Demographic impacts of economic crises

Attempts have been made to explain why acceptance of family planning and actual use of methods remain low in Nigeria. Such factors which mainly include individual and household characteristics are people’s perception about family planning, religion, education and occupation, number of living children as well as the empowerment status of women among others. Little or no effort has been made to examine the effect of family’s wealth and economic status on couples’ attitude to childbearing and the prospect for fertility decline and contraceptive use among Nigerian couples in a peri-urban community. This study is based on the baseline data from a longitudinal couple study in a peri-urban community, Ipetumodu, in Osun State, Nigeria collected between April and May, 2010. The study indicates that couples’ fertility preference and contraceptive use are largely influenced by their socio-economic status. For instance, contraceptive use is least among respondents in the lower quintile (28.6 as against 35.7 among those with upper quintile). The study highlights the role economic status of households in couple’s reproductive behaviour.

Conflict and civil war are part of African history. First, was the resistance to colonization and the armed struggles that led to the independence of many African countries in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Second, after their independences many African countries have been involved in civil wars, mainly rooted in ideological and political contradictions, and ethno-regional frictions. Beside the economic, political and social consequences, these conflicts have affected the demographic outcome through disruption of people’s lives due to large-scale property destruction, looting and forced migration and famine. Studies worldwide have shown that in wartime mortality may increase because of direct civilian killings and increase in preventable diseases due to disruption of health and transportation systems. Fertility may experience drops during wartime and rebounds in a post-war period due to delayed marriage and spousal separation during the wartime. This paper applies indirect estimation techniques on pre- and post conflict census data, under-five mortality and fertility changes that may be related to conflict in Mozambique and Rwanda. The analysis shows that in both Mozambique and Rwanda population growth, fertility and under-five mortality were affected by the conflict, but the nature, duration and characteristics of the conflict.

Skilled population have become the global currency of the 21st century. Without proper investment in skills, people suffer on the margins of society, technological progress does not translate into economic growth, and countries can no longer compete in an increasingly knowledge-based global society. But this “currency” depreciates as the requirements of labor markets evolve and individuals lose the skills they do not use. Skills do not automatically convert into jobs and growth
Moreover, the global economic crisis, with high levels of unemployment, in particular among youth, has added urgency to fostering better skills. At the same time, rising income inequality, largely driven by inequality in wages between high- and low-skilled workers, also needs to be addressed. the most promising solution to these challenges is investing effectively in skills enhancement throughout the life cycle; from early childhood, through compulsory education, and throughout a working life
Therefore, The OECD has developed a global Skills Strategy as an integrated, cross-government strategic framework that helps countries to identify the strengths and weaknesses of their national skills systems, benchmark them internationally, and develop policies that can transform better skills into better jobs, economic growth and social inclusion
This paper

Population decline is common for modern Russia because of bad health, fertility decline and rapid mortality increase, especially male of working age.
The aim of our study is a critical analysis of modern methods of calculation of economic damage and the development (modification) of the optimal methodologies to assess the extent of economic losses due to mortality in the Far East Federal District, taking into account the valuation of the average life. This study is based on the concept of human capital, which considers health as one of the most important conditions for social and economic development of any territory.
Overall the Far East the total damage from the mortality of all ages increased by 2.8 times in 2003-2010, amounting to 42.7 billion of rubles or 2.4% of GRP in 2010. In Russia the growth rate of this indicator amounted to 2.6 times (in 2010 - 798 billion rubles or 2.5% of GDP). These estimates show that the mortality rate in the Far East and Russia as a whole, is associated with very significant economic losses, which couldn’t be ignored in the current circumstances, considering the low level of health, high mortality in the working age and the reduction of population.

The recent two important economic crises in Korea have transformed the state ranging from its political economy to socio-demographic dimensions. In midst of societal shifts, women and their socio-economic spheres have been notably changed, and accordingly housing careers are distinctive. This study is to focus on the changing nature of Korean women’s socio-demographic profile over the economic crises and to examine their changing housing careers. The findings can be summarized as follows 1) the number of women who are old, single, female-headed or highly educated has strikingly increased: 2) high educational attainment of women fosters economic participation, delays marriage and motherhood, and lowers child births: 3) women’s college enrolment rate grows while the increase rate of women’s participation in labour market remains marginal: 4) aging and poverty are feminized; and 5) gender inequality in pay and employment are prevalent. With the socio-demographic change, the socio-economic position in housing market is vulnerable and housing careers become diverse. These results suggest that socio-economic opportunities of women be expanded and more women-friendly housing policies be taken to enable them to have an equal access to housing resources and to attain a fair opportunity for housing wealth accumulation.

South Korea, one of Asia’s most successful developmentalist state, has marked rapid economic growth and shown fast recovery from economic crises. The state at an early stage of economic development necessarily implemented industrialization and urbanization, and at a later stage experienced democratization and globalization. A series of the process has been inevitably accompanied with demographic change that was particularly striking after the emergence of global capitalism. The most notable features of the changing demography include ageing population, declining birth rate, a wide arrange of new household types, and reduction in household size. The demographic transitions have been so obvious to transform housing system. This study is to look into the relationship between economic growth and demographic change, and to examine how these affect and are affected by housing transformation. In doing so, wide arrays of national data are used, and it’s obvious that housing norms (e.g., structure type, tenure, size and expenditure) are changed to react to the needs of major actors changing the state’s demography – the elderly, single persons and baby boomers. Therefore, the conventional path for traditional families toward homeownership is no longer ensured, and the recent economic downturn concerns housing affordability.

This research was conducted with the aim of Government policy related to the identification of residents of working age, and factor endowments as well as opened of job opportunities. This information is gathered from the policy defining the Executive and Legislative branches in the regional environment by using a qualitative approach in the province of North Sumatra, South Sulawesi, South Kalimantan, which represent the highest population of working age, respectively, on the island of Sumatera, Sulawesi, and Kalimantan. Apparently the local authorities are not ready with policies to respond the changes in the population of working age. However, in general the budget planning document (RPJMD and RPJPD) already appears to have a policy toward improved quality, and reduced unemployment. It seems that the local government has a high commitment to the family planning Program (KB) of the company. Legislature only focus on supervisory role when there are complaints of labor. It appears that local governments need to affirm a policy that leads to: 1). Controlling the population by promoting family planning and Population Programs; 2.) the handling of working age Population consisting of: the preparation of the quality of the workforce and the availability of jobs.