Demographic Winter Viewing Guide

Demographic Winter Viewing Guide Part 01 ▪ How did the book, The Population Bomb, and subsequent assumptions influence common views regarding population growth? How widespread were/are these views? ▪ ▪ People suggested that the bomb was a bad thing for the population or even just for the environment in general. It’s almost as if the Population bomb is suggesting that families shouldn’t grow because it takes away resources from the rest of the world who don’t have that many children. What evidence do we have for the fulfillment of Dr. Ehrlich’s predictions? ▪ The video says that in over more than 200 years the population has increased really fast. Define ▪ Population: A population is the amount of people living in a certain area. For example the total number of people living in my county is 2.18 million, that is the population of my county. ▪ Birth rate: A birth rate is the amount of births per every thousand of people born in a population during an entire year. ▪ Fertility rate: Fertility rate is the amount of children born in an entire lifetime of the population of women. With which numbers ought we to concern ourselves and why? Definitely fertility rate because the fact that the populations are increasing while birth rates are declined. The Baby Boom ▪ What was the “baby boom” and what have been some of the results? ▪ ▪ How long does it take a population with sub-replacement rates to actually decline? ▪ ▪ The baby boom was a time after World war 2 where there was an increase of women having babies, the results were that the population growth increased compared to previous decades. After the population gets to the point of sub-replacement it doesn’t decline as soon as we think, in fact it doesn’t decline immediately. How was Japan different from the rest of the boom experienced around the world? ▪ ▪ How do media influence perceptions of world population growth/decrease? Cite at least one example. ▪ ▪ Japan was different because they did not have a baby boom. It’s because while other places in the world didn't have much damage to their homes, Japan did, they suffered a huge destruction during the war. After 60 years the population declined. Well the reality is that even today in 2020 we see on the news things that are not true. Especially these days that we are suffering from the Coronavirus, the news makes up these headlines to get people scared. The fact really is the media gets the facts wrong and it was the same during World war 2. What reasons were cited by interviewees for having few children? ▪ When you have kids you have to buy them clothes,you have to feed them you eed to make sure they go to school. All of that requires a lot of money. It’s hard enough doing that for one child, now having more than that was insane. When they have one child, that child has more opportunities because the parents don’t have to think about affording college for two kids but just for one. Human Capital ▪ What is Human Capital, and how does that factor into the results of decreased fertility rates? Who is affected by having fewer children in the world or in a given community? ▪ ▪ How will immigration change as a result of the decline in births? ▪ ▪ It has happened but not as intense as ours. It was with the Romans. What about Mexico? There will always be a lot of people eager to come here from MesoAmerica, right? ▪ ▪ Well the biggest and most obvious reason is because immigration helps when they need people for jobs, its biggest help is filling in missing roles in the workplace. Has this ever happened before? ▪ ▪ Human Capital was the way they described human resources. Everyone with smaller families were affected by human capital because the fewer kids they had the more human capital went down. But in this case if we have less kids there will not be enough of kids to make human capital possible. Well people will always want to come over here but with jobs opening ip due to the fact that fertility is declining they won't have a reason to come over because they will be working in their home place. Explain how the housing market could be expected to change drastically in the past few years, even without a precipitating change in the economy? ▪ Eventually the boomers will get to the age of retirement and as they do that they will be looking to get smaller homes. That way the younger people will be able to buy their old house. But since the fertility is going down their won't be enough people to buy all the houses so the house market could potentially collapse. Part 02 ▪ What tendencies did you hear in the street interviews, with regards to choices about child bearing? ▪ ▪ ▪ Why did fertility fall in the first place? List 4 specific trends or “revolutions” noted by the program. What overarching tendency is credited with the overall fertility trends? What do you think of that assessment? ▪ People have different concerns than the traditional family structure. ▪ Because Fertility rates dropped and the expectations of large families went down. ▪ Large families are not valued by the people anymore. ▪ The rates of divource were higher What are possible solutions? ▪ ▪ We need to make our values of the traditional family stronger so that others can see our example and follow it. Several nations are offering significant cash incentives for couples—or at least women—to have children. Why do you think these “bounties” are not working? What has contributed to slight increases in fertility rates in several European countries? ▪ ▪ Mostly about birth control, not wanting large families and the lack of having successful marriages. It just doesn’t work the way they used to because it is not focused on the main cause of the reason the family structure is weakened. “The cradle of moral capital is the family.” What does that mean? ▪ Well inside the family we are taught our moral standards. What to believe, how to behave, things to say, how to react. These things are learned in the family and if they are taught wrong then things start to change.