Demographic Regime Research Articles

Impacts of education and immigration on the size and skills of the future workforce

In most developed countries the demographic regime is characterised by low fertility, high immigration, and population ageing. This regime impacts on the size of the labour force population, the ethno-cultural composition, and potential productivity.

How reducing differentials in education and labor force participation could lessen workforce decline in the EU-28

Population ageing is unavoidable in Europe, but perhaps its impact on labor force is not. In the context of a new demographic regime of high immigration and low fertility, differentials in labor force participation and educational attainment can be more co

Widespread population decline in South America correlates with mid-Holocene climate change

Quantifying the impacts of climate change on prehistoric demography is crucial for understanding the adaptive pathways taken by human populations. Archaeologists across South America have pointed to patterns of regional abandonment during the Middle Holocene (8200 to 4200 cal BP) as evidence of sensitivity to shifts in hydroclimate over this period. We develop a unified approach to investigate demography and climate in South America and aim to clarify the extent to which evidence of local anthropic responses can be generalised to large-scale trends. We achieve this by integrating archaeological radiocarbon data and palaeoclimatic time series to show that population decline occurred coeval with the transition to the initial mid-Holocene across South America. Through the analysis of radiocarbon dates with Monte Carlo methods, we find multiple, sustained phases of downturn associated to periods of high climatic variability. A likely driver of the duration and severity of demographic turnover is the frequency of exceptional climatic events, rather than the absolute magnitude of change. Unpredictable levels of tropical precipitation had sustained negative impacts on pre-Columbian populations lasting until at least 6000 cal BP, after which recovery is evident. Our results support the inference that a demographic regime shift in the second half of the Middle Holocene were coeval with cultural practices surrounding Neotropical plant management and early cultivation, possibly acting as buffers when the wild resource base was in flux.

Composición y cambio de los comportamientos sociodemográficos en España en los inicios de una Segunda Transición Demográfica

La tipología familiar y las principales variables que registran la dinámica natural han experimentado grandes cambios desde los años ochenta del pasado siglo, mostrando nuevos comportamientos que, unidos a la importancia de los flujos migratorios exteriores, responden a los parámetros de la denominada Segunda Transición Demográfica. Analizar la intensidad de estas transformaciones y los diferentes ritmos que han seguido desde una perspectiva territorial a escala provincial y municipal son los objetivos del presente trabajo, para lo que se ha recurrido a una amplia revisión de las fuentes estadísticas disponibles desde 1985 y a su plasmación cartográfica, resaltando los contrastes provinciales y las particularidades de los ámbitos urbano y rural. Partiendo del estudio del comportamiento nupcial y del incremento de la divorcialidad, así como de la creciente importancia de nuevos modelos familiares, se ha constado la pérdida de relevancia del crecimiento natural frente al saldo migratorio en la evolución reciente de la población, confirmando la consolidación de un régimen demográfico cuyas principales variables definitorias son ya similares a las registradas en Europa occidental.

Inflammatory profile in optimally treated patients with adult versus early-onset asthma

ABSTRACTIntroduction: The age of asthma onset is often implicated in clinical manifestation, diagnosis, and management of the disease.Aim: To define demographic, clinical and functional features and inflammatory characteristics in induced sputum in patients with adult-onset asthma.Methods: Optimally treated patients from asthma clinics of two tertiary hospitals were included in the study. Patients underwent assessment of demographic characteristics, severity and treatment regimes, pulmonary function tests, and skin prick tests, as well as measurement of blood eosinophils and sputum induction for the assessment of sputum inflammatory cells, IL-8 and IL-13 levels in the supernatant.Results: Of the 333 patients recruited, 234 (70.2%) had adult-onset asthma. Adult-onset asthmatics were older, had a higher BMI, a shorter disease duration, and were less often atopic, compared to patients with early onset asthma. Higher proportions of patients with severe asthma presented increased levels of FeNO and blood eosinophils, both in the early and the adult-onset patient groups. Finally, obese patients with early onset asthma were characterized by less atopy compared to non-obese patients in the same group.Conclusion: Adult-onset asthma was characterized by less sputum eosinophilia, a nonatopic profile and a higher BMI compared to early-onset asthma. The presence of blood eosinophilia and increased FeNO in patients with severe asthma was comparable in the two groups.

Fire regimes and shifting community patterns: a case study and method for species with complex fire requirements

Anthropogenic alteration of fire regimes is implicated in the extinction or decline of species across the globe. Active management of fire regimes using specified guidelines can help sustain diversity and counter this loss. However, some species occur across multiple communities with differing fire regime requirements or may exploit the dynamics of associated ecotones. These complexities are not easily understood via a simple consideration of life history traits or unravelled by a simple experimental framework. Population modelling, however, may provide valuable insights in these instances, but to date this remains unexplored. A population model based on detailed demographic, habitat and fire regime data was developed for the species Prostanthera askania. The species occurs across rainforest/eucalypt forest ecotones subject to long-term alteration, fragmentation and invasion by exotic species. Modelling revealed that current recommended fire guidelines will not sustain this species under these novel conditions. Fire regimes that minimised extinction risk in some scenarios had double or five times the fire frequencies of recommended regimes. Managing fire was also more important in specific habitat (gully habitat rather than on slopes or ridges). Currently applied management actions for Prostanthera askania do not include any fire management and the regimes that apply to most habitat in which the species occurs (no fire or fire at up to 50-year intervals in gully habitat) is not optimal for the species. Management will be substantially more effective if specific fire treatments revealed by this study are employed (e.g. fire intervals of 20–30 years in gully habitat). The study demonstrates that a conceptualisation and consideration of communities as both temporally and spatially dynamic can substantially contribute to better fire management outcomes. The approach used herein can be readily adapted and applied to a plethora of species via a range of software packages and codes.

The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as a Laboratory for Analysing Connections between Confessions, the Demographic Regime, and Human Capital

Religion played a key role in the normative systems of early modern societies. This article is an introduction to a more extensive project, in which we will conduct a historical analysis of the role of religion in economic, demographic, and civilizational growth. We believe that the sources that have survived from the early modern period provide ample data to allow for quantitative studies on this subject. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth appears to be an excellent laboratory because of its unique religious diversity, which allowed for the relatively peaceful coexistence of many religions on its territory. In this paper we analyse censuses from the second half of the eighteenth century which registered the mixed denomination/religious populations of villages (the Zabartowo parish), a small town (Kepno) and a big city (Warsaw). We try to show that these censuses can be used not only in typical demographic studies on family structures, but can also be successfully used in research on human capital in religiously diversified societies.

Archaeological Demography as a Tool for the Study of Women and Gender in the Past

In the last 20 years, demography has re-emerged as a key research area within archaeology. This research has refined archaeological demographic methods and examined the relationships between demographic, cultural and environmental change. Here, I discuss how the results of the growing corpus of archaeological demographic studies can contribute to gender archaeology, aiding the incorporation of women into narratives of the past. By considering the important role of women in the demographic regimes of small-scale societies, I explain how archaeological demography can provide insights into the behaviour and lives of women, without relying on the often problematic identification of gendered artefacts, activities and/or places. Archaeological demography as a tool for gender archaeology also permits a move away from the female empiricism of simply adding women into archaeological narratives, to provide an alternative framework for the analysis of gender roles and practices. I demonstrate the feasibility and benefits of this approach using an example from the Upper Palaeolithic of southwestern France.

To survive is all: How the authoritarian core tackles neighboring dictatorships

ABSTRACTThis article attempts to answer why autocrats of illiberal regional powers intervene in the politics of neighboring dictatorships and argues that the dictator always prioritizes his survival and thus intervenes if he perceives his survival to be under direct threat. The formal model proposes three factors that determine the level of perceived threat: demographic composition, structural similarity, and regime dynamic of autocratic countries. The authoritarian core must pay close attention to those neighboring autocratic countries that are suffering from regime change, are close to its own densely populated region, and have regime types or social structure similar to itself. Additionally, if hostile ethnic or religious groups are highly concentrated in some areas of the authoritarian core where it borders autocracies experiencing regime instability, the authoritarian core will be motivated to intervene in the domestic affairs of those neighboring countries. Using QCA and case studies, this article confirmed that whether an authoritarian core will take action against countries in geographical proximity depends on a combination of these three factors.

Além do Centro-Sul: por uma história da população colonial nos extremos dos domínios portugueses na América (projeto integrado)

O projeto concernente a esta nota de pesquisa associa nos seus objetivos os interesses de vários pesquisadores que constituem o Grupo de Pesquisa Demografia & História, vinculados a diversos centros de pesquisa e programas de pós-graduação. Em síntese, a nossa intenção mais ampla é estabelecer as bases para a discussão dos regimes demográficos da população brasileira no passado. Com essa finalidade, estamos nos concentrando em “salvar” a memória populacional contida nas atas paroquiais de algumas freguesias selecionadas.

Amplitude of travelling front as inferred from 14C predicts levels of genetic admixture among European early farmers

Large radiocarbon datasets have been analysed statistically to identify, on the one hand, the dynamics and tempo of dispersal processes and, on the other, demographic change. This is particularly true for the spread of farming practices in Neolithic Europe. Here we combine the two approaches and apply them to a new, extensive dataset of 14,535 radiocarbon dates for the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods across the Near East and Europe. The results indicate three distinct demographic regimes: one observed in or around the centre of farming innovation and involving a boost in carrying capacity; a second appearing in regions where Mesolithic populations were well established; and a third corresponding to large-scale migrations into previously essentially unoccupied territories, where the travelling front is readily identified. This spatio-temporal patterning linking demographic change with dispersal dynamics, as displayed in the amplitude of the travelling front, correlates and predicts levels of genetic admixture among European early farmers.

高木正朗編, 『18・19世紀の人口変動と地域・村・家族:歴史人口学の課題と方法』, 古今書院, 2008年, A5判, 300p

高木正朗編, 『18・19世紀の人口変動と地域・村・家族:歴史人口学の課題と方法』, 古今書院, 2008年, A5判, 300p

New Zealand’s population and development path: unravelling the ‘when’ ‘how’ and ‘why’

New Zealand’s demographic regime, moderate to high population growth for most of the last 170+ years, has shaped ‘nation building’, especially self-identity (Pool 2016). Increasing population numbers, the quantum of demography, is the value ‘writ large’ in our consciousness, as an immigrant country with one of the highest rates of natural increase (births minus deaths) among western developed countries (WDCs). Yet, the spectre of slower or negative demographic rates has now appeared for some regions, and even nationally (Jackson and Cameron 2017), invoked popularly by the application to various districts of the inexact and pejorative term ‘zombie towns’.

A Quiescent Phase in Human Mortality? Exploring the Ages of Least Vulnerability.

Demographic studies of mortality often emphasize the two ends of the lifespan, focusing on the declining hazard after birth or the increasing risk of death at older ages. We call attention to the intervening phase, when humans are least vulnerable to the force of mortality, and consider its features in both evolutionary and historical perspectives. We define this quiescent phase (Q-phase) formally, estimate its bounds using life tables for Swedish cohorts born between 1800 and 1920, and describe changes in the morphology of the Q-phase. We show that for cohorts aging during Sweden's demographic and epidemiological transitions, the Q-phase became longer and more pronounced, reflecting the retreat of infections and maternal mortality as key causes of death. These changes revealed an underlying hazard trajectory that remains relatively low and constant during the prime ages for reproduction and investment in both personal capital and relationships with others. Our characterization of the Q-phase highlights it as a unique, dynamic, and historically contingent cohort feature, whose increased visibility was made possible by the rapid pace of survival improvements in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This visibility may be reduced or sustained under subsequent demographic regimes.

The Migration of the Population in the South Albania: The Case of Gjirokastra Region

In Albania, after the year of 1990 (referred to as the transition), the society is facing with the new social phenomena in shape, but especially in the content. Such phenomena (by different researchers), are also observed in countries that have been in the same socio-economic system as our country (Eastern Europe). The emigration seems clear becomes determinant component of demographic regime in Albania country, because of political instability, economic and social difficulty, high level of unemployment, opening of the country with the world etc. This situation provoked and stimulated a great movement in our population in the 1990s. The study of the emigration dynamic has been very intensive in this part of east Europe. The international migration (especially to Greece), is one of the main impact factor to all socio demo-economic evolution in Gjirokastra region. This research is focused on statistical evidences and analyses of the international migration from Gjirokastra region, after 1990: factors, dimensions, directions, motifs and typology of migrations (causes, distances, individual or familiar, etc.), consequences etc. International migration has been an illegal phenomenon, especially at the beginning. For a better evidence of this phenomena, it is seen and taken under researches and analyses in three dimensions: time (periods of time) and in space that is a more complex in form and content (seen according to communes and villages) and structural of the population (age, gender, ethnic group, education level and settlement). The research will be accompanied by some conclusions and suggestions, at the end. This region has been characterized by a deficit populating evolution, first of all, because of the migration phenomena. DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2016.v5n3s1p214

European Neolithic societies showed early warning signals of population collapse

Ecosystems on the verge of major reorganization-regime shift-may exhibit declining resilience, which can be detected using a collection of generic statistical tests known as early warning signals (EWSs). This study explores whether EWSs anticipated human population collapse during the European Neolithic. It analyzes recent reconstructions of European Neolithic (8-4 kya) population trends that reveal regime shifts from a period of rapid growth following the introduction of agriculture to a period of instability and collapse. We find statistical support for EWSs in advance of population collapse. Seven of nine regional datasets exhibit increasing autocorrelation and variance leading up to collapse, suggesting that these societies began to recover from perturbation more slowly as resilience declined. We derive EWS statistics from a prehistoric population proxy based on summed archaeological radiocarbon date probability densities. We use simulation to validate our methods and show that sampling biases, atmospheric effects, radiocarbon calibration error, and taphonomic processes are unlikely to explain the observed EWS patterns. The implications of these results for understanding the dynamics of Neolithic ecosystems are discussed, and we present a general framework for analyzing societal regime shifts using EWS at large spatial and temporal scales. We suggest that our findings are consistent with an adaptive cycling model that highlights both the vulnerability and resilience of early European populations. We close by discussing the implications of the detection of EWS in human systems for archaeology and sustainability science.

Genealogies in historical demography - debates and prospects

This paper explores how genealogies are being used in western European historical demography. Four fields are identified in which genealogical material plays an important role. The first is the reconstruction of long-term shift in demographic regimes, for which other source material is often not available. The second is the study of geographical (and social) mobility in the past, using the places where vital events have taken place. The third is biodemography-the emerging field where evolutionary biology, genetics and family history intersect. Genealogies can help to understand, for instance, how exceptional longevity can cluster in families. Finally, the creation and visualization of genealogies offer prospects for new advances in digital humanities.

Corncrake conservation genetics at a European scale: The impact of biogeographical and anthropological processes

Understanding patterns of genetic structure, gene flow and diversity across a species range is required to determine the genetic status and viability of small peripheral populations. This is especially crucial in species distributed across a large range where spatial heterogeneity makes it difficult to predict the distribution of genetic diversity. Although biogeographical models provide expectations of how spatially structured genetic variation may be at the range scale, human disturbance may cause strong deviations from these theoretical predictions. In this study, we investigated genetic structure and demography at a pan-European scale in the corncrake Crex crex, a grassland bird species strongly affected by agricultural changes. We assessed population structure and genetic diversity, as well as demographic trends and direction of gene flow, in and among 15 contemporary populations of this species. Analyses revealed low genetic structure across the entire range with high levels of genetic diversity in all sites. However, we found some evidence that the westernmost populations were, to a very limited extent, differentiated from the rest of the European population. Demographic trends showed that population numbers have decreased in western Europe and remained constant across eastern Europe. Results may also indicate asymmetric gene flow from eastern to western populations. In conclusion, we suggest that the most likely scenario is that contrasting demographic regimes between eastern and western populations, driven by heterogeneous human activity, has caused not only asymmetric gene flow that has buffered small peripheral populations against genetic diversity loss, but also erased any genetic structure that may have existed. Our study not only highlights the need for coordinated action at the European scale to preserve source populations of the corncrake, but also to ensure persistence of the most threatened sites. Only by doing so will we avoid losing adaptive potential and prevent over-reliance on eastern source populations whose future may be uncertain.

Sex, Death, and Aristocratic Empire: Iranian Jurisprudence in Late Antiquity

AbstractIn the Iranian Empire (226–636 CE), jurists drawn from the ranks of the Zoroastrian priestly elite developed a complex of institutions designed to guarantee the reproduction of aristocratic males as long as the empire endured. To overcome the high rate of mortality characteristic of preindustrial demographic regimes, they aimed to maximize the fertility rate without compromising their endogamous ideals through the institutions of reproductive coercion, temporary marriage, and “substitute-successorship.” Occupying a position between the varieties of monogamy and polygyny hitherto practiced in the Ancient Near East, the Iranian organization of sex enabled elites not only to reproduce their patrilineages reliably across multiple generations, but also to achieve an appropriate ratio of resources to number of offspring. As the backbone of this juridical architecture, the imperial court became the anchor of aristocratic power, and ruling and aristocratic dynasties became increasingly intertwined and interdependent, forming the patrilineal networks of the “Iranians”—the agents and beneficiaries of Iranian imperialism. The empire's aristocratic structure took shape through a sexual economy: the court created and circulated sexual and reproductive incentives that incorporated elite males into its network that was, thanks to its politically enhanced inclusive fitness, reliable and reproducible. In demonstrating the centrality of Zoroastrian cosmology to the construction and operation of the relevant juridical institutions, I seek to join the approaches of evolutionary biology and cultural anthropology to reproduction that have been pursued in opposition, to account for the historical role of sex in the consolidation of the Iranian Empire.

Threshold Effect of Globalization on Democracy: The Role of Demography

The literature presents conflicting expectations about the effect of globalization on democracy. One view expects globalization to enhance democracy, a second argues that globalization obstructs democracy; a third argues that it does not necessarily affect democracy. In this paper, we consider the threshold effect approach (Hansen, 1999) to reconcile these different results. We study the role of demography in the determination of the relationship between globalization and democracy. Based on a panel of 97 countries for the period 1993-2013, we use a threshold fixed effect panel model to estimate the effect of globalization on democracy, taking into account the demographic structure of the country. We find evidence of threshold effect of demographic characteristics on globalization and democracy relationship and prove that the impact of globalization on democracy is regime specific. Our results show a positive impact of globalization associated with ‘late demographic transition regime’ and a negative impact for countries with ‘early demographic transition regime’.