Showing papers in "Population and Development Review in 1982"

Two Kinds of Preindustrial Household Formation System

Abstract: Available data strongly suggest that the household formation systems of all populations in preindustrial northwest Europe shared common features that distinguished these populations from those of India China and many other preindustrial societies. Using censuses and similar data sources this essay describes and contrasts household formation rules common to northwest Europe simple household systems of the 17th and 18th centuries with those common to joint household systems. In northwest Europe late marriage was common for both sexes and married people were almost always in charge of their own household (with the husband as head). Before marriage young people often circulated between households as servants. In joint household systems both sexes married early and the young couple usually joined the household of which the husband was a member. Joint households (those comprising more than 1 married couple) had a tendency to split. The paper devotes special attention to the way in which the splitting of joint households operated in different societies. Another section shows how a substantial proportion of young people in preindustrial northwest Europe were servants at some stage in their lives. It is suggested that the institution of service may have been an essential part of the mechanism that by varying age and extent of marriage adjusted fertility to prevailing economic conditions. (authors) (summaries in ENG FRE SPA)

Circular Migration in Indonesia

Abstract: not only to the widespread incidence, but also to the social and economic significance of circulation, seasonal migration, and commuting within Indonesia. The bulk of this mobility, however, goes unrecorded in large-scale demographic surveys and censuses, which routinely adopt the familiar criteria and questions designed to detect predominantly longer distance, more-or-less permanent changes in usual place of residence. The low levels of the latter type of movement revealed by these censuses and surveys appear to confirm the conventional stereotyping of most Indonesians (and in particular the inhabitants of Java) as immobile peasants who are born, live, and die in the same house, scarcely traveling beyond the confines of their natal village. Although the interprovincial, more-or-less permanent migration detected by the census is but one subset of total population mobility in Indonesia, in the absence of more comprehensive national (or even regional) level statistics census-defined migration and population mobility have become synonymous in the literature.1 This paper reviews the findings of a number of intensive studies carried out in several parts of Indonesia to establish whether nonpermanent population mobility is a phenomenon of social, economic, and demographic significance in Indonesia. Evidence from a large number of surveys demonstrates the widespread occurrence of temporary forms of population mobility in Indonesia and the many forms that mobility takes. The major explanations that have been put forward to explain this mobility are then summarized. Accelerating levels of temporary population mobility have both short- and long-term implications for achieving a more equitable distribution of wealth within Indonesia. A number of these issues are raised in the concluding section of this paper. Several directions in continuing research into nonpermanent mobility are identified in which demographers could make a significant contribution to the understanding of fundamental changes taking place within Indonesian society.

Development from above or below? : The dialectics of regional planning in developing countries

Abstract: Develops a new approach to the theory and practice of regional development planning in a Third World context. Defines two concepts basic to most regional development strategies--development from above and development from below--analyzing the advantages and disadvantages of each in dealing with spatial inequalities. Sets forth a new theory of spatial development supported by case studies drawn from market-oriented and socialist countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

The causes of demographic change in rural South India: a micro approach.

Abstract: Study to explain changes in demographic behavior observed in a small area of rural Karnataka over the last third of a century. An anthropological approach was employed with the authors living in villages several months per year learning by participant observation. Censuses and surveys were also employed. Among the demographic changes observed are declining mortality rising age at female marriage reductions in fertility and shortened periods of postnatal female sexual abstinence and lactation. These demographic changes are products of massive social and economic changes including growth of nonagricultural employment; expansion of exchange at the expense of home production and consumption and increasing monetization and commercialization of exchange; the provision of schools; establishment of a dense network of health care centers and doctors; and attempts to implement land reform. Resistance to sterilization virtually the only family planning option offered in this area is strong due to doubts about the reality of economic and social gains and fears of physical consequences.

Women in agriculture: counting the labor force in developing countries.

Abstract: The undercounting of women in the labor force by censuses and labor force surveys has attracted considerable comment. This paper examines conceptual problems in the farm labor force (self-employed wage laborers and unpaid family workers) obtained from population censuses and surveys from estimates prepared by the International Labour Office (ILO) and from censuses of farm holdings coordinated by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN--each of which follows different definitions and procedures. Of the 3 sources population censuses including labor force surveys and official estimates generally yield the lowest proportion female in the agricultural labor force whereas the censuses of agriculture conducted under sponsorship of the FAO yield the highest proportions. The total farm labor is generally larger and women and children form a higher proportion of the total when the definition of economic activity includes farm production for subsistence only unpaid work by family helpers and homestead-based crop processing and similar activities in addition to field-based production and processing activities. A regression of FAO agricultural censuses of ILO estimates for comparable years from 21 countries is used as a basis of making new estimates of the proportions female in the agricultural labor force in 82 countries of sub-Saharan Africa North Africa the Middle East Asia and the Caribbean for which standardized ILO estimates are available for 1970. For all 82 countries combined the proportion of women in the agricultural labor force increases from 30 to 42% and the variation around the mean is substantially reduced. The plausibility of the new estimates is supported in many cases by similarity to figures from population censuses not accepted by the ILO. The new estimates are relevant to agricultural development planning and to theories of gender role and labor allocation.

Child mortality differentials in Sudan

Abstract: 2 micro data sources are used to describe major dimensions of child mortality variation in Sudan. The 1st a sample of household records from the 1973 Census of Population reveals an extraordinarily strong regional variation in mortality levels even after controlling for certain conventional household socioeconomic indicators. These regional differentials suggest the importance of the macro-environment of disease for understanding sources of variation in Sudanese mortality. The 2nd data source a survey of Khartoum conducted by John Caldwell contains a much richer set of independent variables. The analysis shows a strong intergenerational influence on child mortality that works primarily through mothers years of schooling; and important role for assortative mating particularly that involving cousin marriages; and very sharp differentials in child mortality according to mothers years of schooling and husbands income. The hypothesis that mothers education influences child mortality by altering her status in the family was not supported. (authors) (summaries in ENG FRE SPA)

Groping in the dark; the first decade of global modelling.

Abstract: This book is the real life history of global modelling. It is concerned with the major models and those who make them, the whole craft of modelling, and their principal results. A feature is the honesty, candour, and clarity with which the authors discuss what global modelling taught them about modelling and what it taught them about the world. It could be described as a book on the sociology of a new science struggling with problems too large for the participants but too important to ignore. This book is written for those who make complex models of complex social systems, those who have to make these systems work, and those who live in and care about the social systems that modellers make and about which decision makers make decisions.

International Migration and Development: Indians in the Persian Gulf

Abstract: As countries with great wealth low populations and labor shortages the gulf states rely heavily on imported labor to fuel the development process. They do not allow migrants to become citizens. This article examines the social economic and political effects of this strategy of development by exploring the role of Indians who with Pakistanis form the largest group of migrants to the Gulf states. The apparent impermanence of migration to these states (reflected in receiving and sending countries policies and in the migrants attitudes and behaviors) is illusory it is argued. Such fundamental structural changes have taken place in the economies and labor markets of the region that non-nationals are an enduring part of the labor force. (authors) (summaries in ENG FRE SPA)

National urbanization policy in developing countries

Abstract: This report focuses on the need for national urbanization policy. First, it presents a worldwide perspective on urbanization and explains why the need for active urbanization policies is greater for developing countries than it was in the past for economies that are now developed. It then discusses the factors affecting national spatial development and gives a country typology for national urbanization strategies. It also covers the determinants of the growth of urban systems, touching on migration, rural-urban interaction, and the roles of transport and industrialization. Next, the current status of national urbanization policy is assessed. The report concludes with a discussion on appropriate national urbanization strategies. The appendices cover urbanization issues in Latin America and in large centrally planned economies, such as the Soviet Union and China.

Can Knowledge Improve Forecasts

Abstract: Major theoretical advances in understanding the operating forces of society have not led to corresponding improvement in techniques of forecasting. Ranging across the major socioeconomic theories bearing on demographic trends - from demographic transition theory to human capital theory - this paper asks whether there are scientific results neglected by forecasters that would help population forecasting and, if not, what it is in the nature of scholarship that makes it unusable for this purpose. The static and conditional nature of most theory, the presence of confounding factors that swamp the postulated effect, and uncertainty of timing are among the major limitations in application of theoretical insights to forecasting. Pending discovery of a truly behavioral way of estimating the future, extrapolation of the observed regularities of the past remains the best that can be expected.

Demographic foundations of new sex roles.

Abstract: Increased life expectancy and widening sex differentials in mortality in modern society are producing changes in the population distribution by age and sex that have wide implications for the relations between men and women. The changes give rise to a surplus of females at old ages. Because men customarily marry women younger than themselves female surpluses among the older unmarried population are extremely large. Policy measures to reverse the age gap at marriage are implausible. Instead social responses to the situation take the form of unconscious adaptations in sex roles including a lessening of the importance of marriage for women and efforts to eliminate any sex-based division of labor. (authors) (summaries in ENG FRE SPA)

Population studies and population policy in China.

Abstract: Demography is developing rapidly in China. Official population data formerly withheld are now being rapidly released . Some restrictions however remain. Chinas demographers should be allowed to analyze criticize and adjust the data so that they more adequately reflect demographic realities. Chinese demography should de-emphasize "theory" in favor of more empirical research. In the area of population programs the success of family planning in China is due largely to administrative pressures which often amount to coercion. Officially coercion is forbidden but mandatory quotas and targets cannot be attained without it. Instead of having to justify family planning goals and policies Chinas demographers should be free to provide objective evaluations. (authors) (summaries in ENG FRE SPA)

Socioeconomic mortality differentials in a rural area of Bangladesh

Abstract: The inverse correlation between mortality and socioeconomic status [SES] has been documented in various parts of the developing world. Using 1974 socioeconomic status information from Matlab Bangladesh the authors show a similar inverse relationship. Several indicators are used such as education of household head mothers education size of dwelling and health practices. SES data from a pilot study undertaken in 1981 in five villages from the same area corroborate the result that mothers education provides a striking indicator of mortality levels in young children. (summary in FRE SPA)

The direction of intergenerational transfers and demographic transition: the Caldwell hypothesis reexamined

Abstract: In explaining the demographic transition Caldwell in a series of papers has given singular importance to a change in the direction of intrafamily intergenerational transfers and an associated shift in parental motivations to bear and rear children from economic to psychic advantages which accompanies socioeconomic development and modernization. In 2 recent papers this author initiated a longterm project with the goal of constructing an economic theory of the demographic transition. Early work on this project has several parallels with Caldwells theory and with an independent statement of a similar view by Ryder. The work also emphasized the connection between fertility and the intergenerational distribution of income and consumption within the family and attempts to trace the mechanisms by which socioeconomic development may lead to fertility transition. This paper represents both a summary and extension of the recent work and related theoretical literature with emphasis on its application to demographic transition theory. The main substantive conclusions follow from the assumption that modern economic development is driven by sustained technological change that is translated into growth in real income via investments in human and physical capital. At a given rate of population growth a rise in the productivity of human and physical capital due to improved technology increases the mean age at which it is optimal for an individual to produce his/her lifetime wealth relative to the age at which lifetime wealth is consumed in steady state. This in turn tends to shift the steady state direction of net intergenerational transfers from a situation in which the young transfer to the old under primitive technological conditions to a situation in which the old transfer to the young with more advanced technology. In the former case a rise in population growth increases per capita wealth and welfare and in the latter case it reduces them. The author concludes his reexamination of the Caldwell hypothesis by advancing an alternative version that reverses the line of causation that he emphasizes and instead emphasizes the crucial role that the family and particularly parental altruism plays in the process of economic development. A purely self interested older generation refuses to reduce its consumption either directly of indirecly via intermediary institutions that operate in impersonal private markets because the benefits of the investment are reaped by the younger generation after the older generation is dead. On the other hand an older generation of altruistic parents considers the success of their sons and daughters as a substitute for their own success.

Agrarian structure and labor mobility in rural Mexico.

Abstract: This article examines the economic factors that affect labor allocation of rural landholding households in four areas of Mexico. The original research objective was considerably narrower, focusing on the "push factors" causing illegal migration to the United States. However, it soon became apparent that restricting the analysis to US migration would make it impossible to distinguish among factors that cause members of households to work off-farm in general, and those that condition this wage labor to take various forms, such as local labor, circular or permanent migration within Mexico, or migration to the United States. At its broadest level, this is a study of the relationship between rural development and labor mobility. Yet, as tempting as it is to focus entirely upon the theoretical issues involved, especially those raised by the emerging literature on circulation and on peasant household decision-making, this study will keep the issue of undocumented migration plainly in sight. Its conclusions, which challenge the assumption of an inverse relationship between rural economic development and undocumented migration, have important implications for the effectiveness of development programs in slowing the long-term outflow of rural migrants and for the suitability of a guest-worker program as an "interim" solution to the current situation of insufficient job opportunities in Mexico and high levels of illegal migration to the United States.

Marriage and remarriage in populations of the past

Abstract: This book contains the proceedings of the International Coloquium on Historical Demography organized by the International Committee on Historical Sciences and the International Union of the Scientific Study of Population and held in Kristiansand Norway September 7-9 1979. The colloquium focused on the theme of remarriage and its effects on fertility (SUMMARY IN ENG FRE) (ANNOTATION)

Family formation patterns and health

Abstract: Family formation patterns and health , Family formation patterns and health , کتابخانه مرکزی دانشگاه علوم پزشکی تهران

Global trends in migration: theory and research on international population movements.

Abstract: This book contains revised versions of papers originally presented at a conference on international migration that was sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation and held in Bellagio Italy in June 1979. "The conference was organized to review the state of the art in the field of international migration evaluate current migration trends and assess the implications for research and policy." The papers are arranged in three sections. In Part 1 concerned with theoretical issues the authors examine how political economic and social structures both at the national and international level shape current international migration patterns and policies. Part 2 focuses on international migration trends and policies in six geographic regions including Western Europe Australasia and the South Pacific Canada and the United States the Caribbean the Southern Cone of Latin America and the Middle East and North Africa. In Part 3 the incorporation of migrants into host societies is considered and return migration policies are discussed. A general bibliography is also included. (EXCERPT)

Population Trends and Policies in Vietnam

Abstract: Vietnam in recent years has succeeded in lowering both its death and birth rates. The rate of natural increase has fallen somewhat, but was on the order of 2.4 or 2.5 percent per annum in 1980, sufficient if continued to double the population in about 28 years. This rate of increase occasions great concern in official planning circles, given Vietnam's difficulties in feeding its population and the imbalance in population distribution, with particularly severe pressure in the Red River Delta in the North (see Figure 1). The government's response has been to set ambitious targets with regard to both population growth and distribution: the aim is to lower the rate of population growth to 1.7 percent per annum by 1985, to move 10 million people from the North to the South by the year 2000, and to hold constant the size of cities in the South. Large-scale programs to attain these goals have been set in motion. After reviewing the historical problems of population pressure on the land, principally in the North, and touching briefly on overall economic conditions, this paper reports on available demographic data for North and South Vietnam and describes government policies and programs to deal with the problem. Although Vietnam was unified in 1975, in considering rates of population growth and availability of demographic data it is necessary to maintain the distinction between North and South, because the situation differs so sharply between these two regions. The information was derived largely from published Vietnamese sources, unpublished data from the 1979 census, the vital registration system and the family planning program, discussions with government officials, and field visits undertaken by the author in 1981 as a member of a Basic Needs Assessment Mission of the United Nations Fund for Population Activities.

Demography in the United States: A Partial Account of the Development of the Field

Abstract: A full account of the development of population studies in the United States is needed, but that is not the purpose of this undertaking. Its purpose is to tease out from part of that story several threads of activity by people and organizations that helped establish the field. As one who has grown up with the field and been involved in parts of the activity and planning, as both a foundation and a university man, I feel competent to tell the story about those parts. If I were to treat elements of the story with which I've been less intimately connected, I would risk a very uneven account. So this undertakes to be the story of the development of that part of American demography with which I have been most involved.' I should also note the peculiarities of our field before discussing the ways in which decisions have been made. Demography has two main foci, one in the biological sciences, and the other in the social sciences. In neither case does the core material that is unique to the study of human population represent any substantial proportion of the scientific field. The biologists are generally geneticists, physiologists, or ecologists. The social scientists are generally sociologists, economists, statisticians, and occasionally anthropologists, psychologists, or political scientists. Since the major part of our scientific equipment lies in our background professions, all of us tend to come to the subject with the modes of thought, orientation, and prejudices of our background disciplines. Geneticists and ecologists are concerned with systems that are not uniquely human and are often subject to experimental manipulation. Because they try to understand and foster systems, they tend to be relatively less concerned about the individuals that comprise populations and tend to carry this attitude over to their thinking about humans. The social scientists, being concerned with the systems of human interrelationships, tend to concentrate on the ways in which humans can use nature, not just live on equal terms with it. Save

Inequality of family income: do wives earnings matter?

Abstract: Recent decades have witnessed a sharp increase in the labor force participation of married women. This paper investigates the effect of wives earnings on family income distribution. In particular the author examines the impact of changes in the participation rate and of the earnings gap between wives and husbands on family income inequality in Israel. (EXCERPT)

Chinas one-child family: policy and public response.

Abstract: Despite evidence of opposition to official population policies the government decided to adopt the 1 child family as its goal in 1979. This paper explores the economic social and demographic conditions that led to the decision. Official intentions and public response as recorded in journals newspapers and official radio broadcasts are assessed and some of the implications for socioeconomic development of successful promulgation of such a policy are indicated. Initial cooperation with the policy is no guarantee of permanent acceptance. Each new cohort will have to be induced to accept the 1 child policy a task described as increasingly difficult because of the greater numbers currently getting married. The governments ability to overcome rural resistance and the forces of tradition is uncertain. (authors) (summaries in ENG FRE SPA)

Mortality transition in South and East Asia: technology confronts poverty.

Abstract: Available data often of a fragmentary nature suggest that the pace of mortality decline in low income countries of south and east Asia has been slowing down in recent years and in some cases a reversal of the downward trend may even have set in. The near stagnation of mortality levels is occurring at higher levels of mortality than previously anticipated; it appears to reflect widening within-country mortality differentials; and it is paralleling slowdowns in economic growth rates. 3 broad areas in which explanations for this trend may be sought are the effect of changes in population structure the impact of health care strategies and health policies and the supply and distribution of food. Evidence for the impact on mortality of trends in these areas is reviewed and implications for the future are suggested. (authors) (summaries in ENG FRE SPA)