Demographic Transformation Research Articles

Health behaviors and health status of Korean middleaged men by marital status: Korea Community Health Study, 2015.

OBJECTIVESPrevious studies have shown that marital status is associated with household composition and living arrangements, which partially explain observed differences in health status according to marital status. However, due to the rapid socioeconomic and demographic transformations of the last few decades, the distribution of marital status among middle-aged adults has become more diverse. Therefore, this study aimed to obtain up-to-date information on the associations between marital status and health and to investigate the implications of these findings for conventional explanations of the health effects of marriage.METHODSThe data for this study were obtained from the 2015 Korean Community Health Study. We compared 4 modifiable lifestyle behaviors—smoking, alcohol consumption, physical activity, and self-rated health status—as outcome variables in association with marital status in Korean middle-aged men (age 40-44) living in Seoul and other regions.RESULTSMarried men showed the lowest cigarette smoking prevalence and the highest subjective health status both before and after adjusting for education and income. The odds of engaging in vigorous physical activity did not show a major difference before and after adjustment for income and education.CONCLUSIONSIn married men, the prevalence of cigarette smoking was lowest and subjective health status was highest, similar to previous studies. However, the prevalence of engaging in physical activity was highest in divorced/widowed/separated men. The health behaviors and health status of Korean middle-aged adults should be more closely followed, since they are representative of demographic changes in the Korean population.

Before Their Exile: The Transformation of Palestininan Villages in Western Galilee, 1918–1948

This article examines the developments and changes that took place in the Western Galilee Palestinian Arab villages during the British Mandate period. The article shows that this coastal area has underwent a major transformation, as in most coastal areas of Palestine. These include economic, demographic, and urban transformations. The study of this group of Palestinian villages shows the extent of the development of the Palestinian countryside, which contradicts many of the historical narrative that described villages and rural areas as backward. The presence of developed economic branches in some of the villages, such as tourism, small hotels, fishing, leisure culture, are proof of this.

Selected Meso-Economic Consequences of the Changing Number of Students in Academic Towns and Cities (A Case Study of Poland)

This article presents several selected economic consequences of the currently changing number of students in towns and cities in Poland, which has become an increasingly significant issue in view of the dramatic demographic transformations going on nowadays. The aim of the study is to analyze the impact of the changes on local enterprises operating in selected sectors of local economies of the academic towns and cities in the country. The results of the analysis confirm the assumption that selected academic towns can be affected not only by depopulation, but also by a decreasing number of students and—in consequence—a decreasing number of small trade and service enterprises. The authors conclude that co-incidence of these issues can pose a serious threat to local economies, especially where rapid negative economic and demographic changes have already been observed. The changes presented can be treated as the major threat to further sustainable development of Poland.

Migration and the Labour Market: Ukrainian Women in the Italian Care Sector

As Europe experiences significant demographic transformation and cultural change, the rate of care migration is growing sharply. This phenomenon has been encouraged by the structural deficit of the labour market in response to the shortage of workers available for formal and informal welfare systems. This research describes the main features and implications of the Italian care worker labour force, using the story of the Ukrainian women who work there as a case study. The analyses are based on data from the Italian ‘Rilevazione continua sulle forze lavoro’ or RCFL (Labour Force Survey) covering the last 10 years (2007–2016). The RCFL data shows that the population of care workers in Italy is a quickly growing sector, responsible for 19% of employed women in care sector over that period. RCFL data also reveals that these positions have been filled almost exclusively by Ukrainian women who have immigrated. However, despite recording high employment rates for this group, they are highly segregated, both vertically and horizontally, and they experience difficulty integrating and job-education mismatching. In conclusion, this article explores relevant issues for new migration and integration policies.

The Role of the New Indian Middle Class in Lok Sabha General Elections 2009 and 2014: A Comparative Study

Indian democracy in the age of globalisation is highly influenced by the demographic transformation in the society. Dispensing with the erstwhile traditional barriers like casteism, religions and languages, the current Indian society is represented mainly by the new Indian middle class. This class is a convergent one with amelioration of the below-middle class people to this class. Obviously there is hierarchy among this class. Sometimes, the upper rung of the middle class is treated as the elites. This class has good purchase capacity and inclination towards a consumerist life-style. This class, therefore, not politically involved throughout the year but politically active and vibrant in its electoral capacity. This class has become a no-negligible in the election results particularly since 2009. In 2014 itself, the new Indian middle class became decisive in 2014 Lok Sabha General Election. Here, it is an attempt to explore a comparative study of the 2009 and 2014 Lok Sabha General Elections in terms of this class being a determinant and decisive factor.

Selves and Identities in the Arabian Gulf: The Year in the Gulf Cooperation Council

Selves and Identities in the Arabian GulfThe Year in the Gulf Cooperation Council Szidonia Haragos (bio) The Gulf Cooperation Council countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates), the historical Arabian Gulf States, constitute some of the fastest-changing geopolitical landscapes in the world. Following the extraction of oil in the 1950s, the region experienced a major economic boom fueling dramatic sociocultural and demographic transformations: fast-paced globalization; large-scale interventions in indigenous ecosystems; the rise of desert metropolises like Dubai, Riyadh, and Doha; the influx of a working expatriate population forming a very significant numerical presence next to the local, national communities; along with, more recently, the push for the diversification of local economies and a gradual move away from an exclusive reliance on oil revenues. One of the most highly anticipated moments of global exposure in the region will be the 2020 World Expo to be held in Dubai, UAE, and the ongoing development and construction in the Emirate is visibly changing the cityscape on a daily basis. Reflecting upon the particular cultural tensions arising from sociocultural and demographic transformation, auto/biographical production in 2017–2018 in the GCC incorporates two connected, yet distinct trends. Forming a sort of tradition of their own, biographical narratives of historical figures and local luminaries constitute one set of tendencies. For example, in the United Arab Emirates, 2018 was declared "The Year of Zayed," celebrating Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, leader of the 1971 unification of the UAE, hence the publication of gorgeously illustrated biographies in bilingual English and Arabic editions, like Zayed: Life of a Great Leader, a volume published by The Dubai Chamber of Commerce commemorating the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Sheikh Zayed. Probably the best-known UAE publishing house, Motivate Publishing, marked the occasion with Father of Our Nation: Selected Quotes of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, a bilingual English-Arabic edition. Soud Ba'alawi and Florence Marguerite Guillerm Mandet's Sheikh Zayed: A Personal Tribute: How His Philosophy Is Now More Important than Ever is another exploration of Sheikh Zayed's historical role, while Sheikh Zayed: [End Page 55] Life and Times is a collection of photographs by royal photographer Noor Ali Rashid. Bookstores also carry the multilingual editions of Prime Minister of Dubai Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum's Reflections on Happiness and Positivity along with previous collections of his poetry, Flashes of Thought. Reissued editions of the well-known local businessman Khalaf Al Habtoor's autobiographical work, Khalaf Ahmad Al Habtoor: The Autobiography, also appeared in 2018. In addition to this particular trend, the repertoire of auto/biographical works includes personal explorations of self and identity profoundly marked by the various tensions registered between tradition and the paradigm changes induced by modernization: works dealing with women's rights, with the role of moderate Islam, and with illness and disability, detailing the challenges faced by people diagnosed with lifelong conditions. In my review, I consider this latter type of life writing through the analysis of three representative texts from the Gulf States: Kuwaiti author Shahd Alshammari's Notes on the Flesh, UAE writer Omar Saif Ghobash's Letters to a Young Muslim, and activist writer Manal al-Sharif's Daring to Drive from Saudi Arabia. "I am a woman, a tribal woman, a hybrid, a disabled woman, but so what?" asks Shahd Alshammari in her biomythography—a term she borrows from Audre Lorde—Notes on the Flesh. Echoing Sojourner Truth's question, "Ain't I a woman?" uttered more than a hundred fifty years ago in a different climate amid the material realities of another era, its defiance fits into the zeitgeist of #MeToo. Alshammari's text reveals a self "enmeshed" (9) within multiple identities and situated within a text that is "part-memoir, part-illness narrative, part confused, part confusing, partially fabricated, partially the truth" (iii). She performs a recuperative gesture, working through "shards and fragments of memory and trauma," while purposefully avoiding a sense of closure or stability. Instead, she records a "multiplicity of voices," not just her own, aiming to go to places in the archive of human suffering "where there are not the...

Nuevo South: Latinas/os, Asians, and the Remaking of Place by Perla M. Guerrero

Reviewed by: Nuevo South: Latinas/os, Asians, and the Remaking of Place by Perla M. Guerrero Emily Mitchell-Eaton Nuevo South: Latinas/os, Asians, and the Remaking of Place. By Perla M. Guerrero. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2017. ix + 238 pp. Figures, charts, notes, bibliography, index. $29.95 paper. National anxieties around immigration and race appear to be at a fever pitch, generating frequent claims that racism and xenophobia under the Trump administration are uniquely pernicious. In this context, Perla M. Guerrero's Nuevo South: Latinas/os, Asians, and the Remaking of Place offers an essential historical view into the longevity of racialization and antiimmigrant hostility. Bringing together insights from Latina/o/x Studies, Southern Studies, American Studies, Critical Ethnic Studies, and Geography, and blending extensive archival research and policy analysis with in-depth interviews with Arkansans, Guerrero's book serves as a critical guide to the history and geography of racial transformation in Arkansas and beyond. Nuevo South opens with the premise of understanding the demographic shifts that have transformed the American South, as well as the Midwest and Great Plains regions, over the past three decades, a transformation due largely to the arrival of immigrants from Mexico, El Salvador, and Guatemala as well as from farther-flung origins like Somalia (Stefanie Chambers, Somalis in the Twin Cities and Columbus: Immigrant Incorporation in New Destinations, Temple University Press, 2017) and the Marshall Islands (Emily Mitchell-Eaton, "New Destinations of Empire: Imperial Migration from the Marshall Islands to Northwest Arkansas," PhD diss., Syracuse University, 2016). This demographic transformation has been particularly dramatic in Arkansas: in the 1990s, the state saw positive Latinx population growth in every county, even those with net population losses (121), and from 1990 to 2000, Arkansas's immigrant population grew by 196%, the fourth-fastest growth rate of any state in the country (R. Capps et al., "A Profile of Immigrants in Arkansas," Urban Institute, http://www.urban.org, 2007). Nuevo South scholars like Helen Marrow in New Destination Dreaming: Immigration, Race, and Legal Status in the Rural American South (Stanford University Press, 2011), Steve Striffler in Chicken: The Dangerous Transformation of America's Favorite Food (Yale University Press, 2005), Julie Wiese in Corazón de Dixie: Mexicanos in the US South since 1910 (UNC Press Books, 2015), and Jamie Winders in Nashville in the New Millennium: Immigrant Settlement, Urban Transformation, and Social Belonging (Russell Sage Foundation, 2013) have explored how immigration to the South—prompted by the expansion of the poultry industry and playing out against the backdrop of a (presumed) black-white racial binary—has remade the region and altered place-based meanings there. Guerrero's book brings to this field a much-needed focus on Arkansas, a site from which she teases out multiscalar processes of racialization. She asks: "What can the reception of refugees and immigrants in Arkansas tell us about racialization, the process by which institutions and individuals form, invoke, adapt, reformulate, and strengthen racial meanings?" (4). Her answers to this question make up the substance of this book. Chapters 2 and 3 address this question by looking to the arrival and "processing" of different refugee populations at Arkansas's Fort Chaffee after World War II. Looking first to Vietnamese refugee arrivals in the 1970s and then to the detention of Cuban Marielitos and Haitian "entrants" in the 1980s, Guerrero examines local—mainly white and largely hostile—reception of these populations and the racialized tropes that colored their responses. Local reception was shaped not only by national discourses of "yellow peril," criminality, anti-Black racism, and queer-antagonism, but also by regionally specific discourses of Christian hospitality and by state-federal tensions over racial integration, most famously in 1957, when Governor Faubus mobilized the Arkansas National Guard in Little Rock to resist federal orders to desegregate public schools. These histories form an essential precursor to Latinx immigrants' reception in subsequent decades, Guerrero contends (though her argument could be strengthened in places by showing how, or if, Arkansans made explicit connections between refugee arrivals and Latinx immigration to the state). Perhaps the book's strongest contribution to Nuevo South scholarship is its thorough exploration of why Latinxs chose to relocate to...

DEVELOPMENT AND TRANSFORMATION OF BANJA LUKA SUBURBAN SETTLEMENT VRBANJA

The suburban Banja Luka settlement Vrbanja developed in the southeast part of the Banja Luka valley, in the valley extension of the Lower Vrbanja River, along the highway (M4) and railway track Banja Luka – Doboj. Faced with the processes of deagrarisation and urbanisation, the settlement experienced demographic, functional and physiognomic transformation especially after 1971 when it became part of Banja Luka. The basic factors of the socioeconomic and physiognomic transformation of this settlement are: traffic and geographical position and excellent everyday connections to the central city; development of work function (industry of cellulose and viscose INCEL and etc.). The analysis conducted showed that the settlement, regardless of the aforementioned transformation factors, still has the features of a suburban area with modest representation of the central functions and a lower degree of development as well as a poor quality of communal services. The socioeconomic transformation of the population is reflected in a small share of the agricultural population (1,7%), but agricultural production, although of low intensity and productivity and on small areas, is still present and affects the physiognomy of the settlement. An important limitating factor of further transformation of the settlement is significant depopulation. Over the past twenty years the population of Vrbanja has declined by around 33,7% so the demographical revitalisation together with the planned development of new functions, also covered in the paper, is the principal precondition for future development.

Bridging the Mobile Digital Divide in Sub-Saharan Africa: Costing under Demographic Change and Urbanization

Digital connectivity, including through the modern cellular network technologies, is expected to play a key role for the Future of Work in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). We estimate the cost of introducing a full-scale 4G network by 2025 in SSA and an operable 5G network by 2040. We adapt the costing model of Lombardo (2019) by accounting for the significant demographic transformation and rapid urbanization in SSA. We use the WorldPop and GADM databases and the UN's medium-variant population projections to project the population densities at the highest level of administrative division for each SSA country in 2025 and 2040. For full 4G connectivity, the required capital and operational costs stands approximately at US$14 billion by 2025 and for 5G connectivity, costs amount to US$57 billion in 2040, conditional on having the 4G in place by 2025. These costs roughly translate to 8.4 percent of annual subscriber income, on a median basis, by 2025 for 4G and 4.9 percent of subscriber income by 2040 for 5G. Having the infrastructure in place is not sufficient to bridge the mobile Digital Divide. In addition, policies are needed to address affordability and knowledge gaps.

Human ecological and social determinants of dental caries among the Xavante Indigenous people in Central Brazil.

This community study evaluates complex interactions between macro and micro determinants of oral health in a local Indigenous population based on a theoretical framework of demographic, economic, and healthcare transformation over the last half century. The study population included all residents of eight Xavante villages in Central Brazil. Our hypothetical model posited multiple direct and indirect associations between dental caries and village groups with differentiated territorial and oral care histories, as well as household socioeconomic indicators and food acquisition patterns, individual sociodemographic characteristics, use of dental health services, and oral hygiene practices. Structural equation modelling methods were used to evaluate direct and indirect associations linking exogenous factors and dental caries. Results include 18 direct and 14 indirect statistically significant pathways between determinant variables and dental caries. Significant links with dental caries were shown for socioeconomic indicators, oral healthcare variables, household food acquisition patterns, sex, and age. These findings suggest that the oral health of Xavante residents in the villages studied is associated with determinant factors of different epidemiological and historical scales. The specific historical frame of territorial circumscription and demographic crisis followed by rapid population increase since the 1970s should be considered a cause-of-cause determinant of the economic, healthcare, and sociodemographic profile contributing to oral health among the Xavante. Considering the limitations of cross-sectional studies, our findings underline the importance for oral health determination of historical currents affecting minority ethnic groups within national societies.

Tipología y clasificación de los hogares hondureños, periodo 2001-2017

En las últimas décadas los hogares hondureños han sufrido una serie de transformaciones demográficas, económicas y sociales que afectan la composición y distribución de los hogares. Este artículo presenta la tipología de la pobreza de los hogares hondureños analizada en dos momentos del tiempo año 2001 y 2017 en base a los datos de la Encuesta Permanente de Hogares de Propósitos Múltiples (EPHPM). Para efectos de este estudio se establecieron cinco tipos de hogares, unipersonales, biparentales, monoparentales, extensos y compuestos. Para la estimación de la pobreza se utilizó el método de Línea de la Pobreza (LP). Para complementar el análisis de la pobreza por el método de Línea de la Pobreza y contar con indicadores sintéticos se utilizó el Índice de Foster-Greer-Thorbecke (FGT) que permite por medio de los ingresos cuantificar que tan pobres son los pobres, dicho de otra manera, cuál sería el nivel de ingreso que requieren los hogares que están en pobreza para salir de la línea de la pobreza o pobreza cero. A lo largo de 16 años los hogares hondureños registran cambios importantes en la estructura y los arreglos que se dan a lo interno delos mismos. Los hogares que prevalecen a nivel nacional son: los biparentales y los extensos. En el período de estudio se observa un crecimiento de los hogares monoparentales, por otro lado, hay diferencias marcadas que se dan en la zona urbana y la zona rural, los hogares monoparentales son más comunes en la zona urbana donde las jefaturas en su mayoría son mujeres.

Academic promotions at a South African university: questions of bias, politics and transformation

The system of academic promotion provides a mechanism for the achievements of staff to be recognised. However, it can be a mechanism that creates or reflects inequalities, with certain groups rising to the top more readily than others. In many universities, especially in the global North, white men are preponderant in senior academic ranks. This leads to concerns about sexism and racism operating within processes of promotion. There is a global sensitivity that academic hierarchies should be demographically representative. In this study, we examine the data on eleven years of promotions at the University of Cape Town (UCT), a highly ranked, research-led university in South Africa. Its historical roots lie in a colonial past, and despite substantial increases in the number of black scholars, its academic staff complement is still majority white, driving the intensification of its transformation efforts. A quantitative analysis using time to promotion as a proxy for fairness was used to examine patterns of promotion at the university. Although international staff, those in more junior positions, with higher qualifications and in certain faculties enjoyed quicker promotion time, no association was found between time to promotion and gender. There were some differences in time to promotion associated with self-declared ethnicity (taken as synonymous with race), but these associations were not consistent. Although our findings provide some quantitative evidence of UCT’s success at creating a fair system of academic advancement, broader demographic transformation remains a priority. However, this cannot be addressed in isolation from the wider higher education enterprise.

Land tenure reforms and persistence of land conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa – The case of Botswana

The aim of this paper is to interrogate and analyse the nature, extent and causes of land conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa taking Botswana as a case study. The paper is based on desk-top surveys and review of literature on land tenure reforms and conflicts in the subcontinent and beyond. Synthesis of the literature shows that, despite international support and a series of tenure reforms undertaken by various post-independence governments, land conflicts - defined as disputes, disagreements and contestations over property rights and interests – appear to have raged on unabated. In some countries, land conflicts appear to have intensified in terms of magnitude and frequency. Furthermore, intensification and growth of land conflicts has exacerbated inequalities inherited from colonial regimes as well as created new platforms for social injustices and political instability. These trends contradict the common aim of land tenure reforms: which is to promote socio-economic development and environmental sustainability on the backdrop of peace, social justice and equality.Botswana was selected as a case study because it is one of the few countries in Sub-Saharan Africa that has steadfastly introduced wide ranging and progressive land tenure reforms seeking to address land governance and inequality issues. The paper notes that although Botswana has largely succeeded in addressing land conflicts inherited from the colonial regime, it appears to have failed to adequately resolve land conflicts arising from post-colonial socio-economic and demographic transformations. The paper ends with recommendations on how future land reforms in Botswana and Sub-Saharan Africa in general may be used to minimise and finally eliminate land related conflicts.

Between Ferality and Resilience: Global (South) Urbanization as a Counterinsurgency Research Object

Today, urbanization is described as one of the major global challenges. The rapid demographic transformations taking place in certain regions of the Global South — especially in countries of Africa and Southeast Asia — bring a sense of urgency to the discussion on cities. Rapid and uncontrolled urbanization in Global South, combined with social inequalities, poverty and environmental degradation, renders many urban populations vulnerable and precarious. With an emphasis on the urban expansion of the Global South, an international agenda is formed nowadays, focusing on the structural functions of the cities and their shielding against the negative effects of the current global crisis; a crisis taking today the form of an economic, environmental, and migration crisis. Thus, sustainability and resilience of the cities, and especially of those in the Global South, are turned into the key questions of urban planning and urban governance policies. Yet, they are also gradually turned into an object of military problematizations, as Western armed forces are strongly interested today in the urban phenomena and the functions of the cities, perceiving urban environment not only as a potential field of military operations but as a source of irregular threats; describing, in other words, the cities of the Global South not only as sites that host potential enemies but as enemies per se. More specifically, from the end of the 20th century U.S. military focuses on urban informality and its security implications, imposing a new understanding of the urban world. This is today more evident, as rapid demographic changes render urban systems and informal urban settlements in particular more vulnerable, and this vulnerability is directly problematized in public security terms. Through the relevant anti-urban theoretical frameworks, the cities of the Global South are conceived as feral systems that have to be tamed; and this taming calls for direct intervention. Military imposes, in this way, its presence in the field of urban problematizations, and building on the deception of contemporary neoliberal narratives calls today for urban resilience. As the world urbanizes rapidly and the notions of crisis and emergency are shaping the dominant social imaginary and the modern governmental agenda, urban sustainability, adaptability, and resilience are turned into an overall public security issue and eventually into an object of military interest. Hence, when the military theorists wonder how to make contemporary “fragile” urban systems more “resilient”, they actually wonder how to build forcibly resilient subjectivities and impose, after all, resilience and patience against an inescapable oppression.

Multidimensional comparison of countries’ adaptation to societal aging

As long-term changes in life expectancy and fertility drive the emergence of aging societies across the globe, individual countries vary widely in the development of age-relevant policies and programs. While failure to adapt to the demographic transformation carries not only important financial risks but also social risks, most efforts to gauge countries' preparedness focus on economic indicators. Using data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and other sources, we developed a multidimensional Aging Society Index that assesses the status of older populations across five specific domains, including productivity and engagement, well-being, equity, economic and physical security, and intergenerational cohesion. For 18 OECD countries, the results demonstrate substantial diversity in countries' progress in adapting to aging. For any given domain, there are wide differences across countries, and within most countries, there is substantial variation across domains. Overall, Norway and Sweden rank first in adaptation to aging, followed by the United States, The Netherlands, and Japan. Central and eastern European countries rank at the bottom, with huge untapped potential for successful aging. The United States ranks best in productivity and engagement, in the top half for cohesion, and in the middle in well-being, but it ranks third from the bottom in equity. Only well-being and security showed significant between-domain correlation (r = 0.59, P = 0.011), strengthening the case for a multidimensional index. Examination of heterogeneity within and across domains of the index can be used to assess the need for, and effectiveness of, various programs and policies and facilitate successful adaptation to the demographic transition.

The urban geopolitics of neighboring: conflict, encounter and class in Jerusalem’s settlement/neighborhood

ABSTRACTThis article examines a unique, yet paradigmatic, case study of a colonial neighborhood in East Jerusalem that is undergoing a significant demographic transformation.1 The French Hill neighborhood, built in 1971, was one of the first settlements in East Jerusalem. Initially, it was populated primarily by upper-middle class secular-Jewish residents. This group has been steadily diminishing as two other distinct new groups moved into the neighborhood: Ultra-Orthodox Jews and Palestinians. This volatile social mix has caused intense inter-ethnic and intra-ethnic collisions. Based on qualitative and quantitative studies, we argue that the juxtaposition of colonial and neoliberal logics of space reveals a shared, yet fragile, middle-class identity. We suggest that this new geopolitical space of neighboring calls for a discussion of political conflict, housing and current colonial conditions that brings class back to our understanding of the production of contested space.

The Situation of Population Ageing and Social Security for Elderly People in Nepal

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/hprospect.v10i0.5658Health Prospect Vol.10 2011, pp.61-63

Urbanization and Social Change : Analyzing Demographic and Socioeconomic Transformations of Asansol Durgapur Planning Area of West Bengal, India

Urbanization and Social Change : Analyzing Demographic and Socioeconomic Transformations of Asansol Durgapur Planning Area of West Bengal, India

The British–Irish Relationship in the Twenty-first Century

The twentieth anniversary of the Good Friday agreement offers a useful vantage point from which to review the agreement’s progress, particularly because the anniversary coincides with Brexit, a process likely to place it under particular strain. Using both evidence offered elsewhere in this collection and new material, this article reviews the two decades since the agreement in 1998 using as a framework the three relationships that the agreement sought to address. First, it argues that a combination of structural reform, social change, demographic transformation and political reconfiguration has substantially removed the incentives for inter-communal conflict in Northern Ireland, though without completely eliminating overt political violence, as worrying indicators of dissent survive. Second, it contends that the provisions of the agreement for the promotion of institutionalised cooperation between Northern Ireland and the Republic have had limited impact, but that they have been supplemented by new forms of all-Ireland integration driven by change at EU level. Third, the article suggests that the once-hostile relationship between the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom has mellowed, a change that both facilitated the settlement of 1998 and was itself reinforced by this. The article concludes that the institutions established by the Good Friday agreement have had a mixed impact, and that they face a particular challenge in the context of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.

Effects of urbanization on spatial demography change in Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos peri-urban settlement

Peripheral settlements in Lagos are undergoing spatial and demographic transformation that is not captured by conventional regional planning. Ibeju-Lekki, a peri-urban settlement in Lagos State with vast land area, has grown phenomenally due to rapid urbanization. This article examines the change in spatial demography in Ibeju-Lekki. Data were collected through primary and secondary sources including observation, structured questionnaires, archived land use maps (1980–2002), and satellite images (2006 and 2016). Three-hundred seventy questionnaires were administered to household heads in purposively selected 16 settlements in the study area. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics while qualitative data were subjected to satellite image analysis. Findings show a spatial expansion predominantly for residential land use, aggravated by the housing deficit in Lagos metropolis and aided by improved transport linkages. The study recommends a reclassification of Lagos peri-urban settlements based on change in spatial demography to accommodate improved infrastructure and sustainable development.