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Demography - Coggle Diagram
Demography
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Deaths
- Death rate - number of deaths per thousand per year. 1900 = 19, 2012 - 8.9
- Began falling from around 1870 continues till 1930 - rose slightly during 30s and 40s (period great economic depression, WWII) since 50s declined slightly
Reasons for decline in death rate:
- Tranter (1996) - over 3/4 decline in death rate from 1850 to 1970 due to fall in number of deaths from infectious diseases. Deaths from infectious diseases most common among young and more of decline in death rate occurred among infants, children and young adults
- By 50s 'diseased of affluence' replaced infectious diseases as main cause of death - degenerative diseases affect middle aged and old more than young
- May have developed natural resistance or some diseases became less virulent
- Many social factors greater impact on infectious diseases
Improved nutrition:
- McKeown - improved nutrition accounted for up to half reduction in death rates and particularly important in reducing number of deaths from TB. Better nutrition increases resistance to infection and increased survival chances of those who became infected
- Not explain why females who receive smaller family food supply lived longer than males. Fails to explain why deaths from some infectious diseases actually rose at time of improving nutrition
Medical improvements:
- After 50s improved medical knowledge, techniques and organisation help reduce death rates
- Advances: antibiotics, immunisation, blood transfusion, improved maternity services as well as setting up National Health Services in 1948
- Recently - improved medication, by-pass surgery and other have reduced deaths from heart disease by 1/3
Smoking and diet:
- Harper - greatest fall in death rates in recent decades come from reduction in people smoking
- 21st century, obesity replaced smoking as new lifestyle epidemic - 2012, 1/4 all UK adults obese
- Although obesity increased deaths from it have kept low as a result of drug therapies.
Harper - may be moving to an 'American' health culture where lifestyles are unhealthy but a long lifespan is achieved by use of costly medication
Public health measures:
- 20th century, more effective central and local gov with necessary power to pass and enforce laws led to range of improvements in public health and quality of the environment
- Improvements in housing, purer drinking water, laws to combat adulteration of food and drink, pasteurisation of milk, improved sewage disposal methods
- Clean Air Acts reduced air pollution - smog led to 4,000 deaths in 5 days in 1952
Other societal changes:
- decline dangerous manual occupations
- smaller families reduced rate of transmission of infection
- greater public knowledge of causes of illness
- lifestyle changes
- higher incomes = healthier lifestyle
Life expectancy:
- How long average person born in a given year can expect to live
- Death rate fall - life expectancy increase
- Males born England 1900 average live till 50 (57 for females)
- Males born England 2013 expect 90.7 (94 females)
- Over last two centuries life expectancy increase about 2 years per decade
- Lower in 1900 - infants and children didn't survive beyond early years - new born today better chance reaching 65 than new born 1900 reaching 1
- Trend to greater longevity continues - Harper - soon achieve 'radical longevity' with many more centenarians. Currently about 10,000 in UK; bu 2100 projected 1 million
Class, gender and regional differences:
- Women generally live longer than men - gap narrowed due to changes in employment and lifestyle
- Living in North and Scotland lower life expectancy than those in South
- WC men in unskilled or routine jobs nearly 3x as likely to die before age 65 compared to men with managerial or professional jobs
- Walker (2011) - those living in poorest areas of England die on average seven years earlier than those in richest, average difference in disability-free life expectancy is 17 years.
Births
- Birth rate - the number of the live births per thousand of the population per year
- Long-term decline in number of births since 1900. England and Wales - 28.7, 2014 - 12.2
- Fluctuations in births, 3 baby booms in the 20th century - first two after the two world wars, third on 60s after which birth rate fell sharply during 70s. Rose in 80s, fell early 90s, some increase since 2001
Total fertility rate:
- Factors determining birth rate; proportion women who are of childbearing age, how fertile they are
- Total fertility rate (TFR) average number of children women have during their fertile years
- UK's risen in recent years but is lower than the past. Lowest 1.63 per women in 2001, rose to 1.83 by 2014 - peak 2.95 1964
- Changes in fertility and virth rates reflect:
- more women remaining childless
- postpone having children: average age 30, fertility rates women in 30s and 40s increasing. Older women may be less fertile and fewer fertile years remaining = less children
Future trends in birth rates:
- Slight increase in births since 2001
- May be due to immigration - on average, mothers outside UK have higher fertility rate than those born in the UK. Babies born to mothers outside UK accounted for 25% all births in 2011
- Projection for the period up to 2041 expects annual number births to be fairly constant - around 800,000 per year
Reasons for decline in birth rate:
- Social, economic, cultural, legal, political, technological factors
Changes in women's position:
- Legal equality with men, rights to vote
- Increased educational opportunities
- More women in paid employment, laws outlawing unequal pay and sex dicrimination
- Changes in attitudes to family life and women's role
- Easier access to divorce
- Access to abortion and reliable contraception, more control over fertility
- Harper (2012) - education of women more important reason for long-term fall in birth and fertility rates - led to change in mind-set among women = fewer children
- Educated women more likely use family planning, see other possibilities rather than traditional role of housewife and mother - delay childbearing or not have any at all - pursue career.
- 2012, 1/5 women aged 45 were childless - double number 25 years earlier
- Harper - once pattern of low fertility lasts more than one gen, cultural norms about family size change - smaller families become norm and large become deviant or less acceptable
Decline of infant mortality rate:
- Measures number infants who die before 1st birthday per thousand born per year
- Harper - fall in IMR leads to fall in birth rate - survival of infants means less trying for more
- 1900, IMR UK 154 - over 15% babies died within first year - high figures than those of less developed countries today. 2014, highest IMR Afghanistan 117
- During first half 20th century began to fall:
- improved housing and better sanitation - infants more susceptible to infection due to less developed immune system
- better nutrition
- better knowledge of hygiene, child health and welfare
- fall in number married women working - improve health of them and babies
- improved services for mothers and children
- 1950s, medical factors began to play greater role - mass immunisation against childhood diseases, use of antibiotics to fight infection, improved midwifery and obstetric techniques - fall of IMR
- By 1950 UK IMR fallen to 30, 2012 = 4
- Brass and Kabir (1978) - trend to smaller families began not in rural areas, where first IMR began to fall but in urban areas, where IMR remained higher for longer
Children are economic liabilities:
- Laws: ban child labour, introduce compulsory schooling, raising school leaving age - children remain economically dependent on parents for longer
- Changing norms: about what children have a right to expect from their parents in material terms - cost of bringing up children has risen
- Financial pressures, parents feel less able or willing to have a large family
Child centredness:
- Childhood socially constructed as a uniquely important period in an individual's life
- Encouraged shift in quantity to quality - parents have fewer and lavish more attention and resources to the few
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The ageing population
- Average age of UK pop is rising. 1971 = 34.1, 2013 = 40.3, 2037 projected 42.8. Fewer young people and more old - number 65+ equal number under 15 in 2014
- 'Age pyramids' - show how older age groups growing as a proportion of the population, whilst younger are shrinking
Hirsch (2005) - traditional age 'pyramid' disappearing and replaced with equal sized 'blocks' representing different age groups - by 2041 as many 78 as 5
- Caused by three factors:
- increasing life expectancy - people living longer into old age
- declining infant mortality
- declining fertility - fewer young born in relation to number of old in population
Effects of ageing pop
Public services:
- Older consume larger proportion of services - particularly true of 'old old' (75+) against then 'young old' (65-74) - be aware of over generalising
- May mean changes to policies and provision of housing, transport and other services
One-person pensioner households:
- Pensioners living alone increased and now account for 12.5% of 1/8 households
- Most usually female as women tend to live longer and are usually younger than husbands
- Among 75+, twice as many women as men - 'feminisation of later life'
The dependency ratio:
- Non-working old are economically dependent who need to be provided for by working age - taxation to pay for pensioners and health care
- Number retired rises, increases dependency ratio and burden on working pop. 2015, 3.2 people of working age to every 1 pensioner - predicted to fall to 2.8 to one by 2033
- Wrong to assume are economically dependent - age people can draw their pension is rising - from 2020 have to wait till 66 to access state pension, 67 from 2026
- Ageing population offset by declining number of dependent children
Ageism, modernity and postmodernity:
- Negative stereotyping and unequal treatment of people based on age growing
- Ageism towards old - discrimination in employment, unequal treatment in healthcare
Modern society and old age:
- Ageism result of structured dependency - old largely excluded from paid work, left economically dependent on families or state
- Modern society - identity and status determined by role in production - excluded from production by compulsory retirement have dependent status and stigmatised identity
- Marxist - Phillipson (1982) - old are no use to capitalism as they are no longer productive - state unwilling to support them adequately and so family take on responsibility for their care
- Modern society - life structured into fixed series of stages - age become important in role allocation, creating fixed life stages and age-related identities
Postmodernity and old age:
- Today's postmodern society, fixed orderly stages of life course have broken down - individuals greater choice of lifestyle whatever age
- Consumption become key not production - define ourselves by what we consume
Hunt (2005) - choose a lifestyle regardless our age: age no longer determines who we are or how we live
- Old become market for vast range of body maintenance or rejuvenation goods and services through which that can create their identities
- Trends breakdown ageist stereotypes. Two features postmodern society underminde old age as stigmatised life stage:
- centrality of the media - images portray positive aspects of lifestyles of elderly
- emphasis on surface features - body becomes surface we can write identities
Inequality among the old:
- Pilcher (1995) p inequalities such as class and gender remain important - many related to previous occupational position
- Class - MC better occupational pensions and greater savings from higher salaries, poorer have shorter life expectancy and suffer more infirmity
- Gender - women lower earnings and career breas as carers means lower pensions. Subject to sexist as well as ageist stereotyping
- Postmodernists understate importance of inequalities. Related to structure of wider society and play major part in shaping experience of old age - restricting freedom to choose identity through consumption
- Older people face discrimination that limits choices: Age Concern (2004) found more people (29%) reported suffering age discrimination than any other form.
Policy implications:
- Hirsch (2005) - number of important social policies need to change to tackle new problems posed on ageing population.
Main problem how to finance longer periods of old age - paying more from our savings and taxes while working or working longer or both
- Housing policy may need to change to encourage older people to 'trade down' to smaller accommodation - release wealth to improve their standard of living and free up housing for younger people
- Hirsch recognises - policy changes also require cultural change in attitudes towards old age. View illustrates notion old age is social construct
Migration
Immigration:
- From 1900 until WW2, largest immigrant group were Irish, mainly for economic reasons, followed by Eastern and Central European Jews, who were often refugees fleeing persecution, and people of British descent from Canada and the USA. Very few non-white
- During 1950s, black immigrants from Caribbean arrived, followed during 60s and 70s bu South Asian immigrants from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, and by East African Asians from Kenya and Uganda
- More ethnically diverse society - by 2011, ethnic minority groups accounted for 14% of population - greater diversity of family patterns
- More people left the UK than entered and more immigrants were white
- Series of immigration and nationality acts from 1962 to 1990 places restrictions on non-white immigration. By 80s, non-whites accounted for little more than 1/4 all immigrants, mainly white countries of European Union become main source of settlers in UK
Emigration:
- Mid-16th century till 80s, UK almost always a net exporter of people. Since 1900, emigrants gone to USA, Canadam Australia, New Zealand, South Africa
- Main reasons for emigration have been economic:
- push factors - economic recession, unemployment at home
- pull factors - higher wages or better opportunities
- Other groups driven to migrate by religious, political or racial persecution
Impact of migration on UK population structure:
- Recent increase in immigration and emigration - affect size of UK population, age structure and dependency ration
- Population size - currently growing partly as a result of immigration:
- Net migration is high with more immigrants (583,000) than emigrants (323,000). 47% immigrants non-EU citizens, 38% EU citizens and 14% British returning to UK
- Natural increase - births exceeding deaths. Births to UK born mother remain low and non-uk higher and account for about 25% all births.
Even with these births remain below replacement level of 2.1 per woman
Age structure:
- Immigration lowers average age of populations directly and indirectly:
- Directly - immigrants generally younger - 2011, average age UK passport holders was 41, that of non-UK passport holders living in Britain was 31
- Indirectly - being younger, more fertile, more babies
Dependency ratio:
- Immigration has 3 effects:
- Immigrants more likely to be of working age - lower dependency ratio. Many older migrants return to country of origin to retire
- Immigrants have more children as younger, increasing ratio - over time children join labour force and help lower ratio
- Longer group is settled closer their fertility rate comes to national average, reducing overall impact on dependency ratio