ABSTRACT
In order to stress the relevance of demography as a subject for study, it is necessary to place population issues in the context of economic, social and political change in Britain in the 1990s. Population change is not an independent variable; it is influenced by underlying trends in economic development and by social and political forces. The majority of issues raised in the preceding chapters are, to an extent, socially determined. The changing patterns of marriage and family formation, health and mortality, and trends in population movement are all strongly influenced by people’s conditions of life and by the opportunities available to them.
