Examine the main trends in births and deaths in the United Kingdom since 1900

The birthrate in the UK has been in a long-term state of decline since 1900. In 1900 the birthrate in England and wales was 28.7, but by 2007 it had fallen to an estimated 10.7. However there have been three fluctuations in the birthrate of the UK, these are know as the three ‘baby booms’ in the 20th century. The First two came after the two world wars (1914-18 and 1939-45), as returning service men and their partners started families that they postponed during the war. There was a third baby boom in the 1960s before sharply declining again in the 1970s. The rate then rose in the 1980s and fell in the 1990s, it has recently increased since 2001.

There were major changes in the position of women in the 20th century. In the 20th century women gained legal equality with men including the right to vote. Women now also have increased educational opportunities and girls now do better at school than boys. There are now more women in paid employment, plus laws outlawing unequal pay and sex discrimination. As well as changes in attitudes to family life and women’s role and an easier access to divorce. As a result of these changes, women now see other opportunities in life apart from the traditional role of the house wife mother. Many are choosing to delay childbearing, or not have children at all in pursuit of a career. For example in 2006 on in five women were childless at age 45, double the number of twenty years earlier.

IMR measures the number of infants who die before their first birthday, per thousand babies born alive, per year. It is argued that a fall in IMR leads to a fall in birthrate. This is because, if many infants die, parents have more children to replace those they have lost, thereby increasing the birthrate. By contrast if infants survive, parents will have fewer of them. In 1900, the IMR for the UK was 154. IN other words, over 15% of babies died within their first year.

Children have become an economic liability. Until the late 20th century, children were assets to their parents because they could be sent out to work from an early age to earn an income. However since the late 19th century children have become an economic liability. Laws banning child labour, introducing compulsory schooling and raising the school leaving age mean children become economically dependent on their parents for longer and longer. Changing norms about what children have the right to expect from their parents in material terms mean that the cost of bringing up children has risen. As a result of these financial pressures, parents now feel less able or willing than in the past to have a large family.

The increasing child centeredness both of the family and of society as a whole means that childhood is now socially constructed as a uniquely important period of an individual’s life. In terms of family size, this has encouraged a sift from quantity to quality. Parents now have fewer children and lavish more attention and resources on these few.

There has been a stable rate of deaths in the UK since 1900, at around 600,000 per year. Although of course in 1900, this number of deaths was out of a much smaller population than today. However there have been some important fluctuations. For example the two world wars (1914-1945) brought a rise in the number of deaths on to a record level of 690,000. However the death rate has fallen since 1900. The death rate is the number of deaths per thousand of the population per year. In 1900, the death rate stood at 19, whereas by 2007 it had almost halved. The death rate had already begun falling from about 1870 and continued to do so until 1930. It rose slightly during the 30s and 40s, the period of the great economic depression, followed by World War II, but since the 1950s it had declined slightly.

There are several reasons why the death rate declined during the twentieth century. According to N.L Tranter over three quarters of the deaths from about 1850 to 1970 was due to a fall in the number of deaths from infectious diseases such a diphtheria, influenza, scarlet fever, measles, smallpox, diarrhea, typhoid and above all tuberculosis. Since deaths from infectious diseases were commonest in the young, it is not surprising that most of the decline in death rate occurred among infants, children and young adults. By the 1950s, ‘diseases of affluence’ such as heart disease and cancer had over taken infectious diseases as the main cause of death. These degenerative diseases affect the middle aged and old more than the young. There are several reasons for the decline in deaths from infection. It is possible that the population began to develop some natural resistance as a result of natural selection, or that some diseases became less virulent.

Thomas McKeown argues that improved nutrition accounted for up to half of the reduction in death rates, and was particularly important in reducing the number of deaths from TB. Better nutrition increased resistance to infection and increased the survival chances of those who did become infected.

Before the 1950’s , despite some important innovations , medical improvements played almost no part in the reduction of deaths from infectious disease. However, after the 1950s, improved medical knowledge, techniques and organisaion did help to reduce the death rates. Advances included the introduction of antibiotics, widespread immunization, blood transfusion, higher standards of midwifery and maternity services, as well as setting up a single publicly funded National Health Service in 1949. More recently, improved medication, by-pass surgery and other developments have reduced deaths from heart failure by one third.

In the 20th century, more effective centural and local government with the necessary power to pass and enforce laws led to a range of improvements in housing (producing drier, better ventilated, less overcrowded accommodation, purer drinking water , laws to combat adulteration of food and drink, the pasteurization of milk, improved sewage disposal methods, similarly, the clean air acts reduced air pollution, such as the smog that led to 4,000 premature deaths in five days in 1952. Other social changes such as the decline of more dangerous manual occupations such as mining, smaller families reduced rate of transmission of infection. Greater pubic knowledge of the causes of illness and higher incomes, allowing for a healthier lifestyle has also made significant change in death rates.