Ecology, population and environment
“It seems very good that women are freer and more autonomous, but‘ the problem ’is that now very few women have children:‘ they avoid motherhood because they have become individualistic and selfish ’. And that will take us directly to disaster.
What would you answer from the demographic and population point of view to show that this person is wrong? Plant it 1) from the specific Spanish case, and 2) compared to another European country with different fertility trends ”.
In 2016, the Oxford Dictionary adopted the term "post-truth" as a new neologism and defined it as "those situations in which objective realities have little influence on the way of creating public opinion, in the face of the great influence that the Personal emotions and opinions ". This is how Professor Andreu Domingo begins the prologue of his book "Demography and Postverdad".
Why have we started this essay? Although we are asked for a job based on demographic and population data, the large number of comments and opinions in this regard are not surprising. That is, more opinions are usually based on the ideology or way of seeing life than on empirical and scientifically demonstrated data.
For Andreu Domingo, demography is an ideal empirical science to understand that its post -truth has been used for political and sometimes populist use in society. There are several reasons that this teacher wields:
- Demography is closely related to governance and its formulation is rigged as an aggregate of individuals.
- Its relationship with the New Public Management and the ability to evaluate future processes, make it ideal to model the behaviors of public actors (including the public sector).
- The ability to turn "virtual populations" into a mere future calculation exercise.
In other words, and in a summary way, for this demograph Women, the hard weight of the responsibility of the future of humanity.
Another aspect that is also related to post-truth and demography, is manifested by both Teresa Castro and Celia Fernández-Carro, while both Spanish demographers are concerned about the relationship made about birth in Spain and the speech of pensions. While Teresa Castro advocates not falling into catastrophisms and their new demographic expressions and invites us to look at the data in her global, Celia Fernández-Carro pushes us to think about low birth rate as a challenge and look at immigration as one of the factors that can contribute to solve this problem.
According to OECD data (year 2018), the fertility rate [Footnoteref: 4] in Europe ranged from 1.80 (France, Ireland and Romania) and 1.70 (Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia and Sweden) as countries with the highest and 1.20 (malt) and 1.30 (Cyprus, Italy and Spain) as the lowest fertility countries. And what makes them so different?
The total fertility rate in a specific year is defined as the total number of children that would be born of each woman if she lived until the end of her fertile years and gave birth to children according to the specific age prevailing. Fertility rate. It is calculated by adding the specific fertility rates by age defined in five -year intervals. Assuming that there is no net migration and an unchanged mortality, a total fertility rate of 2.1 children per woman guarantees a widely stable population. Together with mortality and migration, fertility is an element of population growth, which reflects both the causes and the effects of economic and social evolution.
The decline in birth is a complicated and deeply united process to issues such as education, planning measures, economic expansion, to the derivative of roles and gender and especially the social policies that influence the paramiliary Welfare State. While it is true that the fertility rate influence.
We see that in Europe all rates are below the hypothetical replacement level (2.1 children), however France, Ireland and Romania are bringing their fertility rates to that level of 2 children. Compared to Spain we are for the year 2019, the following data:
- Spain: Birth rate (7.60%) and fertility index (1.23)
- France: Birth rate (11.20%) and fertility index (1.88)
- Ireland: Birth rate (12.10%) and fertility index (1.75)
- France: Birth rate (9.6%) and fertility index (1.76)
Therefore, the fact that these figures vary from one country to another focus on social policies to correct these impacts or the decisions taken in relation to pandemic. Demography, for Celia Fernández-Carro, is a very objective and descriptive science. Therefore, we cannot say if a fact is good or bad, we can only interpret it depending on the speeches that want to be carried out. Thus, for example, for Teresa Castro, the moment Spain has today is not disastrous. We can assume that labor data can be good in terms of pension, another thing will be if the contract data is precarious or not.
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