This Brief provides a survey of key political, social, and economic issues affecting the Western Balkans region. Taking a two-pronged conceptual approach focusing on fragmentation and integration, the volume highlights commonalities and differences in a number of simultaneous dynamics currently characterizing the region: Europeanization and EU access, market integration, and migration and socio-demographic transformations. Stressing the interconnectedness of these issues, the volume synthesizes key questions for the future of the region, such as the relationship between socio-demographic trends and economic development, the effects of depopulation on further EU integration, and the economic and political repercussions of enhanced intra-regional trade. Explicitly interdisciplinary, this Brief will be useful for researchers and students specializing in the Balkans and Western Balkans, post-socialist countries, European affairs, enlargement, foreign policy, international relations, regional studies, economics, economic transition, and socio-demographics.

Population Politics in the Tropics explores colonial population policies in Angola between 1890 and 1945 from a transimperial perspective. Using a wide array of previously unused sources and multilingual archival research from Angola, Portugal and beyond, Samuel Coghe sheds new light on the history of colonial Angola, showing how population policies were conceived, implemented and contested. He analyses why and how doctors, administrators, missionaries and other colonial actors tried to grasp and quantify demographic change and 'improve' the health conditions, reproductive regimes and migration patterns of Angola's 'native' population. Coghe argues that these interventions were inextricably linked to pervasive fears of depopulation and underpopulation, but that their implementation was often hampered by weak state structures, internal conflicts and multiple forms of African agency. Coghe's fresh analysis of demography, health and migration in colonial Angola challenges common ideas of Portuguese colonial exceptionalism.

This book presents the fundamentals of evolutionary game theory and applies them to the analysis of epidemics, which is of paramount importance in the aftermath of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. The primary objective of this monograph is to deliver a powerful tool to model and analyze the spread of an infectious disease during a pandemic as well as the human decision dynamics. The book employs a variant of the "vaccination game," in which a mathematical epidemiological model dovetails with evolutionary game theory. From a social physics standpoint, this book introduces an extended concept of the vaccination game starting from the fundamental issues and touching on the newest practical applications. The book first outlines the fundamental basis of evolutionary game theory, in which a two-player and two-strategy game, the so-called 2 x 2 game, and a multi-player game are concisely introduced, and the important issue of how social dilemmas are quantified is highlighted. Subsequently, the book discusses various recent applications of the extended concept of the vaccination game so as to quantitatively evaluate provisions other than vaccination, including practical intermediate protective measures such as mask-wearing, efficiency of quarantine compared with that of isolation policies for suppressing epidemics, efficiency of preemptive versus late vaccination, and optimal subsidy policies for vaccination.

Globally, women are having half as many children as they had just fifty years ago. Why have birth rates fallen, and how will low fertility affect our shared future? In Decline and Prosper!, demographic expert Vegard Skirbekk offers readers an accessible, comprehensive and evidence-based overview of human reproduction. Readers learn about the evolution of childbearing across different populations and how fertility is related to (changes in) our reproductive capacity, contraception, education, religion, partnering, policies, economics, assisted reproduction, and catastrophes. Readers will explore the future of family size and its impact on human welfare, women's empowerment and the environment. Skirbekk argues that low fertility is on the whole a good thing, while recognizing the challenges of population aging and "coincidental" childlessness. A balanced, integrative examination of one of the most important issues of our time, Decline and Prosper! drives home the fact that we must ultimately adapt to a world with fewer children. The book will be invaluable to anyone who is interested in the far-reaching effects of global fertility, including researchers and students of demography, social statistics, medical sociologists, family and childhood studies, human geographers, sociology of culture, social and public policy.

Applying a trans-disciplinary approach, this book provides a comprehensive, research-based guide to understanding, implementing, and strengthening sustainable community health in diverse international settings. By examining the interdependence of environmental, economic, public health, community wellbeing and development factors, the authors address the systemic factors impacting health disparities, inequality and social justice issues. The book analyzes strategies based on a partnership view of health, in which communities determine their health and wellness working alongside local, state and federal health agencies. Crucially, it demonstrates that communities are themselves health systems and their wellbeing capabilities affect the health of individuals and the collective alike. It identifies health indicators and tools that communities and policy makers can utilize to sustain truly inclusive health systems. This book offers a unique resource for researchers and practitioners working across psychology, mental health, rehabilitation, public health, epidemiology, social policy, healthcare and allied health.

The book introduces the concept of encounter CONNECT-ED from the practice of working with the elderly to impart media skills and presents empirical data on the social participation and quality of life of the participants. The research results show the potential of the Internet for older people and open up perspectives for gender- and age-sensitive advanced training opportunities.

This book investigates and documents multidimensional poverty in the United States and identifies patterns and relationships that contribute to the development of a more complete understanding of the incidence and intensity of deprivation. The first part introduces multidimensional poverty and provides a rationale for viewing poverty through a lens of multiple deprivations. It discusses how the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) compares to more narrowly-focused, income-based poverty measures and emphasizes its usefulness and applicability for the formulation of related, welfare-enhancing public policies. The second part documents multidimensional poverty incidence, intensity, and corresponding MPI values at the aggregate level of detail, for various demographic cohorts, and across geographic locales. The book then presents results from an empirical analysis that identifies the determinants of multidimensional poverty incidence and of individual deprivation scores. The third part consists of three studies of multidimensional poverty, examining the effect of the Affordable Care Act on multidimensional poverty incidence and intensity, variation in multidimensional poverty across native- and foreign-born residents (and across immigrants' home countries) of the US, and variation in the respective indicators that contribute to multidimensional poverty across the life cycle. The book closes with two chapters. The first relays the findings of counterfactual exercises where certain deprivations are assumed to have been eliminated. The final chapter summarizes the work, draws inferences and arrives at conclusions, and discusses the corresponding public policy implications.

The year 2008 marks the beginning of the baby boomer retirement avalanche just as the different demographics in advanced and most developing countries are becoming more pronounced. People are worrying again that developments in global population trends, food supply, natural resource availability and climate change raise the question as to whether Malthus was right after all.
The Age of Aging explores a unique phenomenon for mankind and, therefore, one that takes us into uncharted territory. Low birth rates and rising life expectancy are leading to rapid aging and a stagnation or fall in the number of people of working age in Western societies. Japan is in pole position but will be joined soon by other Western countries, and some emerging markets including China. The book examines the economic effects of aging, the main proposals for addressing the implications, and how aging societies will affect family and social structures, and the type of environment in which the baby-boomers' children will grow up.
The contrast between the expected old age bulge in Western nations and the youth bulge in developing countries has important implications for globalization, and for immigration in Western countries - two topics already characterized by rising discontent or opposition. But we have to find ways of making both globalization and immigration work for all, for fear that failure may lead us down much darker paths. Aging also brings new challenges for the world to address in two sensitive areas, the politicization of religion and the management of international security. Governments and global institutions will have to take greater responsibilities to ensure that public policy responses are appropriate and measured.
The challenges arising within aging societies, and the demographic contrasts between Western and developing countries make for a fractious world - one that is line with the much-debated 'decline of the West'. The book doesn't flinch from recognizing the ways in which this could become more visible, but also asserts that we can address demographic change effectively if governments and strengthened international institutions are permitted a larger role in managing change.

Most women in the West use contraceptives in order to avoid having children. But in rural Gambia and other parts of sub-Saharan Africa, many women use contraceptives for the opposite reason--to have as many children as possible.
Using ethnographic and demographic data from a three-year study in rural Gambia, "Contingent Lives" explains this seemingly counterintuitive fact by juxtaposing two very different understandings of the life course: one is a linear, Western model that equates aging and the ability to reproduce with the passage of time, the other a Gambian model that views aging as contingent on the cumulative physical, social, and spiritual hardships of personal history, especially obstetric trauma. Viewing each of these two models from the perspective of the other, Caroline Bledsoe produces fresh understandings of the classical anthropological subjects of reproduction, time, and aging as culturally shaped within women's conjugal lives. Her insights will be welcomed by scholars of anthropology and demography as well as by those working in public health, development studies, gerontology, and the history of medicine.

This open access book examines the methodological complications of using complexity science concepts within the social science domain. The opening chapters take the reader on a tour through the development of simulation methodologies in the fields of artificial life and population biology, then demonstrates the growing popularity and relevance of these methods in the social sciences. Following an in-depth analysis of the potential impact of these methods on social science and social theory, the text provides substantive examples of the application of agent-based models in the field of demography. This work offers a unique combination of applied simulation work and substantive, in-depth philosophical analysis, and as such has potential appeal for specialist social scientists, complex systems scientists, and philosophers of science interested in the methodology of simulation and the practice of interdisciplinary computing research.

Neither laziness nor its condemnation are new inventions, however, perceiving laziness as a social condition that afflicts a 'nation' is. In the early modern era, Ottoman political treatises did not regard the people as the source of the state's problems. Yet in the nineteenth century, as the imperial ideology of Ottomanism and modern discourses of citizenship spread, so did the understanding of laziness as a social disease that the 'Ottoman nation' needed to eradicate. Asking what we can learn about Ottoman history over the long nineteenth-century by looking closely into the contested and shifting boundaries of the laziness - productivity binary, Melis Hafez explores how 'laziness' can be used to understand emerging civic culture and its exclusionary practices in the Ottoman Empire. A polyphonic involvement of moralists, intellectuals, polemicists, novelists, bureaucrats, and, to an extent, the public reveals the complexities and ambiguities of this multifaceted cultural transformation. Using a wide variety of sources, this book explores the sustained anxiety about productivity that generated numerous reforms as well as new understandings of morality, subjectivity, citizenship, and nationhood among the Ottomans.

This book examines the challenges for the life insurance sector in Europe arising from new technologies, socio-cultural and demographic trends, and the financial crisis. It presents theoretical and applied research in all areas related to life insurance products and markets, and explores future determinants of the insurance industry's development by highlighting novel solutions in insurance supervision and trends in consumer protection. Drawing on their academic and practical expertise, the contributors identify problems relating to risk analysis and evaluation, demographic challenges, consumer protection, product distribution, mortality risk modeling, applications of life insurance in contemporary pension systems, financial stability and solvency of life insurers. They also examine the impact of population aging on life insurance markets and the role of digitalization. Lastly, based on an analysis of early experiences with the implementation of the Solvency II system, the book provides policy recommendations for the development of life insurance in Europe.

This book explores the population development challenges in China. It started by analyzing two of the major challenges: designing a suitable family planning policy and dealing with the serious provincial population difference. It then proposes effective measures to address these challenges by adopting various quantitative methods, such as system dynamics, nonlinear programming and spatial econometrics in evaluating the effects of different policy scenarios, which made the results more scientific and reliable, thus the final policy suggestions effective and evidence based. The book includes a number of mathematical models and is suitable for graduate students and researchers in population modeling and relevant research areas.

This open access book collects the major discussions in divorce research in Europe. It starts with an understanding of divorce trends. Why was divorce increasing so rapidly throughout the US and Europe and do we see signs of a turn? Do cohabitation breakups influence divorce trends or is there a renewed stability on the partner market?In terms of divorce risks, the book contains new insights on Eastern European countries. These post socialist countries have evolved dramatically since the fall of the Wall and at present they show the highest divorce figures in Europe. Also the influence of gender, and more specifically women's education as a risk in divorce is examined cross nationally. The book also provides explanations for the negative gradient in female education effects on divorce. It devotes three separate parts to new insights in the post-divorce effects of the life course event by among others looking at consequences for adults and children but also taking the larger family network into account. As such the book is of interest to demographers, sociologists, psychologists, family therapists, NGOs, and politicians. "This wide-ranging volume details important trends in divorce in Europe that hold implications for understanding family dissolution causes and consequences throughout the world. Highly recommended for researchers and students everywhere."

This book represents a first attempt to comprehensively discuss and investigate causes and potential implications of changing patterns of spouse pairing in Japan and to consider similarities and differences with patterns observed in the USA and other low-fertility Western societies. In this book, research on educational assortative mating in Japan is summarized and updated. This book contributes to research on the demography of contemporary Japan by overviewing theoretical and empirical linkages between marriage behavior and processes of social and economic stratification. It also extends the large body of research on assortative mating and stratification by incorporating insights from the understudied context of Japan. The authors draw upon multiple data sources - both survey and administrative data - to update and extend previous research on "who marries whom" in Japan. The wide range of consequences considered includes income inequality, the intergenerational transmission of advantage and disadvantage, marriage and fertility timing, lifelong singlehood, childlessness, and the family roles of husbands and wives. Throughout the manuscript, Japan is considered in comparative perspective by employing the large USA and international literatures on assortative mating.

This book provides a key to understanding why there was an increase in extra-marital fertility in Japan from the 1990s to the 2010s, particularly between 1995 and 2015, and the factors which contribute to the multistratification of unmarried mothers, the number of which has increased ensuingly. It also allows for international comparison by providing data on outcomes of extra-marital childbirth. Previously, it was believed that the idea of a 'second demographic transition' did not apply to Japan, which had a relatively low rate of extra-marital fertility. However, more recently, though still at a low level, a subtle but gradual rise is seen in the number of women who become unmarried mothers as a result of births outside marriage. This trend suggests that the social environment surrounding pregnancy, childbirth, and marriage is changing. In this book, various data such as national statistics, nationwide surveys, and media discourse are analysed with a view to revealing the factors affecting unmarried women's decisions when they discover they are pregnant. Various matters are discussed, such as changes in sexual activity and contraceptive use, advance in reproductive technology, the law and government policies pertaining to adoption, social consciousness towards unwed mothers, the change in perception of abortion from the religious perspective, and difference of socioeconomic status depending on the women's occupation. Facts from vital statistics are first laid out, showing that, while abortion has consistently been on the decrease from the 1990s onward, shotgun marriages have peaked out. Adoption is rare and remains very small in proportion, while extra-marital fertility is on the rise. The author then points to the possibility that greater lenience found in the social consciousness towards unwed mothers in recent years is a pull factor for the increase in extra-marital fertility. Further, by analysing vital statistics, it is revealed that the probability of becoming a mother without marrying changed with the woman's occupation, explicable by the stability of employment and level of income, and that between 1995 and 2015, the effects of the job factor are changing. If we assume that, unlike the first demographic transition model, the 'second demographic transition' may show a similar direction but be on a different scale according to the country, it is possible to say that Japan too is experiencing the 'second demographic transition'.

Die Autoren gehen von drei moglichen Strategien zur Bewaltigung der Folgen des demografischen Wandels aus und untersuchen eine davon eingehend: die Erhohung der Kinderzahl. Sie beantworten die Frage, warum die Geburtenziffer in Deutschland als zu gering erachtet wird und klaren damit komplizierte Zusammenhange zwischen Demographie und Wachstum auf. Anschliessend untersuchen sie anhand vergleichender Studien, welche Rahmenbedingungen einer hoheren Kinderzahl zutraglich waren. Daraus leiten die Autoren Handlungsempfehlungen an die Politik ab.
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This book introduces demographic applications which employ current demographic concepts and theories and cutting-edge methods and findings, all of which have and will continue to have an impact in the broad area of social demography. Through providing an introduction to new and current developments in demography, methodological and statistical issues, data issues, issues of health, aging and mortality, and issues in social demography, this book gives new insights into data, substantive issues, and methodological approaches that will assist readers in their use of demography in their research. At the same time it shows demographers, sociologists, economists, statisticians, methodologists, planners, and marketers how they may learn and improve upon the quality and relevance of their demographic investigations now and in the future.

This book offers a new perspective and empirical evidence that are relevant for understanding changes in family structures, intergenerational relationships, and female labor force participation in the "strong family" societies and that also shed light on those in the "weak family" societies. Focusing on the stem family and the gender division of labor, presenting detailed quantitative evidence, and testing the theories on family change and gender revolution, the book provides a comprehensive examination of change, continuity, and regionality in the Japanese family system over the twentieth century. By analyzing data from a nationally representative life course survey with event history techniques, it investigates factors affecting post-marital intergenerational co-residence and proximate residence along with those influencing continuous and/or discontinuous employment of married women across the life course. In this way, it reveals the mechanisms underlying the stem family formation and those behind married women's M-shaped employment pattern. It further explores regionality in the Japanese family system, applying a demographic mapping method to data from a nationally representative community survey and official statistics. The mapping analyses demonstrate persistent geographical contrasts between two types of living arrangements (single-household versus multi-household) in the stem family accompanied by two types of maternal employment (full-time versus part-time). They also reveal a historical correlation between traditional communal parenting systems and modern childcare services, linking past to present from the late nineteenth to the early twenty-first century.

This open access book attends to the co-creation of digital public services for ageing societies. Increasingly public services are provided in digital form; their uptake however remains well below expectations. In particular, amongst older adults the need for public services is high, while at the same time the uptake of digital services is lower than the population average. One of the reasons is that many digital public services (or e-services) do not respond well to the life worlds, use contexts and use practices of its target audiences. This book argues that when older adults are involved in the process of identifying, conceptualising, and designing digital public services, these services become more relevant and meaningful. The book describes and compares three co-creation projects that were conducted in two European cities, Bremen and Zaragoza, as part of a larger EU-funded innovation project. The first part of the book traces the origins of co-creation to three distinct domains, in which co-creation has become an equally important approach with different understandings of what it is and entails: (1) the co-production of public services, (2) the co-design of information systems and (3) the civic use of open data. The second part of the book analyses how decisions about a co-creation project's governance structure, its scope of action, its choice of methods, its alignment with strategic policies and its embedding in existing public information infrastructures impact on the process and its results. The final part of the book identifies key challenges to co-creation and provides a more general assessment of what co-creation may achieve, where the most promising areas of application may be and where it probably does not match with the contingent requirements of digital public services. Contributing to current discourses on digital citizenship in ageing societies and user-centric design, this book is useful for researchers and practitioners interested in co-creation, public sector innovation, open government, ageing and digital technologies, citizen engagement and civic participation in socio-technical innovation.

This book provides an overview of multiple facets of ageing and its evolving dynamics in various Indian states. It elaborates on key dimensions like health, dependence and disability, as well as living arrangements for the elderly. Drawing on information from National Sample Surveys to offer readers a broader and richer understanding of the evolving demographic reality in India, the book addresses a range of detailed policies and programmes for the elderly in India. Given its scope, the book is essential reading for students and researchers in the fields of sociology, demography, economics and development studies. It also offers a valuable reference guide for anyone engaged in planning and policy formulation for social security, welfare of the aged or mainstreaming ageing concerns.

This handbook provides a global study of the classification of mixed race and ethnicity at the state level, bringing together a diverse range of country case studies from around the world. The classification of race and ethnicity by the state is a common way to organize and make sense of populations in many countries, from the national census and birth and death records, to identity cards and household surveys. As populations have grown, diversified, and become increasingly transnational and mobile, single and mutually exclusive categories struggle to adequately capture the complexity of identities and heritages in multicultural societies. State motivations for classification vary widely, and have shifted over time, ranging from subjugation and exclusion to remediation and addressing inequalities. The chapters in this handbook illustrate how differing histories and contemporary realities have led states to count and classify mixedness in different ways, for different reasons. This collection will serve as a key reference point on the international classification of mixed race and ethnicity for students and scholars across sociology, ethnic and racial studies, and public policy, as well as policy makers and practitioners.

This book provides an insightful sociological study of the declining Japanese population, using statistical analysis to establish the significance of municipal power using demographic data on national, regional, prefectural and municipal levels. Penned by one of Japan's eminent sociologists, it provides a quantitative characterization of population decline in Japan with a focus on regional variation, and identifies the principal explanatory factors through GPI statistical software tools such as G-census and EvaCva, within a historical perspective. Furthermore, it offers a qualitative assessment of what constitutes 'municipal power' as this relates to regional/local revitalization as a means of addressing municipal population decline. Using Goki-Shichido as a theoretical framework, this book pays special attention to municipal variations within the same prefecture, presenting a completely unique approach. In combining these two dimensions of analyses, the book successfully reveals the impact of municipal power and socio-cultural identity of social capital in the region, from both quantitative and qualitative perspectives at the municipal level. Demography issues in Japan have been receiving increasing attention among researchers given the growing number of declining populations in developed countries, in tandem with rapid aging and low fertility trends. Providing an original and unique contribution to regional population analysis in the fields of regional demography, historical demography and regional population policy, this book shows that the revitalization of the community is vital if Japan is to increase its population, so as to renew a community 'raison d'etre'. The book is of interest to scholars of Asian studies more broadly, and to sociologists, demographers, and policymakers interested in population studies, specifically. "Providing an informative and vivid overview of the demographic situation of Japan, the author offers excellent suggestions for effective regional policy in confronting a shrinking society. This book presents a unique analysis of the regional variations on small municipal levels, with demographic variables, social indicators and historical identities. An original contribution to regional population analysis in the fields of regional population policy, regional demography and historical demography." - Toshihiko Hara, Professor Emeritus, Sapporo City University

This book examines the relationship between retirement and health of older people in Japan's super-aging society and provides a key to understanding the remarkable longevity of the population. It also furnishes new evidence in this research field where the findings have been conflicting and the detailed causal mechanism has not been clarified for many years. For that purpose, a large-scale survey was used, "The Longitudinal Survey of Middle-Aged and Elderly Persons," which was conducted in Japan from 2005 to 2015 with 34,240 respondents aged 50-59 years in the first sample. Using this longitudinal survey, which focused on people just before retirement, and rigorous causal inference including instrumental variable and panel estimation, several research questions were tested. Specifically, existing literature does not provide sufficient findings about the heterogeneity in the effect of retirement on health. Thus, we have questions which should be addressed: does retirement affect health immediately or with delay; does the lifestyle before retirement matter for post-retirement health; and which is better for health retiring early or late? The lack of this viewpoint is believed to have led to the conflicting previous findings. If we know the answers to the questions, we would be able to understand the mechanisms between retirement and health, and prepare more properly for better retirement life. Showing the results of the testing of these questions, this book provides readers, researchers, and policymakers a comprehensive understanding of the retirement-health relationship and a suggestion for an effective labor and health policy in an aging society.

This edited volume offers state-of-the-art research on the dynamics of contemporary fertility by examining the implications of the economic and social forces that are driving the rapid change in fertility behavior, and the changing context, determinants, and measurement of contemporary human reproduction. The volume explores new theoretical avenues that seek to incorporate uncertainty, examine social contagion effects, and explain the rise in childlessness. Reproductive attitudes are re-examined in chapters that deal with models of parenthood and with the persistence of race-ethnic-nativity differences. A new and important subject of multi-partner fertility is also described by examining it in the context of total fertility and from the usually neglected perspective of men. The impact of divorce on fertility, the measurement of childlessness and the postponement of first births, developments in assortative mating and fertility, and current patterns of interracial fertility are also addressed in this volume. By combining up-to-date research spanning the entire field to illuminate contemporary developments, the book is a valuable source for demographers, sociologists, economists, and all those interested in understanding fertility in today's world.