Demographic shocks: the view from history

The paper will basically deal with four issues. The first one puts current changes or shifts into a historical comparative perspective. The second deals with "traditional" shocks or violent disturbances of the system and their consequences. The third discusses the "seismic" changes experienced in the past, attempts their measurement, and exemplifies their effects on population and society. The fourth deals with the relevance that past experience has for current changes.Demography ; Economic conditions

The Depopulation of Upper Amazonia in Colonial Times

In Upper Amazonia, after an initial disastrous penetration of Spanish colonists, the Jesuits began the task of evangelization in 1638. A network of Missions covered the territory and some statistics were collected. The indigenous demographic system was characterized by high mobility and high fragmentation of the various communities, as well as rapid turnover of the missions' population. The Iberian intrusion increased the fragmentation, and many nations migrated away from the riverine areas (várzea) into the rainforest, with less favorable living conditions. This process may have pushed a number of communities under the threshold of minimum size for viability, thus accelerating the demographic collapse.En el Alto Amazonas, después de la desastrosa penetración inicial de los colonos españoles, los jesuitas empezaron la tarea de evangelización en 1638. Una red de misiones cubrió todo el territorio y se recogieron estadísticas. El sistema demográfico indígena se caracterizó por su alta movilidad y la gran fragmentación de algunas comunidades, además de por la rápida rotación de la población de las misiones. La intrusión ibérica aumentó esta fragmentación y muchas naciones migraron fuera de las zonas ribereñas (várzea) hacia la selva, donde las condiciones de vida eran menos favorables. Puede que este proceso empujara a muchas comunidades por debajo del umbral mínimo de la viabilidad y acelerase el colapso demográfico

Las múltiples causas de la catástrofe: consideraciones teóricas y empíricas

The aim of this article is to contribute to the analysis of the indigenous population decline, namely the weight, role and function of every one of the causes that originated it. It is argued that the attention given to epidemies and pathologies has entailed a simplification that may seriously distort the historical interpretation of the demographic catastrophe, and that other contributing factors must be analyzed. Special attention is given to two of these factors which weigh on reproductivity and, therefore, on the capacity of reaction to crisis and mortality, namely the «displacement effect» and the «substraction effect» –social displacement and taking away of the reproductive heritage.El objetivo de este estudio es contribuir a la difícil labor de analizar el peso, el papel y la función de cada una de las causas que originaron el declive demográfico de los pueblos indígenas. La importancia que se ha dado a las epidemias y patologías en el descenso de la población ha llevado a una simplificación que puede distorsionar gravemente la interpretación histórica de la catástrofe demográfica. Junto a las epidemias, deben analizarse otros factores que contribuyeron al descenso de dicha población. Dos de ellos merecen una especial atención, ya que afectan a la reproductividad y por consiguiente, a la capacidad de reacción frente a las crisis y a los episodios de mayor mortalidad; nos referimos al «efecto de desplazamiento» y al «efecto de sustracción», desplazamiento social y sustracción del patrimonio reproductivo

Guardando al futuro. La questione dei 4 miliardi

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Generazioni, famiglie, migrazioni. Pensando all’Italia di domani

L'Italia e la questione demografica: denatalità, invecchiamento, immigrazione e famiglia. Una sintesi di autorevoli studiosi di popolazione pensata per i decisori politici e amministrativi, e più in generale per chiunque voglia aggiornare le proprie conoscenze su un tema cruciale per la comprensione dei futuri equilibri economici e sociali dell’Italia di domani.- Indice #5- Premessa, Marco Demarie e Giuseppe Gesano #7- Generazioni e invecchiamento, Giuseppe Gesano e Antonio Golini #11- Famiglia e figli, Alessandro Rosina, Francesco Billari e Massimo Livi Bacci #43- Immigrazione e presenza straniera, Gian Carlo Blangiardo e Stefano Molina #7

Social trends and new geographies

This opening chapter sets the scene for subsequent more detailed analysis of many of the issues raised here. We start by discussing in Section 1 the tension in the current era between humanity’s simultaneously standing at “the peak of possibilities” while also, possibly, facing an abyss due to growing inequalities, political conflict and the ever-present danger of climate catastrophe. We turn in Sections 2 and 3 to the main social and spatial transformations that have characterised the last twenty five years. Again we see advances and regressions, above all uneven and fragile development. These sections set the scene for a consideration of three specific challenges: the tension between capitalism and democracy (Section 4); that between production and reproduction with an emphasis on gender relations (Section 5); and that between demographic change and sustainability (Section 6). We then conclude with a sober appraisal of the prospects for the emergence of viable agents for social transformation (Section 7) before making some general remarks on the challenges and possibilities for social progress (Section 8). The underlying hypothesis for social progress is that development is, and always has been, contradictory. Poverty amongst plenty, individual advancement versus collective regression and repression intertwined with liberty. If the industrial era emerged through what Karl Polanyi called a “great transformation” are we headed towards, or do we need a ‘new’ great transformation? We posit a general need for the market to be re-embedded in society if social progress is not to be halted or even reversed. In terms of the political order we find that the recent transformations of democracy and capitalism have had hugely ambiguous features. It is not wrong to say that the planet is currently both more democratic and more affluent than it was three decades ago. But the ways in which such progress has come about endangers not only future progress, it even puts past progress at risk. In political terms, the increasing diffusion of democracy means that more people across the globe have a say on the collective matters that concern them. But under current circumstances, their participation may not be able to reach the kind of decisions that one would understand as collective self-determination. In economic terms, material affluence is being created in unprecedented forms and volume. But, first, this affluence is so unevenly generated and distributed that poverty and hardship do not disappear and are even reproduced in new and possibly more enduring forms. And second, the continuing production of this material affluence may/will endanger the inhabitability of the planet, or large parts of it, even in the short- or medium-term. We have seen our task as one of offering a complex assessment of the current situation that has not been over-determined by our own political preferences. The positive and negative components of the picture we offer are constitutive of the ambivalent nature of the social progress. We are acutely aware that the world looks very different according to our standpoint geographically, socially and by our social and cultural identity. So we have not posed a false unity in terms of outlook. We consider it useful to pose the key questions as clearly as possible from a collective perspective that includes many diverse disciplinary and subject stand-points. We also seek to avoid an analysis determined by either a depressed Weltanschauung that sees only catastrophe ahead given recent political developments or what some have called a Polanyian Pollyanna tendency that is emotionally committed to positive social transformation regardless of the evidence. Quite simply, neither pessimism nor optimism are adequate diagnostic tools. This is particularly the case when we turn to the possible agents of the ‘new’ social transformation we advocate. While we show the decline of 20th-century agents of social change we also try to bring to life the new potential actors for redistribution, social justice and recognition

The Decline of Remarriage: Evidence From German Village Populations in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

Family reconstitution data for fourteen German village populations permit the examination of remarriage during the eighteenth and nineteenth cen turies. The results provide compelling evidence for a secular decline in the tenden cy to remarry. Pronounced age and sex differentials in the likelihood of remar riage were evident: widows were far less likely to remarry than widowers, and the probability of remarriage declined rapidly with age, particularly for women. The probability of remarriage was also inversely associated with the number and age of children. There were, however, no clear differences in either the probability of remarriage or its tendency to decline over time among major occupational groups. The decline in remarriage probabilities was caused in part by declines in adult mortality, which gradually raised the ages of surviving spouses to levels at which remarriage has historically been rather unlikely. However, age-specific marriage probabilities also declined, affecting both men and women and all oc cupational groups, suggesting the presence of a social change of wide scope. Some comments on possible factors contributing to the decline of remarriage are presented. The need for a comprehensive explanation of remarriage trends and differentials remains an important challenge for family historians.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/68212/2/10.1177_036319908501000103.pd

HIV/AIDS, demography and development: individual choices versus public policies in SSA

Despite the increasing rate of diffusion of effective therapies, the battle against HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is far from being over. Three main challenges are that the epidemics might paralyse or reverse the fertility transition, the expansion of the resources needed to finance the fight against HIV, and the emerging resistance to anti-retroviral treatments. This research proposes a UGT-like model showing the complexity of the interplay amongst the (macro)economy, the epidemics, their endogenous feedback on mortality and fertility and the central role of policy actions aimed to fight HIV. The disease-induced increase in adult mortality can hamper economic development by its upward pressure on the precautionary demand for children and downward pressure on education. This can dramatically reduce physical and human capital accumulation

Preferences for the Sex of Offspring and Demographic Behavior in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Germany: an Examination of Evidence From Village Genealogies

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/68167/2/10.1177_036319908000500202.pd