DEMOGRAPHY

demography

Demography is  the science which studies the human populations. This study is primarily  quantitative: demography enters the number of inhabitants of a territory at a given time, the number of births and death, the number of displacements, etc. It thus rests above all on  figures and statistics.

WHAT STUDIES THE DEMOGRAPHERS?

The demographers want initially  to describe the populations per quantities: they study for example the number of births, the number of deaths or the number of inhabitants in a delimited geographical area.

They are interested then in  the composition of this population: they thus will divide the population in groups by age, profession, social category, and place place of work of habitat.

The comparison of the statistics makes it possible  to highlight differences by country. Thus, in France, 7 children out of 1000 die before the one year age; to Mali, 159; in China, 44.

The comparison also makes it possible  to identify evolutions: if the birth rate is higher than the death rate, the population increases.

Demography also seeks  to explain the evolutions  of the population which it highlights. The strong fall of the mortality occurred since  the xviii ^E century in Europe is explained by progress of hygiene, medicine, the food. Demography is thus related on the economy, the history, the geography, medicine, sociology, etc.

FOR WHAT IS USED DEMOGRAPHY?

The statistics make it possible  to identify certain problems  and to set up solutions: when the infant mortality is much more significant in a country than in the others, the State knows that this mortality can be reduced, and can thus seek to promote measurements of hygiene, vaccination, information…

Demography does not have only one descriptive or explanatory interest: it is  a significant tool of forecast  for the State. If the number of births strongly increases, of new schools will be necessary three years later, of new universities 18 years later, of new old people's homes 70 years later. In the same way, if the demographers note that the urban population increases, it is necessary to encourage the construction of residences downtown.

Demography also makes it possible at the State to take measures  to rebalance the generations  or  to influence the number of the population. In the Western countries where the population comprises more and more old people and less and less young people, the State encourages the births by proposing family benefits proportional to the number of children. In other countries, the population is too significant for the size of the country or its capacity to produce enough food for all; the action of the State then aims on the contrary at discouraging the birthrate, while encouraging contraception  —this policy of birth-control can go until prohibition to have more than one child by family.

WHO A INVENTED DEMOGRAPHY?

The first censuses date from the Roman time and spread to  the xix ^E century. Demography itself is a rather recent science: one considers that it was born with the work from  Robert Malthus,  Essai on the principle of population,  published in 1798. This English economist underlined the dangers of the increase in population when the production does not make it possible to nourish it. In France, the economist and demographer  Alfred Sauvy  melt in 1945 the national Institute of demographic studies (INED), whose mission is the study of the problems of population, considered under all their aspects.

TO GO FURTHER

? the census
? the birth rate
? the death rate
? the infant mortality rate
? the life expectancy
? the rate of fruitfulness
? the growth rate of the population
? density of population
? working population

©  2013 " www.amanitheophile.blogspot.com ".  All rights reserved.

TO BE A ROMAN LEGIONARY

to be a Roman légionary

A Roman légionary is  a soldier  incorporated in one of the legions constituting the Roman army  in Antiquity.

HOW Does One BECOME LÉGIONARY IN The ROMAN ARMY?

the standard of the Roman legion

In Roman Antiquity, all  the Roman, old citizens from 17 to 60 years, owe the military service in the State:  the juniores  (17-46 years) carry the weapons, while  the seniores  (46-60 years) constitute the reserve of Rome. Each one must provide its own armament. Richest, which can have and maintain a horse, integrate  the cavalry. The remainder of the troop, combatant to foot, composes the infantry.

The Roman citizens are divided between the various  legions, which count each one approximately 6 000 men including 300 riders. Under the Republic, they are directed by the consuls; under the Empire, it is directly the emperor who directs the whole of the army of légionaries.

WHICH IS The ROLE OF The ARMY IN The POWER OF 

ROME?

The army is the principal instrument of the Roman  conquest. Effective equipment, a rigorous organization and a severe discipline ensure the superiority of the Roman army on its enemies.

After a victory, the General is carried in  triumph  during an official ceremony in Rome. Its best soldiers receive  a share of the spoils. This practice made soldiers of the very devoted men to their head.

Of An ARMY OF CITIZENS To An ARMY OF VOLUNTEERS

In the beginning, the majority of the Roman soldiers are  country small holders. The policy of conquest of Rome impoverishes them dangerously because their grounds remain in waste land the time of the campaigns, which limits their incomes.

This is why, in 107 before J-C, the Marius consul decides to transform the army of citizens into  an army of volunteers. Because this new Roman army pays  a pay  as of the soldiers, it recruits many poor citizens. These new légionaries engage for 20 years (when they are Roman citizens) or for 25 years (when they live in the Roman provinces).

WHAT BECOMES A LÉGIONARY AFTER HIS SERVICE?

At the end of the military service, the Roman légionary becomes  a veteran. After the reform of the army by Marius, the Roman soldiers profit from  a ground  to leaving their military service. These colonies of veterans strongly contribute to the romanisation of the Empire.

TO GO FURTHER

? ancient Rome
? Rome, capital of the Roman Empire
? circus games in Rome
? to be Gallo-Roman

©  2013 " www.amanitheophile.blogspot.com ".  All rights reserved.

ABORIGINALS

Aboriginals

The Aboriginals are  people of Australia. They are approximately 250 000 today, and represent 1,5 % of the Australian population.

The "indigenous" word was used by the European explorers who approached in Australia in 1770; it wants to say the same thing as "autochtones" or "natives", i.e. it indicates the first inhabitants of a region. Even if the Aboriginals of Australia train people, each group distributed on the Australian territory has  its own name, its art, its traditions.

Some 250 languages aboriginals would have existed before the colonization of Australia by Europeans, and perhaps 500 or 700 tribes.Today  only one score of languages  would be usually spoken and 70 others would be  disappearing. Many Aboriginals speak English in addition to their language.

A TRAGIC HISTORY

The Aboriginals would have arrived to Australia  there is more than 50 000 years  (the island was then uninhabited); they would have from India by the sea, would have reached New Guinea, and finally Australia. Europeans discover them at the same time as Australia starting from  the xvii ^E century.

But the British colonization which begins in 1788 turns to the tragedy. Eliminated by  the massacres,  the diseases, dispossessed of their territory,  off-set  in great number, the Aboriginals are gathered in missions or reserves, become today of the communities.

Much had to settle in the cities, but remained in margin of the company. They know  a rate of very high unemployment  and their life expectancy is 20 years lower than those of the other Australian ones. They obtained a true Australian citizenship only in 1967. Thanks to their fights, they obtained rights and, since 1992, the restitution of some territories, but  their combat continuous. This combat relates in particular to  the protection of their identity,  the access to the land property  and  the disappearance of the economic and social inequalities  of which they are victims.

WANDERING Hunters-gatherers

Deprived of its grounds, the population aboriginal saw  his traditional way of life destroyed little by little. The Aboriginals were wandering hunters-gatherers. They moved in their territory in small groups and established campings of huts or stone shelters. They fished and drove out animals like the kangaroo, the wallaby, the émeu or the tortoise, using nets, of hooks or lances, but also of engines  (will woomera)  and boomerangs.

There were no really heads;  the old ones  took care of the good application of the social and religious laws. Each clan had an animal or a plant like  totem, representing his ancestor founder.

THE TIME OF THE DREAM

The Aboriginals  are very attached to the ground  and have  a large respect for nature. For them, each tree, each rock, animal or mountain, each tribe, with its laws, its beliefs and its territory were created by their ancestors, of the spirits resulting from the ground. They call this remote mythical time the "time of the Dream". After having transmitted to the men knowledge necessary to their survival and their existence in company, the heroes of the ancestral culture disappeared inside the ground.

The ritual one however make it possible to enter the time of the Dream. The time of a particular ceremony, the participants themselves become the primitive ancestors and, recalling their voyages, again live the "strong" time of creation. In the same way, when somebody dies, its heart turns over in this time when it was before being born.

A VERY RICH AND DIVERSIFIED ART

This great myth was transmitted orally by the legends and the ritual one, but also thanks to  the cave paintings  (painted on the walls of the rocks or the caves); oldest go back 45 000 years. Those of the west of the ground of Arnhem, the mountains of Kimberley and the peninsula of York Cape are among most famous. They represent the supernatural ancestors, such as the maker of rain  Wandjina,  the Man-flash or the snake Arc-in-Sky. Indigenous art, very rich, includes/understands also paintings of animals and the human ones where are represented the internal skeleton and bodies (they are known as "with x-rays" because they make think of radios), as well as paintings on bark or ground.

Indigenous art knows  a true revival  since the years 1970. Artists of the desert comb fabrics to acrylic painting in a geometrical style, with circles, lines, small points. Others turn today to the cinema, the music, the literature.

TO GO FURTHER

? history of Oceania
? Australia

©  2013 " www.amanitheophile.blogspot.com ".  All rights reserved.