However there have been changes in births, with three 'baby dooms' in the 20th century. The family size is the number of people living in the same house as a child. There has also been a considerable change in family sizes since the 1900’s; it has decreased from an average of 3 to 1.6 children. The reasons for these changes are: The introduction of contraception’s has had a big impact on the number of birth rates. This was introduced in the mid 1960’s which allowed women to take control of their own fertility, which saw more women use contraception’s so birth rates decreased as a result of this.
As well as a decline in the total number of marriages, there is also a decline in marriage rates (the number of people marrying per 1000 of the population aged 16 and over). In 1994, the marriage rate was 11.4 but this had declined to 10.3 by 2004. The male rate declined from 36.3 in 1994 to 27.8 in 2004 whilst the female rate declined from 30.6 to 24.6. Once again, even though there is a decline, British Social Attitude Surveys indicate that most people, whether single,
In 2006, one in five women aged 45 were childless – double that of twenty years previously. Since women are choosing to not have children – the birth rate and there fore family size has fallen since 1900. Another factor is the decline in the infant mortality rate – the number of infants who die before their first birthday per 1000 babies born alive per year. Many sociologists argue that a fall in IMR leads to a fall in birth rate because if many infants die, parents have more children to replace those they have lost and thus increasing the birth rate. This is proven since in 1900 the IMR in the UK was 154 and by 2007 it had sharply declined to 5, owing to many factors including improved housing and better sanitation.
After the 'baby boom' after the Second World War, the UK's population experienced much less births tham before. In 2004, 716 000 children were born, which is 21% fewer than in 1071. This decline of the birth rate may be caused by the decline in the infant mortality rate. More children survive the first years of their life because sanitation, medical care, water supplies and nutrition have imporved throughout the century. This meant that parents did not have the need to have lots of children to ensure that a few survived, and families got smaller.
right to vote, more education opportunities for girls, change in women role in family and women are now able to have paid jobs. Another reason that has led to decrease in child birth is the introduction of contraception. Legalisation of abortion is another factor that has contributed to the decline in birth rates over the recent years. This has led to women have the power to control their own fertility. These changes have allowed women able to choose whether to have children at all or delay childbearing.
The increase in divorce has led to more reconstituted families, singlehood and single parenthood, therefore the family size has generally decreased apart from in cases where reconstituted families have been formed. This increase in divorce is due to many factors, one of which is the changes in legislation over the past 100 years. Since 1912 (100 years ago) there has been 5 changes in legislation, these were in 1949, 1950, 1971, 1984 and 1996. The change that caused the greatest increase in divorce was the Divorce Reform Act in 1971. This emphasized the idea of a matrimonial offence, and avoided the need for a guilty party.
There have been many changes in the death and birth rate for many different reasons which have caused these rates to both increase and decrease throughout the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st. In general the trend for birth rates since 1900 is that it has dropped from around 1.1 million to about 0.7 million in 2001. Deaths have generally stayed the same at around 0.6 million wavering back and forth. Fertility rates have also changed from 115 live births per 1000 women aged between 15 and 44 in 1900 to only 54.5 in 2001. Life expectancy in 1900 was only around 47 for men and 50 for women whereas it now in 2013 83 for men and 87 for women.
Childbearing refers to the act or process of giving birth. All three have changed drastically over the last forty years. Since 1970, marriage rates have changed significantly. There has been a decrease in marriage from 48000 in 1972 to only 306000 in 2000. Item A states that only half as many people are getting married today.
To what extent and in what ways does the ageing population present potential challenges for modern societies? The population in Britain has an ageing population due to a mixture of declining births and life anticipation. This trend is being quite worse by unavoidable retirement from the so called baby boom generations which will occur over the next few decades. The so called baby boomers have been born from the first few decades form the second world war and now its time for them to retire or some may have retired. During this period of time there have been around seventeen millions births which have been recorded in Britain itself.
Birth control options can also affect the reproductive health of the woman. Most methods are very safe and improvements are being made all the time on various methods; however the bottom line is that most oral or injected birth control methods are going to change the women natural cycle. For the vast majority of women this is not an issue and once the method is no longer used the body returns to its natural cycle, however there are a few women that are not able to return to their cycle. There are also some women that cannot tolerate the hormones that are involved in the oral and injected methods. For these women birth control devices make a better choice.