Have been described as large social economic political and technological changes that are slow to form and once in place?

Important socioeconomic changes have occurred in Greece during the recent years in the context of the gradual convergence between national and the EU policies and targets, the effects of globalization, and a large immigration influx. The demographic profile of the country has changed considerably, as well as the demands for qualifications in the labor market in combination with the rapid dissemination of technological innovations. The above-mentioned factors have necessitated the qualitative improvement of all levels of education in a systematic effort to adequately respond to the new challenges. Consequently, acknowledging education as a driver of social cohesion and economic prosperity has determined the priorities set in the framework of educational policies in Greece.

11.5 Supply developments in the energy sector

Substantial socioeconomic and environmental changes are taking place and shaping global energy production. Energy companies are refocusing their strategies and starting to diversify their portfolio to consider consumer's preferences, as well as government policies and environmental regulations. One of the key objectives is to continue to lower costs and achieve a competitive advantage. However, renewable energy is growing rapidly, challenging the absolute dominance of oil and gas; the share of renewable energy in the energy mix is forecast to double in the next decade. One of the drivers for change is the technology that will be instrumental in speeding the energy transition; batteries and intelligent grids are just some of the key technology elements. At the same time, the slow-down in global economic demand, as well as slow-down in oil, and gas demand in key Asian economies, has led to readjustment in the company's strategies in the oil and gas industry. Demand for cleaner fuels is driving the expansion of the LNG industry and investment in LNG infrastructure is supporting the expansion. In spite of global trends shaping the energy market, there are substantial differences across the world. The problems in the developed world are shifting to issues of clean energy and security of supply, but for developing countries, the issues are very different and quite complex and are often anchored on aspects of basic access to energy.

3.1 Women's Educational Attainment

Dramatic socioeconomic changes after World War II brought about important changes in women's status; educational attainment and employment grew, and these changes have also affected fertility. Women's education is a key factor affecting fertility through the timing of marriage, marital fertility, employment, and earnings. In Japan most women were already receiving primary education before World War II; the most notable postwar change has been the steady, rapid increase in the proportion of women with higher education. The proportion of female high-school graduates advancing to higher education increased from 6 percent in 1960 to 48 percent in 1995. The proportion of women aged 25 to 29 who had higher education increased from 10 percent in 1970 to 43 percent in 1990, reaching a par with men in the same age group.

In contrast with Japan, the educational attainment of Korean women was very low in the early postwar years and a sizable proportion of older women had no formal education. This situation has changed dramatically. Only 3 percent of women born in 1936–40 had higher education, compared with 41 percent of women born in 1971–5. The corresponding proportion for men increased from 16 percent to 44 percent; thus the once vast gender gap has almost disappeared. Taiwan has also made impressive improvements in women's education. Educational attainment among Taiwanese women was very low in the early postwar years, with a sizable proportion of older women illiterate. Only 20 percent of women aged 20 to 24 had a high-school education in 1974, increasing to 34 percent in 1995. Since the mid-1970s, about 11 percent of women in this age group have experienced higher education.

Seascapes and Maritime Territories

With the influence of climate change, socioeconomic change and anthropogenic interventions looming large over coastal and maritime spaces, cultural geographers have become increasingly interested in the space of the coasts and the sea. Among the concepts that have been mobilized to discuss the sea in geographical research have been the notion of landscape, and as regards to the sea, the seascape and submarinescape, and the notion of the sea as natural and cultural heritage. Especially the coastal areas and adjacent maritime zones have received special status in many coastal states, owing to the environmental, ecological, archeological, and broadly cultural significance of the coastal and maritime resource. Cultural geography, however, is developing a critical perspective vis-a-vis the currently prevailing model of planning and decision-making with regard to the coast and sea. Planning discourses often emanate from architectural characterization of landscapes, which is problematic for the formation of integrated approaches toward preservation of coastal and maritime resources. A recent movement within geography is prompting a rethinking of maritime and coastal spaces in terms of a metageography that brings together the varied yet enmeshed and intertwined spatial, economic, social, environmental, and political discourses in which the sea and the coastline is contextualized and performed.

This movement to rethinking maritime space is not limited to anglophone geography but resonates with developments in other geographical traditions. New conceptual devices that have been mobilized in doing maritime geography include the “more-than-sea” approach, and the notion of “maritory” derived from maritime territory as this is performed in shipping and territorial aspects of the high seas. As Spence notes, A more-than-sea approach “views the maritime not only in terms of the sea's connections and divides, but also in terms of the diffuse relations that emerge when we view the sea from the sea itself.” The notion of maritory reconceptualizes the territorial formation of the high seas along the lines of mobility, discontinuity, network, and seascape, which aim to contribute to a new interdisciplinary perspective on how the sea and particularly the area of the high seas can be conceptualized in current discourses of the economy, law, and environmental planning and conservation.

Internal Challenges: Demographic and Socioeconomic Changes

Besides these external factors, internal demographic and socioeconomic changes pose further challenges to welfare states; these may be even more important in driving national reform processes [Pierson, 2001]. Most importantly, large-scale deindustrialization and the transition to knowledge economies have aggravated labor markets and further accelerated mass long-term unemployment since the 1970s. Not least as a reaction to the employment crisis, expansion of governmental commitments and welfare state maturation expanded access, benefits, and services, yet this has reached levels of welfare state financing that became politically and economically unviable. Thus there are also domestic reasons for soaring public debt and high nonwage labor costs.

The demographic ‘time bomb’ of aging societies with low birth rate and increasing life expectancy provides a long-term challenge. Aging will increase the costs of pension systems, in particular in pay-as-you-go financed public pensions: ever more pensioners will have to be supported by an ever smaller working population. The EU's old age dependency ratio is projected to double from 26% in 2010 to 53% by 2060. Also, longer life expectancy is seen as a major advancement of functioning health systems and improved public health, the pressures on rising costs for health care and long-term care, particularly for those reaching the Fourth Age with acute risks of physical and cognitive decay. There are also political implications of an ever-older voting population defending their acquired rights, while the small young generation may not have the political clout to overcome intergenerational imbalances.

Further, socioeconomic changes increase the pressure on welfare states in addition to economic downturn following the 2008 global financial crisis. The requirements of today's competitive knowledge society have made those with low skills particularly vulnerable to unemployment and low income. Moreover, changing family, partnership, and household structures require adaptation in various social policies to respond to ‘new’ social risks. Increased divorce rates have led to a larger share of households with a single parent and children with elevated risks of poverty. More generally, reconciliation of work and family responsibility is needed through a coordination of family policies at communal and workplace level. Continued global migration also remains a challenge to advanced welfare states, requiring social assistance and education policies to enhance social integration and cohesion.

3 Ultimate Causes and Consequences of the Decline

Traditional explanations of fertility decline have focused on socioeconomic changes that reduce the demand for children, but more recently there has been a resurgence of interest in theories that emphasize ideational changes and the diffusion of new ideas and forms of behavior. Several features of the Latin American transition suggest that the process represents more an innovation than adaptation to changing economic conditions.

Starting in the 1960s, Latin America underwent a process of modernization that resulted in remarkable improvements in educational levels, a shift away from agricultural work, greater participation of women in the labor force, and a doubling of per capita income between 1955 and 1980. Impressive as these achievements are, the changing socioeconomic composition of the population explains only a small part of the overall decline in fertility, which was driven largely by changes within social strata [Rodríguez 1996]. Moreover, the economic situation changed drastically in the 1980s, as the region experienced a profound crisis [the ‘lost decade’] that eroded standards of living and reduced upward mobility; yet had little if any perceptible effect on the pace of the decline.

More direct evidence on the demand for children comes from data on fertility preferences. Starting in the 1960s, a number of surveys found preferences for small families in high-fertility regimes where women were not using contraception—the so-called ‘KAP gap’—that evolved later into more sophisticated measures of unmet need for contraception and decompositions of fertility into its wanted and unwanted components [Westoff and Moreno 1996.] In countries like Costa Rica the transition seems to have occurred, at least initially, without a corresponding reduction in ideal family size [Rosero-Bixby 1999]. Once the decline is established, however, preferences may well be reduced further. In Peru, for example, the TFR in 1977 to 1978 was 5.3 and its wanted component was only three. Ten years later the TFR had declined to four, but by then wanted fertility had further declined to two children per woman [Bongaarts and Lightbourne 1996]. Still, back in the 1960s demand was already low and there was ample room for fertility reduction by better implementing existing preferences.

The gap persisted because the means to reduce fertility were not widely available at the time, but the situation was soon to change. Family planning programs were introduced in Latin America starting in the 1960s, largely as the result of private initiatives organized with help from the International Planned Parenthood Federation [IPPF] and, in some cases, the United States Agency for International Development [USAID]. A leading private program is Profamilia, which was established in Colombia in 1965 and was a pioneer in the development of distribution networks and the use of radio to promote family planning. In the 1970s a number of governments started to provide services as well: a leader in this area was Mexico, where government clinics opened in 1974. Today most countries have a mixture of private- and public-sector programs, the latter often integrated with maternal and child health services. While estimates of the demographic impact of these programs vary, there is little doubt that they facilitated the transition by increasing the acceptability and availability of contraception [Mundigo 1996, Bongaarts et al 1990].

Once modern contraceptive methods became generally available, all that remained was for women to adopt them. It is here that diffusion or social contagion enters the picture, with friends and relatives playing a key role in terms of information flow and demonstration effects, at least in the early stages of the transition. A multivariate analysis of the spacing and limiting components of fertility shows that once the transition starts in a social stratum, it follows a broad but well-defined path that is consistent with a basic diffusion process [Rodríguez 1996]. In a detailed case study of Costa Rica, quantitative spatial analysis combined with qualitative focus group research provides strong evidence of diffusion effects [Rosero-Bixby 1999]. There is also a growing body of evidence that the mass media, particularly radio and television, can play a significant role. Perhaps the best documented example comes from northeast Brazil, where the fertility decline tracks the spread of television and the extremely popular telenovelas, nightly soap operas that often deal with life-styles, family values, sexuality, and reproductive behavior, and which can have strong if unintended influences on attitudes and values [Faria and Potter 1999].

Assessment of the consequences of the fertility transition is difficult because these changes occurred in times of economic crisis and turmoil [Potter 1996]. There is, however, clear evidence that the decline resulted in lower infant mortality rates [Taucher 1996]. Perhaps of more enduring consequence, the status of women has changed as a result of improved education and reduced fertility. In the words of a New York Times editorial on the subject, ‘For all the machismo in Latin America, women there have gained substantially more rights and better treatment than women in the rest of the developing world.’

3.2.1 Economic Policies Before the 1990s

To Baer [2002], Brazil underwent profound socioeconomic changes following the Great Depression of the 1930s, and especially after the Second World War.

The economic policies adopted in Brazil since the Second World War can be divided into several distinct periods.

From the late 1940s until the early 1960s, industrialization aimed at replacing imports [ISI, import substitution industrialization] was the dominant concern of governments, and foreign policies were shaped in such a way as to maximize this process.

The government’s emphasis was on developing the domestic productive capacity for as many manufactured goods that had previously been imported as possible. It gave special attention to the internal production of sophisticated consumer goods, basic materials, energy and so on.

To achieve these goals, the government adopted various types of exchange control systems and tariffs. For manufactured goods, the effective rates were higher than 250%.

The policies for foreign capital were extremely favorable. Besides the attraction of a large domestic market that was mainly protected, the government adopted other measures favoring companies that established production units in Brazil.

Therefore, ISI should make Brazil’s growth less dependent on the traditional industrial centers of the world; that is, the growth mechanism increasingly would reside in the recent development of the domestic industry sector.

The industrialization strategy based on import substitution bequeathed a number of problems of different types that the policy makers of the next decade would face to ensure continued economic growth.

Although the ISI policy contributed at first to a growth trend in the economy, in 1961 the country faced a crisis scenario, where emerging difficulties outweighed the solutions. The crisis manifested initially as a financial [balance of payments] crisis, which had direct implications in terms of depreciation of the national currency [Bresser-Pereira, 2014].

The economic crisis had as its main causes the increased inflationary pressure due to the high relative prices of food products. The crisis was also due to political factors, particularly to the exhaustion of the ISI strategy [Bresser-Pereira, 2014; Baer, 2002].

The foundations of ISI generated substantial pressures on Brazil’s external accounts. The fact that the policies that guided import substitution had been unilateral—that is, that export promotion and diversification had been totally neglected—now became a significant problem. In other words, Brazil failed to generate surpluses in its balance of payments sufficient to service its external debt and provide foreign exchange for the repatriation of profits by foreign investors [Baer, 2002].

From 1964 to 1974, economic policy makers emphasized the rationalization of the economy; that is, the search for solutions to some of the imbalances and distortions that arose during the most intense period of industrialization in order to replace imports, which included external economic policies that had become more focused on offshore than before.

The design of economic policies after the 1964 regime change was based on the assumption that the high growth rates in the post-ISI era could be achieved only in a more open economic environment than the scenario that prevailed during the 1950s.

In order to increase the rate of growth and diversification in exports, the government implemented a series of measures, such as abolishing state export taxes, simplifying administrative procedures for exporters and introducing a tax incentive program for exports and subsidized credit to exporters [Baer, 2002, p. 245].

From 1974 until the 1980s, as a result of the oil shock and the subsequent debt crisis, there was a renewed emphasis on ISI and the demand for secure supplies of raw materials became the dominant theme in the country’s foreign economic policies. Since 1990, however, policy makers have taken steps to open up the economy by reducing barriers and restrictions on foreign capital [Baer, 2002, p. 243], setting up a new model of economic development that will shape the potential of economic growth, and the strategies of FDI in the country.

Critique of current higher education quality models

Stoddart [2004] argued that, as in other spheres that demand a significant amount of public funding, in recent decades there has been a shift in emphasis from a focus on the individual, and the traditional form of peer review, ‘to the systematic application of external judgments that aim to satisfy the need for accountability’ [in Brown, 2004, p. x]. He explained that the criteria for judgement changed from being internal, tacit and informal to broader ones, accounting for wider socio-economic parameters, because ‘higher education institutions have grown more complex and managerially more sophisticated’ [in Brown, 2004, p. x].

The critics of many current higher education quality models realised that the socio-economic changes in higher education around the world had to bring with them changes to the traditional perspectives on quality. One of these, at times negatively perceived, was a change in focus to the predominantly quantitative, objective and measurable aspects of higher education quality. The aspects of quality that really matter to academics on a more individual, personal level have increasingly been judged as unimportant. For instance, Jones [2003, pp. 223–4] pointed out that:

In an age in which more attention is being placed on developing objective measurements of quality in educational delivery, it is both surprising and alarming that the very purpose of a university, that of educating students, should be apparently overshadowed by concern about administrative measurement issues …

Numerous measures by which to judge quality of educational delivery are being developed, with a particular focus on objectives measured by central administration, and statistical comparison. What is receiving less attention, and stands to be eclipsed as a means of measuring quality, are traditional quality assurance measures, administered by academics at the micro [delivery] level [to assist continuous improvement] …

Jones also highlighted that administering student surveys centrally with a focus on quantitative measures has the potential of giving a very inaccurate picture, and thus it is important to link the centrally collected quantitative data with the collection of qualitative student and teacher feedback to help to create a more holistic picture.

Concerning the balance in focus on improvement as opposed to accountability, Harvey [1998, p. 237] emphasised that: ‘Despite good intentions, quality monitoring has become over-bureaucratic and the potential for significant change has been hampered by a focus on accountability rather than improvement … By focusing on accountability, the transformative potential of quality monitoring is not fulfilled …’

Harvey [1998] further pointed out that quality has become associated with control and that the term ‘quality’ at present is too often used ‘as a shorthand for the bureaucratic procedures than for the concept of quality itself …’ [p. 246]. He further pointed out that this should not come as a surprise,

… as behind nearly all external quality monitoring is a political motive designed to ensure two basic things: that higher education is still delivering despite the cut in resources and increase in student numbers; and that higher education is accountable for public money. [pp. 246–7]

Brown [2004] further emphasised that the focus on auditing is particularly dangerous for higher education, and that, ironically, such an approach in fact threatens real quality in the educational process through its focus on documentation.

Focusing on the British higher education system, Watson [1995] outlined the main arguments against the approaches to higher education quality:

excessive demands on institutions;

violation of academic autonomy and freedom, linked to the fostering of a ‘compliance culture’;

creation of ‘hard managerialism’ and managerial intrusion in academic matters;

damage to Britain’s hard-won reputation for quality. [in Brown, 2004, p. 80]

Further, Harvey [2005] was rather sceptical about the current quality monitoring processes in UK higher education. He perceived quality monitoring as being ‘beset by overlapping and burdensome processes, competing notions of quality, a failure to engage learning and transformation, and a focus on accountability and compliance’ [p. 271]. According to Harvey, it is unfortunate that instead of undertaking a more holistic review of quality issues enabling a reflection, the process was taken over by the Government and its agencies which ‘piled one initiative on another to create the “British quality juggernaut”, as it is referred to in parts of Europe’ [p. 271].

Harvey also argued that: ‘Quality evaluations involve game playing to cast the evaluated programme or institution in the best possible light’ [p. 272]. Thus he believed that quality evaluations are more aimed at compliance, and there is little space for any ‘constructive dialogue to aid real improvement’ [p. 272]. He pointed out that real quality improvement of the student experience happens mostly as a result of internal review and monitoring processes, and that these rely on ‘student feedback, examiners’ reports, and internal improvement audits’ which are far more effective than external reviews, ‘which do little more than result in a flurry of centrally-controlled and produced documentation and evoke a performance and game-playing culture’ [pp. 273–4].

Reflecting on the decade or more of external quality assessment [with particular focus on the UK], Harvey [2005] highlighted that despite the fact that academic staff complied with external quality monitoring requirements and learnt to ‘play the game’, most of them did not perceive that these external quality monitoring processes would result in any ‘significant and long-lasting changes in the student experience’ [p. 274]. He also remarked on some more cynical views which argued that the external quality monitoring mechanisms were devised to hide ‘a worsening academic base’ [p. 274].

Harvey was of the view that evaluations which rely on ‘fitness for purpose’ generally tend to be reductionist and result in fragmenting the concept of quality rather than assisting in further exploring the complex interrelated aspects of quality. His concern was that the ‘bureaucratic and burdensome paraphernalia of quality’ would even increase with the process of internationalisation, and that in such circumstances it is unlikely that the real quality of the student experience would improve.

Further to the concerns expressed by Harvey, Mathias [2004] pointed out that quality assurance favours formal, bureaucratic procedures which are totally disconnected from real teaching issues. According to Mathias, quality enhancement [QE] has become ‘a missing “E” in the quality movement’ [p. 1]. He also underlined the fact that quality assurance [QA] seemed to have brought on ‘worrying trends towards teaching staff disengagement’ [p. 1], and explained that the reasons for this were related to the fact that there was hardly any recognition or reward for quality enhancement, and that personal engagement and satisfaction were overshadowed by excessive demands of quality assurance.

Mathias emphasised that there were, for instance, departmental or institutional rewards [in the form of favourable ratings in league tables] connected to compliance with quality assurance. However, to him, the rewards or drivers towards quality enhancement were ‘difficult to locate’ [p. 1]. He believed that there were some personal gains of professional satisfaction related to QE, nevertheless there were ‘few career and status rewards’ [p. 1] connected to it. This, to Mathias, reflected the reality that institutional learning and teaching policies were increasingly prepared by professional administrators without consulting academic practitioners.

Mathias further argued [2004, p. 2] that: ‘In the politicised environment in which universities now operate, the rhetoric of goals, targets and strategies often gives way to the quick fix.’ He went on to say that this was understandable, given the changing external demands. However, this, according to him, significantly undermined reflection which is essential in the educational process.

Brown [2004, p. 162] summarised the key assumptions for an effective quality assurance system as the following:

The underlying purpose must be improvement, not accountability.

The regime must focus on what is necessary for quality improvement.

The regime must bolster, not undermine, self-regulation.

The arrangements must be meaningful to, and engage, all those involved.

The arrangements must promote diversity and innovation.

There must be adequate quality control.

There must be clear accountability of the agency.

There must be proper coordination with other regulators or would be regulators.

Birnbaum [2000] highlighted some positive potential of introducing new management techniques of quality assurance into higher education in that they may play a crucial part in an organisation’s renewal. They might emphasise alternative values or introduce variety in an otherwise conservative organisation.

However, taking UK higher education as an example, Brown argued that, despite an enormous amount of effort invested into the UK higher education quality assurance, particularly after 1992, the procedures told very little about the actual quality of the UK higher education. According to Brown [2004], this was because the effort has ‘been focused on the wrong targets [comparative judgements of performance] when … [it should have been targeted] at what it is that assists quality improvement’ [p. 163].

Brown also expressed a concern that there was a ‘danger that institutions will come to see periodic external regulation as all the regulation that is needed, and/or that their internal procedures will simply mimic those of the external agency’ [p. 163]. He emphasised that rather than inventing new quality systems, there was a need to map the quality systems onto the existing academic structures and that activities ought to be better coordinated to prevent duplication. In summary, Brown challenges the notion of quality assurance arguing that it may actually be detrimental to quality.

3.4 Changes in Racial Inequalities in Health

Data from the United States suggest that patterns of racial inequality change over time in response to larger socioeconomic changes. For example, although it was noted earlier that the black/white gap in overall mortality was identical in the late 1990s to what it was in 1950, over this time period there were times of both widening and reduced racial differentials in health. For example, the Civil Rights Movement improved the economic circumstances of blacks and narrowed the black/white gap in income during the 1960s and early 1970s. Correspondingly, mortality rates for blacks declined, both on a percentage and an absolute basis, more rapidly than those of whites between 1968 and 1978 [Williams and Collins 1995]. Similarly, during this time period, the life expectancy increases for black males and females were larger on both a relative and an absolute basis than those for whites. However, the economic status of blacks relative to whites stagnated in the mid-1970s and worsened during the 1980s. Similarly, the black/white gap in health worsened for multiple indicators of health status during this decade. The black/white gap in life expectancy, infant mortality, and excess deaths increased between 1980 and 1991 [Williams and Collins 1995]. For example, for five consecutive years after 1984, the life expectancy at birth for blacks progressively declined from 1984 levels, while that of whites continued to increase progressively. These data are consistent with research, which shows that the health of populations is affected by a broad range of economic factors, including growth, stability, and inequality [Brenner 1995]. For example, mortality from all causes tends to increase about two to three years after the low point of a recession. These data highlight that both race and SES have powerful influences on health because, as master statuses, they shape the experience of and exposure to almost all psychosocial and environmental risk factors for health.

Changes in Racial Inequalities in Health

Data from the United States suggest that patterns of racial inequality change over time in response to larger socioeconomic changes. For example, the Civil Rights Movement improved the economic circumstances of blacks and narrowed the black/white gap in income during the 1960s and the early 1970s. Correspondingly, mortality rates for blacks declined, both on a percentage and an absolute basis more rapidly than those of whites between 1968 and 1978 [Williams and Collins, 1995]. Similarly, during this time period, the life expectancy increases for black males and females were larger on both a relative and an absolute basis than those for whites. However, the economic status of blacks relative to whites stagnated in the mid-1970s and worsened during the 1980s. Similarly, the black/white gap in multiple health indicators worsened during this decade. The black/white gap in life expectancy, infant mortality, and excess deaths increased between 1980 and 1991 [Williams and Collins, 1995]. For example, for five consecutive years after 1984, the life expectancy at birth for blacks progressively declined, while that of whites continued to increase progressively.

The economic downturn following 2008 has also been associated with worse health outcomes in the United States, especially among economically disadvantaged minority groups. African-American, Hispanic, and Asian children have been reported as having a higher incidence of asthma in the years immediately following the 2008 downturn [Burgard, 2012]. All groups reported increased psychological distress. These data are consistent with research, which shows that the health of populations is affected by a broad range of economic factors, including growth, stability, and inequality [Brenner, 1995]. For example, mortality from all causes tends to increase about 2 to 3 years after the low point of a recession. These data highlight that both race and SES have powerful influences on health because they shape the experience of and exposure to almost all psychosocial and environmental risk factors for health.