The History Of Demography

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Introduction:
Demography is the study of human populations (Thomson, 2007). Demographers study characteristics such as birth, death rate, sex, ratio, and age structure in a population. Studying such changes is useful in the understanding of social, and economic problems which help to identify possible solutions (Thomson, 2007). The study of Demography allows us to be able to comprehend and analyze economic and social trends which is crucial in preparing for future developments. (Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick, N/A).
Past studies have shown that demography data allows understating of the cause of death in the past, therefore allowing a possibility in postponing the death age in the future (Fries, 1980.) For example, non-traumatic and …show more content…

The cause could be due to less advanced medicine in the pre 1850s, than in the post 1950s (Randolph, 2009). In the journal The Evolution of the U.S Healthcare System, it states that it wasn’t until the early 1800s that physicians began to think that germs might cause and spread diseases. This indicates that their medical understanding was still fairly low. Between 1885 and 1922, there was a growth not only in medical technology but also in academic medicine (Devine, 2017). Therefore, the previous statements explains why both post 1950 males and females had a higher chance of survivorship (figure 1), lower mortality (figure 2) and higher life expectancy (figure 3). Pre 1850 females had the lowest life expectancy especially between the ages of 20 and 40. Between those ages are when women generally have babies due to the “fertility window” (Bellieni, 2016). In the 1850s, most births took place at home which lead to prolonged births with excessive bleeding and infection which often lead to death (Middendorf, 2017). Based on Figure 1 and 2, post 1950 females had the highest chance of survivorship and the highest individual life expectancy. By the early twentieth century, more hospitals were built, doctors had more authority, and there were advancements in medical sciences related to diseases, improving the quality of childbirth (Randolph, 2009). In 1965, the Supreme Court of the United States gave women the right to private use of contraceptives (Chesler, 1992) decreasing death during childbirth. Overall, pre 1850 maless and females had the lowest chances of survivorship and lowest life expectancy which then changed in the post 1950s due to medical advances causing their chances of survivorship and life expectancy to rise and mortality rate to

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