Posts Tagged ‘demographics’
“And these children that you spit on / “As they try to change their worlds / Are immune to your consultations. / They’re quite aware of what they’re going through.”*…
From our friends at The Pudding— specifically, from Alvin Chang— a thorough (and illuminating and bracing) look at how the conditions in which our young are raised have everything to do with how their lives unfold…
In this story, we’ll follow hundreds of teenagers for the next 24 years, when they’ll be in their late-30s. They’re among the thousands of kids who are part of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. This means researchers have followed them since their teenage years to the present day – and beyond.
As Matt Muir observes in his invaluable Web Curios…
… Very North America-centric in terms of the data it’s drawing on, but wherever you are in the world the themes that it speaks to will apply – drawing on data about the life experiences of young people tracked by US statisticians….
As you scroll you see visual representations of the proportion of kids in each agegroup coterie who will experience ‘significant’ life events, from crime to poverty and beyond, and how those life events will go on to impact their academic prospects and, eventually, their life prospects – none of this should be surprising, but it’s a hugely-effective way of communicating the long-term impacts of relatively small differences in early-stage life across a demographic swathe…
Data visualization at its best and most compelling: “This Is a Teenager,” from @alv9n in @puddingviz via @Matt_Muir.
* David Bowie, “Changes”
###
As we analyze adolescence, we might recall that it was on this date in 1961 that the Cleftones, a group of teens who had formed a vocal group a 3 years earlier in high school, released “Heart and Soul” (a rearrangement of the 1938 standard); it reached #18 on the pop chart and #10 on the R&B chart and was later used in the 1973 movie American Graffiti.
Then fifteen-year-old Duane Hitchings, who went on to win a Grammy award for his work on the Flashdance soundtrack in 1984, played keyboards on the track– his first professional gig. In an interview with Rock United, he recalls that the recording session was cut short when singer Pat Spann, who was dating drummer Panama Francis, was caught in a compromising position with the guitarist. “That ended the session. So the last track we recorded was the record.”
“Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist”*…
… something that nature seems to know. The population of the world, now roughly 8.1 billion, seems poised to shrink. To some, this is good news; to others, a cause for alarm. Phoebe Arslanagić-Wakefield and Anvar Sarygulov, co-founders of Boom, fall into that latter camp. But their provocative analysis of the dynamics of the Baby Boom is relevant to anyone concerned with the future of population on earth…
… In the countries that it touched, the Baby Boom created generations massive in size. In the US alone, 76 million babies were born in its peak 18 years, 30 million more than were born in the previous 18, a demographic difference bigger than the 1960 population of Egypt, the Philippines, or Ethiopia. By 1965, people born during the Baby Boom made up 40 percent of America’s population.
Today, a fifth of both the UK’s and the USA’s population are baby boomers and we live in the world they created. Despite that, as mentioned above, the most widely known piece of information about the Boom is its most pervasive myth, that it was caused by the end of World War Two.
The Baby Boom was not the result of people making up for lost time during the war: it saw total lifetime fertility rates rise, meaning that people did not simply shift when they had their children but had more of them overall. And in many countries, including the US, UK, Sweden and France, the rise in birth rates began years before the war had even started, while neutral Ireland and Switzerland experienced Booms that began during the war, in 1940.
Instead, to explain the Baby Boom, we must consider why it was that the iron law of fertility – that as incomes go up, births must come down – was suspended for this extraordinary period of time…
Fascinating and important: “Understanding the Baby Boom,” from @PMArslanagic and @ASarygulov.
By way of further background on our current situation: “Population bomb, bust – or boon? New UNFPA report debunks 8 myths about a world of 8 billion.“
[image above: source]
###
As we grapple with growth, we might send hygienic birthday greetings to Melville Bissell; he was born on this date in 1843. An inventor and entrepreneur, he created and marketed the first modern carpet sweeper… which, as explained in the article featured above, was a seminal contribution to the advances in household technology that helped fuel the Baby Boom.
“Long life is welcome, agreeable, pleasant, and hard to obtain in the world”*…
… maybe, as recent research from Saul Justin Newman explains, even harder than we thought…
The observation of individuals attaining remarkable ages, and their concentration into geographic sub-regions or ‘blue zones’, has generated considerable scientific interest. Proposed drivers of remarkable longevity include high vegetable intake, strong social connections, and genetic markers. Here, we reveal new predictors of remarkable longevity and ‘supercentenarian’ status. In the United States supercentenarian status is predicted by the absence of vital registration. In the UK, Italy, Japan, and France remarkable longevity is instead predicted by regional poverty, old-age poverty, material deprivation, low incomes, high crime rates, a remote region of birth, worse health, and fewer 90+ year old people. In addition, supercentenarian birthdates are concentrated on the first of the month and days divisible by five: patterns indicative of widespread fraud and error. As such, relative poverty and missing vital documents constitute unexpected predictors of centenarian and supercentenarian status, and support a primary role of fraud and error in generating remarkable human age records…
The paper in full: “Supercentenarian and remarkable age records exhibit patterns indicative of clerical errors and pension fraud,” at @biorxivpreprint.
(Image above: source)
* Buddha
###
As we long for longevity, we might send healthy birthday greetings to William H. Welch; he was born on this date in 1850. A physician, pathologist, bacteriologist, and medical educator, He was one of the “Big Four” founding professors at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, the first dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and the founder of the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, the first school of public health in the country.
Welch revolutionized American medicine by demanding of its students a rigorous study of physical sciences and an active involvement in clinical duties and laboratory work. His students included Walter Reed, James Carroll and Simon Flexner.
“To overcome a desperate situation, make a complete turn in one sudden burst”*…
Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, the BBC’s Tokyo correspondent, on the riddle of Japan…
This is the world’s third-largest economy. It’s a peaceful, prosperous country with the longest life expectancy in the world, the lowest murder rate, little political conflict, a powerful passport, and the sublime Shinkansen, the world’s best high-speed rail network.
America and Europe once feared the Japanese economic juggernaut much the same way they fear China’s growing economic might today. But the Japan the world expected never arrived. In the late 1980s, Japanese people were richer than Americans. Now they earn less than Britons.
For decades Japan has been struggling with a sluggish economy, held back by a deep resistance to change and a stubborn attachment to the past. Now, its population is both ageing and shrinking.
Japan is stuck…
His diagnosis and his prognosis: “Japan was the future but it’s stuck in the past,” @wingcommander1 in @BBCWorld.
* Japanese proverb
###
As we ponder progress, we might recall that it was on this date in 2011 that three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant exploded and released radioactivity into the atmosphere a day after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.
The radiation releases forced the evacuation of 83,000 residents from towns around the plant. The meltdown caused concerns about contamination of food and water supplies, including the 2011 rice harvest, and also the health effects of radiation on workers at the plant. Scientists estimate that the accident released 18 quadrillion becquerels of caesium-137 into the Pacific Ocean, contaminating 150 square miles of the ocean floor.
“When you leave the Island of Pentam and sail about 100 miles, you reach the Island of Java”*…
Indonesia is the 14th largest country by area at 735,358 square miles; Java, the island on which the capital Jakarta is located, is only 58,000 square miles– but Java is home to over half the Indonesian population, over 150 million people. It’s the most populous island in the world, and one of its most populous places. Tomas Pueyo explores the reasons why…
Java’s population density is 1,100 people per square km. This is 3x the density of Japan or the Philippines, 7x that of China, 30x that of the US. It’s nearly the density of Houston, Texas. For an entire island! With volcanoes!
Even weirder: Its neighboring islands in Indonesia are not that densely populated. Compared to its big neighboring islands, it’s 8x more densely populated than Sumatra and 30x more than Borneo.
Why!? What made this island so special?
Read on for a fascinating explanation: “Why is Java So Weird?!” from @tomaspueyo via his wonderful newsletter Uncharted Territories.
* Marco Polo (who was probably, it turns out, actually talking about Sumatra)
###
As we dig into development, we might recall that it was on this date in 1497 that Dominican friar and populist agitator Girolamo Savonarola, having convinced the populace of Florence to expel the Medici and recruited the city-state’s youth in a puritanical campaign, presided over “The Bonfire of the Vanities,” the public burning of art works, books, cosmetics, and other items deemed to be vessels of personal aggrandizement. Many art historians, relying on Vasari’s account, believe that Botticelli, a partisan of Savonarola, consigned several of his paintings to the flames and “fell into very great distress.” Others are not so certain. In any case, it seems sure that the fire consumed works by Fra Bartolomeo, Lorenzo di Credi, and many other painters, along with a number of statues and other antiquities.
You must be logged in to post a comment.