For those of you that know me, you'll know I love MCHC! The Maryland Collegiate Honors Council is an academic community of honors programs across Maryland, from both two-year and four-year institutions. MCHC hosts a research every Spring, to allow students and faculty to showcase their research. I've been infected with the MCHC since my first time presenting in 2019, after which I volunteered to serve as a Student Board member until 2022!
Since that first time presenting, my experience with MCHC has been nothing but positive each year. I have been honored enough to win the Portz Award as both a two-year and four-year honor student, and helped the conference run virtually during 2021 and 2021. I also helped launch the Student Engagement Team (SET) which helped honors students across Maryland gain greater opportunities to interact with MCHC and the conference planning process, ensuring that the experience would be fine-tuned to their needs.
We also launched a new series that highlighted BIPOC voices, from both students and faculty. These story-centered panels prompted for an intimate break in the academically-driven conference that allowed the community to learn from each other on critical issues related to diversity, equity, opportunity, and respect.
I am extremely proud of my journey with MCHC and the contributions I was able to make. I believe my experiences highlight the unique makeup of the MCHC community and the level of trust the faculty place in students and their voices. I knew I wanted to close out my senior year with another presentation at MCHC.
I chose to present a research paper I had written for my Global Studies Senior Seminar, entitled "Understanding Demographic Trends Through the Lens of Cultural Anthropology." Though I am far from a demographer, I found the study of birth rates and family planning policies to be incredibly interesting, and couldn't disconnect the connection of culture from these practices. My thesis argued that:
"Culture has always been an important variable in understanding demography. So much so that even Thomas Malthus turned to cultural norms and collective values as the basis for “preventive checks to keep population growth under control.” It can even be argued that demographers need culture because, “culture and material conditions exert interdependent and complementary influence on the behaviors that drive demographic change.” Cultural values like family piety and male dominance, that previously encouraged early marriage and multiple offspring, are now clashing with fast-paced urbanization and modern societies, resulting in shifting demographics and a necessity to analyze demography while taking into account cultural anthropology variables. By understanding the differences and similarities between demography and cultural anthropology, and the synthesis the two fields provide through cultural demography, we can analyze current cases of cultural demographic trends, and utilize this knowledge to present representative predictions of future demographic trends, while acknowledging the fusion between culture and urbanization and its subsequent effects on demography and the human race."
That's a mouthful. Basically, what I wanted to explore and argue was that cultural norms not only play a critical role in demography, they can often even dictate demographic trends, by revealing how various communities and nations respond to birth rates and family planning. But first I needed to define important terms. I don't know about anyone else, but I love words, so I always try to include a vocab breakdown in my presentations, because I've found that really helps make the information much more digestible when everyone has the same base understanding of what the words you're using actually mean.
The two case studies I had chosen to explore were South Korea and Kenya. I argued that despite having similar cultural parallels, the nations had vastly different fertility rates, with South Korea under replacement level and Kenya still maintaining a high birth rate. So, what was the core difference? Did cultural analysis provide any insight that demographic trends couldn't explain?
Observing South Korea and Kenya as cultural demographic case studies revealed interesting and contrasting effects of culture on demographic attitudes and trends, in particular when recognizing the role of women and their preferences towards motherhood and childrearing in relation to their respective cultures. For example, due to the large contrast between societal development and gender inequity, South Korean women view their society’s culture as a source of stress and pressure. Whereas, the same familial values in Kenya are largely supported by young women, and often even serve to empower them, such as in the example of the "bride price" app in Kenya, showcasing a fusion between industrial developmental and cultural values. The app allows women greater agency over the process of marriage, whereas work policies in South Korea often punish women for motherhood, prompting a dissatisfied outlook on the idea of family planning and childbirth in South Korea.
These findings reinforced existing research, "While a woman's fertility is influenced by a large number of factors, such as her education, her wealth and income, where she lives, whom she marries, a women’s heritage and cultural norms and beliefs largely influences her preferences for marriage and family size." Furthermore, I shared how research by Dr. Raquel Fernandez and Dr. Alessandra Fogli from New York University highlighted that, “even after controlling for various characteristics of a woman, there is a quantitatively important effect of culture on a woman's work and fertility outcomes.... a woman's cultural heritage, as well as her own personal family experience, are distinct and quantitatively important factors in determining a woman's fertility decisions.”
Culture cannot be removed from the conversation when discussing fertility, birth rates, and demography. I emphasized how in the case of South Korea minimal cultural evolution in conjunction with urbanization has resulted in institutions that retain traditional cultural values but fail to address modern needs, subsequently causing women to avoid marriage and raise kids due to the immense cultural pressures and hardships. In contrast, the case study of Kenya showcases how cultural evolution alongside urbanization efforts has allowed the society to combine traditional cultural values and behaviors with modern needs and perspectives, resulting in Kenyan women maintaining a positive outlook towards fertility decisions, regardless of external economic or educational factors. Cultural evolution in relation to demographic trends proves an essential piece of the puzzle.
"It is imperative for demographers to recall that, in the human species, there is no such a thing as a person without any culture." ― Lebo Tshangela.
I've always been passionate about culture and anthropology, so getting to combine the two with global studies and international policy analysis was extremely fascinating! I enjoyed the conversation that sparked after the presentation, with people from different cultures sharing their own perspectives on the two case studies. Attached below is the full paper that I wrote for the presentation. Please feel free to reach out with any questions!
Comentários