migrants into society and deal with a rise in ethnic/cultural diversity
  • Assimilation - first state policy approaching immigration, aims to encourage migrants to adopts the hosts culture and be 'like us'
  • Multiculturalism - accepts people want to keep their cultural identity but Erikson distinguishes between diversity types - shallow diversity and deep diversity
• Migrant identities

  • Multiple sources of identity, like friends, family, ethnicity, religion etc - they give us a sense of belonging.
  • For migrants and their descendants their country may ne am additional source of identity
  • Erikson - globalisation made more diverse migrant patterns and less permanent settlement in a country-unsteady, many people go back and forth
  • This means migrants are less likely to see themselves as part of just one country/culture
  • Instead they develop transnational identities with modern tech keeping global ties without having to travel