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A generation is all of the people born and living at about the same time, regarded collectively. It also is "the average period, generally considered to be about 20–30 years, during which children are born and grow up, become adults, and begin to have children." In kinship, generation is a structural term, designating the parent–child relationship. In biology, generation also means biogenesis, reproduction, and procreation.
Millennials, also known as Generation Y or Gen Y, are the demographic cohort following Generation X and preceding Generation Z. Researchers and popular media use the early 1980s as starting birth years and the mid-1990s to early 2000s as ending birth years, with the generation typically being defined as people born from 1981 to 1996. Most Millennials are the children of Baby Boomers and older Generation X. In turn Millennials are often the parents of Generation Alpha.
The United States is a country primarily located in North America. Demographics of the United States concern matters of population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations, and other aspects regarding the population.
The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line, or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for the average adult. The cost of housing, such as the rent for an apartment, usually makes up the largest proportion of this estimate, so economists track the real estate market and other housing cost indicators as a major influence on the poverty line. Individual factors are often used to account for various circumstances, such as whether one is a parent, elderly, a child, married, etc. The poverty threshold may be adjusted annually. In practice, like the definition of poverty, the official or common understanding of the poverty line is significantly higher in developed countries than in developing countries.
Fertility in colloquial terms refers the ability to have offspring. In demographic contexts, fertility refers to the actual production of offspring, rather than the physical capability to reproduce, which is termed fecundity. The fertility rate is the average number of children born during an individual's lifetime. In medicine, fertility refers to the ability to have children, and infertility refers to difficulty in reproducing naturally. In general, infertility or subfertility in humans is defined as not being able to conceive a child after one year of unprotected sex. The antithesis of fertility is infertility, while the antithesis of fecundity is sterility.
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The Easterlin paradox is a finding in happiness economics formulated in 1974 by Richard Easterlin, then professor of economics at the University of Pennsylvania, and the first economist to study happiness data. The paradox states that at a point in time happiness varies directly with income both among and within nations, but over time happiness does not trend upward as income continues to grow: while people on higher incomes are typically happier than their lower-income counterparts at a given point in time, higher incomes don't produce greater happiness over time. One explanation is that my happiness depends on a comparison between my income and my perceptions of the average standard of living. If everyone's income increases, my increased income gives a short boost to my happiness, since I do not realize that the average standard of living has gone up. Some time later, I realize that the average standard of living has also gone up, so the happiness boost produced by my increased income disappears. It is the contradiction between the point-of-time and time series findings that is the root of the paradox: while there is a correlation at a fixed point, there is no trend over multiple points. That is, in the short run, everyone perceives increases in income to be correlated with happiness and tries to increase their incomes. However, in the long run, this proves to be an illusion, since everyone's efforts to raise standards of living lead to increasing averages, leaving everyone in the same place in terms of relative income. Various theories have been advanced to explain the paradox, but the paradox itself is solely an empirical generalization. The existence of the paradox has been strongly disputed by other researchers.
Richard Ainley Easterlin was an American economist. A professor of economics at the University of Southern California, he is best known for the economic theory named after him, the Easterlin paradox. Another of his contributions is the Easterlin hypothesis about long waves of baby booms and busts.
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Demographic economics or population economics is the application of economic analysis to demography, the study of human populations, including size, growth, density, distribution, and vital statistics.
A two-child policy is a government-imposed limit of two children allowed per family or the payment of government subsidies only to the first two children.
In demographic terms, aging refers to an increase in the proportion of senior citizens to the total population. The term "senior citizen" encompasses those aged 65 or older. In 2045, South Korea is projected to become the world's most aged population, surpassing Japan. Senior citizens will reach 46.5 percent of the population in 2067, outnumbering the working age population.
In recent decades, the fertility rate of the United States has declined below replacement level, prompting projections of an aging population and workforce, as is already happening elsewhere in the developed world and some developing countries. The decline has been most noticeable since after the Great Recession of the late 2000s. Nevertheless, the rate of aging in the United States remains slower than that seen in many other countries, including some developing ones, giving the nation a significant competitive advantage. Unintentional pregnancies have become less common; in particular, teenage pregnancies have dropped to record lows.
References
- ↑ Richard A. Easterlin. 1961. “The American Baby Boom in Historical Perspective.” American Economic Review 51 (5): pp. 869–911.
- ↑ Richard A. Easterlin. 1975. Studies in Family Planning, 6 (3): pp. 54-63.
- ↑ Matthias Doepke, Moshe Hazan, and Yishay D. Maoz, 2015. "The Baby Boom and World War II: A Macroeconomic Analysis," Review of Economic Studies, vol. 82(3), pp. 1031-1073.
- ↑ Matthew J. Hill, Easterlin revisited: Relative income and the baby boom, Explorations in Economic History, Volume 56, April 2015, Pages 71-85.
- ↑ Pampel, Fred C.; Peters, H. Elizabeth (1995). "The Easterlin Effect". Annual Review of Sociology. 21: 163–194. ISSN 0360-0572.
- ↑ Diane J. Macunovich. 1998. "Fertility and the Easterlin hypothesis: An assessment of the literature," Journal of Population Economics vol 11, pp.1–59.
- ↑ Easterlin RA. 1979. What will 1984 be like? Socioeconomic implications of recent twists in age structure Demography, 15: 397-432. PMID 738471 DOI: 10.2307/2061197