The fall in birth rate can be explained by many reasons, one is that due to woman’s rights, the position of women has greatly increased, meaning that the old stereotype stating that woman must look after the house and children ect is shunned; as some women may not want children due to increased educational opportunities and the fact that if they go on maternity leave they are at risk of losing their job – or having a large deduction of wages.
If woman get pregnant accidently, it is now easier and more socially acceptable to get access to abortions, and contraception – meaning that woman have more control of their fertility.
The fall in the birth rate is also because of the decline in the infant mortality rate (IMR), the IMR measures the number of infants who die before their first birthday, per 1000 babies born per year. A falling IMR means a fall in the birth rate because more children are surviving, so parents to not need to try again.
Due to the ban of child labour, many people have had much less children, because the children no longer benefit them financially, as the children are economically dependent for much longer. Parents are now also using child centeredness – childhood is now seen as a special time for individuals, and parents should focus on the quality of the children’s life – meaning fewer children are conceived so parents have better relationships with their children.
Although birth rates have declined in the past century, there have been several spikes in birth rates; known as baby booms, one in the early 1920’s, one in the mid 1940’s and a final baby boom in the 1960’s. These baby booms are mainly caused by returning servicemen from World War I and World War II reuniting with their partners and starting families, which were delayed by these conflicts.
The death rate – the number of deaths per 1000 of the population per year is another major demographic trend. In the 1900’s the death rate was fairly high, at 19 deaths per 1000 of the population this can be explained by the lack of medical knowledge at the time, and because of the number of deaths from infectious diseases such as typhoid or tuberculosis; most of these occurred in the young which contributed to the death rate.
The number of infectious diseases declined throughout the century thanks to social factors, such as better nutrition, housing and sanitation, and also thanks to medical breakthroughs such as the discovery of penicillin by Fleming and the distribution of it by Florey and Chain during WWII. Factors such as these lead to a decrease of the death rate, and in 2007 the death rate is at 10 per 1000. The lower death rate means a higher life expectancy – meaning people live longer. The average life expectancy in 1950 was 50 for men, and 57 for female; whilst now it is 76.9 for males and 81.2 for females.
From these statistics from the birth and death rates of the UK from the past 100 years it shows that as the country is straining less importance on industrial life – such as in the 1900’s and now focusing on the tertiary sector of society – office jobs ect. the quality of life is increasing as there is much less manual labour – meaning that there is a lower death rate, and that people are much more occupied with work, meaning that people are having less children, or leaving it to late, and suffering from conditions such as endometriosis – leaving them infertile
