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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Population & demography > General
This book examines the demographic development of Russia from the late Russian Empire to the contemporary Russian Federation, and includes discussions of marriage patterns, fertility, mortality, and inter-regional migration. In this pioneering study, the authors present the first English-language overview of demographic data collection in Russia. Chapters in the book offer a systematic overview of the legislation regulating fertility and the family sphere, a study of the factors determining first and higher order births, and an examination of population distribution across Russian regions. The book also combines research tools from the social sciences with a medical approach to provide a study of mortality rates. By bringing together approaches from several disciplines - demography, economics, and sociology - the authors of this book provide a comprehensive and detailed assessment of the historical roots of Russia's demographic development.
This volume in the General Demography of Africa series encompasses many nations and focuses on a feature of all censuses--household relationships. African households rank among the most complex in the world. Given that fact, the contributors evaluate the usefulness of census questions to investigate household structures. This groundbreaking works makes it possible to investigate relationships among individuals within the household and relate them to household characteristics, such as structure and headship. In addition to discussing household composition in comparative terms, the book pays special attention to the place of women in the household, and to the residence of children and the aged. The analyses use micro-data from a variety of countries including Bostwana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivorie, The Gambia, Senegal, Kenya, and the Republic of South Africa.
The Flexible Imagination: At Work in the Transnational Corporate Offices of Jakarta, Indonesia is a behind-the-scenes ethnography examining the social interactions between individuals from different cultural and national backgrounds who work together in the halls of some of the most notorious Fortune 500 corporations out of Southeast Asia. In the transnational corporate spaces of Jakarta, Indonesia, there is a frustrating struggle for coherence and meaning by expatriate and national populations still new to the morphing and "flexible" world of global capitalism. Many of those newly engaged in the machinations of our global economy struggle to make sense of their unfamiliar surroundings. In this situation, where localities and social constellations are in a state of constant flux, people rely on their imagination in the construction of a social reality that makes sense-provides enough social stability-to get through the routine activities of a typical work day. The imaginary put to use by those discussed in this book ties together bodies of knowledge-historic and current, academic and popular, economic and cultural-in an attempt to create a transnational working reality that makes sense. Thus, the term "flexible imagination" encapsulates the variable and shifting nature of these imaginary processes.
* Analyzes the alarming European demographic trends: aging populations; shrinking families; dropping fertility rates; and mass migration* Presents the potential ramifications for pensions, health, housing, transport, the family unit, and more in over 100 tables and graphs along with a full discussion* From a team led by acclaimed demographer Wolfgang Lutz, this is the culmination of five years of research by the European Observatory on the Social Situation, Demography and FamilyEurope's future will be built by its citizens, but who will those citizens be? How numerous, how healthy, how long-lived? How many children will they have? What kind of families will they live in, and what are the main challenges to their social cohesion? These are the questions that "The New Generations of Europeans" sets out to answer. Edited by leading demographers at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, and made up of contributions from respected researchers in the fields of population and society, it assesses what it is to be a citizen of a growing EU and what important issues will have to be faced if Europe as a collective notion is to survive. Taking in fertility, family, ageing, health, immigration, and more, and always considering the situation in, and impact of, the new member states, the book draws on the latest in demographic, economic, and social research to provide an intriguing coverage of the state of the people of Europe today and tomorrow. Crucially, the question of how changes in this state will impact the socio-economic infrastructure (e.g. medical facilities, transport, food provision, etc.) is also addressed.
Integrating research from anthropology, biology, and history, this
provocative, brilliant book proposes a theory of demographic
equilibrium. The author's hypothesis is that human beings, like
many other species, are able to adjust their population numbers to
the carrying capacity of the environment. Abernethy points out that
in response to perception of scarcity or abundance of resources,
culturally mediated values, beliefs and behavioral patterns are
modified in ways that can either raise or lower rates of population
growth.
"Alice and Eleanor: A Contrast in Style"" and Purpose" explores the lifelong personal struggles, political involvement, and private relationship of Alice Roosevelt Longworth and Eleanor Roosevelt.
Kingsley Davis (1908-1997) was one of the pioneers in social
demography, and was particularly identified with the theory of the
demographic transition. This holds that the process of
industrialization first causes mortality to decline, leading to a
substantial rate of population growth and only later causes
fertility to fall, leading eventually to the cessation of
population growth. Kingsley Davis is especially remembered for his
arresting and forceful critique of family-planning programs
intended to achieve zero population growth.
'Achieving the goals set by world leaders in the United Nations Millennium Declaration will be difficult without a significant improvement in the lives of slum dwellers, and the lives of slum dwellers cannot be improved without the sound and sustainable economic development that is conducive to the establishment of a strong shelter sector. As Financing Urban Shelter: Global Report on Human Settlements 2005 emphasizes, one of the key challenges in meeting the Millennium Declaration Goal on slums is mobilization of the financial resources necessary for both slum upgrading and slum prevention by supplying new housing affordable to lower income groups on a large scale. . . . It is my hope that, by highlighting the impacts of current shelter financing systems on low-income households and by identifying the types of financing mechanisms that appear to have worked for them, this report will contribute to the efforts of the wide range of actors involved in improving the lives of slum dwellers, including governments at the central and local levels, as well as non-governmental and international organizations.' From the Foreword by KOFI ANNAN, Secretary-General, United Nations Financing Urban Shelter presents the first global assessment of housing finance systems, placing shelter and urban development challenges within the overall context of macroeconomic policies. The report describes and analyses housing finance conditions and trends in all regions of the world, including formal housing finance mechanisms, microfinance and community funding, highlighting their relevance to the upgrading of slums. Recent shelter finance policy development is discussed at the international and national levels, and the directions that could be taken to strengthen shelter finance systems are examined. The Global Report on Human Settlements is the most authoritative and up-to-date assessment of conditions and trends in the world's cities. It is an essential tool and reference for researchers, academics, public authorities and civil society organizations around the world. The preceding issues of the Global Report on Human Settlements have addressed such topics as An Urbanizing World, Cities in a Globalizing World and The Challenge of Slums. Published with UN-HABITAT
This book is based on the presentations and discussions from a national symposium on "Creating the Next Generation: Social, Economic, and Psychological Processes Underlying Fertility in Developed Countries," held at the Pennsylvania State University in 2003. The papers address some of the antecedents and consequences of the recent steep declines in fertility in developed countries from different theoretical and disciplinary angles. While fertility rates are still high in some less-developed parts of the world, the new population problem with many countries in Europe, Asia, and North America is declining fertility. With fertility decline comes a reshaping of the population pyramid. The topic of fertility decline is interesting not only at the level of the individuals and couples, but also at the level of the societies that must come to grips with their long-term implications. Divided into four Parts, the text: *looks at contemporary trends in U.S. fertility, thus setting the stage for the entire volume; *discusses social and cultural values and attitudes; *analyzes fertility decisions in different countries; and *focuses on the possible long-term consequences of current fertility trends for individuals, families, and societies.
The general assumption throughout history has been that a growing population is beneficial for societies. By the mid-1960s, however, the United States and other developed countries became convinced that population control was an absolute necessity, especially in the developing world. This absorbing study explains why population control is no longer the focus of global population policy and why reproductive rights and health have become the major focus. The book highlights the role that the US and other developed countries play in affecting global population policy, looking in particular at the stance of the George W. Bush administration since taking office. It also studies the influence of the UN as an international forum and explores how civil society questioned the ethics of population control. Global Population Policy will appeal to a wide audience, including readers in the fields of women's studies, development politics and international relations.
This thought-provoking study measures and critically examines the effects that an averageA population growth rate of 2.8% could have on the development of the Arab Gulf States.A ItA questions the ability of Gulf governments toA continue providing relatively high standards ofA education, health and employment under conditions of rapid population growth, an undiversified economic base, and a tribal political framework.A A Within this context, population growth is identified as one important variable that hinders long-term development. The book will appeal to all those interested in the Middle East, demography, development and sociology.
Reproductive Rights and Wrongs reveals the dangers of contemporary population-control tactics, especially for women in developing countries. It also tells the story of how international women's health activists fought to reform population control and promoted a new agenda of sexual and reproductive health and rights for all people. While their efforts bore fruit, many obstacles remain. Today, despite declining birth rates worldwide, overpopulation alarm is on the rise, and now it is tied to the threats of climate change and terrorism.
In this eye-opening cultural history, Brian Tochterman examines competing narratives that shaped post-World War II New York City. As a sense of crisis rose in American cities during the 1960s and 1970s, a period defined by suburban growth and deindustrialization, no city was viewed as in its death throes more than New York. Feeding this narrative of the dying city was a wide range of representations in film, literature, and the popular press--representations that ironically would not have been produced if not for a city full of productive possibilities as well as challenges. Tochterman reveals how elite culture producers, planners and theorists, and elected officials drew on and perpetuated the fear of death to press for a new urban vision. It was this narrative of New York as the dying city, Tochterman argues, that contributed to a burgeoning and broad anti-urban political culture hostile to state intervention on behalf of cities and citizens. Ultimately, the author shows that New York's decline--and the decline of American cities in general--was in part a self-fulfilling prophecy bolstered by urban fear and the new political culture nourished by it.
Reproductive biologists, evolutionary biologists, demographers and social scientists all have a common interest in the business of human reproduction. Their perspectives, however, are very different and have traditionally prevented them from having much to do with each other. The conference on which this book is based brought together contributors from each of these disciplines in an attempt to explore the common ground that they share and so generate a better understanding of the factors that influence human fertility.
This unique reference traces the changing borders and ethnic balances that characterized the history of Eastern Europe during the twentieth century. After a preliminary overview, the book divides Eastern Europe into five regions, from the Baltic to the Balkans, and closely analyzes the ethnic structure of each region's constituent units over time. Summary chapters at the end of the volume present a comprehensive ethno-demographic portrait of the region at the start of the century, between the two world wars, and from the post-World War II period to the century's end. The volume is richly illustrated with more than sixty figures, hundreds of tables, and multi-lingual indexes of place-names and ethnic groups.
This timely and critical book takes on a new phenomenon facing the United States and poses the stark question: Will the United States be prepared by 2050, when its older population doubles and we become a majority-minority society? In the authors' response, scholars, policy leaders and the public are provided with the background and information that connects these two trends to contemporary public policy debates. Written with clarity and expertise, this book illuminates the changes and challenges that face the nation by concisely addressing a wide range of topics, including immigration reform, the politics of aging, and health and retirement security, and provides a glimpse of how the "next America" might look. The authors draw on current data about longevity, diversity and the growing Hispanic population in particular, to unfold the social, cultural, policy and political implications for an aging and diversifying population. With case studies and real-world examples, the book outlines and analyzes the possible impact of this phenomenon on issues like governance, public benefits, the long term care work force and national security, and builds a broader framework with which to understand them. With combined experience in academia, government and policy advocacy, the authors tackle the dramatic changes occurring across the United States and offer a road map to not only understanding but addressing these challenges and opportunities with reason and responsibility. Key Features: Presents the most current statistics and data on demographics Written by an interdisciplinary team with combined experience in academia, government and policy advocacy Includes case studies and real-world examples to build a broader framework of understanding Addresses social, policy, cultural and political challenges facing a rapidly changing population and offers rational and respectful responses
This textbook offers a comprehensive overview of applied demography by presenting both basic concepts and methodological techniques. It allows students from the social and human sciences, demographers, consultants and anyone interested in applied demography to gain an understanding of a wide range of practical applications of demographic concepts, methods and techniques to real- world problems. Featured sidebars highlight relevant terms and concepts and case studies and exercises throughout the book offer first-hand exposure to demographic applications. Charts and graphs supplement the presentation of demographic concepts and a glossary provides an inventory of relevant terms. The first section reviews basic components of applied demography as a context for understanding and addressing societal issues. It details the methods, techniques and data sources applied by demographers in a variety of areas. Coverage includes cohort analysis, data standardization, population estimation, and the use of geographic in- formation systems (GIS). The second section focuses on the substantive areas in which demography is currently applied. The topics covered include business demography, health demography, political demography, educational demography, and applications to urban and regional planning. The book illustrates the many ways in which demographers contribute to the formulation of public policy and the resolution of societal issues.
Oil and Urbanization on the Pacific Coast tells the story of oilman Ralph Bramel Lloyd, a small business owner who drove the development of one of America's largest oil fields. Lloyd invested his petroleum earnings in commercial real estate-much of it centered around automobiles and the fuel they require-in several western cities, notably Portland, Oregon. Putting the history of extractive industry in dialogue with the history of urban development, Michael R. Adamson shows how energy is woven into the fabric of modern life, and how the "energy capital" of Los Angeles exerted far-flung influence in the US West. A contribution to the relatively understudied history of small businesses in the United States, Oil and Urbanization on the Pacific Coast explores issues of interest to multiple audiences, such as the competition for influence over urban development waged among local growth machines and outside corporate interests; the urban rivalries of a region; the importance of public capital in mobilizing the commercial real estate sector during the Great Depression and World War II; and the relationships among owners, architects, and contractors in the execution of commercial building projects.
'Excellent . . . analyses clearly and authoritatively how the coronavirus pandemic played out, what governments should have done, and what we need to do when it happens again - as it undoubtedly will' Financial Times 'You could not hope for a better guide to the pandemic world order than Debora MacKenzie, who's been on this story from the start. This is an authoritative yet readable explanation of how this catastrophe happened - and more important, how it will happen again if we don't change' Tim Harford, author of The Undercover Economist, Adapt and Messy 'This definitely deserves a read - the first of the post mortems by a writer who knows what she's talking about' Laura Spinney, author of Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World In a gripping, accessible narrative, a veteran science journalist lays out the shocking story of how the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic happened and how to make sure this never happens again Over the last 30 years of epidemics and pandemics, we learned every lesson needed to stop this coronavirus outbreak in its tracks. We heeded almost none of them. The result is a pandemic on a scale never before seen in our lifetimes. In this captivating, authoritative, and eye-opening book, science journalist Debora MacKenzie lays out the full story of how and why it happened: the previous viruses that should have prepared us, the shocking public health failures that paved the way, the failure to contain the outbreak, and most importantly, what we must do to prevent future pandemics. Debora MacKenzie has been reporting on emerging diseases for more than three decades, and she draws on that experience to explain how COVID-19 went from a potentially manageable outbreak to a global pandemic. Offering a compelling history of the most significant recent outbreaks, including SARS, MERS, H1N1, Zika, and Ebola, she gives a crash course in Epidemiology 101--how viruses spread and how pandemics end--and outlines the lessons we failed to learn from each past crisis. In vivid detail, she takes us through the arrival and spread of COVID-19, making clear the steps that governments knew they could have taken to prevent or at least prepare for this. Looking forward, MacKenzie makes a bold, optimistic argument: this pandemic might finally galvanize the world to take viruses seriously. Fighting this pandemic and preventing the next one will take political action of all kinds, globally, from governments, the scientific community, and individuals--but it is possible. No one has yet brought together our knowledge of COVID-19 in a comprehensive, informative, and accessible way. But that story can already be told, and Debora MacKenzie's urgent telling is required reading for these times and beyond. It is too early to say where the COVID-19 pandemic will go, but it is past time to talk about what went wrong and how we can do better.
Cities affect every person's life, yet across the traditional
divides of class, age, gender and political affiliation, armies of
people are united in their dislike of the transformations that
cities have undergone in recent times. The physical form of the
urban environment is not a designer add-on to 'real' social issues;
it is a central aspect of the social world. Yet in many people's
experience, the cumulative impacts of recent urban development have
created widely un-loved urban places. To work towards better-loved
urban environments, we need to understand how current problems have
arisen and identify practical action to address them.
In current intellectual and public discourse, the entire modern
world-from the affluent United States to the poorest low-income
regions-is beset today by a broad and alarming array of "population
problems." Around the globe, leading scientists, academics, and
political figures attribute poverty, hunger, social tension, and
even political conflict to contemporary demographic trends. These
authorities assert that the size, composition, and growth rate of
population routinely pose direct and major threats to human
well-being. They argue for interventions aimed specifically at
altering society's demographic rhythms. In this wide-ranging and
carefully reasoned book, renowned demographer and social scientist
Nicholas Eberstadt challenges these ideas and exposes their glaring
intellectual -shortcomings.
Russia is divided into seven federal districts encompassing 89 units -- regions (oblasts), territories (krais), and republics. As central power has weakened, the importance of these units and their local leadership has increased commensurately. This work brings together in one volume all basic political, economic, and demographic data on every territorial unit of the Russian Federation, its local government structure, and electoral history current through the spring 2000 elections and the summer 2000 reorganization. Each entry includes an extensive profile of the president, governor, or prime minister, and an overview of local political trends, policies, economy, and business conditions.
Recent years have witnessed an explosion of academic and popular interest in the issue of social identity. Yet the subject areas of regional and sub-regional identities, and historical engagements between 'the regional', 'the local' and 'the national', remain very neglected. Seeking to make a contribution towards redressing these areas of neglect and to further advancing our knowledge and understanding of the general issue of social identity, this volume of essays offers the reader an exploration of some of the rich and varied, historical interpretations of 'the North' and 'Northernness'. The focus rests mainly, but not exclusively, upon the North of England. Taken as a whole, the essays highlight the contingent, fluid, and ambiguous nature of 'Northenness', its complex and shifting interplay with feelings of localism and nationalism, and the profound, if varying, influences of class, race, gender, sport, tourism, music and political and economic structures and concerns upon 'northern' identities. This book will hold a general appeal to readers interested in the issue of social identity, especially in its regional and local manifestations and engagements. It will find a wide readership across the humanities and social sciences. It should be compulsory reading for those in New Labour addressing the issue of the 'North-South divide'.
With the upsurge of nationalist sentiment in post-communist societies, the problem of political rights for ethnic minorities became a dangerous flashpoint. The introduction of electoral competition, the rewriting of constitutions, the breakup of federations, the weakness of civic institutions, and the social and economic dislocations associated with marketization have all contributed to the salience of majority-minority relations. This collection systematically analyzes different models of minority politics in Eastern Europe, in an effort to understand why tensions are manageable in some contexts, uncontainable in others. Anchoring the volume are essays by Carlos Flores Juberias on electoral systems, and Janusz Bugajski on national minority parties. Six case studies examine the interaction of different types of institutional arrangements (which structure political participation) and different demographic conditions (ethnic balances and territorial concentrations) in Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, and Romania. Framing these studies are overviews by the editors and by Jack Snyder.
This open access book focuses on family diversity from a legal, demographical and sociological perspective. It investigates what is at stake in the life of homosexuals in the field of family formation, parenting and parenthood, what it brings to everyday life, the support of the law, and what its absence implies. The book shows the paths leading to the adoption of laws while demographic analyses concentrate on the link between registration of same-sex marriages and same-sex parenting with a detailed focus on Spain. The sociological chapters in this book, based upon qualitative surveys in France, Iceland and Italy, underline how the importance of the legal structure influenced the daily life of homosexual families. As such this book is an interesting read to lawyers, demographers, sociologists, behavioural scientists, and all those working in the field. |
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