Nigeria and Sub-Saharan Africa – Jason

Nigeria is located in West Africa (Nigeria).

To acquire well-rounded learning on my research topic, I decided to learn the demography of the type of countries that is different from the two past posts I have written for my independent study.

China’s One-child Policy – Jason

(Chinese family).

Studying China’s one-child policy has long been my aspiration because of its unparalleled uniqueness to other population control policies. As a country with the world’s second-biggest economy and the largest population than any other nations existed in human history, China’s domestic affairs have tremendous effects also on international affairs (“GDP, current”). Therefore, understanding China’s demographic trend, as well as the reason behind the country’s recent decision to end the policy in 2015, not only enriches my learning of global demography but also educates me as a citizen of the international community.

Germany and France – Jason

Graph 1.1 Change in total fertility rate of the global average, France, and Germany, from 1960 to 2016, data obtained from World Bank Open Data (“Fertility rate”).

In this blog post, I have carried out a comparative analysis of the fertility rates of Germany and France, which have traditionally been compared to each other in the field of birth rate research. I was initially going to conduct research on Germany alone, however, I decided to make a change in my plan for two reasons: to learn what makes France an appropriate target of comparison to Germany, and to see whether comparing different countries allows me to identify the unique characteristics of each country in a more effective manner.

Population Study 101 – Jason

(Demography).

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Before I get into analyzing the case studies of birth rates, I decided to get myself familiarized with the set of basic knowledge for population studies by making use of the e-library of University of Minnesota. Sociology: Understanding and Changing the Social World is a textbook used for courses offered by the Department of Sociology of the university, and the Chapter 19 of the book, titled “Population and Urbanization,” provides explanations for basic principles and vocabulary which will be the basis of the future case studies I will be conducting.

Socio-political research on birth rates – Jason

    I grew up hearing that my home country, Japan, is aging. I grew up being told that people of my generation would have to support older generations’ social welfare in the future. At the same time, however, I had never felt a serious sense of danger until I started studying abroad. As I lived 6000 miles away from my home, the notion of my country steadily aging and shrinking on the other side of the globe suddenly became alarming to me. The concern for my country eventually became a motivation for me to start conducting research on dissecting determinants of birth rates from an interdisciplinary approach.