The Political Consciousness of Post-Industrialism@@@The Silent Revolution: Changing Values and Political Styles among Western Publics.

In this article, I argue that the trends associated with the second demographic transition are following two trajectories and leading to greater disparities in children’s resources. Whereas children who were born to the most-educated women are gaining resources, in terms of parents’ time and money, those who were born to the least-educated women are losing resources. The forces behind these changes include feminism, new birth control technologies, changes in labor market opportunities, and welfare-state policies. I contend that Americans should be concerned about the growing disparity in parental resources and that the government can do more to close the gap between rich and poor children.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/1515222.pdf

Diverging destinies: How children are faring under the second demographic transition

This article presents a narrative of the unfolding of the Second Demographic Transition (SDT) since the theory was first formulated in 1986. The first part recapitulates the foundations of the theory, and documents the spread of the SDT to the point that it now covers most European populations. Also for Europe, it focuses on the relationship between the SDT and the growing heterogeneity in period fertility levels. It is shown that the current positive relationship between SDT and TFR levels is not a violation of the SDT theory, but the outcome of a "split correlation" with different sub-narratives concerning the onset of fertility postponement and the degree of subsequent recuperation in two parts of Europe. The second part of the article addresses the issue of whether the SDT has spread or is currently spreading in industrialized Asian countries. Evidence gathered for Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan is presented. That evidence pertains to both the macro-level (national trends in postponement of marriage and parenthood, rise of cohabitation) and the micro-level (connections between individual values orientations and postponement of parenthood). Strong similarities are found with SDT patterns in Southern Europe, except for the fact that parenthood is still very rare among Asian cohabiting partners.

https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/79230/j.1728-4457.2010.00328.x.pdf?sequence=1

The Unfolding Story of the Second Demographic Transition

Home-based models of hospice and palliative care are promoted with the argument that most people prefer to die at home. We examined the heterogeneity in preferences for home death and explored, for the first time, changes of preference with illness progression. We searched for studies on adult preferences for place of care at the end of life or place of death in MEDLINE (1966–2011), EMBASE (1980–2011), psycINFO (1967–2011), CINAHL (1982–2011), six palliative care journals (2006–11) and reference lists. Standard criteria were used to grade study quality and evidence strength. Scatter plots showed the percentage preferring home death amongst patients, lay caregivers and general public, by study quality, year, weighted by sample size. 210 studies reported preferences of just over 100,000 people from 33 countries, including 34,021 patients, 19,514 caregivers and 29,926 general public members. 68% of studies with quantitative data were of low quality; only 76 provided the question used to elicit preferences. There was moderate evidence that most people prefer a home death–this was found in 75% of studies, 9/14 of those of high quality. Amongst the latter and excluding outliers, home preference estimates ranged 31% to 87% for patients (9 studies), 25% to 64% for caregivers (5 studies), 49% to 70% for the public (4 studies). 20% of 1395 patients in 10 studies (2 of high quality) changed their preference, but statistical significance was untested. Controlling for methodological weaknesses, we found evidence that most people prefer to die at home. Around four fifths of patients did not change preference as their illness progressed. This supports focusing on home-based care for patients with advanced illness yet urges policy-makers to secure hospice and palliative care elsewhere for those who think differently or change their mind. Research must be clear on how preferences are elicited. There is an urgent need for studies examining change of preferences towards death.

/pdf/heterogeneity-and-changes-in-preferences-for-dying-at-home-a-2wk8hu6gqd.pdf

Heterogeneity and changes in preferences for dying at home: a systematic review

Cohabitation has risen dramatically in the United States in a very short time. So, too, has the amount of sociological research devoted to the topic. In the span of a bit more than a decade, family sociologists and demographers have produced a large and rich body of research, ranging from documentation of cohabitation to assessment of its various consequences and implications. I first review basic descriptive findings about cohabitation as well as common explanations for its striking increase over recent decades. I next identify the central questions motivating most of the extant research and provide an assessment of past research as a whole. Finally, I speculate about themes that will be central to future research on cohabitation and consider the implications of cohabitation for gender equality in the United States and social science research on families.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/223434.pdf

Cohabitation in the United States: An Appraisal of Research Themes, Findings, and Implications

The Maslowian theory of the articulation of higher order needs was correlated to the classic economic utility theory and additional ecological theories concerning cultural mobility were considered. The notions of individuation embourgeoisement and civil religion form the foundation of interpretation of changes in Western family formation. The operationalization of these concepts was described and a model of ideational change was proposed. The model of ideational change is cohort-and education-driven; a period-cohort interaction is recognized that may capture the dialectics of idealization and subsequent disenchantment with institutional regulation. The two most salient features of Western ideational change have been the precesses of secularization and individuation. A value scale used exerted a marked impact on the proportion of young women currently cohabiting (or sharing). In Belgium Denmark France and Germany with sharing a minor confounding factor large deviations from the grand mean persisted after control for age and the two variables capturing material circumstance. Agnostics postmaterialists world citizens and nonconformists in familial matters exhibited 7-14% more nonmarital cohabitation at ages 18-29 than the average (23% among women not living with parents). Conversely young women with regular church attendance materialists nationalists and conformists fell 7-17% short of the grand mean. When Ireland United Kingdom the Netherlands which have more sharing or Italy and Spain with unknown proportions of sharing were included the deviations from the overall mean were only slightly attenuated for the religiosity and nonconformism scales. It was documented that cultural changes are not unstructured or simply endogenous. The individuation process has continued to progress despite the degradation of economic opportunities for young adults in Western Europe. The Durkheimian dimension of social integration via the acceptance or refutation of institutional regulation had a direct relationship to changes in family formation family distribution and procreation during the postwar period.

Cultural Dynamics and Economic Theories of Fertility Change

The core issue in this article is the empirical tracing of the connection between a variety of value orientations and the life course choices concerning living arrangements and family formation. The existence of such a connection is a crucial element in the so-called theory of the Second Demographic Transition (SDT). The underlying model is of a recursive nature and based on two effects: firstly, values-based self-selection of individuals into alternative living arrangement or household types, and secondly, event-based adaptation of values to the newly chosen household situation. Any testing of such a recursive model requires the use of panel data. Failing these, only “footprints” of the two effects can be derived and traced in cross-sectional data. Here, use is made of the latest round of the European Values Surveys of 1999-2000, mainly because no other source has such a large selection of value items. The comparison involves two Iberian countries, three western European ones, and two Scandinavian samples. The profiles of the value orientations are based on 80 items which cover a variety of dimensions (e.g. religiosity, ethics, civil morality, family values, social cohesion, expressive values, gender role orientations, trust in institutions, protest proneness and post-materialism, tolerance for minorities etc.). These are analysed according to eight different household positions based on the transitions to independent living, cohabitation and marriage, parenthood and union dissolution. Multiple Classification Analysis (MCA) is used to control for confounding effects of other relevant covariates (age, gender, education, economic activity and stratification, urbanity). Subsequently, Correspondence Analysis is used to picture the proximities between the 80 value items and the eight household positions. Very similar value profiles according to household position are found for the three sets of countries, despite the fact that the onset of the SDT in Scandinavia precedes that in the Iberian countries by roughly twenty years. Moreover, the profile similarity remains intact when the comparison is extended to an extra group of seven formerly communist countries in central and Eastern Europe. Such pattern robustness is supportive of the contention that the ideational or “cultural” factor is indeed a non-redundant and necessary (but not a sufficient) element in the explanation of the demographic changes of the SDT. Moreover, the profile similarity also points in the direction of the operation of comparable mechanisms of selection and adaptation in the contrasting European settings.

/pdf/value-orientations-and-the-second-demographic-transition-sdt-29e0u7tmq1.pdf

Value Orientations and the Second Demographic Transition (SDT) in Northern, Western and Southern Europe: An Update.

Since most patients prefer out-of-hospital death, place of death can be considered an indicator of end-of-life care quality. The study of trends in place of death is necessary to examine causes of shifts, to evaluate efforts to alter place of death and develop future policies. This study aims to examine past trends and future projections of place of death. Analysis of death certificates (decedents aged ≥ 1 year) in Belgium (Flanders and Brussels Capital region) 1998-2007. Trends in place of death were adjusted for cause of death, sociodemographic characteristics, environmental factors, numbers of hospital beds, and residential and skilled nursing beds in care homes. Future trends were based on age- and sex-specific mortality prognoses. Hospital deaths decreased from 55.1% to 51.7% and care home deaths rose from 18.3% to 22.6%. The percentage of home deaths remained stable. The odds of dying in a care home versus hospital increased steadily and was 1.65 (95%CI:1.53-1.78) in 2007 compared to 1998. This increase could be attributed to the replacement of residential beds by skilled nursing beds. Continuation of these trends would result in the more than doubling of deaths in care homes and a decrease in deaths at home and in hospital by 2040. Additional end-of-life care resources in care homes largely explain the decrease in hospital deaths. Care homes will become the main locus of end-of-life care in the future. Governments should provide sufficient skilled nursing resources in care homes to fulfil the end-of-life care preferences and needs of patients.

https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/5826914/file/5826931.pdf

Study of recent and future trends in place of death in Belgium using death certificate data: a shift from hospitals to care homes

The first demographic transition refers to the original declines in fertility and mortality, as witnessed in Western countries already from the
18th and 19th centuries onward, and during the second half of the 20th
century in the rest of the world. At present, there is hardly any country
left without a beginning of a fertility decline brought by the manifest use
of contraception. Moreover, this first demographic transition (FDT) was
equally accompanied by an overhaul of family formation systems. In the
West, the control of fertility within wedlock occurred in tandem with a
reduction in final celibacy and a lowering of ages at marriage, signaling
a major departure from its old Malthusian nuptiality system. In the rest
of the world, early marriage for women-often the result of arrangements between families or lineages-gave way to much later marriage,
partly because of more individual partner choice and partly as a
response to economic factors. But on the whole, William Goode’s prediction of 1963 forecasting a rise in non-Western ages at marriage has
largely been borne out by the record of the last 40 years. This increase
in ages at marriage has furthermore been a major component in the
overall fertility decline in many such countries.

Johan Surkyn

Papers

Cultural Dynamics and Economic Theories of Fertility Change

Value Orientations and the Second Demographic Transition (SDT) in Northern, Western and Southern Europe: An Update.

Study of recent and future trends in place of death in Belgium using death certificate data: a shift from hospitals to care homes

When History Moves On: The Foundations and Diffusion of the Second Demographic Transition

New Forms of Household Formation in Central and Eastern Europe: are they related to newly emerging Value Orientations?