Falling Birth Rates and Rural Depopulation

2020 ◽  
pp. 97-111
Author(s):  
Barbara Bennett Woodhouse

Chapter five moves from ethnography at the village level to examine the demographics of declining fertility and rural depopulation plaguing many affluent nations. A failure of generational renewal threatens the well-being of individuals, communities and societies. With the story of a child who is the last child in his remote Italian village, the author illustrates the critical importance of children to each other and to their communities. After introducing demographic concepts such as birth rate and replacement rate, total fertility rate and replacement rate fertility, the book discusses the low birth rate crisis in Italy where the population is declining at an unsustainable rate. It examines factors affecting birth rates, including adolescent fertility rate, mother’s marital status, percentage of women in the workforce, and gendered division of domestic labour. In comparison with Italy, US birth rates have been relatively robust; however, after the Great Recession US birth rates declined steadily and are now well below replacement rate. The chapter closes with discussion of the interplay between politics and demographics, including rules on birth right citizenship, the role of immigration in rejuvenating populations, and the misuse of demographic data to fuel anti-immigrant, sectarian, and racial conflict.

Author(s):  
Manuk Movsisyan ◽  
Lusine Karapetyan ◽  
Gor Harutyunyan

The article is devoted to the study of birth promotion measures in the RA and European countries. Birth rates throughout the world have dropped dramatically in recent decades. The above-mentioned issue is highlighted in European countries. In 2019 the fertility rate was 1.5 in EU member countries. The same issue exists in Armenia. Since 1990 the birth rates have dropped dramatically in Armenia. Various measures have been carried out and implemented in European countries to promote the birth rate. However, only a few countries have managed to increase the birth rate through state socio-demographic measures and register positive trends. According to the domestic and foreign professional literature, there are two groups of measures of birth promotion (statutory leave and benefits) in the socio-demographic policies of each country. Numerous measures have been developed in Armenia, but by 2014 they had more of a social than demographic component; they did not provide the desired result.


2021 ◽  
Vol 100 (10) ◽  
pp. 1163-1170
Author(s):  
Sergey V. Ryazantsev ◽  
Tamara K. Rostovskaya ◽  
Olga A. Zolotareva

Introduction. The urgent issue of the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, which negatively affected the demographic development of the world’s countries, is the search for new effective mechanisms for the development of demographic potential, which is not possible without appropriate justification monitoring data. The aim of the study is to analyze trends in demographic processes and assess the reproductive behavior of the population of Russia and Iran, as well as develop recommendations in the field of monitoring demographic processes, taking into account the need to study their changes as a result of the spread of COVID-19, which seems significant for determining effective directions and measures of demographic policy in terms of increasing the birth rate in Russia and Iran in the post-pandemic period. Materials and methods. The article is based on the data of the official national statistics of the countries (the Federal State Statistics Service of the Russian Federation and the Statistical Center of the Islamic Republic of Iran), the international database of the UN Population Division, and sociological information. The general research period is determined by the boundaries from 2000 to 2019. To assess the determination of reproductive behaviour in Russia and Iran, general statistical methods of data analysis were used (for example, indicators of structure, dynamics, implementation of the plan), unique methods of demographic statistics (construction of age and sex pyramids of the population, total fertility rate, and others), methods of sociological research (results are presented as All-Russian sociological research “Demographic well-being of Russians”, conducted with the participation of the authors in 2019-2020 on the territory of 10 constituent entities of Russia). Results. An assessment of fertility trends in Russia and Iran is given, general and specific traits of the character and mechanisms of reproductive behaviour are identified. The substantiation of the improvement of directions and measures of demographic policy is given, taking into account the assessment of its effectiveness. In Russia, it was aimed at increasing the birth rate. In Iran, on the contrary, at decreasing it. In both countries, the policy was very effective - in Russia in 2007-2016. the birth rate for second and subsequent births increased significantly in Iran in the late 1980s-1990s. The decline in fertility was one of the largest in the world. If in Iran the birth rate is now close to the level of simple reproduction of the population (in 2017, the total fertility rate was 2.12), then in Russia, especially after the decline since 2017. In this case, it is far from this level. Conclusion. The article substantiates the need to improve scientific monitoring of the demographic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.


2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elsa Gusrianti ◽  
Tri Indah Winarni ◽  
Sultana MH Faradz

Background: Familial intellectual disability (ID) is a condition where two or more family members are affected ID, which may influence the whole family well-being. Children with intellectual disability often receive negative response from the society, which may trigger different reactions from the parents, such as denial or neglect of their child. Besides, most parents give more attention and provide the best care for their children. Factors that may influence parents’ acceptance towards children with familial ID are social support, religious coping, supporting facilities, family income, education, mothers’s age, and other significant factors.Objective: This study was aimed to analyze factors that affect parents’ acceptance towards children with familial intellectual disabilities (ID).Methods: This was an analytic observational study with cross sectional approach. Data were collected using interview with 20 mothers of familial intellectually disabled children including demographic data, pedigree construction, using Parental Rejection Questionnaire (PARQ), Brief Arab Religious Coping Scale (BARCS), Social Support Questionnaire Short Form (SSQSR) and Supporting Facilities Questionnaires. Data was analyzed using multivariate logistic regression.Results: Parents’ acceptance was significantly affect by social support (p<0.05), while religious coping, supporting facilities, family income, education, and mothers’s age did not significantly influence parents’ acceptance (p >0.05).Conclusion: Social support has influenced parent’s acceptance of their familial ID Children


2021 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vera Graovac Matassi ◽  
Ana Talan

The paper discusses the marriage and childbearing trends in Croatia and Slovenia from 1985 to 2017. We made a comparative review of several indicators related to marriage and childbearing trends: mean ages of women at first marriage and first childbirth, birth rates, births within and outside marriage, total fertility rate, tempo-adjusted fertility rate, age-specific fertility rates, and marriage rate. The analysis is based on the official statistical data provided by the statistical offices of both countries and Human Fertility Database. Many of the indicators, including the birth rate, total fertility rate and age-specific fertility rate, are somewhat more favourable in Slovenia than in Croatia. One of the major differences between the two countries is that in Slovenia the connection between marriage and childbearing is not as nearly significant as in Croatia.


2020 ◽  
Vol 75 (3) ◽  
pp. 256-263
Author(s):  
Maria Y. Egorova ◽  
Irina A. Shuvalova ◽  
Olga I. Zvonareva ◽  
Igor D. Pimenov ◽  
Olga S. Kobyakova ◽  
...  

Background. The organization of clinical trials (CTs) requires the participation and coordination of healthcare providers, patients, public and private parties. Obstacles to the participation of any of these groups pose a risk of lowering the potential for the implementation of CTs. Researchers are a key human resource in conducting of CT. Their motivation for participation can have a significant impact on the recruitment and retention of patients, on the quality of the data collected, which determines the overall outcome of the study. Aims to assess the factors affecting the inclusion of Russian physicians-researchers in CT, and to determine their role in relations with patients-participants. Materials and methods. The study was organized as a part of the Russian multicenter face-to-face study. A survey was conducted of researchers from 10 cities of Russia (20172018). The participation in the survey for doctors was anonymous and voluntary. Results. The study involved 78 respondents. Most research doctors highly value the importance of research for science (4,84 0,39), society (4,67 0,46) and slightly lower for participating patients (4,44 0,61). The expectations of medical researchers are related to improving their financial situation and attaining new experience (n = 14; 18,18%). However, the opportunity to work with new technologies of treatment and diagnosis (n = 41; 52,56%) acted as a motivating factor. According to the questionnaire, the vast majority of research doctors (n = 29; 37,18%) believe that the main reason for patients to participate in CT is to receive quality and free medical care. The most significant obstacle to the inclusion of participants in CT was the side effects of the study drug (n = 38; 48,71%). Conclusions. The potential of clinical researchers in Russia is very high. The patient-participant acts for the research doctor as the subject of the study, and not the object, so the well-being of the patient is not indifferent to the doctor. However, the features of the functioning of our health care system form the motivation of doctors-researchers (additional earnings, professional self-development) and the way they perceive the motivation of patients (CT as an opportunity to receive quality medical care).


2016 ◽  
Vol 77 (2) ◽  
pp. 138-143
Author(s):  
Shokobayeva V.P. ◽  
◽  
Balakayeva L.T ◽  

1996 ◽  
Vol 35 (4I) ◽  
pp. 385-398 ◽  
Author(s):  
John C. Caldwell

The significance of the Asian fertility transition can hardly be overestimated. The relatively sanguine view of population growth expressed at the 1994 International Conference for Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo was possible only because of the demographic events in Asia over the last 30 years. In 1965 Asian women were still bearing about six children. Even at current rates, today’s young women will give birth to half as many. This measure, namely the average number of live births over a reproductive lifetime, is called the total fertility rate. It has to be above 2— considerably above if mortality is still high—to achieve long-term population replacement. By 1995 East Asia, taken as a whole, exhibited a total fertility rate of 1.9. Elsewhere, Singapore was below long-term replacement, Thailand had just achieved it, and Sri Lanka was only a little above. The role of Asia in the global fertility transition is shown by estimates I made a few years ago for a World Bank Planning Meeting covering the first quarter of a century of the Asian transition [Caldwell (1993), p. 300]. Between 1965 and 1988 the world’s annual birth rate fell by 22 percent. In 1988 there would have been 40 million more births if there had been no decline from 1965 fertility levels. Of that total decline in the world’s births, almost 80 percent had been contributed by Asia, compared with only 10 percent by Latin America, nothing by Africa, and, unexpectedly, 10 percent by the high-income countries of the West. Indeed, 60 percent of the decline was produced by two countries, China and India, even though they constitute only 38 percent of the world’s population. They accounted, between them, for over threequarters of Asia’s fall in births.


1998 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pamela I. Erickson

In 1995, the Latina adolescent birth rate surpassed that of African Americans for the first time. This article investigates cultural and social factors affecting the initiation of sexual intercourse among Latina adolescent mothers in Los Angeles. The data are from life history interviews with forty young mothers and their partners conducted in 1994 to 1997. Results suggest that sexual intercourse is initiated within the context of the couple's developing relationship, and that the course of relationships is highly scripted. Men pressure for sex and women resist. Women should be ignorant about sex, but control access to intercourse. Sex is never discussed. Thus, it is unexpected, and contraception other than withdrawal is not used. This script places young Latinas at enormous risk for pregnancy and STDs.


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