Changing fertility and infant mortality rates and falling death rates Flashcards
What is Demography?
the statistical study of the size, social composition, and change of populations through the interplay of fertility (births), mortality (deaths), and migration.
What did Eve Worth (2022) argue?
found educated women were more likely to use ‘family planning’ strategies to self-direct their fertility, primarily through contraception. This was underpinned by education in two ways.
First, their education allowed them to understand how to manage sexual relationships and avoid pregnancy.
Second, the employment opportunities created from their education made them more likely to plan for a life beyond the traditional homemaker role of wife and mother.
This explains the major drops in fertility.
How would you explain Eve Worth’s argument using demographics?
This explains the decline in birth rates and fertility rates from the 1960s as the contraceptive pill became widely available. This explain the decline in birth rates from the 1880s.
Many women were educated about contraception and how to avoid pregnancy.
How does Hera Cook (2005) analyse this?
the ‘bodily autonomy’ of women through contraception, birth control, and the ease of divorce has led to declining fertility rates.
It is summed up in the slogan ‘my body, my choice’.
What is the second argument for infant mortality and fertility rates.
Liberal historical argument that declining infant mortality caused lower fertility rates as families did not replace the children they had lost and that decline in infant mortality was due to the scientific revolution and changes in industrial capitalism
Compare the improvements in deaths of babies in 1840s and 2011
in 1840s 15% of babies dies before their first birthday compared with 0.4% in 2011
What 2 things does Aries argue?
First, Ariès argues the industrial and scientific revolutions caused a reduction in the number of young people dying.
These changes eradicated diseases like infant mortality and removed the need for child labour, through laws like the 1889 Prevention of Cruelty Act.
Second, Ariès argues this caused lower fertility as families did not attempt to ‘replace’ children they had lost.
The ‘child-centred’ family and society meant families prioritised quality over quantity.
Who analyses Aries?
Pro-natalist policies- government strategies designed to increase birth rates and fertility rates.
How does pro-natalist policies analyse Aries.
it is necessary to limit the dependency ratio, it is currently 58:42 people. in the UK.
This is the relationship between the size of the productive, working population and the non-working, dependent population.
What are some examples of pro-natalist policies?
maternity support, subsidisation of childcare, increased benefits for larger families.
What country as an example calls for pro-natalist policies?
Hungary
what is the liberal argument that the long term decline of death rate is?
a great march of progress
can be explained by the improved living standards, healthcare system, and medical advances that define modernity.
define liberalism
a political theory and movement based on protecting personal freedoms, or ‘individual liberty’.
what are the medical advances that can explain the fall in death rates?
Louis Pasteur’s development of vaccines in the 1880s, Joseph Lister’s discovery of antiseptics in the 1860s, and the creation of antibiotics in the 1930s by Fleming
What does Mckeown (1976) argue?
the most important factor in this was improved living standards.
“the rise of population was due primarily to the decline of mortality and the most important reason for this was improvements in economic and social conditions.
