![]() |
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
|
Your cart is empty |
||
|
Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Population & demography > General
This book examines the relationship between population policies and individual reproductive decisions in low-fertility contexts. Using the case study of Singapore, it demonstrates that the effectiveness of population policy is a function of competing notions of citizenship, and the gap between seemingly neutral policy incentives and the perceived and experienced disparate effects. Drawing on a substantial number of personal interviews and focus groups, the book analyzes the developmental welfare state's overarching emphasis of citizen responsibility, and examines population policies that reinforce social inequalities and ignore cultural diversity. These factors combine to undermine elaborate state policy efforts in encouraging citizens' biological reproduction. The book goes on to argue that in order to facilitate positive fertility decisions, the state needs to modify the "economic production at all cost" approach and pay much more attention to the importance of social rights. This suggests that the Singapore government might profitably approach the phenomenon of very low fertility with major initiatives similar to those of other advanced industrialized societies. This book offers a significant contribution to the literature on social policy, East Asian and Southeast Asian studies.
Knowledge of the origin and spread of farming has been revolutionised in recent years by the application of new scientific techniques, especially the analysis of ancient DNA from human genomes. In this book, Stephen Shennan presents the latest research on the spread of farming by archaeologists, geneticists and other archaeological scientists. He shows that it resulted from a population expansion from present-day Turkey. Using ideas from the disciplines of human behavioural ecology and cultural evolution, he explains how this process took place. The expansion was not the result of 'population pressure' but of the opportunities for increased fertility by colonising new regions that farming offered. The knowledge and resources for the farming 'niche' were passed on from parents to their children. However, Shennan demonstrates that the demographic patterns associated with the spread of farming resulted in population booms and busts, not continuous expansion.
Responding to the renewed emphasis on the significance of village studies, this book focuses on aging bachelorhood as a site of intolerable angst when faced with rural depopulation and social precarity. Based on ongoing ethnographic fieldwork in contemporary Macedonian society, the book explores the intersections between modernity, kinship and gender. It argues that as a critical consequence of demographic rupture, changing values and societal shifts, aging bachelorhood illuminates and challenges conceptualizations of performativity and social presence.
Based on China s recently released 2010 population census data, this edited volume analyzes the most recent demographic trends in China, in the context of significant social and economic upheavals. The editor and the expert contributors describe the main features of China s demography, and focus on the details of this latest phase of its demographic transition. The book explores such striking characteristics of China s demography as the changing age and sex population structure; recent trends in marriage and divorce; fertility trends with a focus on sex imbalance at birth; the demography of the ethnic minorities and recent mortality trends by sex. Analysing China's Population: Social Change in a New Demographic Era examines and assesses the impact of changes that in the coming decades will be crucial for individuals, and the larger society and economy of the nation."
The latest edition of this classic text has been updated to reflect current trends and implications for future demographic developments. The areas of Africa, international migration and population and environment have been strengthened and statistical information has been updated throughout. * A new edition of this classic history of demography text, which has been updated to strengthen the major subject areas of Africa, international migration and population and the environment * Includes the latest statistical information, including the 2015 UN population projections revision and developments in China's population policy * Information is presented in a clear and simple form, with academic material presented accessibly for the undergraduate audience whilst still maintaining the interest of higher level students and scholars * The text covers issues that are crucial to the future of every species by encouraging humanity's search for ways to prevent future demographic catastrophes brought about by environmental or human agency * Analyses the changing patterns of world population growth, including the effects of migration, war, disease, technology and culture
First published in 1973, this book is an attempt to examine the political determinants (as opposed to the more usual emphasis upon consequences) of contemporary population policy formation and action in developing countries, with particular reference to policy relating to family limitation.
First published in 1992, this book explores the efforts to counteract the high maternal and infant death rates present between the end of the nineteenth century and the Second World War. It looks at the problem in five different continents and shows the varying approaches used by the governments, institutions and individuals in those countries. Contributors display how policy and practice have been shaped by the structure of maternity services, nationalism, the conflict of colonization and cultural factors. In doing so, they illustrate how welfare policy and funding were moulded throughout the world in the times considered.
This book, first published in 1951, focuses on the hitherto ignored contemporary critics of Malthus, giving them the attention they so rightly deserve. Dr Smith traces the Malthusian controversy step by step, from 1798, the date of the First Essay, to the death of Malthus in 1834. Investigating the precursors of Malthus and the genesis of the Malthusian Theory of Population, the book subjects the theory to a searching analysis in the light of not only contemporary criticism, but also subsequent developments and modern ideas. In addition, the book examines the application of the theory to the doctrine of perfectibility, to wages, to the poor laws, to emigration, and to the birth control movement. Fully annotated and written in an easy style, this work is indispensable to serious students of both population problems and the development of economic thought. Broad in scope, The Malthusian Controversy presents a new perspective on the most urgent of modern issues, the problem of world population.
This collection of studies, first published in 1985, describes some contemporary problems of selected pastoral and agro-pastoral communities of the West African Sahel. Several important features of the Sahel are illustrated: the significance of seasonal factors in causing periodic stress amongst people and animals, the economic uncertainty introduced by interannual climactic variations, as well as the role of traditional systems of social and economic organisation in providing some support during periods of need. The findings presented here are published in co-operation with the Sahel Institute, a regional research organisation set up in the early 1970s with representation from eight Sahelian countries - Cape Verde, Chad, Gambia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal and Upper Volta.
Low fertility in Europe has given rise to the notion of a 'fertility crisis'. This book shifts the attention from fertility decline to why people do have children, asking what children mean to them. It investigates what role children play in how young adults plan their lives, and why and how young adults make the choices they do. The book aims to expand our comprehension of the complex structures and cultures that influence reproductive choice, and explores three key aspects of fertility choices: the processes towards having (or not having) children, and how they are underpinned by negotiations and ambivalences how family policies, labour markets and personal relations interact in young adults' fertility choices social differentiation in fertility choice: how fertility rationales and reasoning may differ among women and men, and across social classes Based on empirical studies from six nations - France, Scandinavia, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Germany and Italy (representing the high and low end of European variation in fertility rates) - the book shows how different economic, political and cultural contexts interact in young adults' fertility rationales. It will be of interest to students and scholars of sociology, anthropology, demography and gender studies.
Known as highly mobile cattle nomads, the Wodaabe in Niger are today increasingly engaged in a transformation process towards a more diversified livelihood based primarily on agro-pastoralism and urban work migration. This book examines recent transformations in spatial patterns, notably in the context of urban migration and in processes of sedentarization in rural proto-villages. The book analyses the consequences that the recent change entails for social group formation and collective identification, and how this impacts integration into wider society amid the structures of the modern nation state.
Birth rates are falling and fertility rates are well below replacement levels. At the same time, the economic crisis has forced governments to scale back public spending, reduce child support, and raise the retirement age, causing immense social conflict. Taking a step outside the disciplinary comfort zone, "Whither the Child?" asks how demography affects individuals and society. What does it feel like to live in a low fertility world? What are the consequences? Is there even a problem - economically, culturally and morally? No other book confronts so many dimensions of the low fertility issue and none engage with the thorny issues of child psychology, parenting, family, and social policy that are tackled head-on here.
First published in 1976, Economics and Demography discusses how the world population doubled in the thirty years prior to its publication, and considers the economic implications of this demographic transformation. Professor Bowen, with many years' experience of research into the economic and statistical aspects of population and world development, provides a survey of the population of the world, and of how political economists have explained population growth. The author's survey looks first at the mechanisms of growth - fertility, mortality, and migration - followed by an account of theories of growth from Adam Smith to the present day. Professor Bowen, a former fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, who taught at universities in England, America, Australia and Asia, writes from the point of view of a political economist rather than a demographer, and Economics and Demography is of particular value to students of development, development economics and demography within departments of economics, economic history and geography.
Changes in Censuses from Imperialist to Welfare States , the second of two volumes, uses historical and comparative methods to analyze censuses or census-like information in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Italy, starting in England over one-thousand years ago.
This book examines the fraught political relationship between British governments, which wanted information about peoples' lives, and the people who desired privacy. To do this it looks at something that Britain only experienced in wartime, a centralized and up-to-date list of everyone in the country: a population register. The abolition of this wartime system is contrasted with later attempts to reintroduce registration, and the change in the political mind-set driving these later schemes to develop centralised webs of so-called objective data is examined. These policies were confronted by privacy campaigns, studied here, but it is shown how government responses succeeded in turning political debates about data into technical discussions about computerization; thus protecting its data, largely on paper, from oversight. This reformulation also shaped the 1984 Data Protection Act, which consequently did not protect privacy but rather increased government's ability to gain knowledge of, and hence power over, the people.
The condition of childhood and youth in different socio-cultural contexts is an area that is yet to be fully uncovered. Currently, there is a lack of understanding regarding young people's inherent rights, how these translate into day-to-day policy and why the experience of childhood differs across different socio-cultural realities. This book, written by experts in the field from India, The Philippines, Sweden, Romania, Scotland, Brazil, Argentina and Jamaica, seeks to redress this disconnect and take an in-depth exploration into the condition of childhood across 3 different continents.Firstly, the authors explore the fundamental rights of children and young people, in which the boundaries and possibilities of guaranteeing and effecting rights are presented, also drawing attention to the new ways in which contemporary generations have resisted the waves of exclusion and marginalization. This important text then explores the idea of sociocultural differentiation and unity, presented through a series of innovative studies that illuminate the similarities and differences in living conditions of children and young people in different contexts. This volume, with both a comparative focus and global reach, will prove invaluable for researchers in the fields of childhood education and sociology.
Human mobility has been a defining feature of human social evolution. In a global community, the term "mobility" captures the full gamut of types, directions, and patterns of human movement. The psychology of mobility is important because movement is inherently behavioral. Much of the behavioral study of mobility has focused on the negative - examining the trauma of forced migration, or the health consequences of the lack of adaptation - but this work looks into the benefits of mobility, such as its impact on career capital and well-being. Recent years have witnessed a phenomenal increase in efforts to understand human mobility, by social scientists, think-tanks, and policymakers alike. The book focuses on the transformational potential of mobility for human development. The book details the historical, methodological, and theoretical trajectory of human mobility (Context), followed by sections on pre-departure incentives and predispositions (Motivation), influences on acculturation, health and community fit (Adjustment), and changes in career capital, overcoming bias, and diaspora networks (Performance).
Whereas the history of demography as a social science has been amply explored, that of the construction of the concept of population has been neglected. Specialists systematically ignore a noteworthy paradox: strictly speaking, the great intellectual figures of the past dealt with in this book have not produced demographic theories or doctrines as such, but they have certainly given some thought to population at both levels. First, the central epistemological and methodological orientation of the book is presented. Ideas on population, far from being part of the harmonious advancement of knowledge are the product of their context, that is evidently demographic, but also economic, political and above all intellectual. Then the ideas on population of Plato, Bodin, the French mercantilists, Quesnay and the physiocrats are examined under this light. The last chapter addresses the implicit philosophical, economic and political issues of population thought.
This book presents an innovative demographic toolkit known as the ProFamy extended cohort-component method for the projection of household structures and living arrangements with empirical applications to the United States, the largest developed country, and China, the largest developing country. The ProFamy method uses demographic rates as inputs to project detailed distributions of household types and sizes, living arrangements of all household members, and population by age, sex, race/ethnicity, and urban/rural residence at national, sub-national, or small area levels. It can also project elderly care needs and costs, pension deficits, and household consumption. The ProFamy method presented herein has substantial merits compared to the traditional headship rate method, which is not linked to demographic rates and projects limited household types without other household members than "heads." The book consists of four parts. The first part presents the methodology, data, estimation issues, and empirical assessments. The next parts present applications in the United States (part two) and China (part three), concerning demographic, social, economic, and business research; policy analysis, including forecasting future trends of household type/size, elderly living arrangements, disability, and home-based care costs, and household consumption including housing and vehicles. The fourth part includes a user's guide for the ProFamy software to project households, living arrangements, and home-based consumptions. This book offers an invaluable toolkit for researchers, analysts and students in academic, public and private businesses, whose work is related to levels and rates of change in households, population and consumption patterns.
This monograph is the first attempt in Bulgarian historiography (and still one of the very few endeavors in Europe) to investigate the origins of state policy toward population and the family in Eastern Europe. The work reconstructs the evolution of state legislation in the field of social policy toward the family in Bulgaria between the two World Wars, colored by concerns about the national good and demographic considerations. It sets the laws regarding family welfare in their framework of a distinctively cultural, historical and political discourse to follow the motives behind the legislative initiatives.
First published in 1978, this book explores the vital global issue of high and low fertility in poorer countries through a series of case studies by contemporary experts in the fields of development and demography. These studies examine such issues as: the relations between fertility rates and income distributions in poor societies; the question of whether or not neo-classical macro-economics are sufficient to understand and to try to engineer relations between economies and populations; and the specifics of the relations between fertility and a variety of socio-economic factors in both South Asia and West Africa. The point of the collection is to explain how very far general models can be taken, and to suggest that they cannot be taken as far as those who have tended to ignore the structural complexities of, and differences between, various societies have implied.
Confounding all conventional wisdom, the fertility rate in the Islamic Republic of Iran fell from around 7.0 births per woman in the early 1980s to 1.9 births per woman in 2006. That this, the largest and fastest fall in fertility ever recorded, should have occurred in one of the world's few Islamic Republics demands explanation. This book, based upon a decade of research is the first to attempt such an explanation. The book documents the progress of the fertility decline and displays its association with social and economic characteristics. It addresses an explanation of the phenomenal fall of fertility in this Islamic context by considering the relevance of standard theories of fertility transition. The book is rich in data as well as the application of different demographic methods to interpret the data. All the available national demographic data are used in addition to two major surveys conducted by the authors. Demographic description is preceded by a socio-political history of Iran in recent decades, providing a context for the demographic changes. The authors conclude with their views on the importance of specific socio-economic and political changes to the demographic transition. Their concluding arguments suggest continued low fertility in Iran. The book is recommended to not only demographers, social scientists, and gender specialists, but also to policy makers and those who are interested in social and demographic changes in Iran and other Islamic countries in the Middle East. It is also a useful reference for demography students and researchers who are interested in applying fertility theories in designing surveys and analysing data.
The editors of this work bring together research on the relations between people and the planet's living and non living resources. Its three main foci include the methodological approaches to the study of relationships between people and land use, patterns of consumption, population trends and the availability of food and water resources an examination of evidence of disequilibria in increasing conflicts, migrations, and over-crowding and a search for balance between people and the other elements of the biosphere through understanding and overcoming destructive forces. This work is intended for use in departments of politics, environmental studies and sociology (courses on population studies, development studies), and for those with a general interest.
Leading experts demystify demographics and show how population changes affect everything from government policy to business opportunities to educational standards. Demographics, as Peter Drucker famously pointed out, is one of the seven sources of entrepreneurial opportunity. Why are demographics so important? Consider the quality and quantity of the U.S. labor force. Birth rates largely determine the size of the future workforce, and the numbers of younger and older people affect public spending on education. What's more, patterns in marriage and child-bearing affect the labor force, and migration and immigration alter the mix of job skills, languages, and cultures in the U.S. workforce. While business and government must react to these trends, they can also shape them. Immigration, education, welfare, and tax policies influence births, family composition, and the locations of people and businesses. In private markets, demography interacts with income levels to affect the mix of goods purchased, the types of workers in demand, and the range of new business opportunities available. Demography is a key item in every business or policy planner's toolbox. Demography, Education, and the Workforce shows how to use its principles to advantage. 15 illustrations |
You may like...
Handbook of Research on Securing…
Ganesh Chandra Deka, Sambit Bakshi
Hardcover
R8,370
Discovery Miles 83 700
Gastric Band Hypnosis Rapid Weight Loss…
Carolyn Constance
Hardcover
Sparse Graphical Modeling for High…
Faming Liang, Bochao Jia
Hardcover
R2,782
Discovery Miles 27 820
Emerging Trends and Insights on Economic…
Shilpa Deo, A.V. Senthil Kumar
Hardcover
R5,327
Discovery Miles 53 270
|