This large-scale comparative endeavor, complete in two volumes, reflects increasing concern with the population factor in economic and social change worldwide. Demographers, on their side, have been focusing on history. In response to this, "Population in History" represents the work of two practitioners that have begun to work together, using their combined approaches in an attempt to assess and account for population growth experienced by the West since the seventeenth century.

There is a long record of interest in the history of population. But the interest now displayed is likely to be both more persistent and far more fruitful in its consequences. New studies have been initiated in many countries. And because the studies are more informed and systematic than many of those of earlier periods, they are already provoking the further spread of research. A much more positive part is now also being played by national and international associations of historians and demographers. It is not unlikely that, within the next fifteen or twenty years, the main outlines of population change in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries will be firmly established for much of Europe.

Previous research has tended to appear in specialist journals and academic publications. This volume is intended to provide a more easily accessible publication. It has been thought appropriate to include some earlier work, both because of its intrinsic interest and because it provided the background and part of the stimulus to the later research. Of the twenty-seven contributions to this outstanding volume, seven are unabridged reprints of earlier work; the remaining contributions are either entirely new or represent substantial revisions of work published elsewhere.

"D. V. Glass" was professor of sociology at the University of London. At the time of his death he was a fellow of the Royal Society and a fellow of the British Academy as well as a foreign associate of the National Academy of Arts and Sciences. Most of his later work and research was focused on demography.

"D. E. C. Eversley" was reader in social history at the University of Birmingham. Some of the books he co-authored include "Introduction to English Demography from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century" and "Social Theories of Fertility and The Malthusian Debate."

Despite its low penetration in China's vast rural areas, the Internet is generally perceived as a new engine for rural empowerment. By examining five Internet application initiatives in rural China, this book offers a unique view of the diffusion and usage of the Internet and its implications on the lives of rural people. Placed in the political, socioeconomic and infrastructure contexts of rural China, the book departs from the classical diffusion of innovations model and extends the existing knowledge on the adoption and usage of the Internet by rural people. In addition to testing the applicability of the diffusion of innovations theory to the diffusion of Information and Communications Technologies in the rural areas today, the study provides rich empirical evidence regarding the actual impact of the Internet on the livelihood of rural people. It also shows some innovative uses of the Internet in rural development.

Population control requires that the birth rate equal to the death rate. If it is too low, population will decline; if it is too high, population will increase. If either condition persists long enough the population will diminish towards zero or increase towards infinity. Fortunately, the birth trajectory does not have to be set once and for all but can be adjusted within limits. Since birth and death rates determine whether we are heading for population extinction or explosion, they are well designated "vital statistics." Their understanding and use are a central theme of demographic analysis.

"Demographic Analysis" presents those techniques that are often called for in the study of demographic problems. Such techniques permit researchers to fill the gap between the large amounts of data made available by censuses and the theoretical and practical questions that need to be answered; the techniques of this book effectively bring the data into confrontation with the problems. In his treatment of population projection, Pressat applies methods developed in earlier sections for mortality arid fertility. The emphasis is on population projection and accords with its usefulness in demographic analysis. The meaning of a demographic rate or trend is brought out by seeing to what condition it would lead if continued. No assumption is made that the concrete future will follow either path.

The substance of the book is devoted to the main themes of mortality and fertility. Underlying these as well as nearly every other kind of data with which the demographer deals is the problem of location in time--the relation of vital events to the calendar and also to the age of the persons undergoing them. Pressat's detailed attention to this problem forms a solid basis for how current methodology accounts of demographic changes.

"Roland Pressat" is noted for his extensive work in the field of demography. He is affiliated with the Institut National d'Etudes Dmographiques, in Paris, France. Some of his books include "Statistical Demography, Population, Statistical Demography" and "The Dictionary of Demography."

For over half a century, policymakers committed to population control have perpetrated a gigantic, costly, and inhumane fraud upon the human race. They have robbed people of the developing countries of their progeny and the people of the developed world of their pocketbooks. Determined to stop population growth at all costs, those Mosher calls "population controllers" have abused women, targeted racial and religious minorities, undermined primary health care programs, and encouraged dictatorial actions if not dictatorship. They have skewed the foreign aid programs of the United States and other developed countries in an anti-natal direction, corrupted dozens of well-intentioned nongovernmental organizations, and impoverished authentic development programs. Blinded by zealotry, they have even embraced the most brutal birth control campaign in history: China's infamous one-child policy, with all its attendant horrors.

There is no workable demographic definition of "overpopulation." Those who argue for its premises conjure up images of poverty--low incomes, poor health, unemployment, malnutrition, overcrowded housing to justify anti-natal programs. The irony is that such policies have in many ways caused what they predicted--a world which is poorer materially, less diverse culturally, less advanced economically, and plagued by disease. The population controllers have not only studiously ignored mounting evidence of their multiple failures; they have avoided the biggest story of them all. Fertility rates are in free fall around the globe.

Movements with billions of dollars at their disposal, not to mention thousands of paid advocates, do not go quietly to their graves. Moreover, many in the movement are not content to merely achieve zero population growth, they want to see negative population numbers. In their view, our current population should be reduced to one or two billion or so. Such a goal would keep these interest groups fully employed. It would also have dangerous consequences for a global environment.

This large-scale comparative endeavor, complete in two volumes, reflects increasing concern with the population factor in economic and social change worldwide. Demographers, on their side, have been focusing on history. In response to this, "Population in History" represents the work of two practitioners that have begun to work together, using their combined approaches in an attempt to assess and account for population growth experienced by the West since the seventeenth century.

There is a long record of interest in the history of population. But the interest now displayed is likely to be both more persistent and far more fruitful in its consequences. New studies have been initiated in many countries. And because the studies are more informed and systematic than many of those of earlier periods, they are already provoking the further spread of research. A much more positive part is now also being played by national and international associations of historians and demographers. It is not unlikely that, within the next fifteen or twenty years, the main outlines of population change in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries will be firmly established for much of Europe.

Previous research has tended to appear in specialist journals and academic publications. This volume is intended to provide a more easily accessible publication. It has been thought appropriate to include some earlier work, both because of its intrinsic interest and because it provided the background and part of the stimulus to the later research. Of the twenty-seven contributions to this outstanding volume, seven are unabridged reprints of earlier work; the remaining contributions are either entirely new or represent substantial revisions of work published elsewhere.

Superdiversity explores processes of diversification and the complex, emergent social configurations that now supersede prior forms of diversity in societies around the world. Migration plays a key role in these processes, bringing changes not just in social, cultural, religious, and linguistic phenomena, but also in the ways that these phenomena combine with others like gender, age, and legal status. The concept of superdiversity has been adopted by scholars across the social sciences in order to address a variety of forms, modes, and outcomes of diversification. Central to this field is the relationship between social categorization and social organization, including stratification and inequality. Increasingly complex categories of social "difference" have significant impacts across scales, from entire societies to individual identities. While diversification is often met with simplifying stereotypes, threat narratives, and expressions of antagonism, superdiversity encourages a perspective on difference as comprising multiple social processes, flexible collective meanings, and overlapping personal and group identities. A superdiversity approach encourages the re-evaluation and recognition of social categories as multidimensional, unfixed, and porous as opposed to views based on hardened, one-dimensional thinking about groups. Diversification and increasing social complexity are bound to continue, if not intensify, in light of climate change. This will have profound impacts on the nature of global migration, social relations, and inequalities. Superdiversity presents a convincing case for recognizing new social formations created by changing migration patterns and calls for a re-thinking of public policy and social scientific approaches to social difference. This introduction to the multidisciplinary concept of superdiversity will be of considerable interest to students and researchers in a range of fields in the humanities and social sciences. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

For over half a century, policymakers committed to population control have perpetrated a gigantic, costly, and inhumane fraud upon the human race. They have robbed people of the developing countries of their progeny and the people of the developed world of their pocketbooks. Determined to stop population growth at all costs, those Mosher calls "population controllers" have abused women, targeted racial and religious minorities, undermined primary health care programs, and encouraged dictatorial actions if not dictatorship. They have skewed the foreign aid programs of the United States and other developed countries in an anti-natal direction, corrupted dozens of well-intentioned nongovernmental organizations, and impoverished authentic development programs. Blinded by zealotry, they have even embraced the most brutal birth control campaign in history: China's infamous one-child policy, with all its attendant horrors.

There is no workable demographic definition of "overpopulation." Those who argue for its premises conjure up images of poverty--low incomes, poor health, unemployment, malnutrition, overcrowded housing to justify anti-natal programs. The irony is that such policies have in many ways caused what they predicted--a world which is poorer materially, less diverse culturally, less advanced economically, and plagued by disease. The population controllers have not only studiously ignored mounting evidence of their multiple failures; they have avoided the biggest story of them all. Fertility rates are in free fall around the globe.

Movements with billions of dollars at their disposal, not to mention thousands of paid advocates, do not go quietly to their graves. Moreover, many in the movement are not content to merely achieve zero population growth, they want to see negative population numbers. In their view, our current population should be reduced to one or two billion or so. Such a goal would keep these interest groups fully employed. It would also have dangerous consequences for a global environment.

The population of the modern world continues to grow at a rate unprecedented in human history. How are we to explain this massive increase in the number of living people? What is its consequence, now and for the future? How have populations changed in size and structure since the advent of industrial technology? Can we predict the population trends in developing countries? These and many other significant questions are dealt with in a persuasive yet accessible manner in Ronald Freedman's pivotal "Population Growth."

Modern population trends are unique in historical perspective; describing them as part of a "vital revolution" is not an exaggeration. The more popular term "population explosion" is less accurate because it refers to only one aspect of the current situation--the unprecedented growth rates. In the last two centuries other important trends have developed, also without precedent in all of the previous millennia of human history. While the size of population growth is very important in itself, the essays in this volume demonstrate that many other aspects of structure and change in populations are equally important.

In readable, non-technical language, these collected essays analyze the most important modern trends in world population. The essays include comprehensive discussions of population theory, analyses of population trends, and prospects in the United States and surveys of population trends in other major areas of the world. As a survey of current population problems, this book will be a library staple for those involved in international development programs, sociologists, family planning workers, and everyone concerned with the contemporary vital revolution in population.

When first released much praise was given to this book: "An outstanding book on urban geography. . . representative of the best on this subject."--"Higher Education Journal"

"The book ought to be required reading for every planner and student of planning . . . a magnificent achievement." --"Town and Country Planning."

"The Geography of Towns" provides a concise but thorough introduction to the important subject of urban geography. It traces the development of urban areas from the earliest sites of Nineveh, Aleppo, and Agade to modern megalopolises and strip cities, and deals authoritatively with problems of classification and ranking, location and type, origins, and course of development, and the relationship of the city to its region and nation.

All facets of urban geography are covered, including the core, integuments, population structure, land-use patterns, enclaves, and town structure. Population mobility and the continual crisscross circulation of populations within and between town and region are seen as important forces affecting the internal geography of towns. The author questions the usefulness or validity of such terms as "neighborhood" and stresses the need for more meaningful conceptualizations and vocabulary.

One of the fundamental problems connected with urban geography is to assist in the planning of future cities. This book contributes substantially to an understanding of the interrelations of town and region and to an understanding of the components of the city itself which are essential to intelligent planning for the future.

"Arthur E. Smailes" (1911-1984) was professor of geography, University of London. He was founder member of the Institute of British Geographers and also served as its secretary. In his career, he was granted a chair at Queen Mary College which later became the first chair of geography and was the recipient of the Research Medal of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society.

A Primer of Population Dynamics introduces to the basics of population studies. Author Krishnan Namboodiri utilizes a question-and-answer format that explores topics such as population theories and conceptual schemes, demographic data, mortality, fertility, migration, family and household, food production, and the environment and much more. Questions are accompanied by detailed explanations as well as references for additional information. An extensive index and glossary allow for easy retrieval of information. This introductory textbook is written for students studying demography, population, sociology, and public health.

Since the arrival of the Spanish conquerors at the beginning of the colonial period, Cuba has been hugely influenced by international migration. Between 1791 and 1810, for instance, many French people migrated to Cuba in the wake of the purchase of Louisiana by the United States and turmoil in Saint-Domingue. Between 1847 and 1874, Cuba was the main recipient of Chinese indentured laborers in Latin America. During the nineteenth century as a whole, more Spanish people migrated to Cuba than anywhere else in the Americas, and hundreds of thousands of slaves were taken to the island. The first decades of the twentieth century saw large numbers of immigrants and temporary workers from various societies arrive in Cuba. And since the revolution of 1959, a continuous outflow of Cubans toward many countries has taken place--with lasting consequences.

In this book, the most comprehensive study of international migration in Cuba ever undertaken, Margarita Cervantes-Rodriguez aims to elucidate the forces that have shaped international migration and the involvement of the migrants in transnational social fields since the beginning of the colonial period. Drawing on Fernand Braudel's concept of longue duree, transnational studies, perspectives on power, and other theoretical frameworks, the author places her analysis in a much wider historical and theoretical perspective than has previously been applied to the study of international migration in Cuba, making this a work of substantial interest to social scientists as well as historians.

This book is about trying to answer questions. These questions were well introduced by Prof. Margaret Hall in the opening of her chapter in this book: "The fundamental idea of 'law and aging' as a discrete category of legal principle and theory is controversial: how and why are 'older adults' or 'seniors' or 'elders' (the very terminology is controversial and fraught with difficulties) a discrete and distinct group for whom 'special' legal thought and treatment is justified? For some, a category of law and aging is inherently paternalistic, suggesting that older persons are, like children, especially in need of the protection of the law. In this sense, the argument continues, the category itself internalizes ageist presumptions about older adults and is therefore inherently flawed and even harmful. If certain older adults are, because of physical or mental infirmities, genuinely in need of an enhanced level of legal protection, this entitlement should be conceptualized in terms of their disability; older adults are not a distinct group but an arbitrarily delineated demographic category which contains within it any number of groups that are legitimately distinct for the purposes of legal theory (the di- bled; women; persons of colour; Aboriginal persons; rich and poor; etc.) Indeed, the arti- cial category of "older adults" may be seen as obfuscating, submerging these more meaningful distinctions.

This book provides a concise introduction to the practical and theoretical complexities of studying urban youth culture today. Looking across disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, and education, Dimitriadis explores the ways urban youth have been framed - in often limiting and problematic ways - in the popular and academic imagination. Moving beyond critique alone, this highly accessible primer opens a discussion about what a truly powerful, emergent field of «critical youth studies might look like. Looking toward the future of this field, this book discusses the most important methodological and substantive trends and issues scholars will be addressing now and in the years to come. The Studying Urban Youth Culture Primer is an indispensable text for students in a range of qualitative methods and urban education courses.

The first demographic transition changed the face of the western world as thoroughly as did the Industrial Revolution. As couples began to have fewer children, women were released from the heavy burden of endless pregnancies and extended periods of child care. Even though this profound process of change has been extensively researched, women were rarely pictured as decision-makers concerning fertility and family. Moreover, men and women were mostly not perceived as having potentially differing interests in sexuality and child-bearing. This volume contains papers delivered at the conference Were Women Present at the Demographic Transition? which was held at the Radboud University Nijmegen, 20-21 May 2005. The contributions throw light on the active role women played in the fertility decline as well as on the complex process of decision-making between husbands and wives.

This book examines several sociological perspectives on the defining characteristics of modernity through the construction of conceptual models. Each model specifies the prime movers of the social system and the key agencies of change and development. According to one model, technology is the moving force in society, while another emphasizes metropolitan dominance, and yet another concentrates on materialistic values and consumerism. A growing number of social scientists perceive knowledge to be the driving force of modernity; yet others emphasize cultural pluralism or mass society. Because of the many ways dramatic changes are occurring in so many different directions at the same time, the multiple realities of modernity are recognized and clarified. Accelerations of experimentation and innovation are occurring in all areas of social life. The Enlightenment, the industrial revolution, and civil society are emphasized as the pathways to modernity. The themes of relativity, incompleteness, uncertainty, and fragmentation are implicated in postmodernist critiques of the values of the enlightenment.

This book provides quantitative and applied methodologies in the Covid-19 era exploring important issues in demography, population studies, and health. It provides insight into health and health measures as to the healthy life years lost and the healthy life expectancy related to Covid-19 pandemic. It also describes mortality and survival and focuses on data analysis in demography and population studies. Special methods and applications in demography and society are also described, thereby including applications in society, pension and insurance. As such, this book is a valuable guide for researchers, theoreticians and practitioners from various scientific fields.

This book presents a comprehensive analysis of one of the most pressing challenges facing Japan today: population decline and ageing.

It argues that social ageing is a phenomenon that follows in the wake of industrialization, urbanization and social modernization, bringing about changes in values, institutions, social structures, economic activity, technology and culture, and posing many challenges for the countries affected. Focusing on the experience of Japan, the author explores:

• how Japan has recognized the emerging problems relatively early because during the past half century population ageing has been more rapid in Japan than in any other country
• how all of Japanese society is affected by social ageing, not just certain substructures and institutions, and explains its complex causes, describes the resulting challenges and analyses the solutions under consideration to deal with it
• the nature of Japan's population dynamics since 1920, and argues that Japan is rapidly moving in the direction of a 'hyperaged society' in which those sixty-five or older account for twenty-five per cent of the total population
• the implications for family structures and other social networks, gender roles and employment patterns, health care and welfare provision, pension systems, immigration policy, consumer and voting behaviour and the cultural reactions and ramifications of social ageing.

This book is the 6th volume of the Monograph Series of the Socio-Economic History Society, Japan. The book focuses on how economic developments changed the everyday lives of ordinary women in early-modern and modern Japan. Different from precedent gender studies, the spotlight here is on the daily activities and structural positions of women rather than feminist movements or activities of elite women. Using demography, anthropometrics, and labour economics, this book explicates childcare, physical development of girls, and women's labour migration. The dynamics of ordinary women in prewar Japan may change deep-rooted images of women as oppressed beings. Using quantitative data multi-dimensionally with the latest statistical analysis methods, this book shows how Japanese economic historians can contribute to historians of gender and family who are interested in early-modern and modern Japan. The first part consists of four chapters that discuss women migrant workers in the Tokugawa period, women's work, and family strategies in the underdeveloped regions of the country, conflicts between child-rearing and women's work on family farms, and living standards of teenaged girls in early twentieth-century Japan. Those chapters provide a bridge between economic historians and feminist historians and articulate new research fields for both. The second part, comprising four book reviews, illustrates how the gender concept has been adopted in family and gender historiography in Japan.

Why do contraceptive practices work for some couples and not for others? How do couples decide the number of children they want? What are the implications of family design in terms of the "population explosion?" "Family Design" is a thoroughly documented study undertaken by Social Research, Inc., for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Based on intensive interviews with 409 husbands and wives, it applies the framework of family sociology to a problem that has previously been studied mainly from the demographic point of view. Using social class, conjugal role organization and religion as control variables, the author explores in detail role concepts of husband and wife, sexual relations, cultural determinants, family size norms, personal motivations and contraceptive practices, and relates these factors to family planning. "Family Design" is an accurate barometer of current attitudes toward family planning for professional family planning workers, social scientists and everyone who is alert to the implications of family size and population trends in our society. "Lee Rainwater" is professor emeritus of sociology at Harvard University and research director of the Luxembourg Income Study. He was one of the original founders of Transaction. He has been associate editor of "Journal of Marriage and the Family" and on the review board of "Sociological Quarterly." He was written various books and in many professional journals.

The Italian peasantry has often been described as tragic, backward, hopeless, downtrodden, static, and passive. In "Fate and Honor, Family and Village," Rudolph Bell argues against this characterization by reconstructing the complete demographic history of four country villages since 1800. He analyzes births, marriages, and deaths in terms of four concepts that capture more accurately and sympathetically the essence of the Italian peasant's life: "Fortuna" (fate), "onore" (honor, dignity), "famiglia" (family), and "campanilismo" (village).

"Fortuna" is the cultural wellspring of Italian peasant society, the worldview from which all social life flows. The concept of "Fortuna" does not refer to philosophical questions, predestination, or value judgments. Rather, Fortuna is the sum total of all explanations of outcomes perceived to be beyond human control. Thus, in Bell's view, high mortality does not lead peasants to a resigned acceptance of their fate; instead, they rely on honor, reciprocal exchanges of favors, and marriage to forge new links in their familial and social networks. With thorough documentation in graphs and tables, the author evaluates peasant reactions to time, work, family, space, migration, and protest to portray rural Italians as active, flexible, and shrewd, participating fully in shaping their destinies.

Bell asserts that the real problem of the Mezzogiorno is not one of resistance to technology, of high birth rates, or even of illiteracy. It is one of solving technical questions in ways that foster dependency. The historical and sociological practice of treating peasant culture as backward, secondary, and circumscribed only encourages disruption and ultimately blocks the road to economic and political justice in a post-modern world.

For over a hundred years, demography has been at the heart of the Zionist project, reflected in the goal of creating and maintaining a Jewish majority in Israel and in ensuring the physical continuation of the Jewish people. Demography continues to be an essential issue in the current struggle between Israel and Palestine. Yet in academic discourse, demography is treated as a minor, largely technical side-issue in the social sciences, with little theoretical consideration given to population processes as social processes. "Israel's Destiny: Fertility and Mortality in a Divided Society" brings together important recent work in this area. The contributions to Israel's Destiny focus on the influence of religion, religiosity, nationalism, and ethnicity on fertility and mortality in Israel. "Israel's Destiny" is divided into four sections: the first focuses on fertility, particularly Israel's apparently high birth rate when compared with other countries with a similar standard of living; the second looks at patterns of nuptiality and contraception and the way marriage patterns are shaping group boundaries; the third looks at mortality, particularly among men; and the fourth looks at social policy effects of the demographic process. The main focus is that differential reproduction of the population by national and ethnic group, as well as social class--through fertility and mortality--and the social structuring of the population--through marriage patterns--are critical elements in the creation and evolution of Israeli society. The editors' introduction places all these studies in a wider perspective of current demographic research. The volume provides a concise population history of the state of Israel to help the reader put the studies in their proper local and historical context.

For over a hundred years, demography has been at the heart of the Zionist project, reflected in the goal of creating and maintaining a Jewish majority in Israel and in ensuring the physical continuation of the Jewish people. Demography continues to be an essential issue in the current struggle between Israel and Palestine. Yet in academic discourse, demography is treated as a minor, largely technical side-issue in the social sciences, with little theoretical consideration given to population processes as social processes. "Israel's Destiny: Fertility and Mortality in a Divided Society" brings together important recent work in this area. The contributions to Israel's Destiny focus on the influence of religion, religiosity, nationalism, and ethnicity on fertility and mortality in Israel. "Israel's Destiny" is divided into four sections: the first focuses on fertility, particularly Israel's apparently high birth rate when compared with other countries with a similar standard of living; the second looks at patterns of nuptiality and contraception and the way marriage patterns are shaping group boundaries; the third looks at mortality, particularly among men; and the fourth looks at social policy effects of the demographic process. The main focus is that differential reproduction of the population by national and ethnic group, as well as social class--through fertility and mortality--and the social structuring of the population--through marriage patterns--are critical elements in the creation and evolution of Israeli society. The editors' introduction places all these studies in a wider perspective of current demographic research. The volume provides a concise population history of the state of Israel to help the reader put the studies in their proper local and historical context.

Demographic transition constitutes one of the most fundamental modern historical changes; people live much longer, have fewer children, and experience higher mobility. This book examines the basic mechanisms behind the modernisation of demographic behaviour. The author has marshalled an impressive array of statistical material relating to sixty-seven countries, half of them less developed countries. Most of the tables are time-series, covering many decades and sometimes go back to the nineteenth, and even eighteenth centuries. The whole sweep of western experience is dealt with here impartially. Though technically sophisticated, the book also covers issues of interpretation and analysis. The author puts forward a number of challenging propositions: mortality decrease is shown to necessarily precede fertility and decline, so-called execptions being simply false exceptions. He shows how the decline of fertility is dependent on important and manifold social transformations. The strong connections between international migration and the course of demographic transition are demonstrated, as is the fact that less developed countries are following the same general patterns as MDCs. There is also discussion of why the theory of demographic transition must include the effect of population changes on the economic progress of society.

With hundreds of thousands of copies sold, a Ron Howard movie in the works, and the rise of its author as a media personality, J. D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis has defined Appalachia for much of the nation. What about Hillbilly Elegy accounts for this explosion of interest during this period of political turmoil? Why have its ideas raised so much controversy? And how can debates about the book catalyze new, more inclusive political agendas for the region's future? Appalachian Reckoning is a retort, at turns rigorous, critical, angry, and hopeful, to the long shadow Hillbilly Elegy has cast over the region and its imagining. But it also moves beyond Hillbilly Elegy to allow Appalachians from varied backgrounds to tell their own diverse and complex stories through an imaginative blend of scholarship, prose, poetry, and photography. The essays and creative work collected in Appalachian Reckoning provide a deeply personal portrait of a place that is at once culturally rich and economically distressed, unique and typically American. Complicating simplistic visions that associate the region almost exclusively with death and decay, Appalachian Reckoning makes clear Appalachia's intellectual vitality, spiritual richness, and progressive possibilities.

Public discussion of population aging usually focuses on the financial burden that increasingly elderly populations will impose on younger generations. Scholars give much less attention to who does the actual work of day-to-day care for those no longer able to care for themselves; and although women are the majority among the elderly, little is heard about gender differences in economic resources or the need for care. This volume is dedicated to giving gender -and a full range of social and cultural differences-their rightful place in these discussions. The authors in the following pages address, among other issues:
* the worldwide dilemmas of eldercare
* the structure of income and care provisions for older populations
* the role of family, marital status, and class in these provisions
* the impact of polices affecting retirement age
* and the role of social insurance in preventing poverty among elderly women
The essays included address these topics in a myriad of geographical contexts, including South Africa, the US, Palestine, Australia, South Korea, Spain, Germany, and Sweden. The concerns highlighted here also remind us that whether through individual families or social insurance, through family caregivers or paid help, the oldest generation will continue to depend on adults of working age for its well-being. This book was previously published as a special issue of Feminist Economics.