Theme 2: Social and Economic Change

Social and economic change is influenced by population change and globalisation. Populations around the world are changing in size, structure, and distribution. At the same time, globalisation — the interdependence of countries as a result of the integration of people, trade, finance, and ideas — is increasing. The transforming processes of population change and globalisation have a range of impacts affecting both societies and the environment at local, national, and global scales. These impacts may result in inequality in food security, access to health care, and access to education, as well as inequality in economic growth.

Topic 3: Population change

Population change is occurring on a local, national, and global scale. This change is caused by population trends, including increased life expectancy and the movement of people, such as urban migration or refugees. This results in social and economic change and inequality. Population change can be investigated through contemporary case studies and the use of specific examples.

Students develop their knowledge and understanding in the following areas:

Population trends

• changing birth and death rates
• increased life expectancy and ageing
• changing population structures
• consequences of changing population structures
• economic and sociocultural factors influencing population trends
• contemporary case studies of population trends in economically developed countries and economically developing countries.

Movement of people

• global distribution of the human population
• types of migration within countries and between countries
• causes of migration, including push and pull factors
• the impacts of migration at origin and destination
• community and political responses to the voluntary and forced movement of people
• contemporary case studies to illustrate the causes and consequences of movements of people in specific locations.

Topic 4: Globalisation

Globalisation means that the world is simultaneously shrinking and expanding. As a result of changes in transport and technology, borders are increasingly irrelevant. On a local scale, transformation is caused by the globalisation of social networks and exchanges of information and cultures so that local communities are influenced by events occurring globally. At the same time, there is a response to globalisation at local levels because of the resulting economic inequalities, threats to the environment, and social and political challenges.

Students develop their knowledge and understanding in the following areas:

• Patterns of globalisation and how globalisation is measured.
• Factors influencing globalisation and localisation.
  The focus of this study may include one or more of the following:
  • finance and investment flows, such as investment by multinational companies and foreign governments, foreign aid patterns, labour flows and remittances, ‘buy local’ initiatives
  • technology, such as growth of the Internet, information flows, internet commerce, connections to the local community
  • transport, such as time–space compression, expansion of shipping and air networks, public transport, lifestyle choices.
• Impacts of globalisation and localisation.
  The focus of this study may include one or more of the following:
  • local communities, such as changing employment opportunities, demographic change
  • culture, including Indigenous cultures, such as loss of language and land, changing food styles
  • politics, such as radicalisation across the world, managing local issues
  • the environment, such as deforestation, growing local produce.

Topic 5: Transforming global inequality

Global inequality can be caused by environmental, social, economic, and political factors. Environmental factors, such as available resources, climate conditions, frequency of natural disasters, diseases, and available food sources, influence global inequality. Political instability, the status of women in society, and population trends and movements are social factors impacting on equality. Economic factors caused by globalisation have brought advantages, but are also drivers of inequality.

Students develop their knowledge and understanding in the following areas:

• indicators used to measure global inequality
• global patterns of inequality
• global economic power structures, multinational companies, and corporate responsibility
• government, non-government organisation (NGO), community, and corporate responses to global inequality.
  
  The focus of this study may include one or more contemporary case studies on the following:
  • access to health care, including access to hospitals and doctors
  • food security, including the globalisation of agriculture
  • access to education
  • sustainable development goals.