bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Playing Cat and Mouse at the U.S.-Mexican Border
Authors: Kossoudji Sherrie A.
Published: March 2007

Border control and apprehension activity represents a major element of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. Does apprehending an undocumented migrant deter remigration? If it does not, does it change future migration behavior? I explore these questions by testing hypotheses about the effects of apprehension on the actual and desired length of stay in the United States and on the frequency of migration for undocumented Mexican male migrants. Results suggest that INS policy may well be backfiring. Migrants stay in the United States longer on non-apprehended trips and stay in Mexico for shorter spells between trips to compensate for the cost of a past apprehension.
The effects of temperature on human fertility
Authors: Lam David A. , Miron Jeffrey A.
Published: March 2007

Monthly birth and temperature data for a variety of states and countries are used to estimate the effect of short-run temperature fluctuations on fertility. Regressions of monthly births on a flexible specification of lagged monthly temperature show that temperature has quantitatively important effects on both seasonal and nonseasonal variation in births. Summer temperature extremes reduce conceptions in the southern United States, explaining a substantial part of the observed seasonal birth pattern. Extreme cold shows no evidence of affecting conceptions. The results also show significant seasonality in births even after accounting for temperature. Controls for monthly temperature do not explain the persistent spring peak in births in northern Europe. This finding suggests that other factors play an important role.
Marital status and mortality: The role of health
Authors: Lillard Lee A. , Panis Constantijn W. A.
Published: March 2007

Prior literature has shown that married men live longer than unmarried men. Possible explanations are that marriage protects its incumbents or that healthier men select themselves into marriage. Protective effects, however, introduce the possibility of adverse selection: Those in poor health have an incentive to marry. In this paper we explore the role of health in explaining mortality and marriage patterns, and distinguish protective effects from two types of selection effects. We find adverse selection on the basis of health (unhealthy men tend to (re)marry sooner) and positive selection on the basis of unmeasured factors that both promote good health and encourage marriage.
Cohort size and age-specific suicide rates: A contingent relationship
Authors: Pampel Fred C.
Published: March 2007

Trends in age-specific suicide rates relate to debates about the consequences of population aging and changes in cohort size for social well-being. Easterlin argues that large cohort size increases suicide rates by reducing relative income; Preston claims that suicide rates fall in large cohorts with high levels of political and social power. To integrate these competing arguments, this paper uses aggregate data on 18 high-income nations from 1953 to 1986 to demonstrate that the direction and strength of the relationship between cohort size and suicide depend on (1) age of the cohort, (2) gender, (3) national context, and (4) time period. The results show that large cohort size raises suicide for the young and middle-aged, but reduces it for the elderly. Also, the effects of cohort size prove stronger for men than for women, for nations with less collectivist institutions than for nations with more collectivist institutions, and for the 1950s and 1960s than for the 1970s and 1980s.
Internal migration in China, 1950–1988
Authors: Liang Zai , White Michael J.
Published: March 2007

This paper examines the long-term patterns of migration within China between 1950 and 1988. The analysis uses data from China's 1988 2/1,000 Fertility and Birth Control Survey, which asks respondents about their most recent interprovincial move. The results suggest that long-term migration patterns can be explained by political and economic changes in China. We argue that the approaches we introduce can offer significant insight into long-term migration patterns for countries where historical data on migration are unavailable or unreliable.
The political economy of inequality in the “age of extremes”
Authors: Hout Michael , Arum Richard , Voss Kim
Published: March 2007

Massey spresidential address correctly points to growing economic inequality as one of the pressing issues of our day, but his analysis gives short shrift to the political institutions that underlie the economic trends. We supplement his analysis with a review of some of those institutions. In particular we point out how politics mediates between computerized production and inequality, between the segregation of education and inequality, and (drawing directly from American Apartheid) between housing markets and residential segregation.
Migration and premarital childbearing among Puerto Rican women
Authors: Landale Nancy S. , Hauan Susan M.
Published: March 2007

This paper examines the relationship between migration and premarital childbearing in a highly migratory Latino subgroup, Puerto Rican women. Using pooled origin-destination data from surveys conducted in Puerto Rico and in the New York metropolitan area, we find that first- and second-generation migrants to the u.s. mainland face substantially higher risks of conceiving and bearing a first child before marriage than do nonmigrants in Puerto Rico. This pattern is due largely to the relatively early transition to sexual activity among mainland women. Given the negative long-term consequences of premarital childbearing for women and their children, our findings call into question the assumption that migrants necessarily experience only positive outcomes as a result of the assimilation process.
The Nature of Gender
Authors: Udry J. Richard
Published: March 2007

I explain a biosocial model of women’s gendered behavior (behavior on which the sexes differ). This model integrates a macro sociological theory with a biological theory derived from primate behavior. The sociological model is designed to explain changes in the relationship between sex and behavior over time or between groups. The biological model is designed to explain individual within-sex variance and between-sex variance in gendered behavior in a cohort. Results from an original study are presented to demonstrate that within-sex variance in women’s gendered behavior is explained well by the primate model. I conclude that human nature is gendered. The implications of this conclusion are explored for demographic and other social science research.
Family Structure, Residential Mobility, and School Dropout: A Research Note
Authors: Astone Nan Marie , McLanahan Sara S.
Published: March 2007

This paper examines the hypothesis that high levels of residential mobility among nonintact families account for part of the well-known association between living in a nonintact family and dropping out of high school. Children from single-parent families and stepfamilies are more likely than children from two-parent families to move during the school year. As much as 30% of the difference in the risk of dropping out between children from stepfamilies and children from intact families can be explained by differences in residential mobility. Previously, mechanisms explaining school failure on the part of children in nonintact families were more plausible for children in single-parent families than for children in stepfamilies; high levels of residential mobility apply to both groups of children. In addition, residential mobility lends itself to manipulation by public policy, with potentially remedial effects for vulnerable children.
Neighborhood Context and the Transition to Sexual Activity among Young Black Women
Authors: Brewster Karin L.
Published: March 2007

Previous studies report that neighborhood characteristics influence pregnancy and childbearing risk among African-American adolescent women. These studies, however, leave unidentified the effects of many neighborhood properties on the proximate determinants of nonmarital fertility. In this study I examine the effects of neighborhood characteristics on the risk of nonmarital first intercourse and on contraceptive use among black female adolescents. The results suggest that neighborhood socioeconomic status, female employment and marital dissolution rates, and peers’ departure from mainstream lifecourse trajectories influence young black women’s sexual and contraceptive behavior. The effects of female employment and socioeconomic status are greater for teens in urban neighborhoods than for teens living elsewhere.
The Contours of Demography: Estimates and Projections
Authors: Preston Samuel H.
Published: March 2007

This paper considers the scope of demography and the various research approaches that legitimately could claim the label. As a small field lacking security in academic structures, demography has been unusually sensitive to demand factors, including those associated with perceived population problems. International health is cited as an area of increased demographic presence; reasons for this development are explored. The technology for performing research in demography is improving more rapidly than in many other areas of the social sciences, and thus is helping to improve the relative standing of the field. Taking a demand-oriented approach, the paper identifies several promising research areas in which demographers will be called on to address issues of national and international concern.
The Human Ecology of Tornadoes
Authors: Aguirre B. E. , Saenz Rogelio , Edmiston John , Yang Nan , Agramonte Elsa , Stuart Dietra L.
Published: March 2007

This paper offers an empirical test of the impact of human ecological patterns and other known correlates on tornado occurrence. It uses the National Severe Storms Forecast Center’s information on tornadoes from 1950 through 1990 and employs ecological data from the U.S. Bureau of the Census and the Environmental Protection Agency. The results show that metropolitan and other urban counties have higher odds of tornado occurrence than rural counties, and that the probability of occurrence of tornadoes increases with increases in the number of previous tornadoes. The paper assesses the meaning of this finding for demographers, atmospheric scientists, engineers, and disaster managers.
A Joint Model of Marital Childbearing and Marital Disruption
Authors: Lillard Lee A. , Waite Linda J.
Published: March 2007

Married couples with children appear to be less likely to end their marriages than childless couples, especially when the children are young. Although this suggests that children affect the chances that their parents will divorce, the process may not be so simple: the chances that the marriage will last also may affect couples’ willingness to make the commitment to the marriage implied by having children. This paper uses data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) to test the hypothesis that the risk of disruption faced by a married woman affects the chances that she will conceive and bear a child. The model used takes into account the simultaneous relationships between marital dissolution and marital fertility by including the hazard of disruption as a predictor of timing and likelihood of marital conception, and by including the results of previous fertility decisions as predictors of disruption of the marriage. We find that the hazard of disruption has strong negative effects on the hazard of marital childbearing, lengthening the intervals between births and decreasing the chances that a child will be born. This effect appears to be strongest for women who have had at least one child, either before or during the current marriage, although it is also large for childless women. Explicitly including the hazard of disruption in models of marital childbearing has sizable and important effects on many predictors of fertility.
Census adjustment and the distribution of federal spending
Authors: Murray Michael P.
Published: March 2007

In 1989, programs that use population counts to determine the distribution of their funds transferred $236 per capita to state and local governments. If the 1990 census were adjusted to reflect undercounting, about 40% of state and local governments would receive increased grants averaging $56 per miscounted person; other jurisdictions would lose an almost equal amount of grant money. The surprisingly small reallocations arise because 1) total funds allocated by population are essentially fixed; 2) allocations depend on other factors in addition to population; and 3) programs vary as to whether they allocate funds in direct or inverse proportion to population.
The relationship between cohabitation and divorce: Selectivity or causal influence?
Authors: Axinn William G. , Thornton Arland
Published: March 2007

Recent evidence linking premarital cohabitation to high rates of divorce poses a complex theoretical and empirical puzzle. We develop hypotheses predicting that premarital cohabitation is selective of those who are prone to divorce as well as hypotheses predicting that the experience of premarital cohabitation produces attitudes and values which increase the probability of divorce. Using multiwave panel data from a recent cohort of young men and women in the United States, we specify and test models of these predictions. The results are consistent with hypotheses suggesting that cohabitation is selective of men and women who are less committed to marriage and more approving of divorce. The results also are consistent with the conclusion that cohabiting experiences significantly increase young people’s acceptance of divorce.
Residential preferences and residential choices in a multiethnic context
Authors: Clark William A. V.
Published: March 2007

A study of the expressed preferences of four different ethnic groups in the Los Angeles metropolitan area shows strong desires for own-race combinations in the ethnicity of neighborhoods that individuals say they would choose when seeking a new residence. The results also show that Anglos are not the only group to practice “avoidance” of other racial/ethnic neighborhoods, although avoidance behavior by Anglos is the strongest. Because the issues of racial composition are socially sensitive, additional tests examined the relationship of preferences to behavior. Although many behaviors generally follow expressed preferences, members of households who expressed “no preference” also were found to largely choose own race neighborhoods. The results of this study suggest that the expressed preference for own race/own ethnicity, in combination with short-distance local moves, is likely to maintain present patterns of separation in U.S. metropolitan areas.
Writing the names: Marriage style, living arrangements, and first birth interval in a Nepali society
Authors: Fricke Tom , Teachman Jay D.
Published: March 2007

Using data from a Nepali population, this analysis argues that marriage style and postmarital living arrangements affect coital frequency to produce variations in the timing of first birth after marriage. Event history analysis of the first birth interval for 149 women suggests that women’s autonomy in marriage decisions and marriage to cross-cousins accelerate the pace of entry into first birth. Extended-household residence with reduced natal kin contact, on the other hand, significantly lengthens the first birth interval. These findings are consistent with previous arguments in the literature while offering new evidence for the impact of extended-family residence on fertility.
Marriage selection and mortality patterns: Inferences and fallacies
Authors: Goldman Noreen
Published: March 2007

Researchers have long wondered whether marital-status differences in mortality arise largely from selection mechanisms or from causal processes typically known as marriage protection. Unfortunately, many investigators have relied on aggregate patterns of mortality differentials—such as age schedules of excess mortality in the single population or the relationship between the level of excess mortality and the relative size of the single population—to make inferences about the relative importance of selection and causal processes. In this paper, a simple mathematical simulation model is used to demonstrate that many inferences derived from observed patterns are simply not justified. This finding highlights the importance of prospective data for assessing the relative importance of selection and causal factors in accounting for the excess mortality of the unmarried.
Gender differences in economic well-being among the elderly of java
Authors: Rudkin Laura
Published: March 2007

With populations aging rapidly in many developing nations, issues of economic dependency among the elderly are of increasing importance. Using data from a 1986 survey of the elderly on Java, Indonesia, I describe gender differences in economic well-being and identify characteristics associated with economic disadvantage. At both the individual and the household level, older women have fewer resources than older men. Even within categories of support (work income and remittances), women have lower levels of well-being. Gender differences in household-level economic well-being are due primarily to differences in household structure and in levels of skills. Gender differences in individual receipts (from all sources) are more complicated, but can be understood more clearly with reference to gender differences in skills levels (literacy, language, job skills), current work status and authority, and domestic authority.
Forgone labor participation and earning due to childbearing among Norwegian women
Authors: Kravdal Øystein
Published: March 2007

Individual-level retrospective data from the Family and Occupation Survey of 1988 are used to assess the time diverted from gainful employment because of the presence of children in two Norwegian birth cohorts. We find that a two-child mother born in 1950, whose births occurred in her early twenties, lost 6.6 woman-years up to age 37, compared to a childless woman. By matching information on registered income with the survey data, we estimate that her lost income amounts to $151,000 at 1990 prices. After taxation the loss is $98,000. Women with fewer than 12 years of schooling seem to forgo more labor market activity by reason of childbearing than do their better-educated counterparts. The pattern is less clear with respect to the loss of income.
A description of the extreme aged population based on improved medicare enrollment data
Authors: Kestenbaum Bert
Published: March 2007

The mortality and size of the extreme aged population can be studied most accurately with Medicare enrollment data from the Social Security Administration’s Master Beneficiary Record after certain types of questionable records are eliminated. With the improved data base we find that mortality rates at the very old ages are higher than published rates, we are more confident of the reality of the race crossover, and we can estimate the number of centenarians more accurately. Furthermore, a large matched-records study shows close agreement on age at death between the Master Beneficiary Record and the death certificate.
Extreme mortality in nineteenth-century Africa: the case of Liberian immigrants
Authors: Mc Daniel Antonio
Published: March 2007

Several studies have examined the mortality of immigrants from Europe to Africa in the nineteenth century. This paper examines the level of mortality in Liberia of Africans who emigrated there from the United States. A life table is estimated from data collected by the American Colonization Society from 1820 to 1843. The analysis reflects the mortality experience of a population that is transplanted from one disease environment to another, more exacting, disease environment. The results of this analysis show that these Liberian immigrants experienced the highest mortality rates in accurately recorded human history.
Birth interval and family effects on postneonatal mortality in Brazil
Authors: Curtis Siân L. , Diamond Ian , McDonald John W.
Published: March 2007

In this paper random-effects logistic models are used to analyze the effects of the preceding birth interval on postneonatal mortality in Brazil, controlling for the correlation of survival outcomes between siblings. The results are compared to those obtained by using ordinary logistic regression. Family effects are found to be highly significant in the random-effects model, but the substantive conclusions of the ordinary logistic model are preserved. In particular, birth interval effects remain highly significant.
Hutterite fecundability by age and parity: Strategies for frailty modeling of event histories
Authors: Larsen Ulla , Vaupel James W.
Published: March 2007

Effective fecundability declines with age and parity. Furthermore, women differ in their effective fecundability: some women have persistently low or high monthly chances of live-birth conception. Estimates are presented concerning the magnitude of these effects in a natural-fertility population: 406 Hutterite women in North America who had 3,206 births, largely in the 1940s and 1950s. The estimates are based on models that incorporate the effects of persistent heterogeneity and that use the full information provided by multiple-spell duration data. In addition, hazards rather than probabilities are modeled, piecewise linear hazard functions are used, and age and parity effects are decomposed systematically. These methods permit the development of more elaborate models of changing fecundability and of heterogeneity in postpartum amenorrhea.
Prenatal and delivery care and childhood immunization in guatemala: Do family and community matter?
Authors: Pebley Anne R. , Goldman Noreen , Rodríguez Germán
Published: March 2007

In this paper we investigate family choices about pregnancy-related care and the use of childhood immunization. Estimates obtained from a multilevel logistic model indicate that use of formal (or “modern ”) health services differs substantially by ethnicity, by social and economic factors, and by availability of health services. The results also show that family and community membership are very important determinants of the use of health care, even in the presence of controls for a large number of observed characteristics of individuals, families, and communities.
The Demographic Transition in Southern Africa: Another Look at the Evidence from Botswana and Zimbabwe
Authors: Thomas Duncan , Muvandi Ityai
Published: March 2007

Botswana and Zimbabwe have been acclaimed as being on the vanguard of the demographic transition in sub-Saharan Africa. This paper examines the comparability of the CPS and the DHS data for each country and finds that part of the observed decline in aggregate fertility rates in both countries can be attributed to differences in sample composition. Women of the same cohort tend to be better educated in the second survey relative to the first. This fact explains part—but not all—of the observed fertility decline; for example, it appears to account for up to half the observed decline among women age 25–34 in 1984 in Zimbabwe.
The Demographic Transition in Southern Africa: Reviewing the Evidence from Botswana and Zimbabwe
Authors: Thomas Duncan , Muvandi Ityai
Published: March 2007

Part, but not all, of the observed decline in the number of children ever born reported in the 1984 CPS and the 1988 DHS in Botswana and Zimbabwe can be attributed to differences in sample composition: women in the 1988 survey appear to be better educated than women of the same cohort in the 1984 survey. Blanc and Rutstein argue that differences in education levels in the pairs of surveys are not significant. However, weighted Kolmogorov-Smimov statistics, a comparison of average years of schooling, and the proportions of women who complete primary school or attend secondary school all indicate that the differences are, in fact, significant. This is true in both Botswana and Zimbabwe. Blanc and Rutstein also claim that these differences do not account for any of the observed decline in fertility between the surveys of women age 15 to 49. Their methodology follows cohorts of women rather than age-groups and thus cannot possibly address this issue. Furthermore, to interpret their results, response error and respondent education must be uncorrelated: this is a key assumption which is violated by the data. We stand by our conclusions and argue for caution when aggregate statistics from the CPS and the DHS are used to make projections about the course of fertility and population growth in Botswana and Zimbabwe.
Population Variation in Cause of Death: Level, Gender, and Period Effects
Authors: Gage Timothy B.
Published: March 2007

The trends in 13 cause of death categories are examined with respect to expectation of life, sex differences, and period effects while misclassification of cause of death is controlled. The results suggest that as mortality declines, 1) the increasingly U-shaped age pattern of mortality is a period effect associated with the infectious diseases, 2) the risks of both overall infectious and degenerative causes of death decline, and 3) infectious disease mortality declines more in males, while degenerative disease mortality declines more in females. Finally, the model shows that some contemporary populations are approaching the .limits of reduction in mortality during infancy, childhood, and young adulthood. Past declines in the degenerative diseases, however, suggest that mortality may continue to decline.
Modeling Seasonality in Fecundability, Conceptions, and Births
Authors: Lam David A. , Miron Jeffrey A. , Riley Ann
Published: March 2007

This paper develops a model of seasonal fluctuations in fecundability, conceptions, and births. We begin with a model of individual fecundability that combines behavioral and biological components, with particular attention to the roles of coital frequency, sperm concentration, fetal loss, and contraception. The individual-level model is then expanded into a model of seasonal fluctuations in births at the population level, which accounts explicitly for seasonal fluctuations in the size of the susceptible population. We illustrate the use of the model by analyzing proposed explanations of birth seasonality that rely on extreme summer heat.
Living Arrangements of Older Malaysians: Who Coresides with Their Adult Children?
Authors: DaVanzo Julie , Chan Angelique
Published: March 2007

More than two-thirds of Malaysians age 60 or older coreside with an adult child. Data from the Senior sample of the Second Malaysian Family Life Survey (MFLS-2) are used to investigate which “seniors” (persons age 60 or older) live in this way. The analysis generally supports the notion that coresidence is influenced by the benefits, costs, opportunities, and preferences for coresidence versus separate living arrangements. For example, married seniors are more likely to coreside with adult children when housing costs are greater in their area or when the husband or wife is in poor health. This finding suggests that married parents and children live together to economize on living costs or to receive help with household services. Unmarried seniors who are better off economically are less likely to live with adult children, presumably because they use their higher incomes to “purchase privacy.”
The Validity of Survey Responses on Abortion: Evidence from Estonia
Authors: Anderson Barbara A. , Katus Kalev , Puur Allan , Silver Brian D.
Published: March 2007

This paper presents results of a validation survey of abortion conducted in Tallinn, Estonia in April and May 1992. The sample was drawn from patient records in a maternity hospital. Women who had an abortion in that hospital in 1991 were asked about recent abortions as part of a survey about women’s health. More than 80% of the respondents reported having a recent abortion. Some respondents misreported their abortion as a miscarriage. Moreover, some variation in reporting was associated with respondents’ characteristics. Ethnic Estonians were less likely to report their abortion than were Russians, women over age 40 were less likely to report the abortion than younger women, and women who had the abortion late in the first trimester were less likely to report that abortion. There was some evidence that unmarried women were less likely than married women to report their abortion, and that women who had borne three or more children were less likely to report their abortion than women who had borne fewer children. These differences probably stem from the extent to which pregnancy or abortion is considered stigmatizing for women in different situations.
Changing Mortality and Morbidity Rates and the Health Status and Life Expectancy of the Older Population
Authors: Crimmins Eileen M. , Hayward Mark D. , Saito Yasuhiko
Published: March 2007

This paper demonstrates the consequences of changes in mortality and health transition rates for changes in both health status life expectancy and the prevalence of health problems in the older population. A five-state multistate life table for the mid-1980s provides the baseline for estimating the effect of differing mortality and morbidity schedules. Results show that improving mortality alone implies increases in both the years and the proportion of dependent life; improving morbidity alone reduces both the years and the proportion of dependent life. Improving mortality alone leads to a higher prevalence of dependent individuals in the life table population; improving morbidity alone leads to a lower percentage of individuals with problems in functioning.
The racial crossover in comorbidity, disability, and mortality
Authors: Johnson Nan E.
Published: March 2007

This study analyzed one respondent per household who was age 70 or more at the time of the household’s inclusion in Wave 1 (1993–1994) and whose survival status was determinable at Wave 2 (1995–1996) of the Survey on Asset and Health Dynamics Among the Oldest Old (AHEAD Survey). At age 76 at Wave 1, there was a racial crossover in the cumulative number of six potentially fatal diagnoses (chronic lung disease, cancer, heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, and stroke) from a higher cumulative average number for blacks to a higher average number for whites. Also, there was a racial crossover at age 86 in the cumulative average number of disabilities in the Advanced Activities of Daily Living (AADLs), from a higher average for blacks to a higher average for whites. Between Waves 1 and 2, there was a racial crossover in the odds of mortality from higher odds for blacks to higher odds for whites; this occurred at about age 81. The results are consistent with the interpretation that the racial crossover in comorbidity (but not the crossover in AADL disability) propelled the racial crossover in mortality.
Does female circumcision affect infertility and fertility? A study of the central African Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, and Tanzania
Authors: Larsen Ulla , Yan Sharon
Published: March 2007

This study explores the association between female circumcision and infertility and fertility, using information from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS). In Côte d’Ivoire and Tanzania, circumcised women had lower childlessness, lower infertility by age, and higher total fertility rates than women who were not circumcised; the reverse pattern prevailed in the Central African Republic. In all three countries, however, circumcised women grouped by age at circumcision did not have significantly different odds of infertility nor of having a child than did uncircumcised women, when the effects of covariates were controlled. Thus we find evidence suggesting that the practice of female circumcision does not have a statistically discernible effect on women’s ability to reproduce.
Parental marital disruption and intergenerational transfers: An analysis of lone elderly parents and their children
Authors: Pezzin Liliana E. , Schone Barbara Steinberg
Published: March 2007

Although one of the most marked demographic trends observed over the twentieth century is the increased rate of divorce, relatively little research has explored the effects of these changing marital patterns in the context of an aging society. Using a sample of lone elderly parents and their adult children, we analyze the direct and indirect effects of marital disruption on four important dimensions of intergenerational transfers: coresidence, financial assistance, adult children’s provision of informal care, and parental purchase of paid care. Our findings suggest that divorce has deleterious effects on intergenerational transfers, particularly for elderly fathers. Remarriage further reduces exchange. Our results reveal that parents engage in lower levels of transfers with stepchildren relative to biological children. Moreover, intergenerational transfers are sensitive to characteristics of biological children but not to those of stepchildren. Taken together, these results suggest that exchange at the end of the life course continues to be adversely affected by marital disruption
Time spent in parenthood status among adults in the United States
Authors: King Rosalind Berkowitz
Published: March 2007

Transition rates estimated from the 1987–1988 and 1992–1994 waves of the National Survey of Families and Households imply that a U.S. adult will spend approximately one third of the years from ages 20 to 69 as a parent of a dependent child. I distinguish biological from social parenthood and provide separate estimates by gender and race. White women conform most to the conventional image of a biological parent residing with an own child, whereas African American women spend the most adult years as a parent. On average, white men spend fewer years as parents than African American men, but African American men spend more years as biological parents not residing with any children. Implications of these descriptive findings are discussed.
The leveling of divorce in the united states
Authors: Goldstein Joshua R.
Published: March 2007

Is the recent plateau in crude divorce rates due to compositional changes in the married population or to a fundamental change in the long-term trend of rising marital instability? I use refined measures of period divorce rates to show that the leveling of divorce rates appears to be real. Compositional factors do little to explain the end to the more than century-long pattern of rising divorce. Increases in cohabitation also fail to explain the plateau. New theories are needed to explain the determinants of divorce rates at the population level.
Going to extremes: Family structure, children’s well-being, and social science
Authors: Cherlin Andrew J.
Published: March 2007

In this article I argue that public discussions of demographic issues are often conducted in a troubling pattern in which one extreme position is debated in relation to the opposite extreme. This pattern impedes our understanding of social problems and is a poor guide to sound public policies. To illustrate this thesis I use the case of social scientific research examining how children are affected by not living with two biological parents while they are growing up. Over the last decade, I maintain, most of the public, and even many social scientists, have been puzzled and poorly informed by this debate. In particular I consider Judith Wallerstein’s clinically based claims of the pervasive, profound harm caused by divorce and, at the other extreme, Judith Rich Harris s reading of behavioral genetics and evolutionary psychology, which leads her to dismiss the direct effects of divorce. Neither extreme gives a clear picture of the consequences of growing up in a single-parent family or a stepfamily.
Refining the association between education and health: The effects of quantity, credential, and selectivity
Authors: Ross Catherine E. , Mirowsky John
Published: March 2007

We refine the established association between education and health by distinguishing three aspects of a person s education (quantity, credential, and selectivity) and by examining the mechanisms through which they may correlate with health. Data are from the 1995 Aging, Status, and the Sense of Control Survey, a representative U.S. national telephone survey of 2,593 respondents aged 18 to 95, with an oversample of elderly. Results show that physical functioning and perceived health increase significantly with years of formal education and with college selectivity for those with a bachelor s or higher degree, adjusting for age, sex, race, marital status, and parental education. The credential of a college degree has no net association with physical functioning and perceived health beyond the amount attributable to the additional years of schooling. Of the three aspects of education, years of schooling has the largest effect. Most of that association appears attributable to its correlation with work and economic conditions, social psychological resources, and health lifestyle. A large portion of the net association of college selectivity with physical functioning and perceived health appears attributable to health lifestyle.
Rectangularization revisited: Variability of age at death within human populations*
Authors: Wilmoth John R. , Horiuchi Shiro
Published: March 2007

Rectangularization of human survival curves is associated with decreasing variability in the distribution of ages at death. This variability, as measured by the interquartile range of life table ages at death, has decreased from about 65 years to 15 years since 1751 in Sweden. Most of this decline occurred between the 1870s and the 1950s. Since then, variability in age at death has been nearly constant in Sweden, Japan, and the United States, defying predictions of a continuing rectangularization. The United States is characterized by a relatively high degree of variability, compared with both Sweden and Japan. We suggest that the historical compression of mortality may have had significant psychological and behavioral impacts.
Socioeconomic background and war mortality during Vietnam’s wars
Authors: Merli M. Giovanna
Published: March 2007

To understand the experience of North Vietnamese soldiers and civilians during the American war, I explore the paths leading Vietnamese men into battle by considering the relationship between socioeconomic status and war mortality. I use data obtained from retrospective information on kin survival and other socioeconomic characteristics given by respondents in the 1995 Vietnam Longitudinal Survey conducted in Vietnam’s Red River Delta. My findings are opposite to those often cited to describe the experience of young Americans who fought in the Vietnam war. In Vietnam, sons of better educated fathers bore the burden of war disproportionately in relation to sons of fathers with less education, both in proportion serving in the military and in diminished survival chances in combat. The Vietnamese experience during the American war testifies to the ability of a nation to reorder society temporarily and to persuade higher-status groups to contribute fully to the war effort. An appreciation of the meaning of this social reshuffling during the American war is critical for understanding the war, Vietnam, and that country’s political outlook.
Educational assortative mating across marriage markets: Nonhispanic whites in the United States
Authors: Lewis Susan K. , Oppenheimer Valerie K.
Published: March 2007

Whether local marriage market conditions shape marriage behavior is a central social demographic question. Most work on this subject, however, focuses on one type of market condition—sex ratios— and on a single outcome—marital timing or sorting. We examine the impact of local marriage markets’ educational composition on educational assortative mating and on how sorting varies with age. We estimate a discrete-time competing-risks model of educational sorting outcomes, using individual data from the NLSY and community descriptors aggregated from census microdata. Results show that residents of educationally less favorable marriage markets are more likely to marry down on education, and that (for women) their chance of doing so increases with age more than for residents of more favorable markets.
The declining significance of race among American men during The latter half of the twentieth century
Authors: Sakamoto Arthur , Wu Huei-Hsia , Tzeng Jessie M.
Published: March 2007

The extent to which racial minority groups face discrimination in the labor market is the subject of considerable debate. Using William J. Wilson’s thesis of the declining significance of race as our theoretical context, we provide further empirical evidence about labor market discrimination by investigating wages among African American, American Indian, Chinese American, Hispanic white, Japanese American, and non-Hispanic white men. We find, during the period before the civil rights movement, that a substantively significant wage disadvantage is evident for these minority groups with controls for observed labor force characteristics. In recent data, these net disadvantages are reduced substantially for each of these groups except Hispanics. With the exception of Hispanics, the results support Wilson’s thesis.
The effect of pregnancy intention on child development
Authors: Joyce Theodore J. , Kaestner Robert , Korenman Sanders
Published: March 2007

In this paper, we use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to investigate the empirical link between unintended pregnancy and child health and development. An important contribution of our study is the use of information on siblings to control for unmeasured factors that may confound estimates of the effect of pregnancy intentions on infant and child outcomes. Results from our study indicate that unwanted pregnancy is associated with prenatal and postpartum maternal behaviors that adversely affect infant and child health, but that unwanted pregnancy has little association with birth weight and child cognitive outcomes. Estimates of the association between unwanted pregnancy and maternal behaviors were greatly reduced after controls for unmeasured family background were included in the model. Our results also indicate that there are no significant differences in maternal behaviors or child outcomes between mistimed and wanted pregnancies.
Life course transitions of American children: Parental cohabitation, marriage, and single motherhood
Authors: Roempke Graefe Deborah , Lichter Daniel T.
Published: March 2007

We examine the life course transitions into and from families headed by unmarried cohabiting couples for a recent cohort of American children. Life table estimates, based on data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth mother-child files, indicate about one in four children will live in a family headed by a cohabiting couple sometime during childhood. Economic uncertainty is an important factor determining whether children in single-parent families subsequently share a residence with a mother’s unmarried partner. Moreover, virtually all children in cohabiting-couple families will experience rapid subsequent changes in family status. Our estimates provide a point of departure for future work on children’s exposure to parental cohabitation and its social and economic implications.
The effect of inbreeding on early childhood mortality: Twelve generations of an amish settlement
Authors: Dorsten Linda Eberst , Hotchkiss Lawrence , King Terri M.
Published: March 2007

An unresolved issue in research on child survival is the extent to which familial mortality risk in infancy is due to biological influences net of sociodemographic and economic factors. We examine the effect of consanguinity on early childhood mortality in an Old Order Amish settlement by using the inbreeding coefficient, an explicit measure of the degree of relatedness in one’s ancestry. Inbreeding has a net positive effect on neonatal and postneonatal deaths. We find social, demographic, and population-based sociocultural explanations for this effect among the Amish population, which is known to experience certain genetically transmitted defects associated with mortality.
A note on the measurement of accuracy for subnational demographic estimates
Authors: Swanson David A. , Tayman Jeff , Barr Charles F.
Published: March 2007

Mean absolute percentage error (MAPE), the measure most often used for evaluating subnational demographic estimates, is not always valid. We describe guidelines for determining when MAPE is valid. Applying them to case study data, we find that MAPE understates accuracy because it is unduly influenced by outliers. To overcome this problem, we calculate a transformed MAPE (MAPET) using a modified Box-Cox method. Because MAPE-T is not in the same scale as the untransformed absolute percentage errors, we provide a procedure for calculating MAPE-R, a measure in the same scale as the original observations. We argue that MAPE-R is a more appropriate summary measure of average absolute percentage error when the guidelines indicate that MAPE is not valid.
The effects of infant mortality on fertility revisited: new evidence from latin america
Authors: Palloni Alberto , Rafalimanana Hantamala
Published: March 2007

In this paper, we examine empirical evidence for a relation between infant and child mortality and fertility in Latin American countries from 1920 to 1990. We investigate the relation at several levels of aggregation and evaluate the extent to which evidence at one level is consistent with evidence at other levels. Wefirst examine aggregate cross-country information over several decades, a type of data typically used in past research on the topic. We also examine yearly series of births, deaths, infant deaths, and socioeconomic indicators for selected countries to track the association between short-term fluctuations in fertility and infant mortality. Finally, we use micro-level data from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) to assess the relation between fertility and child mortality from individual reproductive histories. The evidence we assemble from these different data sets is remarkably consistent and suggests small positive effects of infant mortality onfertility. These effects, however, may be too small to support the hypothesis that changes in child mortality are of more than modest importance in the process offertility decline in Latin America in the late twentieth century.
How low can it go? declining black-white segregation in A multiethnic context
Authors: Krivo Lauren J. , Kaufman Robert L.
Published: March 2007

We extend research on whites’ neighborhood contact with blacks, population composition, and prospects for desegregation by developing a new measure of the floor of racial residential segregation under conditions of low black-white contact. The measure incorporates the way in which multi ethnic contexts further constrain levels of black-white segregation. The results show that black-white desegregation is likely when the black population is small, but is unlikely otherwise. Yet, when multiple ethnic groups are sufficiently large, a moderate level of black-white segregation is necessary for whites to maintain low neighborhood contact with blacks, even when the proportion of African Americans is small.
Does it matter who answers the race question? Racial classification and income inequality in Brazil
Authors: Telles Edward E. , Lim Nelson
Published: March 2007

Previous studies ofracial inequality have relied on official statistics that presumably use self-classification of race. Using novel data from a 1995 national survey in Brazil, we find that the estimates of racial income inequality based on self-classification are lower than those based on interviewer classification. After human capital and labor market controls, whites earn 26% more than browns with interviewer classification but earn only 17% more than browns with self-classification. Black-brown differences hardly change: Blacks earn 13% and 12% less than browns with interviewer classification and self-classification, respectively. We contend that interviewer classification of race is more appropriate because analysts of racial inequality are interested in the effects of racial discrimination, which depends on how others classify one's race.