Demographic Change
Demographic change refers to the variations in the composition of a population over time, including factors such as age, gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. These changes can result from birth and death rates, migration patterns, and societal shifts. Understanding demographic change is crucial for policymakers, businesses, and researchers to address issues related to healthcare, education, employment, and social welfare.
8 Key excerpts on "Demographic Change"
eBook - ePub- Keith Porter, Paul Smith, Roger Fagg(Authors)
- 2007(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Next, birth rates fall, due to: The spread of contraceptive knowledge The realization that children will survive into adulthood The changing role of women The increasing cost of raising children in a society where years of education are expected (i.e. children can no longer be viewed as economic assets). Ultimately, society arrives at a point where both birth and death rates are low and the population size is once again stable. However, as is borne out by the UK example, the population is now far larger than at the start of the process. Demographic transition is the long-term hope for world population size, which is projected to reach 8.5 billion by the year 2025 (compared with 3 billion in 1962). Population growth has significant environmental effects, because if the population is growing very fast the economy has to grow quickly if income per head is not to fall. The resultant increased output will cause raw materials to be consumed more quickly, greater pressure on food supplies, and more pollution as production expands. The structure of the population The structure of the population refers to how the population is distributed in terms of age, sex and occupation. Exercise What kinds of demographic data are most likely to be of use to your organization? What do you need to know about the characteristics of your staff and your customers in terms of their age, sex and occupational background? 13.1.3 Demographic data about customers It is important to be aware of the demographic characteristics of your customers, as these will affect the pattern of demand for products and services. For example, in recent years there has been an increase in the number of women in the workforce...
eBook - ePubThe Social Context of Ageing
A Textbook of Gerontology
- Christina Victor(Author)
- 2004(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...The structure of a given population is rarely static as the relationship between the key drivers of Demographic Change; birth rates, death rates and migration are highly fluid and subject to considerable variation over time. It is the interaction between these three sets of factors that brings about Demographic Change. In the case of the United Kingdom, population ageing has largely come about because of changes in birth and death rates. The ageing of the British population Perhaps the most striking demographic trend during the twentieth century in Britain, and many other parts of western Europe, has been the 'ageing' of the population. This refers to the processes of Demographic Change which results in an age structure which is characterised by increasing numbers (and percentages) of older people and decreasing numbers (and percentages) of younger people. Leaving aside the question of how precisely 'older' and 'younger' components of the population are defined, what are the processes which result in this demographic shift and what are the measures we use to describe the age profile of populations? Considering the processes that bring about population ageing, at the most basic level the distribution of age groups within any given population are function of mortality (death) rates and fertility rates. Population ageing occurs when large numbers of people survive into old age and comparatively few children are born. There are a number of different measures that are used to summarise the age distribution of populations. These are percentage population classed as 'old', mean and median ages, population pyramids, dependency ratio...
- International Monetary Fund. Research Dept.(Author)
- 2004(Publication Date)
- INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND(Publisher)
...The impact of Demographic Change on developing countries has received less attention, but is certainly no less important, particularly given that an increasing share of the world’s population will reside in these countries in the future. Despite the uncertainty of demographic projections, the broad trends just described appear to be well established. Nonetheless, some time will elapse before their consequences for macroeconomic behavior are fully manifested. So, if the economic implications of these Demographic Changes are judged to be significant, policymakers do have the opportunity to respond ahead of time, although this window of opportunity is closing fast, particularly for those countries where the demographic transition is well advanced. The appropriate policy responses, however, are likely to vary between countries, will inevitably involve difficult trade-offs, and will take time to agree and implement. In light of the changes taking place in the world’s demographic structure, this chapter identifies more precisely the main demographic trends currently facing the world; assesses how these trends may affect the global and regional economies; and discusses policy responses to meet the challenges posed by Demographic Change. The chapter is organized as follows. The first section discusses current and projected demographic trends, and how these will affect the size and structure of the world’s population. The second section presents econometric and modelbased evidence on the economic impact of Demographic Change. The last section explores possible policy options for responding to ongoing demographic developments. Changing Structure of the World’s Population The world is in the midst of a historically unprecedented demographic transition that is having—and will continue to have—profound effects on the size and age structure of its population (Figure 3.1)...
eBook - ePubApplied Demography
An Introduction To Basic Concepts, Methods, And Data
- Steve H. Murdock(Author)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Often, cohort effects are differentiated relative to the effects of a specific period of time (referred to as period effects) and effects that are a function of age (that is, age effects). By comparing the patterns for a cohort across time relative to the patterns for persons at the cohort's age at several different points in time (relative to period effects) and relative to patterns for different age groups at different points in time (age effects), the unique effects of being a member of a given cohort can be, at least partially, identified (Mason et al., 1973; Glenn, 1977; Palmore, 1978; Rodgers, 1982). Population Change Population change is a function of three processes referred to as the demographic processes or components. These are births, deaths and migration. The relationship between these variables is perhaps best seen in the simple population equation (sometimes also called the bookkeeping equation of population). This equation is as follows: Where: = population for a second date (t 2) = population at the base date (t 1) = number of births that occur during the time interval from the base date (t 1) to the second date (t 2) = number of deaths that occur during the time interval from the base date (t 1) to the second date (t 2) = amount of net migration that occurs during the time interval from the base date (t 1) to the second date (t 2) Therefore, to understand population change, it is necessary to understand patterns of births, deaths, and migration. Understanding the sources of population change, whether it is a result of patterns of births and deaths (processes whose combined effects are referred to as natural increase or natural change) or of migration, is of vital importance because the determinants and consequences of the processes of natural increase and migration are quite different. Death is a result of physiological processes and the attempt to lengthen life is a major goal of nearly every society...
eBook - ePubSoziologie - Sociology in the German-Speaking World
Special Issue Soziologische Revue 2020
- Betina Hollstein, Rainer Greshoff, Uwe Schimank, Anja Weiß, Betina Hollstein, Rainer Greshoff, Uwe Schimank, Anja Weiß(Authors)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Oldenbourg(Publisher)
...In any case, demographic aging along with a declining number of inhabitants has many political and administrative consequences (Bartl, 2011). From a sociological perspective, the main challenge is that a decreasing population has different social, economic, and political impacts than an increasing population. As the sociologist Franz-Xaver Kaufmann (2005) 3 observed, there is a structural lack of solutions for the problems of negative population growth in modern societies, that is, in societies that are bent on solving all problems via growth (115). He postulates that―contrary to population growth, which leads to stimulating diversity―depopulation is associated with consolidating or even intensifying social and regional inequalities. 4.3 Longevity and social structures While the demographic and social effects of low fertility rates on the age distribution of a population have been intensively analyzed, the second dimension of demographic aging―increasing life expectancy―has been less discussed. In the context of increasing life expectancy, one has to mention the internationally widely cited article by Jim Oeppen and James Vaupel (2002), which at least partly originated within Germany (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock). Their research indicates a surprisingly linear increase in life expectancy over the last one hundred and fifty years when we look not at single countries but at those countries that have experienced the highest average life expectancy during a given time period. What is even more interesting from a sociological perspective is the effects of increased life expectancy on life phases and social structures. One of the most elaborate German works on the relationships between increased life expectancy and social structures in modern societies is the analysis by Helga Pelizäus-Hoffmeister (2011)...
eBook - ePub- Nancy E. Riley(Author)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Polity(Publisher)
...7 Demographic Changes and the Family Introduction As should be expected, the significant Demographic Changes that China has experienced have had profound effects on the family; some of those changes and their effects are directly tied to government policies and others are not. But in nearly all of the government's involvements in population, even if not intentional, the family has been at the center of the consequences of the subsequent Demographic Change. The dramatic fall in fertility has probably had the most visible and largest effects on family, but mortality and migration have also affected families in important ways. This chapter takes up some of the most significant effects of Demographic Change on families in China, examining changes in the size, structure, and function of families that have arisen from mortality and, especially, fertility change; marriage changes, including those changes that were part of birth planning policies; family divisions that have occurred as a fallout of increases in migration; and the aging of the population. Even as the state and its extensive population policies have been important in producing these family changes, the state is by no means the only influence on social change. These Demographic Changes have occurred amidst other widespread social changes, especially the economic changes that have impacted most aspects of Chinese life. In addition, influence can go in the other direction as well: state policies have had to adjust to families and individuals, and their desires and needs, as we saw when the government changed the one child policy to a two child policy in rural areas in the 1980s because of the pushback from families desperate for more children...
eBook - ePub- Peter Catterall, James Obelkevich(Authors)
- 2002(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Chapter 2 Elements of Demographic Change in Britain since 1945 Richard M.Smith One theory, above all others, has provided a framework for much of the discussion of the striking Demographic Changes that have occurred in the last century. This is the so-called ‘Demographic Transition Theory’ and there has been considerable debate concerning whether post-war British society, indeed Western society as a whole, continues to be interpretable within terms of that theory’s key premises (Davis et al. 1987). In its essentials, Demographic Transition Theory is a type of dogma of the ‘irreversible sequential change’ variety. It is an evolutionary schema setting out the demographic stages through which societies are bound to move as a consequence of industrialisation and urbanisation (Woods 1982:158-84). The initial condition in which high mortality and high fertility coexisted is stage I, and some have suggested in the English case that this ended c. 1750. This was followed by a phase of falling mortality in association with high fertility, creating rapid demographic growth (Stage II) until c. 1870; and after this there was a compensatory fall in fertility in Stage III which culminated when stationary demographic conditions were established in which very low mortality and fertility coincided simultaneously, especially after c. 1966. Much empirical research has shown that this model provides a problematic basis for our understanding of British demographic history in the period prior to 1900. Stage I in England cannot accurately be described as one in which high fertility and mortality coexisted in a compensatory fashion; nor can the great surge of population growth after 1750 be accurately explained by a fall in mortality (Wrigley and Schofield 1981). Nineteenth-century changes do not seem readily depicted as fertility falls occurring in the wake of prior mortality declines (Woods 1992)...
eBook - ePubKingsley Davis
A Biography and Selections from His Writings
- David M. Heer(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Compared to previous cultural changes, this one was quite rapid, although it took centuries and, even in Europe, is still incomplete. Some of the most important developments were doubtless intangible—the growth of democratic institutions, scientific ideals, humanitarian sentiments. The decline in mortality was itself a cause as well as a result of the social transformation, because it made possible a longer and more efficient use of human energies. New Demographic Balance As noted above, fertility tended to decline during the period of modernization. It did not decline as fast as mortality, however, and the difference between the two provided the tremendous growth of the European population. Eventually, however, the competitive, individualistic, urban society that had risen made large families a handicap rather than a blessing. At the same time the extreme reduction in infant mortality meant that the old fertility patterns, if they were to continue, would produce even larger families than formerly. Consequently, there was every incentive for couples to reduce the number of births, and it was not long until the same scientific approach that had been applied to the limitation of death was also applied to the limitation of births. 10 As the birth rate dropped to lower levels, the point was reached in northwestern and central Europe where the rate of population growth began once more to approach stability. At present this fact is still masked by heavy numbers in the reproductive ages, but techniques of analysis reveal that in future this area will have a stationary or a declining population. 11 Mortality has been reduced so far already that further reductions can no longer compensate for future declines in fertility. Thus in Europe, and in Europe overseas, the sociocultural transition known as the Industrial Revolution has been accompanied by an intimately related demographic transition, representing an astounding gain in human efficiency...
