Density of population. Distribution

With over 59 million people the UK claims the 14^th place in the world as to its population. Since 1801 until 1991 censuses of the people of the UK has been taken regularly every 10 years (except 1941). In 1901 the British population was 38, 2 million, at the end of the 17^th century it was about 6, 5 million and only 2 million at the end of the 11^th century. The growth of the population was rapidly from the middle of the 18^th century to the end of the 19^th when the average number of live born children per married couple amounted to 6 – 7.

Britain has always been a densely populated country. According to the latest full census taken in 2003 the population density in Britain is 246 per sq km. Britain is the third in Europe (after the Netherlands) – 383 and Belgium – 325). The world extremes are: Hong Kong – 5436 people per sq. km and Botswana – 2 per sq. km. Though density in Great Britain is very high, the country is populated very unevenly. England is most thickly peopled part; its density is 361 per sq. km. The second is Wales – 142 per sq. km, then the Northern Ireland – 125 per sq. km. Scotland is one of the most sparsely populated areas in Europe. There one can motor for hours without seeing another person. The density per sq.km in Scotland is 65 people. Densities of more than 500 people are found in the main industrial areas (such as Midlands and south-east England), the density of Greater London being 4238 people per sq. km.

Britain is highly urbanized country, 90 per cent of its population lives in cities and towns, and only 10 per cent are rural inhabitants. There are 8 major metropolitan areas known as conurbations which accommodate a third of Great Britain’s people while comprising less than 3 per cent of the total land area. They are: Greater London, Central Clydeside, Greater Manchester, Merseyside, South Yorkshire, Tyne and Wear, the West Midlands and West Yorkshire. Most of the mountainous part, including much of Scotland, wales and Northern Ireland and the central Pennies, are very sparsely populated.

As in many other developed countries the recent trend shows a movement of people away from the main conurbations (particular their centers) to the surroundings suburbs.

SOCIAL RATES. SOCIAL MAKE UP

In 60s there was a marked tendency for earlier marriages: young people married in their late teens or early 20. The trend of the 60s towards earlier marriages was reversed at the beginning of the 70s. Since then there has been a slow increase in the average age for the first marriages, which in England and Wales is now just over 26 for men and 24 for women.

Britain has one of the highest divorce rates in Western Europe. The European average is 6, 9 per thousand. The divorce rate in Britain has been increasing steadily, about 167 700 divorces were grated in the UK in 2002, 2, 5 per cent more than in 2001. In 1988 it was 129 for every 1000 married couple in England and Wales, while in 1961 only 2. Nowadays one in almost every two marriages ends in divorce. The rates for Scotland and Northern Ireland are much lower.

The image of the traditional British household of the 50s with 3 – 4 children in a family has changed. Nowadays only 7% of British families consist of 5 or more people. The average British couple today has only 1, 8 children. 29% of the married couples have no children; 28% - have children; 29% - one member families (widows or divorced men), 10% - lone parent families with children. The great majority of single parents are women. There has also been a sharp rise in the rate of illegitimacy. More than 2/5 of all birth were babies born outside marriage – non-marital babies, compared with 12% in 1980.

Another feature of the present British family, common to many other Western European countries, has been a considerable increase in cohabitation. 18% of unmarried people aged between 16 – 59 are leaving with someone without being officially married.

In Britain you can get married in a church or in a registry office. But the proportion of the population who are married has decreased. In 1971 71% 0f men and 68% of women aged 16 and over in England and Wales were married; in 2002 this was 54% of men and 50% of women. Over the same period the proportion that were single or divorced increased, while the proportion of those who were widowed remained fairly constant. First marriages account 83% of all marriages in 1970 but for only 59% in 2002.

As in many other developed countries, the fertility rate (63 births per 1000 women of childbearing age) is low compared with past rates and it remains below the level required for the long-term replacement of the population. Such factors as later marriages, postponement of childbirth, effective contraception, voluntary sterilization of men and women has contributed to the relatively low birth rate.

Birth rate tendencies have brought noticeable changes in the age distribution. There is a marked decline in the proportion of young people under 16 and an increase in the proportion of elderly people, especially those aged 85 and over. Between 1971 and 2003 there was an 18% decrease in the number of children aged under16. In contrast there was 28% increase in the number of people aged 65 and over. Projections suggest that this aging trend continue. The British population is already one of the oldest in Europe, and it is slowly getting older.

Sex distribution is also different. There are nearly 106 female to every 100 males in average in Britain. Total births of boys naturally exceed those of girls by about 6%. But boy babies on an average are more delicate and difficult to rear than girls. So stillbirth and mortality rates at almost all ages are higher for males. Because of their higher mortality there is a turning point at about 50 years age, at which the number of women exceeds the number of men. The imbalance increases with age, among elderly over 70 years old there are 18 women to every 10 men. A rising standard of living and development in medical technology and practice have contributed large declines in mortality rates over the last 100 years. Death rates are higher for males than females in almost all age groups, but the gap between the sexes has narrowed in recent decades.

SOCIAL CLASS SYSTEM 

“We are, by our occupations, education, and habits of life, divided into different species, which regard one another, for the most part, with scorn and malignity” wrote the 18^th – century man of letters, Dr Johnson.

Every country in the world has a class system. But in some way, for some reason, the question of class seems to have a special meaning for the British. This is reflected in the image abroad. Hollywood films have featured lots of upper-class Englishmen always snobbish and usually cruel and stupid. The whole world knows the stereotype of the English gentlemen or lord, often with monocle and tweed jacket, sipping whisky and reading the Times. British class-ridden reputation goes back a long away: in 1755, a French traveler named Jean Rouquet wrote: “The Englishman always has in his hand an accurate pair of scales in which he scrupulously weighs up the birth and rank and wealth of the people he meets”.

The British themselves are obsessed with the issue: it is at the centre of countless novels, plays and films’ and the topic come up again and again in the news media. A vast proportion of British humour is based on the interaction between upper and working classes. Public figures occasionally state that the class system is at the root of the country’s problems, or alternatively that the class system is dead.

The strangest feature of class in Britain is that it is not entirely dependent on money. It seems that you can in certain circumstances be high class but poor or low class and rich. This is important clue to the conundrum: the system must be based on something historical which does not exactly match present conditions. And that is precisely what Britain has: the Royal family and all the dukes, earls and barons are a relic of feudalism. Although these vestiges of the old aristocracy add up to very small numbers of the population, they set the tone for the rest of the class structure. At least 200 years ago, the commercial middle class triumphed over the old land-owning nobles (and Napoleon called the British “a nation of shopkeepers”), but in terms of style and attitude the victory has been the other way round.

A note of caution here: official statistics treat class as a strictly economic distinction. Government figures have mostly been based on a six-point scale of employment types, which is used by market-researches and advertisers.

A Upper middle class (e.g. top managers, doctors and lawyers)

B Middle class (e.g. middle managers, teachers)

C1 Lower middle class (e.g. officer workers)

C2 Skilled working class (e.g. electricians, car mechanics)

D Unskilled working class (e.g. Farm or building labourers)

E Residuals (e.g. unemployed)

Marketing people are the ultimate experts in questions of class – they have to make sure that advertisements for Mercedes cars and Rolex watches go in newspapers read by As and Bs, and advertisements for cut-price cigarettes and car batteries appear where they will be seen by the Cs, Ds and Es.

However, unlike government statisticians, but in common with the rest of the British public, marketing people know that there are many other indicators of social class. Upper class people cook French food for an evening meal which they call dinner or supper, and they drink wine with it; they watch tennis or rugby; they read Times or Daily Telegraph, they name their children Piers or Edward and their daughters Rebecca or Sophie; they listen to classical music; and they buy stocks and shares. Working class people microwave supermarket meals for an evening meal which they call tea, and they drink tea with it; they watch snooker and football; they read the Sun or Daily Mirror, they name their sons Darren or Paul, and their daughters Ashley or Lizzie; they listen to pop music; and they buy lottery tickets.

These are stereotypes, of course, which are humorous and only half true. The two really important indicators of class are education and accent. George Bernard Shaw wrote a satire on the linguistic aspects of class in his play Pygmalion, in which a professor Higgins takes a poor Cockney flower-girl, Eliza Doolittle, and turns her into an upper-class lady by training her to speak with the right accent. Shaw writes: “It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman despise him.” In simple terms, the higher the class, the more resembles that of the royal family.

Whereas most people have regional accents, the upper class speaks in exactly the same way from the south-east of England to the north-west of Scotland. This would seem a remarkable achievement, considering that children normally take on the accent of their surrounding community rather than that of their parents. The explanation is the school they go to. The most central unifying feature of the upper class is that its members go to private school, fee paying schools. Just 7 per cent of pupils in Britain are at private schools, which are quite expensive: the top ones such as Eton (for boys) and Roedean (for girls) cost £15,000 per year. So it is actually quite difficult to maintain your position in the upper class without a lot of money.

The British class system could be dismissed as just a piece of folklore, which makes a visit to the country all the more fun. But unfortunately it seems to get in the way of economic progress because important jobs do not always go to the most able people. While the rest of the world long ago decided that meritocracy was the way to develop successfully, relics of the feudal system still hold Britain back.

GENDER

Many women would argue that there is a different half of the nation which gets less than its share of power, freedom and wealth – female sex. In spite of the considerable changes in social attitude since 1945, particularly since the feminist revolution which began in the 1960s, women are significantly disadvantaged. Men continue to control the positions of power and wealth and are slow to share these with women. In spite of having a female monarch and having a female Prime minister for over a decade, only 6, 2 % of seats in the Commons are held by women. In local government women hold 20% of available seats. As to the senior positions of power in the country none are held by women: no women among judges forming the highest Court of Appeal, out of 304 permanents. Between 1900 and 1990, only two secretaries have been women, no woman has ever been appointed as a Police Chief Constable. Fewer than 3% of university professors are women, only 2% of surgeons are women, and there are only few successful women in business and industry. Women are paid less than men. On average women earns 2/3 and ¾ of man’s pay. Although the Equal Opportunities Act, requiring equal pay and conditions for women, came into effect in 1975, little has changed since then.

In the 1980s the conservative government encouraged young mothers to stay at homes with their children, but this was largely ignored.

In 1931 less than 10% of married women were in employment: over the last 30 years the proportion of married women working has increased from 21% to 49%. About a ¼ of women with children under the age of 5 and about 2/3 of women with school age children go out to work.

Women generally are spending a large proportion of their lives in paid employment. It is now normal for a woman to be in full-time work until the birth of the first child, and increasingly high proportion of women return to work after having a child, although this may be to a part-time job. Women are also returning to work more quickly after having a child. Britain has a high percentage of working mothers compared to some other countries (e.g. Italy, Ireland, and Japan) but provisions for maternity leave and child care are amongst the lowest in Europe.

YOUNG PEOPLE

Despite media reports, not all young people in Britain are punks or football hooligans. There is a wide cross-section of youth from the Young conservatives to Rastafarians, from skinheads to pupils at expensive private schools.

19^th –century Victorian attitudes about how children should be brought up have largely disappeared and for many children family life has become more relaxed and less strict. Many young people in Britain have a considerable amount of freedom and the things they are interested in reflect this: music, television, sex, fashion and money predominate. Being independent and free to choose are priorities. Attitudes towards religion and marriage have changed. Ever since the media discovered the world of teenager, films, videos, TV programs and magazines have been all marketed towards the young.

There are a number of social problems associated with being young: some schools have problems with discipline and motivation; crime and drug-taking in some areas have reached serious levels. During the 1980s unemployment among school-leavers was a particular problem, with many facing a bleak feature with little hope of finding a reasonable job.

For many young people leaving home is a route to independence, although for some this may be financially impossible. Most young couples hope to be able to have their own house or flat: in modern Britain financial pressures are much more likely to restrict this than family pressure.