With the longest life expectancy for men and the second longest for women, Hong Kong typifies our planet's aging population. The daily lives of its older adults closely match the advantages and disadvantages experienced by urban elders in other developed countries. For these reasons, Hong Kong's elderly serve as a salient guide to older people's social, psychological, and healthcare needs-concerns of increasing importance as the world grows older. Aging in Hong Kong examines this emblematic population as a case study specifically in comparison with their counterparts in the West, shedding light on diverse, interrelated currents in the aging experience. Referencing numerous international studies, the book contrasts different health service arrangements and social factors and relates them to a variety of health outcomes. Its wide-ranging coverage documents health and illness trends, reviews age-friendly policy initiatives, relates health literacy to patients' active role in their own care, and discusses elders as an underserved group in the division of limited health funding and resources. This multiple focus draws readers' attention to policies that need revisiting or retooling as chapters analyze major life areas including: Living environment. Retirement and post-retirement employment issues. Financial asset management. Health literacy regarding aging issues. Elder-positive service delivery models. Ageism in the prioritization of healthcare. End-of-life issues. By assembling such a wealth of data on its subject, Aging in Hong Kong puts ongoing challenges into clear focus for gerontologists, sociologists, health and cross-cultural psychologists, public health policymakers, and others involved in improving the quality of elders' lives.

This book provides a fresh analysis of the demography, health and well-being of a major African city. It brings a range of disciplinary approaches to bear on the pressing topics of urban poverty, urban health inequalities and urban growth. The approach is primarily spatial and includes the integration of environmental information from satellites and other geospatial sources with social science and health survey data. The authors Ghanaians and outsiders, have worked to understand the urban dynamics in this burgeoning West African metropolis, with an emphasis on urban disparities in health and living standards. Few cities in the global South have been examined from so many different perspectives. Our analysis employs a wide range of GIScience methods, including analysis of remotely sensed imagery and spatial statistical analysis, applied to a wide range of data, including census, survey and health clinic data, all of which are supplemented by field work, including systematic social observation, focus groups, and key informant interviews. This book aims to explain and highlight the mix of methods, and the important findings that have been emerging from this research, with the goal of providing guidance and inspiration for others doing similar work in cities of other developing nations.

This book covers several dimensions of the undercount of young children in the U.S. Decennial Census, examines the data from the 2010 U.S. Decennial Census in detail and looks at trends in the undercount of children over time. Other aspects included are the geographic distribution of the net undercount and an exploration for some of the potential explanations for the high net undercount of children. The number of young children in the US is growing, but almost one million young children (under age 5) were missed in the 2010 U.S. Decennial Census. The net undercount of young children has been higher than any other age group for the past several decades and is increasing rapidly, but little attention has been paid to the issue but demographers or the public.

The Oxford Handbooks of Political Science is a ten-volume set of reference books offering authoritative and engaging critical overviews of the state of political science. Each volume focuses on a particular part of the discipline, with volumes on Public Policy, Political Theory, Political Economy, Contextual Political Analysis, Comparative Politics, International Relations, Law and Politics, Political Behavior, Political Institutions, and Political Methodology. The project as a whole is under the General Editorship of Robert E. Goodin, with each volume being edited by a distinguished international group of specialists in their respective fields. The books set out not just to report on the discipline, but to shape it. The series will be an indispensable point of reference for anyone working in political science and adjacent disciplines. The Oxford Handbook of Contextual Political Analysis sets out to synthesize and critique for the first time those approaches to political science that offer a more fine-grained qualitative analysis of the political world. The work in the volume has a common aim in being sensitive to the thoughts of contextual nuances that disappear from large-scale quantitative modelling or explanations based on abstract, general, universal laws of human behavior. It shows that 'context matters' in a great many ways: philosophical context matters; psychological context matters; cultural and historical contexts matter; place, population, and technology all matter. By showcasing scholars who specialize in the analysis of all these contexts side-by-side, the Oxford Handbook of Contextual Political Analysis shows how political scientists can take those crucial contextual factors systematically into account.

This pathbreaking study examines some key developments in the nature and pattern of work in the UK. Drawing on recently released data from the British 1991 Census, the author offers fresh insights on issues such as the degree of gender segregation in occupations and workplaces, the nature of trends towards self-employment and home-working, and the diverse nature of part-time work. The book also presents comparisons with research results for the USA and other Western European countries.

This book is a practical guide on how to design, create and validate a spatial microsimulation model. These models are becoming more popular as academics and policy makers recognise the value of place in research and policy making. Recent spatial microsimulation models have been used to analyse health and social disadvantage for small areas; and to look at the effect of policy change for small areas. This provides a powerful analysis tool for researchers and policy makers. This book covers preparing the data for spatial microsimulation; a number of methods for both static and dynamic spatial microsimulation models; validation of the models to ensure the outputs are reasonable; and the future of spatial microsimulation. The book will be an essential handbook for any researcher or policy maker looking to design and create a spatial microsimulation model. This book will also be useful to those policy makers who are commissioning a spatial microsimulation model, or looking to commission work using a spatial microsimulation model, as it provides information on the different methods in a non-technical way.

Does rapid population growth diminish countries' economic development prospects? Do policies aimed at reducing high fertility help families escape poverty? These questions have been at the heart of policy debates since the time of Malthus, and have been particularly heated during the last half-century of explosive Third World population growth. In this carefully constructed collection of recent studies and analyses, the authors offer a nuanced, yet clear and positive answer to these questions---a refreshing step forward from the ambiguous conclusions of much of the literature of the 1970s and 1980s.

The core aim of this book is to determine how anthropology and demography can be used in conjunction in the field of population and development. The boundaries of demography are not as clearly defined or as stable as one might think, especially in view of the tension between a formal demography centered on the 'core of procedures and references' and a more open form of demography, generally referred to as Population Studies. Many rapprochements, missed opportunities and isolated attempts marked the disciplinary history of anthropology and demography, both disciplines being founded on distinct and highly differentiated traditions and practices. Moreover, the role and the place assigned to epistemology differ significantly in ethnology and demography. Yet, anthropology and demography provide complementary models and research instruments and this book shows that neither discipline can afford to overlook their respective contributions. Based on research conducted in West Africa over more than twenty years, it is a defense of field demography that makes case for a continuum ranging from the initial conception of fieldwork and research to its effective implementation and to data analysis. Changes in behaviors relating to fertility, poverty or migration cannot be interpreted without invoking the cultural factor at some stage. Representations in their collective and individual dimensions also fit into the extended explanatory space of demography.

Key Demographics in Retirement Risk Management argues that the weakening of public and employer-sponsored social safety nets in several countries will permanently increase pre-retirees' risk-anxiety and create pressure towards readjustment of their expectations about the quality of their lives in retirement. The result will be to raise the priority of achieving effective comprehensive retirement related risk management. This achievement requires an emphasis upon the cascading of linked risks, and careful attention to the optimization of scarce resources used to manage those linked risks. Professional financial and retirement planning advisors comprise a key source of help. This book develops new knowledge concerning the factors that help to explain three important aspects of access to these professional advisors. The results of this analysis are used to illustrate the process of identifying distinctive population segments, key demographics, on the basis of multiple population attributes treated simultaneously. The illustration is further extended with an identification of distinctive population segments relative to performance on a composite indicator of the conduct of multiple retirement risk management activities. The book also discusses implications of the pattern of gender differences in preparedness to address retirement's challenges, highlighting subgroups of women in which inadequate preparedness is pronounced.

Empirical in character, this book analyses the society-nature interaction of the Tsimane', a rural indigenous community in the Bolivian Amazon. Following a common methodological framework, the material and energy flow (MEFA) approach, it gives a detailed account of the biophysical exchange relations the community entertains with its natural environment: the socio-economic use of energy, materials, land and time. Equally so, the book provides a deeper insight into the local base of sociometabolic transition processes and their inherent dynamics of change. The local community described in this publication stands for the many thousands of rural systems in developing countries that, in light of an ever more globalising world, are currently steering a similar - but maybe differently-paced - development course. This book presents insightful methodological and conceptual advances in the field of sustainability science and provides a vital reader for students and researchers of human ecology, ecological anthropology, and environmental sociology. It equally contributes to improving professional development work methods.

This book examines the history behind the formulation, implementation, and evaluation of population policies in the more developed, the less developed, and the least developed countries from 1950 until today, as well as their future prospects. It links population policies with the theories of the demographic, epidemiological, and migratory transitions. It begins by summarizing the demographic situation around the world, with an emphasis on population policies and their underlying theories. Then, it reviews the early efforts to reduce mortality and fertility in the developing countries. This is followed by a description of the internationalization of the debate on population issues and the transformation of these programs into more formal population policies, particularly in the developing countries. The book reviews also the situation of the developed countries and their specific challenges - sub-replacement fertility, population aging, and immigration - and examines the effectiveness of population policies. It also explores the way forward and future prospects for population policies over the next decades. The book provides numerous concrete examples from all over the world, and show how population policies are actually implemented and what have been their successes as well as their constraints. Above all, the book highlights the importance of understanding underlying demographic trends when assessing the development prospects of any country.

The book is recommended for not only demographers, social scientists, and policymakers but also economists and political scientists who are interested in social and demographic change around the world. Demography students and researchers who are interested in applying knowledge on population trends and prospects in designing and evaluating public policies will find this an invaluable reference work.
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This book explores the challenges population decline presents for Europe's urban and rural areas. It features recent demographic data and trends not only for Europe as a whole, but also for selected countries, and compares growth and shrinkage from a historical as well as a theoretical perspective. In addition, the book critically reviews relevant notions from geography, sociology, and public administration. It also identifies good practices across Europe. Throughout, theories are complemented with concrete examples and proposals are made on how to tackle demographic shrinkage in European cities and villages, from attempts to attract new residents to the countryside to innovative ways to guarantee public services. In the end, the authors conclude that solving the challenges caused by population decline require novel ways of thinking and provide answers to such future-oriented questions as: how to ensure the quality of life in an environment that is inhabited by fewer and older people, what investments are needed, and which actors should be involved. Managing Population Decline in Europe's Urban and Rural Areas offers detailed coverage of an underestimated and complex governance issue that asks for solutions in which citizens have to play an important role. It concludes that shrinkage requires a rethink of the specific tasks and roles of government and presents a way forward based on initiatives currently underway throughout Europe. The book will be a valuable resource for population policy makers as well as students and researchers interested in human geography, urban planning, rural development, European studies, public administration, and other social sciences.

School Sucks! is designed to complement the dominant discourse of school reform by presenting a compendium of critical pedagogical writings that analyze the current issues in urban education and demonstrate alternative praxis for failing schools. The two editors of this volume also serve as the series editors for Peter Lang Publishing's Educational Psychology and Black Studies and Critical Thinking series, giving them remarkable resources from which to draw this selection of writings that represent the very best concepts of pedagogy and praxis. School Sucks! furthers the reader's knowledge of the pretext of urban educational problems and promotes a positive praxis of urban educational reform. Inspired by mentors Mary McLeod Bethune and Paulo Freire, School Sucks! employs a critical pedagogy and praxis in calling for wholesale changes within our urban schools.

This book provides a unique comparative view of the extremely low fertility and drastic population aging in Eastern Asian countries. After discussing demographic and political developments of Japan in detail as a reference case, accelerated changes in Korea, Taiwan and China are interpreted with a comparative cultural view. In addition to the well-known cultural divide between countries with strong and weak family ties, this book proposes another divide between offspring of the feudal family and that of the Confucian family. Included is a discussion of how the discrepancy between the compressed change in the socioeconomic system and the slow change in the family system has resulted in extremely low fertility in Eastern Asia. A comparison of policy development reveals that the sense of overpopulation has caused difficulty in launching pro-natal policy interventions in Eastern Asia, especially in China. Impacts of fertility decline on population aging, total dependency ratio and the timing of population decline in Eastern Asia are analyzed with a stylized model. The remaining Confucian family pattern is especially important in understanding and predicting political development to cope with accelerated population aging. This book is a valuable resource for researchers who are interested in the latest and most surprising demographic phenomena in the region.

Merry argues that most voluntary separation experiments in education are not driven by a sense of racial, cultural or religious superiority. Rather, they are driven among other things by a desire for quality education, not to mention community membership and self respect.

"This is the book that market strategists have been waiting for to position themselves in global markets and take advantage of the opportunities that demographic bonuses and deficits offer to them and their products. It is also a book for teachers and students of consumer behaviour to grasp the importance of the life cycle as a framework that shapes the demand for goods and services determined by changes in social, economic and physical functioning. It gives insights into gendered consumer behaviour and cohort effects. It presents a range of views on consumer behaviour and how demographic perspectives enhance these perspectives. The book offers conceptual and analytical tools that can be used in the assessment of population characteristics as determinants of market size, composition and potential for a variety of products. It offers organising frameworks as well as empirical evidence of consumer behaviour in clusters of markets, with different rates of population growth and age distribution that affect consumers' priorities and demand for basic and progressive commodities. The book shows commonalities as well as differences in consumer behaviour arising from different cultures and social customs. It uses analytical tools that are explained and accessible to readers with a range of competences. It is a book that can give a better understanding of consumer behaviour and market opportunities to the practitioner. It can also be used for the instruction of students in demography, consumer behaviour and marketing. ""

This book examines the key aging processes in seven countries (United States, United Kingdom, Sweden, Japan, China, Nepal, and South Africa) and the main policies that have been, and are being, developed to deal with this rapid change in the demographic profile. It addresses the problems that are identified as well as the positive aspects of aging within each of these contrasting societies. Thus it makes a significant contribution to the major debates about growing old across the globe.

The new edition of Population and Development offers an up-to-date perspective on one of the critical issues at the heart of the problems of development for all countries, and especially those that seek to implement major economic and social change: the reflexive relationships between a country's population and its development. How does population size, distribution, age structure and skill base affect development patterns and prospects? How has global development been affected by regional population change? Retaining the structure of the well-received first edition, the book has been substantially revised and updated. The opening chapters of the book establish the theoretical and historical basis for examining the basic reflexive relationship, with exploration of the Malthusian perspective and its critics to examine how population change affects development, and exploration of the Demographic Transition Model and its critics to examine how, why and to what extent development drives population change. These are followed by empirically rich chapters on each of the main components of population change - mortality, fertility, internal and international migration, age structures and skill base - each elaborating key ideas with detailed and contrasting case studies from all regions of the developing world. There are concluding and more integrative discussions on population policies and global population futures. Bringing together Population Studies, Development Studies and Geography, the new edition of Population and Development is a key resource for undergraduate and postgraduate students across a range of programmes with specialist modules on population change. There is a large bibliography, with major new sections identifying a wide range of online resources for further study. Each chapter contains a reading guide with discussion questions. The text is enlivened by a number of case studies from around the world, most of which are new or have been substantially revised. Written by a leading international scholar in population, the book successfully integrates cutting-edge academic research with the focus and efforts of international development agencies.

Applied demography continues its rapid pace of evolution in concert with the emerging trends of the 21st century. One significant area of change is the extension of applied demography beyond the United States; this book includes material dealing with applied demography in Australia, Canada, Estonia, and Mexico.

"Opportunities and Challenges for Applied Demography in the 21st Century" presents a score of selected papers from the second post-2000 national conference on Applied Demography, held in San Antonio, Texas, in January, 2010, under the sponsorship of the Institute for Demographic and Socioeconomic Research at The University of Texas at San Antonio.

Coverage includes the assembly of data by government agencies, with a focus on issues facing the United States; demographic issues associated with globalization; business demography and health demography, as well as a section examining methodological advances in the areas of estimation and projection.

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Religious diversity is now a social fact in most countries of the world. While reports of the impact of religious diversity on Europe and North America are reasonably well-known, the ways in which Southeast Asia and Asia Pacific are religiously diverse and the ways this diversity has been managed are not. This book addresses this lack of information about one of the largest and most diverse regions of the world. It describes the religious diversity of 27 nations, as large and complex as Indonesia and as small as Tuvalu, outlining the current issues and the basic policy approaches to religious diversity. Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands are portrayed as a living laboratory of various religious blends, with a wide variance of histories and many different approaches to managing religious diversity. While interesting in their own right, a study of these nations provides a wealth of case studies of diversity management - most of them stories of success and inclusion.

Pathways through the life course have changed considerably in recent decades. Many of our assumptions about leaving home, starting new relationships and having children have been turned upside down. It is now almost as common to have children prior to marriage as afterwards, and certainly much more common to live together before marrying than to marry without first living together. Women are more likely to remain in the labour force after having children and many families struggle with problems of work-family balance at some stage in their lives, particularly when they have young children. But how much has really changed? Is there really more diversity in how individuals transition through these life course stages, or just variations at the margin with most people following a standard work and family life course? This volume makes use of rich longitudinal data from a unique Australian project to examine these issues. Drawing on broader theories of social change and demographic transitions in an international context, each chapter provides a detailed empirical assessment of the ways in which Australian adults negotiate their work and family lives. In doing so, the volume provides important insight into the ways in which recent demographic, social and economic changes both challenge and reproduce gender divisions.

First published in 1978, this book was written at a time when belief was high in Western-guided economic development of the emerging countries. The success of Marshall Plan in war-torn Europe generated a US-led optimism that, with generous inflows of aid and technical assistance, the Third World could be won over in the Cold War. The author's direct experience as a young academic economist in Cyprus, Malaysia, Uganda and Liberia led him to question this general optimism: the reality on the ground in the developing world did not seem to match Western optimism. Theories and blueprints, made in the West, did not fit the requirements of developing countries. Higher production and better income distribution were inseparable twin objectives of developing nations. That meant, production of a higher national output must at the same time promote social justice. Investment must create adequate jobs so that new entrants into rapidly expanding labor force could be gainfully employed. Yet, the dominant (Western) theories of development at the time, in particular the Trickle Down Theory of Growth, prescribed "Growth First, Distribution Later" strategy. Similarly, Import Substitution Industrialization theories were emphasized at the expense of export-led growth. Dualistic Growth theories preached urban-biased, anti-rural development. This book was written as a rebuttal of such faulty theorizing and misguided professional technical assistance and the book's message is no less valid today than in the 1970's.

'An urgent manifesto for collective healing.' David Lammy MP This landmark book tackles a deceptively simple idea: the more we spend time with people unlike ourselves, doing things together, the more understanding, tolerant, and even friendly we become. Combining fresh analysis with a wealth of fascinating examples, Jon Yates demonstrates the ways in which our societies have become disconnected, so that most of us spend less and less time with people who are different - as defined by age, race, or class, earning power or education. By answering a series of surprising questions, Yates reveals a set of truths that will change the way you think about yourself and those around you. What unites the England football team, the iPod and Singapore? How did a city that funded its schools the least become the best place to grow up poor? How did Silicon Valley come from nowhere to dominate the tech industry? How did a village of Italian-Americans become incredibly healthy while smoking cigars, drinking red wine and never exercising? And why is talking to our friends about politics the worst thing we can do for our democracy? Fractured is ultimately an optimistic book, showing convincingly how great people are when they're united in diversity. It argues that the pandemic has created an unprecedented opportunity for us to come together. So we must forge a new 'Common Life' - a set of shared practises and institutions - that can strengthen the glue that bonds our societies, in all their diversity. For the health of our democracy, our society, and our economy, the time to act is now.

Fertility rates vary considerably across and within societies, and over time. Over the last three decades, social demographers have made remarkable progress in documenting these axes of variation, but theoretical models to explain family change and variation have lagged behind. At the same time, our sister disciplines-from cultural anthropology to social psychology to cognitive science and beyond-have made dramatic strides in understanding how social action works, and how bodies, brains, cultural contexts, and structural conditions are coordinated in that process. "Understanding Family Change and Variation: Toward a Theory of Conjunctural Action" argues that social demography must be reintegrated into the core of theory and research about the processes and mechanisms of social action, and proposes a framework through which that reintegration can occur. This framework posits that material and schematic structures profoundly shape the occurrence, frequency, and context of the vital events that constitute the object of social demography. Fertility and family behaviors are best understood as a function not just of individual traits, but of the structured contexts in which behavior occurs. This approach upends many assumptions in social demography, encouraging demographers to embrace the endogeneity of social life and to move beyond fruitless debates of structure versus culture, of agency versus structure, or of biology versus society.

Most people value to have children still highly. But what is the optimal moment to have the first? The decision on having children or not and if yes on the timing of the first is one of the most difficult ones to make, also because it more or less coincides with various other heavy decisions on shaping the life course (like on union formation, labour market career, housing accommodation, etc.). People realise that having children will fundamentally change their life and in order to fit this unknown and irreversible adventure perfectly into their life course postponement of the first birth is an easy way out as long as doubts continue and partners try to make up their mind. Modern methods of birth control are of course a very effective help in that period. What is the best moment to have the first child? And to what moment is postponement justified? There are no easy answers to these questions. Best solutions vary per person as they depend on personal circumstances and considerations (the partner may have conflicting ideas; housing accommodation; job; income; free time activities). Existing parental leave and child care arrangements are weighted as well. Unfortunately the biological clock ticks further. And, also unfortunately, assisted reproductive technology (IVF etc.) is unable to guarantee a successful outcome. Several couples end up without children involuntarily and that may lead to sorrow and grief. This interdisciplinary book overviews the process of postponement and its backgrounds in modern Western societies holistically, both at the personal and the societal level. Contributions come from reproductive, evolutionary biological and neurological sciences, as well as from demography, economy, sociology and psychology. It holds not only at women but also at men becoming first time fathers. The discussion boils down to a new policy approach for motherhood and emancipation on how to shape work and family life? It is argued that a public window where one can compose a 'cafeteria'-like set of supportive arrangements according to personal preferences could lead to a break in the rising age at first motherhood.