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– Nelson Mandela

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Population Studies-Discussion (1)

Population Studies-Discussion

Q Please watch this documentary: Demographic Winter. It features several prominent demographers, and, regardless of whether you personally agree with the interpretation provided, it stimulates thoughts related to the content of this course. NOTE: As with most documentaries, this was created by a group with a distinct viewpoint and political agenda (which you will probably figure out by watching). While some of the demographic facts are correct, the way they are interpreted is certainly in a way that portrays certain types of families and choices as better than others (e.g., traditional and patriarchal as the best). In addition, many of the "facts" presented are not confirmed by HIGH QUALITY research (e.g., the idea that men today do not want to marry which is NOT true), which gets back to the idea that some of what was presented was exaggerated or not backed up by high quality or non-biased research. I hope you keep this in mind when thinking about it and when watching any documentary. They all tend to have agendas which can color how they present "facts." Regardless, share some of your thoughts while connecting them to the family and household transition we learned about from the Week's textbook. Feel free to provide critiques of the video as well in terms of their interpretations (e.g., what kinds of families are they discounting, for example?) and of the actual data.

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First of all, I have found this video very interesting in its content and approach. In general, we learn more about the population explosion than the “Demographic Winter”. According to the several published articles, the population of this earth exceeds its capacity and for this reason there would be a devastating effect on the population, including on their health, consumption level and the standard of living (Hickman, 2011). But this documentary emphasizes on the opposite side of the coin, an excessive population decline.