The document explores demographic trends in the UK, highlighting population growth driven by natural change and changes in birth rates and total fertility rates. It details various factors contributing to the decline in birth rates, such as the changing position of women and lower infant mortality, as well as the stable death rate influenced by medical and social improvements. The document also discusses the implications of an ageing population, migration patterns, and their effects on family structures and public services.

1. Unit 1: Families and Households
4) Demography

2. Population growth
• Demography: is the study of population,
including factors affecting its size and growth
• Whether a population is growing, declining or
stable is affected by four factors:
 Births and Immigration increases the
population
 Deaths and Emigration decreases the
population

3. cont. Population growth
• Natural change: is the number of births minus
the number of deaths
• Net migration: is the number immigrating into
country minus the number emigrating from it
• The UK’s population grew from 37m. in 1901 to
61m. today and should reach 71m. by 2031
• Growth has been mostly due to natural change
rather than net migration

4. Interpretation
• Address all parts of the question
• E.g. If it’s about causes and effects of a
population change, make sure you deal with
both

5. Births
There are two measures of births
1. birth rate
2. total fertility rate

6. 1. The birth rate
• The birth rate: is the number of live births per 1,000 of
the population per year
• There has been a long-term decline in the birth rate
• In 1900, it was almost 29
• By 2007, it had fallen by more than 60%,  to under 11
• But there have been fluctuations
• There were 3 ‘baby booms’: after the two world wars,
and in the 1960’s
• The rate fell sharply in the 1970’s, rose during the 1980’s
and early 1990’s, and then fell until the recent increase
since 2001

7. 2. The total fertility rate
• The total fertility rate: is the average number of
children a woman will have during her fertile years
(aged 15-44)
• In the 1960’s baby boom, it reached an average of 2.95
children per woman, declining to an all-time low of
1.63 in 2001, before rising slightly to 1.84 in 2006
• The total fertility rate obviously affects family and
household size – the more children a woman has, the
bigger the family:
1. More women are remaining childless nowadays
2. Women are having children later: the average age is
now almost 30

8. Analysis
• Family size doesn’t just depend on the
number of children
• E.g. Divorce divides a family into two smaller
ones and reduces the chances of the woman
having more children

9. Reasons for the fall in birth rate
Many social, economic, legal and technological factors are responsible for the
falling birth rate and total fertility rate:
1. Changes in the position of women
2. Fall in the infant mortality rate
3. Children as an economic liability
4. Child-centredness

10. 1. Changes in the position of women
• Increased educational opportunities
• More women working
• Changes in attitudes to family life and
women’s role
• Easier access to divorce
• Access to abortion and contraception

11. Analysis
• Explain how such factors affect the birth rate
• E.g. ‘Better-educated women have more
options: they can choose a career rather than
marriage and family’

12. 2. Fall in the infant mortality rate
• The infant mortality rate (IMR): is the
number of infants who die before their first
birthday, per 1,000 babies born alive, per
year
• The IMR has fallen greatly in the last century
• In 1900, it was 154; by 2007, it was 5
• A fall in the IMR may cause a fall in the birth
rate: if infants survive, parents will have fewer
of them

13. Reason for the fall in IMR
• Reasons include improvement in:
- Housing
- Sanitation
- Nutrition
Mothers:
- Knowledge of hygiene and child health
- Health services for mothers and children
• Medical factors did NOT play much until the 1950’s,
when the IMR began to fall due to mass immunisation,
antibiotics, and improved midwifery and obstetrics

14. 3. Children as an economic liability
• Until the late 19th century, children were an
economic asset because they went to work from
an early age
• Now they are an economic liability:
 Laws banning child labour: and introducing
compulsory schooling mean they remain
economically dependent for longer
 Changing norms: about children’s right to a high
standard of living raises their cost
 As a result, parents may be unable to afford to
have a large family

15. 4. Child-centredness
• Childhood is now socially constructed as a
uniquely important period and this has led to
a shift from ‘quantity’ to ‘quality’: parents
now have fewer children and lavish more
attention and resources on these few

16. Application
• Use your knowledge of the social
construction of childhood (Topic 2) to show
how the factors that created modern
childhood also lead to smaller families

17. Effects of a falling birth rate
• Lower birth rates and fertility rates have
several effects on the family and society
• E.g. Having fewer children means women
are freer to go out to work,  creating the
dual earner couple

18. cont. Effects of a falling birth rate
1. The dependency ratio: is the relationship
between the size of the working population and
the size of the non-working (dependent)
population
 the working population’s earning and taxes
support the dependent population
 children are a large part of the dependent
population, so fewer children reduces the
‘burden of dependency’ on the working
population

19. cont. Effects of a falling birth rate
• Public services: Fewer schools and child
health services may be needed, and less
needs to be spent on maternity and
paternity leave
• However, these are political decision – e.g.
government can choose either to reduce
the number of schools or to have smaller
class sizes instead

20. Deaths
The number of deaths has been fairly stable since 1900 (about 600,000 per year),
but there have been fluctuations, e.g. The two world wars and the 1918 flu
epidemic
The death rate is the number of deaths per thousand of the population per year
It has almost halved from 19 in 1900, down to 10 by 2007

21. Interpretation
• Be clear about the differences between rates
and numbers or totals
• Rates are always ‘out of’ something (usually
1,000)
• The death rate fell despite the number staying
constant  because population grew

22. The death rate
• The death rate began falling from about 1870,
continuing until 1930
• It rose slightly during the 1930’s and 1940’s
due to economic depression and World War 2
• Since the 1950’s it has declined slightly

23. Reasons for the fall in death rate
• Up to 1970, about ¾ of the decline was due to a
fall in deaths from infectious diseases such as
TB, measles, smallpox, diarrhoea and typhoid
• This decline was largely brought about by
changing social factors including:
1. Improved nutrition
2. Medical improvements
3. Public health improvements
4. Other social changes

24. Analysis
• It’s important to explain how each of these
factors helped reduce the death rate

25. 1. Improved nutrition (McKeowan (1972)
• According to McKeowan (1972): better diet
accounted for at least ½ the reduction in the
death rate, by increasing people’s resistance
to infection

26. 2. Medical improvements
• Before the 1950’s, medical improvements played
almost NO part in reducing death rates from
infection
• From the 1950’s, the death rate fell due partly to
medical factors i.e.
- Vaccination,
- Antibiotics,
- Blood transfusion
- Better maternity services
- The creation of the NHS (1949)

27. 3. Public health improvements
• More effective government with the power to
pass and enforce laws led to improved public
health
• E.g. Better housing
- Purer drinking water
- Cleaner air
- Laws against the adulteration of food
- Improved sewage disposal

28. 4. Other social changes
• Other social changes that reduced the death
rate include: the decline of more dangerous
manual occupations
• E.g. Mining
- smaller families reduced the transmission of
infection
- Greater public knowledge of the cause of
illness and higher incomes

29. Evaluation
• Evaluate the reason for the falling death rate
by noting that although the medical
profession often claim the credit, social and
economic factors had much more impact
overall

30. Life expectancy
• Life expectancy: refers to how long on average a
person born in a given year can expect to live
• Life expectancy has greatly increased since
1900:
For babies born in 1900
it was 50 years for M, 57 for F
For babies born in 2005
it was 77 for M, 81 for F

31. cont. Life expectancy
• Falling infant mortality: low life expectancy in
1900 was largely due to the IMR pulling down
the average life expectancy of the population
as a whole
• As the IMR fell  life expectancy rose

32. Application
• Apply your knowledge of reasons for the fall
in the IMR to explain how this led to an
increase in life expectancy

33. The ageing population
 The UK population is ageing.
 In 1971, the average age was 34 years; it is now nearly 40.
 By 2031, it will reach 42.6.
 The number of over-65’s will over-take the number of under-16’s for
the first time ever in 2014
There are 3 main reasons for this ageing...

34. 3 main reasons for this ageing
• Increasing life expectancy  people are living
longer
• Low infant mortality  babies no longer die
in large numbers
• Declining fertility  fewer young people are
being born

35. Effects of an ageing population
• An ageing population has several social and
economic effects:
1. Public service
2. More one-person pensioner households
3. The rising dependency ratio
4. Ageism

36. 1. Public services
• Older people consume more health and social
care services

37. 2. More one-person pensioner
households
• These now account for (1/7) one in every
seven households

38. 3. The rising dependency ratio
• The non-working old need to provided for by
those of working age
• E.g. Through taxation to pay for pensions and
health care
• As the number of retired people rises, the
dependency ratio increases

39. 4. Ageism
• Age statuses are socially constructed
• Old age is often constructed as a problem
• Negative stereotyping often portrays the old
as incompetent and a burden
 (contrast this with traditional societies,
where age brings higher status, not lower)

40. Analysis
• Explain how old age is constructed as
dependency because of a compulsory
retirement age
• Compare it with childhood: both old and
young are excluded from the labour market

41. Hirsch (2005): Policy implications
• Hirsch (2005) argues that we will need new
policies to finance a longer old age
• This could be done either by paying more in
taxes or by raising the retirement age, or
both
• E.g. The increase in women’s pensionable age
from 60 to 65

42. Migration
Migration is the movement of people. It can be internal (within a country)
or international. Migration affects the size and age structure of the
population. Until the 1980’s, more people left the UK than entered it.

43. Immigration
• From 1900 to the 1940’s, the largest
immigrant groups in the UK were the Irish,
Europeans Jewish and people of British
descent from Canada and the USA
• Very few immigrants were non-white

44. cont. Immigration
• White and non-white immigrants:
• During the 1950’s -70’s, non-white
immigrants began to come from the
Caribbean, Africa, and South Asia
• By 2001, minority ethnic groups accounted
for 7.9% of the population
• However, most immigrants to the UK were
white Irish and Europeans

45. cont. Immigration
• Despite this, immigration and nationality acts
from 1962 to 1990 placed severe restrictions
on non-white immigration
• By the 1980’s, non-white accounted for barely
a quarter (1/4) of immigrants
• The mainly white countries of the European
Union (EU) became the chief source of
immigrants

46. Application
• If the question asks about the consequences
of migration, discuss the impact of
immigration on family diversity
• E.g. Asian extended families and black lone
parent families

47. Emigration
• Since 1900, most emigrants have gone to the
USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and
South Africa
• The main reasons for emigrating have been
economic:
 ‘Push’ factors, e.g. Unemployment and
economic recession
 ‘Pull’ factors, e.g. Higher wages or better
opportunities

48. Evaluation
• Assess the importance of economic factors by
referring to the role of non-economic reasons
for migrating
• E.g. To flee political or ethnic persecution