Human Growth and Development Essay Example for Free

Human Growth and Development Essay Human development is marked by different stages and milestones over the lifespan. It is expressed over three domains: physical, cognitive and socio/emotional. While human physical and cognitive development is universal, socio/emotional definitions and development vary from culture to culture. Gaining a basic knowledge of human lifespan development will lead to a better understanding of the appearance, perceptions and behaviors of the self and others. Adolescence is a demanding and critical period in life. Failure to meet certain developmental milestones can have serious short- and long-term implications for the individual and society at large. Adolescence is a transitional stage of physical and psychological human development generally occurring during the period from puberty to legal adulthood (age of majority). The period of adolescence is most closely associated with the teenage years, although its physical, psychological and cultural expressions can begin earlier and end later. For example, although puberty has been historically associated with the onset of adolescent development, it now typically begins prior to the teenage years and there have been a normative shift of it occurring in preadolescence, particularly in females. Physical growth, as distinct from puberty (particularly in males), and cognitive development generally seen in adolescence, can also extend into the early twenties. Thus chronological age provides only a rough marker of adolescence, and scholars have found it difficult to agree upon a precise definition of adolescence. A thorough understanding of adolescence in society depends on information from various perspectives, most importantly from the areas of psychology, biology, history, sociology, education, and anthropology. Within all of these perspectives, adolescence is viewed as a transitional period between childhood and adulthood whose cultural purpose is the preparation of children for adult roles. Stages of Human Development The various stages of human development include the prenatal period, infancy, toddlerhood, early childhood, middle childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, middle adulthood and late adulthood. Each stage is marked by milestones in physical, cognitive, and socio/emotional development. 1. Physical Development Physical development has to do with the way that the human body develops over a lifespan. The most rapid and complex human development occurs during the prenatal period. From infancy to early childhood, the physical milestones include developing motor skills like learning to control body movements, walk, talk, speak, use tools like spoons and forks and use the rest room. From infancy to early childhood, humans grow in height, weight and mass and get their first set of teeth. Middle childhood has only a few physical milestones, such as continued growth at a much slower rate and the gain of permanent teeth. Adolescence is the second most rapid and complex time of human development and is when the sexual maturation process begins. Females begin to grow breasts, their hips expand and they grow pubic hair and begin menstruation, which marks their physical ability to procreate. They may grow a few inches more in height. Males have significant growth spurts and develop facial and pubic hair, their voices deepen and they begin to have sperm-producing ejaculations, signifying their ability to procreate. Young adulthood is when humans are at the prime of their physical development. All of the systems are functioning optimally, making this the best time for reproduction. Middle adulthood brings the beginning of physical deterioration, such as the end of fertility in women, or menopause. The decrease in physical abilities and health for both sexes continues through late adulthood . 2. Cognitive Development Cognitive development has to do with the way humans perceive and experience the world and deals with issues like memory, thinking and decision-making processes and concept comprehension. During the prenatal period, cognitive development is highly enveloped in physical development as the primary tool for cognition; the brain is still being developed. During infancy and early childhood, milestones like speaking, comprehension and object differentiation occur. Thoughts about the world are simplistic, and judgments are made in an either/or framework. Middle childhood brings the beginning of concrete and logical thinking, and adolescence brings about a phase where cognitive judgments are often overridden by feelings and impulses because of the bodys rapidly changing physical and biological climate. Young adulthood is the human cognitive prime, as the capacity for rapid and accurate memory, thought processing and information analysis function at peak levels. Perceptions of the world, judgment and morality become more sophisticated and complex. During middle adulthood, humans are experts at problem solving, although they begin to experience some signs of decline with speed in processing and recall. Late adulthood signifies the continued deterioration of cognitive abilities. Theoretical perspectives There are two perspectives on adolescent thinking. One is the constructivist view of cognitive development. Based on the work of Piaget, it takes a quantitative, state-theory approach, hypothesizing that adolescents cognitive improvement is relatively sudden and drastic. The second is the information-processing perspective, which derives from the study of artificial intelligence and attempts to explain cognitive development in terms of the growth of specific components of the thinking process. Improvements in cognitive ability By the time individuals have reached age 15 or so, their basic thinking abilities are comparable to those of adults. These improvements occur in five areas during adolescence: 1. Attention. Improvements are seen in selective attention, the process by which one focuses on one stimulus while tuning out another. Divided attention, the ability to pay attention to two or more stimuli at the same time, also improves. 2. Memory. Improvements are seen in both working memory and long-term memory. 3. Processing speed. Adolescents think more quickly than children. Processing speed improves sharply between age five and middle adolescence; it then begins to level off at age 15 and does not appear to change between late adolescence and adulthood. 4. Organization. Adolescents are more aware of their own thought processes and can use mnemonic devices and other strategies to think more efficiently. 5. Meta-cognition It often involves monitoring one’s own cognitive activity during the thinking process. Adolescents’ improvements in knowledge of their own thinking patterns lead to better self-control and more effective studying. 3. Socio/Emotional Development Socio/emotional development has to do with how an individual is able to handle emotions, relationships, social situations, and the various roles demanded of them by society. Some aspect of Socio/Emotional standards, such as social expectations, relationships, and roles vary from culture to culture. During infancy and early childhood, the primary relationships are with the parents and based on attachment. Environmental exploration, impulsivity, differentiation of self (from others) and the basics of social interaction are learnt. In early childhood, impulsivity begins to give way to control, and awareness of consequences significantly affects behavioral choices. Middle childhood begins the transition from family orientation to peer orientation, which carries on into adolescence. Issues of identify, sexuality and sexual expression, conflict and resolution and internal stability prevail. By young adulthood, the focus shifts from peers to career, social role, building external stability, finding a mate and starting a family. Middle adulthood is met with the psychological and emotional challenges of facing the mid-life crisis, and a life analysis and inventory is taken. Late adulthood marks the transition from the mid-life crisis. Life reflection, acceptance of death, and legacy building or making social contributions also occur at this phase. I. Identity development Among the most common beliefs about adolescence is that it is the time when teenagers form their personal identities. Egocentrism is being performed by adolescents who then form self-consciousness of wanting to feel important in their peer groups and having social acceptance of fitting into the group. Empirical studies suggest that this process might be more accurately described as identity development, rather than formation, but confirms a normative process of change in both content and structure of ones thoughts about the self. Researchers have used three general approaches to understanding identity development: self-concept, sense of identity, and self-esteem. The years of adolescence create a more conscientious group of young adults. Adolescents pay close attention and give more time and effort to their appearance as their body goes through changes. Unlike children, teens put forth an effort to look presentable (1991). The environment in which an adolescent grows up also plays an important role in their identity development. II. Self Concept Early in adolescence, cognitive developments result in greater self-awareness, greater awareness of others and their thoughts and judgments, the ability to think about abstract, future possibilities, and the ability to consider multiple possibilities at once. As a result, adolescents experience a significant shift from the simple, concrete, and global self-descriptions typical of young children; as children, they defined themselves with physical traits whereas as adolescents, they define themselves based on their values, thoughts and opinions. III. Sense of identity Unlike the conflicting aspects of self-concept, identity represents a coherent sense of self stable across circumstances and including past experiences and future goals. Everyone has a self-concept, whereas Erik Erikson argued that not everyone fully achieves identity. Erikson’s theory of stages of development includes the identity crisis in which adolescents must explore different possibilities and integrate different parts of themselves before committing to their beliefs. He described the resolution of this process as a stage of identity achievement but also stressed that the identity challenge is never fully resolved once and for all at one point in time. Adolescents begin by defining themselves based on their crowd membership. Clothes help teens explore new identities, separate from parents, and bond with peers. Fashion has played a major role when it comes to teenagers finding their selves; Fashion is always evolving, which corresponds with the evolution of change in the personality of teenagers. IV. Environment and identity An adolescents environment plays a huge role in their identity development. While most adolescent studies are conducted on white, middle class children, studies have shown that the more privileged upbringing one has the more successful they will be in the development of their identity. The forming of an adolescents identity is a crucial time in their life. It has been recently found that demographic patterns suggest that the transition to adulthood is now occurring over a longer span of years than was the case during the middle of the 20th century. Accordingly, youth, a period that spans late adolescence and early adulthood, has become a more prominent stage of the life course. This therefore has caused various factors to become important during this development. So many factors contribute to the developing social identity of an adolescent from commitment, to coping devices, to social media. All of these factors are affected by the environment an adolescent grows up in. A child from a more privileged upbringing will be exposed to more opportunities as well as better situations in general. An adolescent from an inner city or a crime driven neighborhood is more likely to be exposed to an environment that can be detrimental to their development. Adolescence is a very sensitive period in the development process of ones life and exposure to the wrong things at that time can have a major affect on decisions someone will make. While children that grow up in nice suburban communities are not exposed to bad environments they are more likely to participate in activities that can benefit their identity and contribute to a more successful identity development. V. Sexual orientation and identity Sexual orientation has been defined as an erotic inclination toward people of one or more genders, most often described as sexual or erotic attractions. In recent years, psychologists have sought to understand how sexual orientation develops during adolescence. Some theorists believe that there are many different possible developmental paths one could take, and that the specific path an individual follows may be determined by their sex, orientation, and when they reached the onset of puberty. VI. Self-esteem The final major aspect of identity formation is self-esteem, ones thoughts and feelings about one’s self-concept and identity. Contrary to popular belief, there is no empirical evidence for a significant drop in self-esteem over the course of adolescence. Barometric self-esteem fluctuates rapidly and can cause severe distress and anxiety, but baseline self-esteem remains highly stable across adolescence. Girls are most likely to enjoy high self-esteem when engaged in supportive relationships with friends; the most important function of friendship to them is having someone who can provide social and moral support. When they fail to win friends approval or couldnt find someone with whom to share common activities and common interests, in these cases, girls will suffer from low self-esteem. In contrast, boys are more concerned with establishing and asserting their independence and defining their relation to authority. As such, they are more likely to derive high self-esteem from their ability to successfully influence their friends; on the other hand, the lack of romantic competence, for example, failure to win or maintain the affection of the opposite or same-sex (depending on sexual orientation), is the major contributor to low self-esteem in adolescent boys. ECONOMIC CRISES CAN HAVE SERIOUS IMPLICATIONS FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT Financial crises, at both the global and the national level, are ubiquitous. This raises concern about the human impacts of crises, especially among more vulnerable populations in developing countries. This is particularly true during childhood and youth, when the brain is developing rapidly, and when socio-emotional and behavioral developments are at their peak. Given the cumulative nature of human development, shortfalls or setbacks at any stage of the life course—from the antenatal environment through adolescence—are often difficult to reverse later in life and may have severe consequences for individual development as well as for the growth and development of successful communities. Thus, it is essential to protect and promote human development in the face of adversity. Three interrelated concepts provide the foundation for understanding the potential impacts of shocks on children and youth. a) Timing: Human development is characterized by critical periods of life during which certain investments must be made to facilitate the achievement of specific milestones in development, or stage salient developmental tasks. These age-related expectations for the mastery of particular tasks provide benchmarks for the abilities that an individual should ideally master by different ages, and that are correlated with successful development and transition to subsequent stages in life. Economic crises can disrupt a young person’s â€Å"normal† development by preventing or delaying the mastery of these developmental tasks at specific stages, which—if uncorrected—can have potential long term consequences. b) Context: Development in childhood and youth is influenced by diverse contexts or settings (family, peers, schools, communities, socio-cultural belief systems, policy regimes, and the economy). The relative importance of these settings changes during the life course. Interactions among these settings determine both the transmission of shocks such as a financial crisis to the young person’s immediate environment and the impact of the shock on her development. As development is partly a function of a person’s repeated interactions with her immediate environment (the proximal processes of human development), shocks can disrupt the contexts in which these processes occur, and hinder a young person’s ability to develop successfully. c) Transmission mechanisms: There are numerous pathways through which a crisis can affect the well-being and development of a young person. Crises may be experienced directly at the individual level (through e.g. a change in aspirations and identity), or indirectly through the family, school, or other settings (through e.g. increased parental stress, parental job loss, a reduction in publicly-provided services). The developing person will experience crises through the loss in income, but also through other channels, such as psychological distress. The relevance of each particular transmission mechanism varies depending on the life stage of the person as well as on the context. Different settings may provide protective factors that prevent, mitigate or attenuate negative impacts; these factors can be a source of resilience, facilitating positive adaptive behavior on the part of the developing person. Effects of economic crises on adolescents Adolescence is a crucial stage in a person’s development. Adolescence is marked by profound physical, emotional, and social transitions; the brain undergoes significant neurological development, and cognitive and socio-emotional abilities take shape. While social expectations of the precise timing of certain transitions vary across countries and cultures, all adolescents are eventually expected to make the transition to adulthood, including entering work, becoming financially independent, and starting a family. Adapting to these new roles and successfully managing this transition requires the mastery of three interrelated stage-salient tasks: 3 a. Autonomy and relatedness: As young people mature, they renegotiate their relationships with parents, peers, teachers, and other adults. Settings outside the family, such as the workplace, become increasingly important. Young people must achieve greater personal and financial independence while maintaining positive relationships with parents and other adults. b. Identity: The process of growing more autonomous and defining one’s role in society requires that adolescents establish personal and vocational preferences and aspirations. c. Goal setting and achievement: The ability to define goals and plan and act strategically provides the foundation for subsequent growth and development. ECONOMIC CRISES CAN IMPAIR HEALTHY ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT Crises affect the opportunities and support structures available to adolescents to develop the cognitive, socio-emotional, and behavioral competencies needed to master the stage-salient tasks. In particular, crises can lead to: i) Limited and unpredictable employment opportunities: Youth employment tends to be more vulnerable to economic crises than adult employment. Young people are often engaged in temporary and unprotected work—such as seasonal, temporary, and part-time jobs—or in sectors particularly vulnerable to economic fluctuations, such as construction. By constraining employment opportunities, as well as the availability of other entry points into the labor market, such as internships and apprenticeships, economic shocks affect the process of acquiring necessary skills, work experience, and achieving financial autonomy. Worsening labor market conditions can also affect adolescents’ expectations, vocational identity, and personal goals, as the context and perceived likelihood of achieving them may change dramatically. ii) Loss of parental employment and income, and deterioration of family dynamics: The threat or realization of losing income or assets can lead to anxiety among parents, which is then transmitted to adolescents throug h parents’ emotions and behaviors. For example, the quality of parenting can be negatively affected, impairing the development of adolescents’ autonomy and ability to form relationships. Impaired family dynamics are linked to mental health problems and heightened incidence of risky behaviors. Research also shows that adolescents who perceive economic stress within their families have lower self-expectations for the future. iii) Changes in the availability of adult role models outside the family: Crises may not only affect intra family dynamics, but also the availability of and interactions with positive role models in the school or community. Lower public expenditure can adversely affect the quality as well as quantity of schooling, while supervised extracurricular activities and out-of-school programs are often discontinued. These reduce the availability of positive adult mentoring relationships, restricting the support and guidance available to adolescents in mastering their developmental tasks. In addition to these disruptions in their immediate environment, adolescents are more aware than younger children of the impact of shocks on socioeconomic status, and they may perceive economic pressures and stigma more directly. This can lead to additional difficulties with psychosocial adjustment, and influence their self-esteem, identity, future orientation, and efficacy beliefs. THE FAILURE TO MASTER CRITICAL TASKS CAN HAVE NEGATIVE IMPLICATIONS FOR ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT. Failure to achieve stage-salient developmental tasks can jeopardize other life outcomes. Although there is considerable heterogeneity across individuals, crises can have particularly negative consequences in the following areas: a) Schooling Employment: Contrary to the experience of idiosyncratic shocks, such as parental job loss, there is no compelling evidence that young people leave school during aggregate crises to work and support the household. Young people have fewer job opportunities in a crisis; this decreases the perceived returns to entering the labor market relative to remaining in school. On the other hand, diminished opportunities for employment can severely affect those young people who do try to enter the labor market. Early un- and underemployment is known to have serious long-term effects on future employment and lifetime income, and these young people often fail to catch up when the economy rebounds. b) Mental health: By altering their relationships, identity, and goals for the future, unexpected life events can affect adolescents’ physical and mental health. Difficulty in the labor market may lead to hopelessness and lower self-esteem, especially for young people who are in the process of forming occupational identities. In fact, unemployment experienced at early ages is associated with stress, depression, and illness later in life. Mental health problems during youth can also lead to lower educational achievement, increased substance abuse, violence, and risky sexual behavior. c) Risky behavior: Economic adversity and its effects on the adolescent and her immediate environment may lead to greater risk taking, although this response is by no means universal. Crises can diminish the quality of parenting, which in turn may increase the likelihood for delinquency among youth. Similarly, stress and mental health problems have been associated with risky sexual activity. But while young people who experience severe stress are more prone to substance abuse, an income shock that decreases disposable income can decrease the consumption of alcohol, tobacco, and drugs. Significance Having some knowledge about human lifespan development is beneficial for many reasons. It increases self-awareness and understanding, which helps with life planning. If a female is aware of the stages of her physical development, for example, she will know that her natural childbearing years are limited. If she wants to have children, she can use family planning to make choices about her education, career and mate to support this goal. Additionally, this knowledge can be helpful for improving relationships and interpersonal communication and resolving conflicts. Conclusion Human development is marked by different stages and milestones over the lifespan. It is expressed over three domains: physical, cognitive and socio/emotional. While human physical and cognitive development is universal, socio/emotional definitions and development vary from culture to culture. Gaining a basic knowledge of human lifespan development will lead to a better understanding of the appearance, perceptions and behaviors of the self and others. Physical development has to do with the way that the human body develops over a lifespan. The most rapid and complex human development occurs during the prenatal period. From infancy to early childhood, the physical milestones include developing motor skills like learning to control body movements, walk, talk, speak, use tools like spoons and forks and use the rest room. From infancy to early childhood, humans grow in height, weight and mass and get their first set of teeth. Cognitive development has to do with the way humans perceive and experience the world and deals with issues like memory, thinking and decision-making processes and concept comprehension. During the prenatal period, cognitive development is highly enveloped in physical development as the primary tool for cognition; the brain is still being developed. Socio/emotional development has to do with how an individual is able to handle emotions, relationships, social situations, and the various roles demanded of them by society. Some aspect of Socio/Emotional standards, such as social expectations, relationships, and roles vary from culture to culture. REFERENCE 1. Human Development, Diane E. Papalia, 9th edition 2. Boyd, D., and Bee, H., (2006). Lifespan Development, Fourth Edition. Boston, MA. Pearson Education, Inc. 3. Chassin, L., A. Hussong, and A. Beltran. 2009. â€Å"Adolescent Substance Use.† In Handbook of Adolescent Psychology. 3rd ed., Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.; Lundberg, P. et al. 2011. â€Å"Poor Mental Health and Sexual Risk Behaviours in Uganda: A Cross-Sectional Population-Based Study.† BMC Public Health 11 (125): 1–10 4. Bell, D., and D. Blanchflower. 2010. â€Å"Young People and Recession: A Lost Generation?† Working Paper. Dartmouth College. 5. See for example Duryea, S., and M. Morales. 2011. â€Å"Effects of the Global Financial Crisis on Children’s School and Employment Outcomes in El Salvador.† Development 6. Policy Review 29 (5): 527–46.; Scarpetta, S., A. Sonnet, and T. Manfredi. 2010. â€Å"Rising Youth Unemployment during the Crisis: How to Prevent Negative 7. Long-Term Consequences on a Generation.† Social, Employme nt, and Migration Working Paper 106, OECD: Paris. 8. Carlson, N. R., Heth, C. (2010). Psychologythe science of behaviour, fourth Canadian edition [by] Neil R. Carlson, C. Donald Heth. Toronto: Pearson. 9. Steinberg, L. (2008). Adolescence, 8th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. 10. American Psychological Association (APA). United States Department of Health and Human Services. 11. Carlson, Neil R. (2010). Psychology: the science of behaviour. Toronto, Ontario: Pearson Education Canada.

Surfing Is Supposed To Be Para :: essays research papers

Surfing is Supposed to be Paradise Every time a new 'untouched paradise'; is discovered, the first thing everyone wants to do is visit it. By their united enthusiasm to find these 'sanctuaries'; people bring the cage of society with them. Very quickly it becomes necessary to erect bars to keep people out. William Tucker 'Is Nature Too Good For Us?'; William Tucker's essay 'Is Nature Too Good For Us'; discusses the complications with the environmental movement to set aside pieces of land as wilderness. One of the main points of Tucker's argument brings up the problem with preserving natural land as wilderness is that these wild paradises often conflict with people's desire to visit these paradises and experience them. Tucker uses the example of Kauai as a paradise that has been ruined by the overuse and overpopulation. Tucker describes how in 1964 the Sierra Club put out an article on the relatively unknown island and by 1979 Time magazine ran an article in which some of the local people expressed their desire to keep outsiders out. The issue of protecting paradise is a hotly debated topic that is currently being fought over by surfers. To a surfer nothing is more rewarding than the search and discovery of perfect uncrowded waves. This notion of the search for uncrowded surf was brought to the attention of the general public with the 1963 release of Bruce Brown's The Endless Summer. The film documented two surfers traveling around the world to exotic locales previously left unexplored by the surfers of Western civilization. The images that Brown brought back to mainstream movie screens forever changed the lives of surfers. This film changed how surfers viewed the world. No longer were surfers confined to their local coastlines, they were inoculated with desire to seek out their own paradise.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Over the years many surfers have found their little piece of paradise and never left. Instead these surfers have opted to spend the rest of their lives surfing the waves they initially had intended to just visit and experience. They never left these beaches because the waves were uncrowded and the beaches were breathtakingly beautiful. Compare this to the modern industrial places in the U.S such as Los Angeles or San Francisco and you can see why surfers are constantly searching for paradise. Surfers get tired of surfing in crowded, polluted, and poor wave producing areas, so they travel.

Cohabitation and Marriage

In the past 40 years there has been a dramatic change in the amounts of marriage and cohabitation, for example 60% of first time marriages end in divorce, which means the amount of second marriages have increased because everyone always wants someone to hold onto in life and you can never be too old to find that someone.Firstly, when a male and female are married, there is important factors to consider. Traditionally it was important for the male to be the ‘Breadwinner’ in the family and bring in the income, and for the female to be a housewife and tend to the children’s needs as well as the household, cooking every meal and cleaning the house. It was important for the family to have a function in society.But now tradition has been pushed aside and now women have careers, Sue Sharpe discovered this change in women’s views on life when she first visited a school in 1976 to see that the girls at the school only had visioned of being a housewife in the future, she then returned to the same school in 1994 to observe that all the girls had dreamed of having careers, this shows that women now having more of a role in society could prove a struggle for men not being the leader anymore.Also in a marriage men and women moreover look for not just love, but friendship. If friendship is not found or one partner doesn’t open up to their lover, then a marriage can start to crumble. Plus divorce is also frowned upon by functionalists. Furthermore in the past 40 years there has been an increase in cohabitation (living together but not being married). There can be many reasons for this, from economical and not being able to afford a wedding seen as the average church wedding costs ? 15,000 or not being ready.One of the most popular reasons is that couples want to in a sense ‘try out’ living with somebody before they spend massive amounts of money and vow to spend the rest of their lives with someone who they might not even like, th is gives them a chance to back out of proceedings and find their soul mate. Moreover another reason that cohabitation is increasing is because of stability. Cohabitation is very rare cases lasts longer than ten years, therefore first marriages are more stable and cohabitation is generally safer for younger couples as they don’t have to rush into the rest of their lives.Feminist’s note that women’s expectations of marriage have radically changed, compared with previous generations. In the 1990s, most divorce petitions were put forward by women. This may support Thornes and Collard’s (1979) view that women expect far more from marriage than men and, in particular, that they value friendship and emotional gratification more than then do. If husbands fail to love up to these expectations, women may feel the need to look elsewhere.This would also support the fact that, on average, the number of divorce proceedings started by women is about 70%. In the past 40 years also, the standard of living has increased greatly, which means people are living longer, this includes; Scientific and medical advances, the welfare state, safer and healthier working conditions, higher accommodation standards, improved education and health awareness, better food and food technology e. g. microwaves and toasters, better hygiene and sanitation and improved medical care.All these factors are huge reasons why people have started living longer, and with people living longer there is more of a chance of marriage in their long lived lifes and more than just one. . On the other hand there has been a decrease in family size, this is because of; More child-centeredness, increasing geographical mobility, improved and ease of access contraception, declining death and infant mortality rate, the welfare state, the changing role of women, compulsory education of children and the change of norms and values.These are all elements in which influence the decline in average fam ily size. Lastly, there has been an increase in marriage because of growing secularization, the changes on the views of religion meant that people from different countries have integrated from their foreign countries and settled in Britain, where they have found love, and for them it is more traditional for them to marry before living together. The basic development of cohabitation is that it is on the increase and has been for the last decade.The proportion of non-married people cohabiting has risen sharply in the last 20 years from 11% of men and 13% of women in 1986 to 24% and 25% respectively. In 2007, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) suggested that cohabiting couples are the fastest growing family type in the UK. In fact, around 2. 2 million families are cohabiting couples with or without children. This family type has grown by 65% since 1997, and really, the numbers are likely to be higher than this because the ONS data did not include same-sex couples living together. In addition, the ONS data suggested that a third of teenagers in 2007 were destined to cohabit rather than marry compared with one in ten of their grandparents. As we gathered that the general trend is on the increase, it’s good to know the reasons why. One of the first reasons, which I mentioned earlier on, is that people like to cohabit to â€Å"test the water. † During this period, they will assess whether they (the couple) are compatible with each other and whether they will be able to live with each other before making any sort of commitments.After all, cohabitation on average lasts for 5 years, which then 60% of cohabitees will then marry. Another reason for the said trend is that there are a significant number of people who live together whilst waiting for a divorce. For example, in 2005, 23% of cohabiting men were separated from a previous partner whilst 36% were divorced. So although a person may be married, they may have separated and moved into another house to live with a person they have met. They will then be counted as a cohabitee.

Time Value - 2842 Words

Time Value of Money Extra Problem Set 1 1. You are planning to retire in twenty years. Youll live ten years after retirement. You want to be able to draw out of your savings at the rate of $10,000 per year. How much would you have to pay in equal annual deposits until retirement to meet your objectives? Assume interest remains at 9%. [$1254] 2. You can deposit $4000 per year into an account that pays 12% interest. If you deposit such amounts for 15 years and start drawing money out of the account in equal annual installments, how much could you draw out each year for 20 years? [$19964.12] 3. What is the value of a $100 perpetuity if interest is 7%? [$1428.57] 4. You deposit $13,000 at the beginning of every year†¦show more content†¦How much would you have to set aside each year if you could put money away starting now? 14. If you put $5000 in the stock market, how many years would it take you to triple your money if the market is making 12% a year? 15. If the effective annual interest rate is 8.5% per year, what is the nominal annual interest rate under monthly compounding? 16. If you put $10 away at the end of each month for the next 40 years at a 12% simple annual interest rate, how much money would you end up with? What if you started at the beginning of each month? 17. If you borrow $150,000 for a house at 8% simple annual interest rate for 15 years, what is your monthly payment? 18. Referring to question 17, how much interest did you pay over the 15 years? 19. What is the value of a $10,000,000 lottery ticket paid out over 20 years if interest rates are at 6%, the average tax rate is 35%, and the odds of winning are 1/7,000,000? 20. How long would it take to accumulate $50,000 if you started putting $5 in the bank every day starting at the end of today at simple annual interest rate of 7.3%? 21. How long would it take to accumulate $50,000 if you started putting $5 in the bank every month starting now at a simple annual interest rate of 7.3%? What if you started at the end of each month? Answers: 1. 3,558 2. 5,131 3. 952 4. 14.87 5.Show MoreRelatedTime Value of Money712 Words   |  3 Pageswill pay the bank over the life of the loan? $123,945.04 4. What is the effective rate of interest on a CD that has a nominal rate of 7.25 percent with interest compounded monthly? EAR = (1+.0725/12)^12 – 1 = 7.5% 5. What is the future value of $4,950 placed in a saving account for six years if the account pays 3%, compounded quarterly? PV = 4,950 N = 6 x 4 = 24 I =3/4 = .75% Pmt = - FV = $5,922.24 6. Your firm, Vandelay Industries, has just leased a $32,000 BMW for youRead MoreTime Value of Money3904 Words   |  16 PagesTime Value of Money Problems 1. What will a deposit of $4,500 at 10% compounded semiannually be worth if left in the bank for six years? a. $8,020.22 b. $7,959.55 c. $8,081.55 d. $8,181.55 2. What will a deposit of $4,500 at 7% annual interest be worth if left in the bank for nine years? a. $8,273.25 b. $8,385.78 c. $8,279.23 d. $7,723.25 3. What will a deposit of $4,500 at 12% compounded monthly be worth at the end of 10 years? a. $14,351.80 b. $14,851.80 c. $13,997.40 d. $14Read MoreTime Value of Money1028 Words   |  5 PagesAbstract The first steps toward understanding the relationship between the value of dollars today and that of dollars in the future is by looking at how funds invested will grow over time. This understanding will allow one to answer such questions as; how much should be invested today to produce a specified future sum of money? Time Value of Money In most cases, borrowing money is not free, unless it is a fiver for lunch from a friend. Interest is the cost of borrowing money. An interest rateRead MoreTime Value of Money1033 Words   |  5 PagesTime Value of Money (TVM), developed by Leonardo Fibonacci in 1202, is an important concept in financial management. It can be used to compare investment alternatives and to solve problems involving loans, mortgages, leases, savings, and annuities. TVM is based on the concept that a dollar today is worth more than a dollar in the future. That is mainly because money held today can be invested and earn interest. A key concept of TVM is that a single sum of money or a series of equal,Read MoreTime Value of Money Analysis1405 Words   |  6 Pages5-42 Integrated Case Time Value of Money Analysis. You have applied for a job with a local bank. As part of its evaluation process, you must take an examination on time value of money analysis covering the following questions: a. Draw time lines for (1) a $100 lump sum cash flow at the end of Year 2; (2) an ordinary annuity of $100 per year for 3 years; and (3) an uneven cash flow stream of -$50, $100, $75 and $50 at the end of Years 0 through 3. (1) 100 0 1 2 100 0 1 2 (2) Read MoreTime Value of Money Essay708 Words   |  3 PagesTime Value of Money Project Show all your work! Name _________________ 1. If Mrs. Beach wanted to invest a lump sum of money today to have $100,000 when she retired at 65 (she is 40 years old today) how much of a deposit would she have to make if the interest rate on the C.D. was 5%? a. What would Mrs. Beach have to deposit if she were to use high quality corporate bonds an earned an average rate of return of 7%. b. What would Mrs. Beach have to deposit if sheRead MoreTime Value11008 Words   |  45 PagesTIME VALUE OF MONEY 1. If you were scheduled to receive Rs 100,000 five years hence, but you wish to sell your contract note for its present value, which type of compounding would you rather have the purchaser of your contract note to use to find the purchase price, 8 percent compounded: (a) (b) (c) (d) (e) Continuously Quarterly Semi-annually Annually None of the above 2. According to the rule of 69, the doubling period is equal to (a) (b) (c) (d) (e) 0.25 + (69/ Interest rate) 0.35 + (69/ InterestRead MoreTime Value of Money2124 Words   |  9 PagesTime Value of Money: Simple Interest versus Compound Interest Outline I. Applications of Time Value of Money 1.1 Example One 1.2 Example Two 2. Interest 2.1 What is Interest? 2.2 Three Variables of Interest 1. Principal 2. Interest Rate 3. Time 2.3 Why is Interest Charged? 3. Simple Interest 3.1 What is Simple Interest? 3.2 Simple Interest Formula 4. Compound Interest 4.1 What is Compound Interest? 4.2 Compound Interest Formula Read MoreTime Value of Money967 Words   |  4 PagesTime Value of Money The time value of money relates to many activities and decision in the financial world. â€Å"Understanding the effective rate on a business loan, the mortgage payment in a real estate transaction, or the true return on an investment depends on understanding the time value of money† (Block, Hirt, 2005). The concept of time value of money helps determine how financial assets are valued and how investors establish the rates of return they demand. Many different types of companiesRead MoreFin U02A2 Time, Value and Money610 Words   |  3 PagesTIME VALUE OF MONEY: ANNUITY CASH FLOWS FIN u02a2 Would you rather have a savings account that paid interest compounded on a monthly basis, or one that compounded interest on an annual basis? Why? Compound interest arises when interest is added to the principal. Therefore, the interest that has been added also earns interest. This addition of interest to the principal is called compounding. If the savings account has $1,000 initial principal and 20% interest per year, the account will have a