From 1900 to the Second World War the largest immigrant group to the UK were Irish, mainly for economic reasons, followed by Eastern and Central Europian Jews, who were often fleeing from persecution.
Before the 1950s very few immigrants were non-white.
By contrast, during the 1950s, black immigrants from the Caribbean begain to arrice in the UK, followed during the 1960s and 70s by South-Asian immigratnts from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
Since 2001 the main sources of immigration to the UK have been as follows:
15% UK citizens returning home-ownership
30% from the European Uniion (mainly Polish)
30% from New Commonwealth countries such as india
To what extent is migration responsible for UK population growth?
In short, it’s not all about increased immigration, it’s more complex!
For most of the 20th century, the growth of the UK population was the result of natural increase (more births than deaths). Until the 1980s the numbers of people emigrating was greater than the number of people immigrating
More recently, however, and especially since the turn of the Millennium (around the year 2000), there has been an increase in net migration, reaching a peak in 2011 of just over 250, 000. However, this recent increase in net migration is mainly due to the decrease in emmigration, rather than an increase in immigration.
Finally, there has been a mini baby boom in the UK since the year 2000 which is responsible for about a third of the increase in recent population growth. However,
Explaining the reasons for immigration to the UK
In order to explain immigration, you have to look at both push and pull factors.
Push factors are things llike escaping poverty, unemployment or persecution.
Pull factors include things like better opportunities for jobs, study, a higher shtandard of living, more political and religious freedom and joining relatives.
The main pull factors to the UK in recent years have been:
To study at university (and also resulting in short term immigration only)
For employment – NB historically this is the major reason, and yes this does explain Polish immigration to a large extent but it’s also worth noting that many early migrants from the Caribbean and South-Asia were recruited by the British government to fill labour shortages in the UK – so quite literally pulled to the UK.
To be with family members.
The most significant push factor has been to seek asylum from Persecution. The most significant recent wave of this type was when 30 000 East African Asians escaped racist persecution by Iid Amin in Uganda in the 1970s. More recently Britain has accepted thousands of refugees fleeing persecution from several countries.
Another significant push factor is the high levels of unemployment in some southern and eastern European countries – Spain for example has youth unemployment of around 50%.
Explaining the reasons for emmigration from the UK
Historically the UK has been a net exporter of people. Two of the main reasons for emmigration include:
To take advantage of better employment opportunities
To have a higher standard of living – To benefit from the lower cost of living abroad in retirement.
If we go back into long term history, we could even add ‘colonial conquest’ to list – much early emigration was linked to the British Empire’s desire to control resources in other parts of the world.
The consequences of immigration for the United Kingdom
economic growth, improved living standards, technological advances and improved public health all help explain the declining death rate.
The death rate is the number of deaths in relation to the number of people in a population. It is normally measured per hundred thousand or per thousand people.
The death rate is also known as the mortality rate.
The crude mortality (or death) rate in England and Wales was approximately 10/1000 in 2021. This has decreased significantly since 1840 when the death rate was approximately 23/1000.
What is the long term trend in the death rate?
The long term decrease in the death rate, England and Wales, 1840 to 2020.
The death rate has halved in the last century, declining from 23/1000 in 1840 to 10/1000 today.
The death rate decreased most rapidly between 1840 and 1830.
Since 1930 the death rate has declined overall, but at a slower rate.
There were spikes in the death rate during WW1 and WW2 (not shown on the graph below). See the data source (1) for details.
The death rate has increased since 2010, when the Tory government came to power.
NB the Census cites the death rate per 100 000 of the population. To get the death rate per 1000 you simply divide the above figures by 100!
How did Coronavirus affect the death rate?
There were more deaths in England and Wales due to the Coronavirus Pandemic especially in 2020 and 2021 (2)
The age standardised death rate for males increased from 1079 per thousand in 2019 to 1236 per thousand in 2020
The age standardised death rate for females increased from 798 per thousand in 2019 to 894 per thousand in 2020.
The death rates now seem to be coming back down to what they were before the Pandemic. The overall long term trend is towards a declining death rate, and this is what this post will focus on.
Why has the death rate declined?
There are three major reasons for the long term decline in the death rate:
Economic growth and improved living standards resulting in declining infant mortality and increased life expectancy.
Medical advances such as improved immunisation and better survival rates from ‘diseases of affluence’ such as heart disease.
Social policies and improved public health. Such as the establishment of the NHS and pollution laws.
In the first part of the century, most of this decrease was due to fewer children dying of infectious diseases, later on in the century, the continued decline is due to people living longer into old age.
The major causes of death have changed: from mainly being due to preventable, infectious diseases in the early part of the century to ‘diseases of affluence’ such as heart disease and cancers today.
There are considerable variations in life expectancy by gender and social class – people in the poorest parts of Glasgow die before 60, in the wealthiest parts of the UK (e.g. Kensington) life expectancy is nearer 90.
Economic growth and improving living standards
There are number of ways in which this had led to a decline in the death rate:
better food and nutrition (which in turn is related to better transport networks and refrigeration) which has meant that children are better able to resist infectious diseases, reducing the infant and child mortality rates. This is estimated to account for 50% of the decline in the death rate.
Better quality housing – Better heating and less damp, means less illness. Smaller family sizes – as people get richer they have fewer children, which reduces the chances of disease transmission.
More income = more taxation which = more money for public health services.
Evaluation – It’s worth noting that not all people have benefited equally from the above advances. The wealthy today have longer life expectancy than the poor, who still suffer health problems related to poverty.
Evaluation – In terms of food and nutrition, obesity is now becoming a serious problem – more food doesn’t necessarily mean better nutrition.
Medical Advances
Mass immunisation programmes limited the spread of infectious diseases such as measles.
Important in improving survival rates from ‘diseases of affluence’ such as heart disease and cancers.
Only really significant since the 1950s.
Evaluation – It’s easy to fall into the trap into thinking that modern medicine is the most important factor in improving life expectancy, it isn’t – economic growth, rising living standards and improvements in public health are more important.
Social Policies
The setting up of the NHS.
Health and safety laws – which legislate so that we have clean drinking water, food hygiene standards and safe sewage and waste disposal.
The clean air act and other policies designed to reduce pollution.
Health and Safety laws at work.
Evaluation – These are largely taken for granted, but they are important!
Other factors
There is greater knowledge and concern about health today
The decline of manual work means work is less physical and exhausting and less dangerous.
Analysis points
Two important related trends are the declining in infant mortality and the increase in life expectancy.
Declining Infant Mortality
The decline in infant mortality has broadly mirrored the declining death rate:
Increasing life Expectancy
Much of the decrease in the death rate has been due to increasing life expectancy.
Life expectancy isn’t increasing as fast today as it did between 1840 and 1850. This partly explains why the death rate has remained at around 10/1000 for the last several decades. People simply aren’t living that much longer!
Conclusions
3/4s of the decline between the 1850s and 1970 was due to the reduction of infectious (fairly easily preventable) diseases such as Cholera, and improved nutrition accounts for half of this reduction. In these early years
More recently, the decrease in the death rate has been due to improving survival rates from heart disease and cancers.
The declining death rate is not necessarily all good – in the last decades we have witnessed a declining death rate and a declining birth rate – and so we now have an ageing population, which requires society to adapt in order to meet the different demands of differently structured population.
Related Posts
This topic is part of the demography aspect of the families and household module within A-level sociology.
Economic growth, technological developments, more women in work and the child centred society.
The birth rate in England and Wales fell from 18/1000 to just 11/1000 between 1950 and 2023.
The Total Fertility Rate declined from 2.9 babies per woman in 1960 to just 1.6 babies per woman in 2022.
This means both the birth rate and the total fertility rate have almost halved in the last 70 years.
Some of the main reasons for this trend include economic changes, technological chances, changing gender roles, postmodernisation and changes to the position of children.
Key terms
The Birth Rate is total number of live births per thousand members of the population per year.
The Total Fertility Rate (TFR) is the average number of live children that a group of women would have if they experienced the age-specific fertility rates for the calendar year in question throughout their childbearing lifespan.
Trends in the Birth Rate and Total Fertility Rate
Between 1950 and 2023 the birth rate in England and Wales declined from 18/1000 to 11/1000….
The Total Fertility Rate has fell from 2.9 babies per woman in 1960 to just 1.6 babies per women in 2022….
How do we explain the long term decline in the UK’s birth rate?
Five main factors can explain the long term decline in the UK’s birth rate:
Economic changes: improved living standards and the recent rising cost of living.
Technological and medical advances such as contraception.
Changes in the role of women – more women in work means they have fewer babies.
Postmodernisation – individualisation means having children is more of a choice, less of a norm.
Changes to childhood – children are now very expensive!
Economic Changes
Globally, the general trend is that the wealthier the country, the lower the birth rate. It would seem that economic growth and rising living standards mean adults have fewer children. Part of the reason for this is that higher living standards mean better quality housing, better nutrition, better education and better medical care – all of which reduce the infant mortality rate, meaning that parents have fewer ‘replacement babies’ to make up for those who die before their first birthday.
A second factor here is related to Functionalism – as Functionalists see it, as societies evolve and become more complex, other institutions take over key functions of the family – men go into wage labour, which gets taxed, which then translates into schools and hospitals and pensions – the last century in the UK has seen the emergence of all of these institutions – people no longer need children to look after them in their old age, or to work the fields, other institutions do this, so people have fewer children. (This is related to the Functional Fit Theory.)
A final way economic factors can reduce the birth rate are that people are so busy working they don’t have time to start families – which is the case in contemporary Japan.
A criticism of economic arguments is that they are deterministic, people don’t just react to economic changes like robots, and they also appear a little ‘cold’ – It implies that people only have children for selfish, economic reasons.
The decline in Infant Mortality
Infant mortality has decreased significantly in the UK since 1980. In 1980 the infant mortality was 12/1000 babies, by 2021 it was down to just 3.7/1000.
NB this is worth mentioning here because it is a significant achievement. However this probably doesn’t explain much of the decrease in the birth rate in the UK, because 12/1000 was already very low in 1980. (Obviously 3.7 is better!)
When you look at the global picture however declining infant mortality is a very significant factor in explaining the global trend in declining birth rates.
Technological Changes
The development of contraceptive technologies in the 1960s – Namely the contraceptive pill – gave rise to what Anthony Giddens calls ‘plastic sexuality’ where Sex becomes detached from reproduction. Also, importantly, The Pill gave women control of their reproduction and they could choose when to have children. There is no direct correlation between the invention of The Pill and the decline in the fertility rate – in fact the Baby Boom of the 1960s came immediately after The Pill’s invention, and most women clearly still choose to have babies, but this technological change does explain why women have babies later in life and have fewer children.
Other technological innovations which have led to people having babies later in life are IVF and the freezing of eggs – together these technologies mean women can delay having children into their 40s, extending the ‘natural’ period of fertility much later than is traditionally the case.
An attendant analysis point here is that for IVF to be available for all women, it requires the state to fund it, otherwise this would be prohibitively expensive for couples with low incomes, so for this technological factor to have an impact, it needs to combine with political rights and a wealthy state.
Changes in the Role of Women
Anthony Giddens and Ulrich Beck both regard this as the most important factor explaining the decline in the birth rate. Because women how have formal legal equality with men, and increased educational opportunities (girls are now outperforming boys at school), women now make up half the work force, and this has led to changes in attitudes to family life – Career now comes first for many women, and childbearing is delayed by an average of ten years compared to in the 1950s. Women now typically have their first babies in their 30s, not their 20s and up 1/4 women are expected to remain childless.
As an evaluation point here – it is important not to exaggerate the advances women have made, when the children come along, it is still predominantly women who do the majority of childcare and housework and suffer the consequences in terms of their career.
Postmodernisation
All of the above changes are part of the broader process of postmodernisation – The decline of traditional norms and values such as those associated with religions mean that contraception is no longer viewed in a stigmatised way and declining birth rates also reflect individualisation – the fact that we put our own needs first and it is acceptable to choose not to have children.
A criticism of Postmodernism is that many people simply don’t choose to have children. Many people are forced into living an uncertain, unpredictable life where having children may not be a possibility or simply not be rational or affordable.
Changes in the position of children
Until the late 19th century children were an asset to their parents because they could be sent out to work. Today, laws protect children from working and dictate that they should spend 18 years in education, and thus children have become an economic liability – they are a net drain on parents’ income. This puts people off having children.
People also have fewer children because we now live in a ‘child centred society‘. It is expected that children be the centre of family life, and parents are expected to spend more money (£250K is the average cost) and more time than ever engaged with their children – it is easier to do this with fewer children.
Related Posts
This topics relevant to the families and households module within the A-level sociology syllabus.
