Showing papers in "Population Studies-a Journal of Demography in 1984"

Socio-economic factors in Infant and child mortality: A cross-national comparison

Abstract: Using results from the World Fertility Survey (WFS) for 28 countries, socioeconomic differences in neonatal, postneonatal, and child mortality were examined. To maintain some degree of comparability and to make presentation of the results feasible, focus was on 5 variables which are available for each survey. It can be argued that each of the 5 socioeconomic variables considered here--mother's education, mother's work status since marriage, current or most recent husband of mother's occupation and education, and current type of place of residence of mother--affects infant and child mortality, although often as surrogates for other variables which were usually not directly available. For over 24 countries, the neonatal mortality rate varied from 84 in Nepal to 15 in Malaysia. In Nepal the rate for children of the skilled and unskilled was high (124) but where the husband had received 7 or more years of education the rate of 54 was low. At the other extreme, rates in Malaysia varied from 5 when mother's had 7 or more years of education to 23 for offspring of the least educated husbands. The highest overall postneonatal rate of 89 was again found in Nepal and the lowest national rate in Trinidad and Tobago at 13. In 9 out of 24 countries the high values were over 3 times as great as the low values and the absolute difference exceeded 30/1000 in 13 countries. Differences on child mortality are substantial, reflecting the greater influence of socioeconomic factors on mortality in early childhood. Nationally, the values ranged from 186 in Senegal to a low of 8 in Trinidad and Tobago. In only Haiti, Guyana, and Pakistan did the ratio of the maximum to the minimum rates for sizeable groups fall below 2. At the other extreme, in 5 countries the ratio exceeded 10 and in a further 6 was above 4. Differences between the high and low groups within countries exceeded 30 in 18 out of 28 countries and were over 50 in 10 of these. In 9 countries the highest rates occurred among mothers with no education and in a further 6 among husbands with no education. Education of mother, followed by education of her husband and his occupation were generally the strongest explanatory variables. The work status of the mother was not likely to be an important explanatory variable in these analyses. Results of a multivariate analysis suggested intriguing differences in the relative roles of different socioeconomic variables. Mother's education seemed to play an important role in determining children's chances of surviving in several Latin American and South East Asian countries. In no country did husband's level of education appear in all 3 models. The occupation of the husband was possibly the purest indicator of socioeconomic status, and this factor appeared in the models for all 3 segments of infant and child mortality. Mother's work status appeared least often.

An economic analysis of the timing of childbirth

Abstract: Summary In this paper we present a new ‘home economics’ model of the timing of the first birth. The child-timing decision is treated as a multi-period planning problem in which the date of first birth influences both the mean and the dispersion of the household's intertemporal income distribution. Couples are assumed to use capital markets and the timing of childbirth to smooth life-cycle consumption. Optimal timing is shown to depend upon the rate at which job skills depreciate during unemployment, the wife's pre-marital work experience, the opportunity costs of completing a family, and the mean and dispersion of the husband's intertemporal earnings profile. The theory is tested with statistics drawn from the National Longitudinal Surveys. The results strongly support those theoretical hypotheses that can be tested and offer insights into timing patterns. If the upsurge in women's labour force participation and educational involvement continue, our work implies that there will be a marked economic incent...

The Effect of birth spacing on childhood mortality in Pakistan

Abstract: Summary In this study retrospective data from the 1975 Pakistan Fertility Survey are used to examine the effects of birth spacing on infant and child mortality. The length of the preceding interval between live births emerges as a major determinant of mortality. The effect persists for rural and urban families, for children of uneducated and educated mothers, for both boys and girls, and for large and small families. The possibility that this relationship is the spurious consequence of data defects or of a common cause, such as early weaning, is examined but rejected. Once the length of the preceding interval is controlled, the average spacing of earlier births is found to be unrelated to survivorship. However, the length of the succeeding interval is significantly related to survivorship during the second year of life.

British mortality and the value of life, 1781-1931.

Abstract: Summary How can we value human life? How should we weight longevity experience in assessing gains in the workers' standard of living since the Industrial Revolution began? What price did the British worker himself place on extended longevity and lower mortality risks? These questions have been at the heart of the standard of living debate at least since Adam Smith raised them in the Wealth of Nations. This paper applies Usher's willingness-to-pay model to British mortality experience between 1781 and 1931, experience which is now far better understood with the recent appearance of Wrigley and Schofield's The Population History of England. While the main body of the paper deals with the average economic gains associated with improvement in longevity, it also briefly discusses the far more difficult issue of class mortality experience and trends in inequality

The effects of children on divorce and re-marriage: a multivariate analysis of life table probabilities

Abstract: Summary Using proportional hazards models and multiple decrement life tables to analyse data from the 1973 National Survey of Family Growth, this study tests the hypotheses that, net of the effects of such factors as age at separation or divorce, the probabilities of divorce after separation and of re-marriage after divorce would be lower for women with larger numbers of children or younger children, and that these transitions would take longer than for women with fewer or older children or women who were childless; and that there would be an interaction between number of children and age of youngest child. Results included: (1) the probability that mothers of two or more children would divorce after separation was significantly lower than for childless women, or those with only one child; (2) among whites, mothers of three or more children were at a significant disadvantage regarding their chances of re-marriage, whereas the probability that a black mother of three or more children would re-marry was no ...

Sources and Methods of Historical Demography.

Abstract: This book is \"designed to inform the wide variety of researchers interested in historical population studies about the fundamental sources methods and approaches to explanatory modeling that appear...most promising for describing analyzing and understanding demographic features of past societies.\" Examples of sources and empirical research in different regions of the world are included. The book is divided into five parts. The first section provides an introduction to the intellectual ancestry of historical demographic research. Part 2 deals with fundamental source materials including sources of prehistoric demography parish registers and civil registration records enumerations and censuses genealogies and population registers and organizational and institutional records. Part 3 focuses on methods of population reconstruction and analysis of historical sources and Part 4 on major themes in causal model building and hypothesis testing. Attention is given to population genetics biometric evolutionary-ecological and socioeconomic models. In the conclusion the need for an interdisciplinary approach to historical demographic research is stressed. (EXCERPT)

Fertility exposure analysis: A new method for assessing the contribution of proximate determinants to fertility differentials.

Abstract: Summary Several recent papers have dealt with the problem of assessing the impact of the proximate determinants on fertility. All these approaches rely on combining a series of separately estimated aggregate level indicators. This paper proposes an approach which uses individual-level data and thus permits regression analyses as well as analyses for sub-groups. In the course of development it became clear that there are several deficiencies and inconsistencies in the measurement and formation of indices proposed elsewhere, which are overcome. We illustrate our approach with data from the Dominican Republic. The approach used involves attributing exposure to one or more of several states, including pregnancy, lactational and non-lactational components of post-partum amenorrhoea, absence of sexual relations and contraception. Key elements are efficacies of contraception and components of post-partum infecundity and the treatment of overlaps through an explicit hierarchy. We treat both unconditional (or addi...

Transforming gompertz's function for fertility analysis: The development of a standard for the relational gompertz function.

Abstract: Summary The relational Gompertz function improves upon the Gompertz for fertility analysis by achieving a better fit in the tails of the distribution. This is obtained by a transformation of the age scale corresponding to an empirical standard. This standard is developed from Coale and Trussell's model and is appropriate for use with populations of high fertility. The model is tested on two sets of data and is shown to produce good estimates of completed fertility even for data truncated at quite early ages. Good results are also obtained for declining fertility.

Natural fertility in pre-industrial England, 1600–1799

Abstract: Summary In this paper the result of 14 family reconstitution studies of parishes in England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are analysed. It is shown that the prevailing regime of childbearing within marriage was one of natural fertility and that no convincing evidence exists, in the aggregate, for family limitation. Moreover, none of the 14 parishes when analysed individually shows any significant sign of family limitation. In addition, it is apparent that the level of marital fertility was low in comparison with other populations with natural fertility regimes and that there was little regional variation, levels and age-patterns of fertility being similar in all 14 parishes.

Induced fertility transition: impact of population planning and socio-economic change in the People's Republic of China.

Abstract: The relative influence of population planning programs and socioeconomic development on fertility decline in the different provinces in China is assessed using provincial fertility and socioconomic data. The differences in rates of fertility decline that existed in the 1960s became larger in the 1970s even as government efforts to curtail fertility intensified giving rise to the question whether socioeconomic factors might have played a part to some extent. To examine the theory 4 hypotheses are tested for negative correlation with high fertility: higher levels of urbanization higher total output per head higher grain output per head and higher life expectancy. Except for grain output which is not found to be associated with fertility the correlation between fertility and the others is negative and statistically significant permitting the inference that fertility at the provincial level is affected by socioeconomic factors. Urbanization higher total output per head (higher standard of living) and increeased life expectancy create some of the necessary conditions for lower rates of natural increase by reducing mortality and fertility. As financial and other benefits form part of Chinas population planning program the better-off provinces are able to defray the costs involved in getting couples to limit their family size. Thus the impact of population planning activities is greater where socioeconomic change has already taken place. An analysis of Chinas fertility transition must take into consideration the socioeconomic changes of the past and present alongside government policies and programs. Tables provide statistics on Chinas birth rates by province 1949-81; population size and growth by province 1953-82; socioeconomic variables by province 1973-1980; and rates of natural increase by province and by correlation to socioeconomic measures 1978-1980.

Sex Differentials in Mortality - Trends, Determinants and Consequences - Lopez,Ad, Ruzicka,Lt

Abstract: This book contains a selection of papers presented at a conference on sex differentials in mortality jointly organized by the Australian National University the United Nations and the World Health Organization and held in Canberra Australia December 1-7 1981. The papers are grouped under the following general topics: patterns and trends determinants social and demographic implications economic consequences public health aspects methodological issues and conclusions and prospects. The geographical focus is worldwide. (ANNOTATION)

The influence of child spacing on child survival.

Abstract: Summary This study evaluates the strength of the influence of spacing on child survival. Data related to a traditional culture (Punjab) in which almost all children are breast-fed up to the age of 17 months. An initial pregnancy history survey, subsequent four years updating through continuous monitoring of vital events and a second cross-sectional pregnancy history survey at the mid-point provided a file containing information on pregnancies and survival of children of 5,018 women. The analysis first looks at the correlation between the lengths of the preceding and subsequent intervals of index children, then examines whether this correlation was related to the repeated pattern of child death or survival. Next, the influence of the duration of the preceding interval on the survival of the index child in general and after accounting for the fate of the preceding child were considered. Then the influence of the length of the subsequent interval on the survival of the index child after conception and after ...

Social class and socio-economic differentials in divorce in England and Wales.

Abstract: Summary The characteristics of a national sample of over 2,000 couples who divorced in 1979 are analysed according to the social class and socio-economic position of the husband. The demographic variables investigated for social class and socio-economic differentials include ages at marriage and divorce, duration of marriage, previous marital status, family size and the presence of a pre-maritally conceived child. In addition, an age-standardized measure, the 'standardized divorce ratio' is used to summarise the relative rates of divorce for the different social classes and socio-economic groups. Using this measure, the rate of divorce for couples in Social Class I is only half that for the average couple, whereas for couples in Social Class V and couples in which the husband is unemployed it is more than double.

Fertility adaptation by rural-urban migrants in developing countries: The case of Korea.

Abstract: Summary The purpose of this study is to develop and test a model to assess the influence of rural-urban migration on fertility in less developed countries. Two major reasons may account for lower fertility levels observed among such migrants than among women who remained in rural areas: a selection effect, and adaptation to constraints in the area of destination. Results of previous studies have only rarely suggested that the effect of adaptation was significant. We use the detailed personal migration and pregnancy histories recorded in the Korean World Fertility Survey of 1974 and an autoregressive model to control for unobservable variations in personal preferences for different family sizes between migrants and non-migrants. Our study provides evidence that adaptation following rural-urban migration is a significant factor which explains the lower fertility of rural-urban migrants compared with that of rural stayers

Husband—wife inconsistencies in contraceptive use responses

Abstract: Summary The reliability of responses in fertility surveys to questions on topics such as contraceptive use has long been a subject of concern. This paper explores one type of response reliability — the consistency between spouses in their responses to questions on use of contraception — using survey and case study data from a sample of rural Indian husbands and wives. The findings suggest that response inconsistencies between husband and wife appear to result primarily from wives underreporting the actual use of contraception, and that such underreporting may in turn be traced to the subordinate status of women within the family in this society in conjunction with familial and normative values which are opposed to contraception. Response inconsistencies, and the manner in which they are resolved, are shown to have important implications for both overall estimates of contraceptive prevalence as well as for household-level analyses of fertility behaviour.

Household structure and the tempo of family formation in comparative perspective.

Abstract: Summary Previous research on the relationship between extended family residence and fertility has produced conflicting findings. In the present paper, we avoid a major shortcoming of past work by focusing on residence and fertility at a given stage of the life-cycle, i.e. the stage following first marriage. Results show that residence with husband's parents reduces age at marriage. Residence with wife's parents shows no such consistent effect. No evidence was found to support the claim that extended family residence consistently affects the length of the interval between marriage and the first birth. These findings are consistent across four cultural/ethnic groups

Bluestockings spinsters and pedagogues: women college graduates 1865-1910

Abstract: Summary This article is a study of the demographic behaviour of women college graduates in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century America. The nuptiality and fertility patterns of this group of highly educated women are described, and several explanations of their ‘unusual’ behaviour are evaluated. Marriage rates of women college graduates declined during the second half of the nineteenth century, even as more women attended college. Only about half the women graduating during the 1890s ever married. Still, the number of children ever born per alumna only varied between 1.0 and 1.5 for the graduation classes of 1865 to 1910. An explanation based on changing labour market opportunities for educated men and women best explains this population's demographic patterns over time as well as their deviations from those of other women in their birth cohort.

The rural Chinese fertility transition: a report from Shifang Xian, Sichuan.

Abstract: Summary Rural China has experienced a rapid fertility decline, but little is known about its causes. This paper reports on the fertility decline in one rural commune of Sichuan Province, based on a sample survey of commune households. Two major events have marked the recent demographic history of the commune and rural China as a whole: the famine of 1959-61, and the fertility translation of the 1970s. The commune experienced a rapid mortality decline in the 1950s and improvements in levels of education, but the decline of fertility was a direct result of government-sponsored programmes to limit births, which in Sichuan have relied heavily on sterilization. About one-quarter of the decline in rural total fertility is attributable to the policy of promoting later marriage.

Infant mortality and breast-feeding in North-Eastern Brazil.

Abstract: Summary The effects of breast-feeding on infant health have been a topic of considerable discussion in recent years. In this paper multivariate techniques are used to examine the relationship between the failure to breast-feed and mortality among infants in four states of north east Brazil. It was found that breast-fed children were significantly more likely to survive infancy than children who were never breast-fed, even when other socio-economic, demographic and health variables were taken into account. This relationship was much more marked in rural than in urban settings. Other variables significantly associated with mortality were parity, mother's age at child's birth, mother's employment status and use of maternal/child health services. These findings are important for the particular population studied as well as for much of Latin America where incidence and duration of breast-feeding tend to be low but infant mortality is quite high

Estimating adult mortality with maternal orphanhood data: Analysis of sensitivity of the techniques

Abstract: Summary Techniques based on proportions of maternal orphans have been widely used to estimate women's mortality at adult ages. Such techniques are based on relatively few but significantly strong assumptions. As real conditions may depart to different degrees from the latter, the results obtained from the application of the technique can be biased. In this paper we assess the magnitude and direction of the bias introduced when: (a) mortality has changed during the past, (b) the practice of adoption permits the continuity of the relation offspring-mother upon the death of the biological mother, and (c) different processes of selection involving fertility, mortality of mothers and mortality of offspring operate. In addition, we suggest other methods to correct such biases or procedures to detect them and the actual range of errors involved.

Organization for change: a systems analysis of family planning in rural India

Abstract: This is an examination of the implementation of family planning in the rural areas of northern India during the early 1970s. The information is based on surveys of villagers in rural Allahabad Division and workers in rural health centers and interviews with administrators and officials at the district and state level of the Ministry of Health. The material level of living is low for most of the population in Allahabad few villagers have been exposed to extensive formal education or to contacts with the outside world. Average age at which wives begin to live with their husbands is less than 15 years and begin to bear children before age 18. Infant mortality rate was 200/1000 birthrate was above 50/1000 for 1967-71. A basic reason for high fertility is the role which children play in the lives of parents. A superficial awareness of family planning methods is widespread among the village population but there is very little actual use of contraceptive methods; no more than 14% of the respondents were currently using or have ever used a contraceptive method including abstinence and rhythm method. Only 3.7% were using IUDs or male/female sterilization. Many of the findings support the conclusion that organization and client related factors explain the low use of contraception. Studies on the district and state level show that the majority of the family planning extension staff of the rural primary health care (PHC) centers are not working at expected levels. The nature of family planning programs motivation background training support and organization are discussed. Some problems which are identified are the size of the population the frequent shifts in responsibility changes in approach to family planning pressures of poverty discrepancies between targets and achievements use of coercive techniques. Although there has been expansion of the PHC network the family planning program as a whole has not met with great success. Only an approach that is attentive to the interelatedness and variety of client and organization related factors will help in understanding how the system should work. 3 general guidelines to be followed are: 1) the strategy for client transactions to be chosen has to be suited to the client population 2) the organizing strategy has to be suited to client strategy and 3) organizing strategy has to be suited to the institutional and political context within which it is implemented.

Are old-age security and the utility of children in rural India really unimportant?

Abstract: Extract In their recent paper in this journal M. and Carol Vlassoff are to be commended for helping to remedy the dearth of empirical studies on the old-age security motive for children (and particularly sons) in rural areas of developing countries.1 However, while the questionnaire which they applied to 357 ever-married men in a rural village in Maharashtra state in India is potentially useful, several of the conclusions they derive from it are unwarranted and, if left unquestioned, would undoubtedly have the effect of setting back the serious investigation of the effects of this motive rather than furthering it. The invalid or at least questionable inferences are taken up one at a time in the order of their appearance:

Old age and the demographic transition.

Abstract: Summary This paper examines the impact of the demographic transition upon the potential supply of, and demand for, family support for the aged in Australia. Using census and survey information on population cohorts entering old age, comparisons are drawn concerning their surviving issue, household composition and family membership. Long-term changes in fertility are shown to have had only a small impact upon the supply of potential carers among relatives and, although the demographic transition has led to a more universal inclusion of old people in family networks, there have not been major changes through time in the proportions living in extended family households. Short-term changes, however, such as low fertility during the 1930s, have caused disordered cohort flow, with the result that current generations of the elderly are members of deprived cohorts in terms of their access to family support.

Child death and time to the next birth in Central Java.

Abstract: Summary Data from a two-year prospective study conducted in a rural area of Central Java are used to examine determinants of child mortality and fertility and the relation between the two. Maternal age and birth order were significant determinants of child mortality. While child mortality in turn strongly influenced the timing of the next birth, there is no evidence that the death of a child affected fertility through any but a physiological mechanism. In addition, the better educated have started to abandon traditional birth-spacing practices, and as a result were spacing their children more closely together than more traditional women.

Frank Wallace Notestein (1902–1983)

Abstract: Frank W. Notestein, one of the architects of modern demography, died on 18 February 1983, after a long struggle with emphysema. President Emeritus of the Population Council, and former Professor of Demography at Princeton University, he had been living in retirement in Newtown, Pennsylvania, with his wife of fifty-six years, nee Daphne Limbach.

The variance of population characteristics in stable populations, with applications to the distribution of income.

Abstract: Summary Stable population theory has recently been used to analyse the effects of changes in fertility and mortality on economic variables such as income per head. In this paper more general results are derived to describe the effects of changing vital rates on the variance and higher moments of the distribution of some age-dependent variable. Simple analytical expressions are derived which decompose the effects of changes in age structure into the effects on inter-cohort and intra-cohort variance. The results are easily applied to standard measures of the distribution of income. By combining the analytical results with actual age profiles of income and income variance from the United States and Brazil it is observed that both the magnitude and direction of the effects of population growth on measured inequality are sensitive to the specific age profiles used. The most surprising result is that the Brazilian age profiles suggest that higher growth rates may actually reduce measured inequality, although th...