bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Completing the Demographic Transition
Authors: Bongaarts John , Bulatao Rodolfo A.
Published: January 2004

Despite ongoing declines in fertility in many countries, the population of the world is experiencing a period of rapid expansion, and its size is expected to reach 10 billion by the end of the demographic transition. Three causes of this growth are identified and quantified: 1) fertility above the replacement level of two surviving children per woman, 2) continuing declines in mortality, and 3) population momentum resulting from a young age structure. A set of simple analytic expressions is proposed for estimating these factors from standard demographic indicators. Population momentum is shown to be the main cause of future growth in most countries and regions.
Evolutionary Theory and Historical Fertility Change
Authors: Wilson Chris
Published: January 2004

Probably no issue divides social scientists and natural scientists more demonstrably than their attitudes on the value of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. The present essay suggests the role that Darwinian theory can play in the study of human fertility. After examining the nature of Darwinian theory, the essay considers research carried out on fertility by biologists and anthropologists with methods based on it and possible reformulations of demographic methods and analyses that could benefit fertility research. It ends with suggestions for further research to explore the value of Darwinian approaches to demographic issues.
Measuring Women's Work in Developing Countries
Authors: Donahoe Debra Anne
Published: January 2004

While an extensive literature documents the need for better measures of women's work, few attempts have been made to construct suitable work typologies that could be applied throughout the developing world. The author argues that in addition to the descriptive utility of more‐comprehensive measures of women's work, important analytical gains are to be made by applying better measures of work to a variety of research questions. Conventional labor force participation measures ignore an often substantial proportion of women's total productive activity, resulting in a limited understanding of the many processes that affect and are affected by women's work. The proposition is supported by examining an issue drawn from social demography—the relationship between women's work and decisionmaking relative to fertility in contemporary Egypt.
SHORT REVIEWS
Authors: Bongaarts John , Brockerhoff Martin , McNicoll Geoffrey , Todaro Michael P.
Published: January 2004

Books reviewed in this article:

American Economic Association, Papers and Proceedings of the One Hundred Eleventh Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association, New York, January 3–5 1999

Katherine Betts, The Great Divide: Immigration Politics in Australia

C. Y. Cyrus Chu, Population Dynamics: A New Economic Approach

Timothy J. Hatton and Jeffrey G. Williamson, The Age of Mass Migration: Causes and Economic Impact

International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, World Disasters Report 1998

Augustine J. Kposowa, The Impact of Immigration on the United States Economy

B. Lindsay Lowell (ed.), Foreign Temporary Workers in America: Policies That Benefit the U.S. Economy

Christopher J. L. Murray and Alan D. Lopez (eds.), Health Dimensions of Sex and Reproduction: The Global Burden of Sexually Transmitted Diseases, HIV, Maternal Conditions, Perinatal Disorders, and Congenital Abnormalities

Jack Parsons, Human Population Competition: A Study of the Pursuit of Power Through

Julian L. Simon, Economics Against the Grain

World Bank, Annual World Bank Conference on Development Economics 1998
Smallpox in Nineteenth‐Century India
Authors: Banthia Jayant , Dyson Tim
Published: January 2004

This study uses the large, but neglected, body of Indian historical demographic and health data to show that smallpox was a major killer in past times. At the start of the nineteenth century roughly 80 percent of India's population had no effective protection against the disease, and in these circumstances virtually everyone suffered from it in childhood. The main exception was Bengal, where the indigenous practice of inoculation greatly limited the prevalence of the disease. Smallpox case fatality in India was high—around 25–30 percent in unprotected populations—and significantly higher than estimated for unprotected populations in eighteenth‐century Europe. Although vaccination reached India in 1802, the practice spread slowly during the first half of the nineteenth century. From the 1870s onward there were considerable improvements in vaccination coverage. The study demonstrates a close link between the spread of vaccination and the decline of smallpox. Whereas at the start of the nineteenth century the disease may have accounted for more than 10 percent of all deaths in India, by the end of the century smallpox had become a comparatively minor cause of death as a result of improved vaccination coverage.
The Global and Regional Impact of Mortality and Fertility Transitions, 1950–2000
Authors: Heuveline Patrick
Published: January 2004

During the second half of the twentieth century, world population grew at a record pace, both in absolute and relative terms, from 2.5 billion to 6 billion (or 1.75 percent annually). Demographers have long identified rapid mortality declines as the main explanation. This article finds that one‐fourth of today's world population is alive because of mortality improvements since mid‐century. Very rapid growth is unlikely to continue as substantial fertility declines also occurred in recent decades. This article finds that already by the year 2000, these fertility declines have almost exactly compensated for the impact of mortality declines from mid‐century levels. This result may suggest homeostasis, but analyses of underlying trends contradict this impression. First, the impact of fertility declines will soon and significantly exceed that of mortality declines. Second, that mortality and fertility declines jointly affect the size of the world population by less than one percent conceals a significant impact on the population's age composition as well as on regional population sizes.
The Persistence of Outmoded Contraceptive Regimes: The Cases of Mexico and Brazil
Authors: Potter Joseph E.
Published: January 2004

Two of the most striking characteristics of contraceptive practice in the world today are the wide variation in patterns of use across countries and the tendency of the distribution of use by method to persist or narrow, even as new methods become available. The argument advanced in this article is that the disposition to commit to a reduced range of methods results from positive feedback in the process of contraceptive choice, and follows the logic of path dependence. The positive feedback derives, in large part, from social interaction among both the providers and the users of contraceptive methods. The persistence of outmoded contraceptive regimes is illustrated with the experience of Mexico and Brazil. In each case, it is argued that the conditions, events, and policies in the early stage of the adoption process have had a determinant bearing on the contraceptive practice prevailing in the late 1990s.
Longer Life and Population Growth
Authors: Goldstein Joshua R. , Schlag Wilhelm
Published: January 2004

Enthusiasm about the prospect of large increases in human life expectancy is often dampened by fears that lower mortality will increase population size, hence population pressure. A simple mathematical model of life‐cycle stretching demonstrates that if increased longevity is accompanied by later childbearing, a trend that is already underway, future declines in mortality will not increase population size.
The Long‐Term Effect of the Timing of Fertility Decline on Population Size
Authors: O'Neill Brian C. , Scherbov Sergei , Lutz Wolfgang
Published: January 2004

Existing long‐range population projections imply that the timing of the fertility transition has a relatively unimportant effect on long‐term population size when compared with the impact of the level at which fertility is assumed eventually to stabilize. However, this note shows that the effect of the timing of fertility decline is a function of the eventual fertility rate: the lower the eventual fertility rate, the greater the effect of the timing of the transition becomes. This finding has important implications for projection methodology, as well as for policies related to the consequences of long‐term levels of population size.
Urban Growth in Developing Countries: A Review of Projections and Predictions
Authors: Brockerhoff Martin
Published: January 2004

Comparison of the United Nations' earliest and most recent projections to the year 2000 suggests that urban and city growth in developing regions has occurred much more slowly than was anticipated as recently as 1980. A modified “urban population explosion” in developing countries since the 1970s conforms to explanatory models of urban growth developed by economists around 1980. Trends in productivity and terms of trade, in particular, have been highly favorable to agriculture as compared to manufacturing, presumably slowing migration to urban centers. Increases in national population growth rates have produced less than commensurate increases in rates of city growth, further supporting an economic and migration‐related explanation for unexpectedly slow recent urban growth. Despite the efforts of the United Nations to maintain reliable statistics on urban and city populations, urban population projections should be interpreted with caution because of inadequacies of the data on which they are based. Moreover, current projections that virtually all world population growth in the future will occur in urban areas of developing countries may be misconstrued, if the forces that have retarded urban growth in recent years persist.
SHORT REVIEWS
Authors: Bongaarts John , Brockerhoff Martin , Demeny Paul , Greenhalgh Susan , McNicoll Geoffrey
Published: January 2004

Books reviewed in this article:

Tom Athanasiou, Divided Planet: The Ecology of Rich and Poor

Ester Boserup, My Professional Life and Publications 1929–1998

Joachim von Braun, Tesfaye Tekxu, and Patrick Webb, Famine in Africa: Causes, Responses, and Prevention

John Brotchie, Peter Newton, Peter Hall, and John Dickey (eds.), East West Perspectives on 21st Century Urban Development: Sustainable Eastern and Western Cities in the New Millennium

Alex de Sherbinin and Victoria Dompka (eds.), Water and Population Dynamics: Case Studies and Policy Implications

Pamela Feldman‐Savelsberg, Plundered Kitchens, Empty Wombs: Threatened Reproduction and Identity in the Cameroon Grassfields

Peter H. Gleick, The World's Water 1998–1999: The Biennial Report on Freshwater Resources

Inge Kaul, Isabelle Grunberg, and Marc A. Stern (eds.), Global Public Goods: International Cooperation in the 21st Century

Patricia W. Lunneborg, The Chosen Lives of Childfree Men

Thomas Gale Moore, Climate of Fear: Why We Shouldn't Worry About Global Warming

United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, World Population Prospects: The 1998 Revision. Volume I: Comprehensive Tables; Volume II: The Sex and Age Distribution of the World Population

US Agency for International Development and US Department of Commerce, World Population Profile: 1998, with a Special Chapter Focusing on HIV I AIDS in the Developing World
The US Decennial Census: Political Questions, Scientific Answers
Authors: Prewitt Kenneth
Published: January 2004

The US decennial census was initiated in 1790 to facilitate nation‐building tasks, especially that of reconfiguring political representation as the population grew and settled new territories. To this basic task of power distribution have been added other key governmental functions, such as the use of census data in guiding revenue sharing and in the enforcement of nondiscriminatory policies. Throughout its history the census has been the focus of partisan clashes. Following the identification of the “differential undercount” a measure of how census coverage differs across demographic groups and geographic areas–the partisan battles intensified, and in recent decades have come to focus not just on how the census counts are used but how the census data are collected. It has been argued that census methodology could be designed to predetermine given partisan outcomes, and for the 2000 census this charge shifted from “could be” to “is.” The Census Bureau has taken extraordinary steps to demonstrate that no partisan considerations have affected the design or implementation of the census, and that its decisions are based solely on the best technical judgment available.
Challenging Neo‐Malthusian Deforestation Analyses in West Africa's Dynamic Forest Landscapes
Authors: Leach Melissa , Fairhead James
Published: January 2004

Many influential analyses of West Africa take it for granted that ‘original’ forest cover has progressively been converted and savannized during the twentieth century by growing populations. By testing these assumptions against historical evidence, exemplified for Ghana and Ivory Coast, this article shows that these neo‐Malthusian deforestation narratives badly misrepresent people–forest relationships. They obscure important nonlinear dynamics, as well as widespread anthropogenic forest expansion and landscape enrichment. These processes are better captured, in broad terms, by a neo‐Boserupian perspective on population–forest dynamics. However, comprehending variations in locale‐specific trajectories of change requires fuller appreciation of social differences in environmental and resource values, of how diverse institutions shape resource access and control, and of ecological variability and path dependency in how landscapes respond to use. The second half of the article présents and illustrates such a “landscape structuretion” perspective through case studies from the forest–savanna transition zones of Ghana and Guinea.
Reproduction, Compositional Demography, and Economic Growth: Family Planning in England Long Before the Fertility Decline
Authors: Szreter Simon , Garrett Eilidh
Published: January 2004

This article offers a radical reinterpretation of the chronology of control over reproduction in England's history. It argues that, as a result of post–World War II policy preoccupations, there has been too narrow a focus in the literature on the significance of reductions in marital fertility. In England's case this is conventionally dated to have occurred from 1876, long after the industrial revolution. With a wider angle focus on “reproduction,” the historical evidence for England indicates that family planning began much earlier in the process of economic growth. Using a “compositional demography” approach, a novel social pattern of highly prudential, late marriage can be seen emerging among the bourgeoisie in the course of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. There is also evidence for a more widespread resort to such prudential marriage throughout the population after 1816. When placed in this context, the reduction in national fertility indexes visible from 1876 can be seen as only a further phase, not a revolution, in the population's management of its reproduction.
Rocky Mountain Visions: A Review Essay*
Authors: Smil Vaclav
Published: January 2004

George J. Borjas, Heaven's Door: Immigration Policy and the American Economy

Douglas S. Massey, Joaquin Arango, Graeme Hugo, Ali Kouaouci, Adela Pellegrino, Aistd J. Edward Taylor, Worlds in Motion: Understanding International Migration at the End of the Millennium

Alison Games, Migration and the Origins of the English Atlantic World

Joseph P. Ferrie, Yankeys Now: Immigrants in the Antebellum United States 1840–1860

Francine M. Deutsch, Halving It All: How Equally Shared Parenting Works
SHORT REVIEWS
Authors: Bongaarts John , Brockerhoff Martin , Greenhalgh Susan , Gu Baochang , McNicoll Geoffrey
Published: January 2004

Books reviewed in this article:

Orley Ashenfelter And David Card (Eds.), Handbook of Labor Economics, Volume 3

Paul Boyle, Keith Halfacree, and Vaughan Robinson, Exploring Contemporary Migration

Weixing Chen, The Political Economy of Rural Development in China, 1978–1999

David A. Crocker and Toby Linden (Eds.), Ethics of Consumption: The Good Life, Justice, and Global Stewardship

James Z. Lee and Wang Feng, One Quarter of Humanity: Malthusian Mythology and Chinese Realities, 1700–2000

Jonathan M. Mann and Daniel J. M. Tarantola (Eds.), AIDS in the World II: Global Dimensions, Social Roots, and Responses

Julian L. Simon, The Economic Consequences of Immigration, Second Edition

Sopemi, Trends in International Migration: Continuous Reporting System on Migration. Annual Report, 1999 Edition

Jacqueline Stevens, Reproducing the State

United Nations Development Programme China, The China Human Development Report

United Nations, Economic Commission For Europe, Economic Survey of Europe 1999, No. 1

Kathleen S. Uno, Passages to Modernity: Motherhood, Childhood, and Social Reform in Early Twentieth Century Japan
Relative Cohort Size: Source of a Unifying Theory of Global Fertility Transition?
Authors: Macunovich Diane J.
Published: January 2004

Using United Nations estimates of age structure and vital rates for 184 countries at five‐year intervals from 1950 through 1995, this article demonstrates how changes in relative cohort size appear to have affected patterns of fertility across countries since 1950—not just in developed countries, but perhaps even more importantly in developing countries as they pass through the demographic transition. The increase in relative cohort size (defined as the proportion of males aged 15–24 relative to males aged 25–59), which occurs as a result of declining mortality rates among infants, children, and young adults during the demographic transition, appears to act as the mechanism that determines when the fertility portion of the transition begins. As hypothesized by Richard Easterlin, the increasing proportion of young adults generates a downward pressure on young men's relative wages (or on the size of landhold‐ings passed on from parent to child), which in turn causes young adults to accept a tradeoff between family size and material wellbeing, setting in motion a “cascade” or “snowball” effect in which total fertility rates tumble as social norms regarding acceptable family sizes begin to change.
Agricultural Adjustment in China: Problems and Prospects
Authors: Johnson D. Gale
Published: January 2004

Because of the low income elasticity of demand for farm products and the ability of farmers to increase labor productivity, economic growth requires that farm employment decline if farmers are to share in the benefits of such growth. In 1952 approximately 84 percent of China's workers were engaged in agriculture; in 1997 the figure had declined to 41 percent. By 2030 farm employment may account for only 10 percent of the total. The productivity of farm labor must increase at a rapid pace if the 63 percent decline in farm employment does not adversely affect the rate of growth of farm output.
Crime, Gender, and Society in India: Insights from Homicide Data
Authors: Drèze Jean , Khera Reetika
Published: January 2004

This study presents an analysis of inter‐district variations in murder rates in India in 1981. Three significant patterns emerge. First, murder rates in India bear no significant relation with urbanization or poverty. Second, there is a negative association between literacy and criminal violence. Third, murder rates in India are highly correlated with the female‐male ratio in the population: districts with higher female‐male ratios have lower murder rates. Alternative hypotheses about the causal relationships underlying this connection between sex ratios and murder rates are scrutinized. One plausible explanation is that low female‐male ratios and high murder rates are joint symptoms of a patriarchal environment. This study also suggests that gender relations, in general, have a crucial bearing on criminal violence.
The Predicament of Population Aging: A Review Essay*
Authors: MacKellar F. Landis
Published: January 2004

Ken Dychtwald,Age Power: How the 21st Century Will Be Ruled by the New Old

Richard Leete (ed.),Dynamics of Values in Fertility Change

Donald T. Critchlow,Intended Consequences: Birth Control, Abortion, and the Federal Government in Modern America

Bernard Jeune and James W. Vaupel (eds.),Validation of Exceptional Longevity
Protracted National Conflict and Fertility Change: Palestinians and Israelis in the Twentieth Century
Authors: Fargues Philippe
Published: January 2004

This article examines atypical trends of birth rates and fertility—their irregular time trends and relatively high levels—among Palestinians and Israelis in light of the protracted conflict between them and related political developments. Migration, in itself a major dimension of the conflict, has been formative in contrasting evolutions of fertility: convergence among the Jews, originating from various countries but gradually coalescing in Jewish Israeli society, as opposed to divergence for the Palestinians, members of the same initial society but dispersed by the conflict and subjected to political and socioeconomic conditions varying with their place of residence. Demography is at stake in the conflict, and pronatalism becomes a dimension of nationalism, for Palestinians as well as for Israelis. Political and civil institutions influence fertility through redistribution of resources that subsidize procreation. For both sides, it seems that belligerence has produced excess fertility.
The Spread of Primary Schooling in sub‐Saharan Africa: Implications for Fertility Change
Authors: Lloyd Cynthia B. , Kaufman Carol E. , Hewett Paul
Published: January 2004

In 1980 Caldwell hypothesized that the time of the onset of the fertility transition in developing countries would be linked with the achievement of “mass formal schooling.” This article applies Demographic and Health Survey data to assess schooling patterns and trends for 23 sub‐Saharan African countries, using the percentage of 15–19‐year olds who have completed at least four years of schooling as an indicator of progress in education. As background to that assessment, the article includes a review of the sparse literature on the links between children's schooling and fertility decline. The analysis strongly supports Caldwell's hypothesis with empirical evidence of the much stronger negative relationship between fertility decline and grade 4 attainment in those countries that have attained mass‐schooling levels than in those that have not yet achieved such levels.
Does Female Disadvantage Mean Lower Access to Food?
Authors: DeRose Laurie F. , Das Maitreyi , Millman Sara R.
Published: January 2004

The literature on gender differentials in nutrition demonstrates that the calorie intake of females is generally as adequate as that of males at all ages. Female disadvantage in micronutrient intake is, however, frequent. Pregnant and lactating women are disadvantaged relative to both men and other women. In South Asia there is evidence that boys are advantaged over girls in food intake at some ages, but the evidence for male advantage in access to health care is far stronger. The authors argue that nutrition interventions are best targeted when the incidence of female disadvantage is better understood and, similarly, that interventions to improve women's status should be focused on objectives other than calorie intake in most communities. However, standards for measuring adequacy incorporate norms for female body size and physical activity that may uncritically accept the notion that females are more physically passive. Maintaining adequacy by these standards could perpetuate low levels of female functioning.
The 1918 Influenza Epidemic's Effects on Sex Differentials in Mortality in the United States
Authors: Noymer Andrew , Garenne Michel
Published: January 2004

The 1918 influenza epidemic had a marked and fairly long‐lasting effect on the sex differential in mortality in the United States. After 1918 women lost most of their mortality advantage over men and the female/male gap did not regain its pre‐epidemic level until the 1930s. An analysis of causes of deaths shows a link with tuberculosis. We conjecture the existence of a selection effect, whereby many 1918 influenza deaths were among tuberculous persons, so that tuberculosis death rates dropped in later years, disproportionately among males. Age‐ and sex‐specific data by cause of death corroborate this hypothesis.
SHORT REVIEWS
Authors: Greenhalgh Susan , McNicoll Geoffrey , Todaro Michael P.
Published: January 2004

Books reviewed in this article:

Sarah Anderson and John Cavanagh with Thea Lee, Field Guide to the Global Economy

Reginald Appleyard (ed.), Migration and Development

Richard J.F. Day, Multiculturalism and the History of Canadian Diversity

Karin Evans, The Lost Daughters of China: Abandoned Girls, Their Journey to America, and the Search for a Missing Past

Sharon K. Houseknecht and Jerry G. Pankhurst (eds.), Family, Religion, and Social Change in Diverse Societies

Brian Nichiporuk, The Security Dynamics of Demographic Factors

Rayna Rapp, Testing Women, Testing the Fetus: The Social Impact of Amniocentesis in America
Population and Resources: An Exploration of Reproductive and Environmental Externalities
Authors: Dasgupta Partha
Published: January 2004

This article identifies four types of social externalities associated with fertility behavior. Three are shown to be pronatalist in their effects. These three are exemplified by the way theories of economic growth treat fertility and natural resources, the way population growth and economic stress in poor countries are seen by environmental and resource economists, and the way development economists accommodate environmental stress in their analysis of poverty. It is shown that the fourth type of externality, in which children are regarded as an end in themselves, can even provide an invidious link between fertility decisions and the use of the local natural‐resource base among poor rural households in poor countries. The fourth type is used to develop a theory of fertility transitions in the contemporary world; the theory views such transitions as disequilibrium phenomena.
Unmet Need for Family Planning in Developing Countries and Implications for Population Policy
Authors: Casterline John B. , Sinding Steven W.
Published: January 2004

Unmet need for family planning has been a core concept in international population discourse for several decades. This article reviews the history of unmet need and the development of increasingly refined methods of its empirical measurement and delineates the main questions that have been raised about unmet need during the past decade, some of which concern the validity of the concept and others its role in policy debates. The discussion draws heavily on empirical research conducted during the 1990s, much of it localized, in‐depth studies combining quantitative and qualitative methodologies. Of the causes of unmet need other than those related to access to services, three emerge as especially salient: lack of necessary knowledge about contraceptive methods, social opposition to their use, and health concerns about possible side effects. The article argues that the concept of unmet need for family planning, by joining together contraceptive behavior and fertility preferences, encourages an integration of family planning programs and broader development approaches to population policy. By focusing on the fulfillment of individual aspirations, unmet need remains a defensible rationale for the formulation of population policy and a sensible guide to the design of family planning programs.
Local and Foreign Models of Reproduction in Nyanza Province, Kenya
Authors: Watkins Susan Cotts
Published: January 2004

This article uses colonial archival records, surveys conducted in the 1960s, and surveys and focus group discussions in the 1990s to describe three distinct but temporally overlapping cultural models of reproduction in a rural community in Kenya between the 1930s and the present. The first model, “large families are rich,” was slowly undermined by developments brought about by the integration of Kenya into the British empire. This provoked the collective formulation of a second local model, “small families are progressive,” which retained the same goal of wealth but viewed a smaller family as a better strategy for achieving it. The third model, introduced by the global networks of the international population movement in the 1960s, augmented the second model with the deliberate control of fertility using clinic provided methods of family planning. By the 1990s this global model had begun to be domesticated as local clinics routinely promoted family planning and as men and women in Nyanza began to use family planning and to tell others of their motivations and experiences.
Perceiving Mortality Decline
Authors: Montgomery Mark R.
Published: January 2004

In the demographic literature on developing countries, studies of mortality perceptions are conspicuous by their absence. Perhaps it has been assumed that when mortality declines, the decline will be quickly recognized by individuals and will then influence their demographic decisions. The possibility of substantial lags and biases in risk perception, which cause individual perceptions to diverge from the changing empirical realities, has not been much considered. Yet studies in cognitive and social psychology indicate that individual mortality perceptions are likely to be diffuse and may well be biased upward in relation to the declining empirical risks. If individuals are poorly equipped to recognize mortality decline, so too may be social groups—social learning will not necessarily correct individual misapprehensions. This note discusses the perceptual limitations that may delay recognition of mortality decline and examines the implications for demographic behavior in three areas: modern health care, fertility control, and children's schooling.
SHORT REVIEWS
Authors: Greenhalgh Susan , McNicoll Geoffrey , Todaro Michael P.
Published: January 2004

Books reviewed in this article:

Neil J. Diamant, Revolutionizing the Family: Politics, Love, and Divorce in Urban and Rural China, 1949–1968

International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, World Disasters Report 2000: Focus on Public Health

Christian Joppke, Immigration and the Nation‐State: The United States, Germany, and Great Britain

Peng Xizhe with Guo Zhigang (eds.), The Changing Population of China

Sebastiao Salgado, Migrations: Humanity in Transition

United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 2000

United Nations Population Division, The World at Six Billion

United Nations Population Division, World Population Monitoring 1998. Health and Mortality: Selected Aspects

World Bank, Can Africa Claim the 21st Century?
Fertility, Education, and Development: Evidence from India
Authors: Drèze Jean , Murthi Mamta
Published: January 2004

Fertility has declined significantly in many parts of India since the early 1980s. This article examines the determinants of fertility levels and fertility decline, using data on Indian districts for 1981 and 1991. The authors find that women's education and child mortality are the most important factors explaining fertility differences across the country and over time. Low levels of son preference also contribute to lower fertility. By contrast, general indicators of modernization and development such as urbanization, poverty reduction, and male literacy exhibit no significant association with fertility.En passant, the authors probe a subject of much confusion— the relation between fertility decline and gender bias.
Late Marriage and Less Marriage in Japan
Authors: Retherford Robert D. , Ogawa Naohiro , Matsukura Rikiya
Published: January 2004

Between 1975 and 1995, the singulate mean age at marriage in Japan increased from 24.5 to 27.7 years for women and from 27.6 to 30.7 years for men, making Japan one of the latest‐marrying populations in the world. Over the same period, the proportion of women who will never marry, calculated from age‐specific first‐marriage probabilities pertaining to a particular calendar year, increased from 5 to 15 percent for women and from 6 to 22 percent for men—behaviors sharply different from those characterizing the universal‐marriage society of earlier years. This article investigates how and why these changes have come about. The reasons are bound up with rapid educational gains by women, massive increases in the proportion of women who work for pay outside the home, major changes in the structure and functioning of the marriage market, extraordinary increases in the prevalence of premarital sex, and far‐reaching changes in values relating to marriage and family life.
Cohort Reproductive Patterns in Low‐Fertility Countries
Authors: Frejka Tomas , Calot Gérard
Published: January 2004

This account reports on a project in progress that aims to obtain a comprehensive picture of contemporary fertility levels and trends in 27 low‐fertility countries. Cohort analysis is applied to review the fertility experience of women born from the 1930s through the 1970s. This choice of dates ensures that not only completed fertility but also the fertility patterns of women in the midst of or near the onset of their reproductive period are examined. In most of the 27 countries, completed fertility of successive cohorts has been declining. It appears plausible that the trends discerned in the analysis will continue in the foreseeable future. For these trends to be reversed, women who are about to enter or who are in the midst of their reproductive periods would have to adopt fertility patterns markedly different from those of women born in the 1960s and 1970s.
Is There Evidence of Birth Control in Late Imperial China?
Authors: Wolf Arthur P.
Published: January 2004

In recent publications James Lee, Wang Feng, Cameron Campbell, and Zhongwei Zhao argue—contrary to what has long been the view of most sinologists—that people in late imperial China deliberately controlled their fertility through a combination of late starting, early stopping, and long spacing. The present article challenges this argument and the data offered in its support. It attempts to show that though they did not want as many children as possible, most Chinese couples did want to raise as many sons as possible. What is interpreted by the revisionists as evidence of birth control is better understood as evidence of poverty.
On the Scale of Global Demographic Convergence 1950–2000
Authors: Wilson Chris
Published: January 2004

The second half of the twentieth century saw global demographic change of unprecedented magnitude, with pronounced falls in both mortality and fertility in many developing countries. This article assesses the extent to which these changes have led to the convergence of demographic patterns around the world. It considers not just the levels of fertility and mortality in each country at different points in time, but also the size of each population. It also disaggregates China and India into their constituent provinces and states in order to provide estimates for units more typical of the size of the populations of other countries. The note presents proportions of the world's population according to the levels of life expectancy and total fertility they experienced in the early 1950s, the late 1970s, and around 2000. The graphs and tables thus produced give a convenient and novel way to view the scale and nature of demographic convergence over the last 50 years.
SHORT REVIEWS
Authors: Bongaarts John , McNicoll Geoffrey , Todaro Michael P. , Zimmer Zachary
Published: January 2004

Books reviewed in this article:

Martin Carnoy, Sustaining the New Economy: Work, Family, and Community in the Information Age

Joop Garssen, Joop De Beer, Lieneke Hoeksma, Kees Prins, And Rolf Verhoef (Eds.), Vital Events: Past, Present and Future of the Dutch Population

International Fund for Agricultural Development, Rural Poverty Report 2001: The Challenge of Ending Rural Poverty

Andrew Mason and Georges Tapinos (Eds.), Sharing the Wealth: Demographic Change and Economic Transfers between Generations

Phil Mullan, The Imaginary Time Bomb: Why An Ageing Problem Is Not a Social Problem

National Research Council, Board on Sustainable Development, Our Common Journey: A Transition toward Sustainability

National Research Council, Forum on Biodiversity Committee, Nature and Human Society: The Quest for a Sustainable World

Ronald E. Seavoy, Subsistence and Economic Development

United Nations Children's Fund, A League Table of Child Deaths by Injury in Rich Nations
The North Korean Famine and Its Demographic Impact
Authors: Goodkind Daniel , West Loraine
Published: January 2004

The North Korean famine began in 1995 and its ill effects, while peaking in the late 1990s,undoubtedly linger. Recent conjectures on excess deaths caused by the famine range widely from about 200,000 to 3 million or more. This article assesses the demographic impact of the famine with greater rigor than has previously been attempted and describes the unique setting in which the famine occurred. The analysis begins with a pair of population projections based on mortality statistics from two sources. Given their contradictory implications, the analysis turns to less direct evidence of famine‐related mortality. That evidence includes China's demographic experience during the Great Leap Forward and recent measurements of child malnutrition in North Korea. Crosscountry comparisons translate this malnutrition into corresponding levels of infant mortality. The article concludes that famine‐related deaths in North Korea from 1995 to 2000 most likely numbered between 600,000 and 1 million.
How Much Will Feeding More and Wealthier People Encroach on Forests?
Authors: Waggoner Paul E. , Ausubel Jesse H.
Published: January 2004

Forests have recently expanded in many countries. The success of the world, including both rich and poor, in following this trend depends on future changes in population, income per capita, appetite, and crop yields. Extended to the year 2050, the strengths of these forces, estimated from experience, project cropland shrinking by nearly 200 million hectares, more than three times the land area of France. Changes in some of the forces, with crop yield the most manageable, could double the shrinkage. Reasonable assumptions about the forces can also make the distribution of spared land between rich and poor countries roughly equal. Although the encroachment factor translating cropland change into forest land change varies greatly, one‐third or more of the cropland spared could become forest.
Health Interventions and Health Equity: The Example of Measles Vaccination in Bangladesh
Authors: Koenig Michael A. , Bishai David , Khan Mehrab Ali
Published: January 2004

Although the existence of socioeconomic differentials in infant and childhood mortality in developing countries is well established. little consensus exists as to the most effective approaches to reducing such differentials. This article utilizes longitudinal data from the Matlab study area in rural Bangladesh to investigate the impact of an efficacious child survival intervention—measles vaccination—on reductions in gender and socioeconomic differentials in childhood mortality. The article analyzes data from 16,270 vaccinated children and randomly matched controls, and evaluates their subsequent mortality risks. Proportional hazards analysis demonstrates that unvaccinated children from very poor families face more than a threefold higher risk of subsequent early child mortality, compared to vaccinated children from families of high economic status. While measles vaccination has little impact on mortality risks among children of higher economic status, the improvement in survival among children from poorer households is pronounced. The provision of measles vaccination markedly reduces mortality risks for poorer children—from over three times higher to just over 1.5 times higher relative to vaccinated children from wealthier families. The findings of this study are evaluated in terms of the potential of child survival interventions such as measles vaccination to promote greater health equity.
Surnames in US Population Records
Authors: Petersen William
Published: January 2004

Two federal agencies have used surnames to classify persons by ethnicity. As two important twentieth‐century examples, names were used to set immigration quotas, and the Census Bureau used names as the defining characteristic of Hispanics. However, many names have been changed and, if unaltered, they are in any case an unreliable index of ethnic identity.
The World's Changing Human Capital Stock: Multi‐State Population Projections by Educational Attainment
Authors: Lurz Wolfgang , Goujon Anne
Published: January 2004

This research note presents the first global population projections by educational attainment using methods of multi‐state population projection. The educational composition of the population by age and sex and educational fertility differentials are estimated for 13 world regions, and alternative scenarios are presented to the year 2030. One of these scenarios assumes constant educational transition rates and the other assumes that all regions reach Northern American levels of enrollment rates by 2030. The strong momentum or, as the case may be, inertia in the transformation of the educational composition of a population, seen in the results, arises because education is mostly acquired at a young age. The sex bias in the educational composition, especially evident in some developing countries, is unlikely to disappear soon. China has made remarkable progress in improving educational enrollment and as a consequence by 2030 is expected to have more educated people of working age than Europe and Northern America together.
SHORT REVIEWS
Authors: Bongaarts John , Greenhalgh Susan , McNicoll Geoffrey , Todaro Michael P. , Zimmer Zachary
Published: January 2004

Books reviewed in this article:

Reginaijd Applbyard (Ed.), Emigration Dynamics in Developing Countries. Volume IV: The Arab Region

James R. Carey and Debra S. Judge, Longevity Records: Life Spans of Mammals, Birds, Amphibians, Reptiles, and Fish

Bart J. de Bruijn, Foundations of Demographic Theory: Choice, Process, Context

Laurie Garrett, Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health

Ellen M. Gee and Gloria M. Gutman (Eds.). The Overselling of Population Aging: Apocalyptic Demography, Intergenerational Challenges, and Social Policy

International Organization for Migration, World Migration Report 2000

National Intelligence Council, Global Trends 2015: A Dialogue about the Future with Nongovernment Experts

Richard Parker, Regina Maria Barbosa, and Peter Aggleton (Eds.), Framing the Sexual Subject: The Politics of Gender, Sexuality, and Power

United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Demographic Yearbook 1998: Fiftieth Issue
First Politics, Then Culture: Accounting for Ethnic Differences in Demographic Behavior in Kenya
Authors: Weinreb Alexander A.
Published: January 2004

Ethnic differences in demographic behavior tend to be disguised behind analytically opaque labels like “district” or “region,” or else subjected to simplistic cultural explanations. Drawing on new political economy, sociological theory and the political science literature on sub‐Saharan Africa, this article proposes an alternative explanatory model and tests it empirically with reference to Kenya. Access to political power and, through power, access to a state's resources—including resources devoted to clinics, schools, labor opportunities, and other determinants of demographic behavior—are advanced as the key factors underlying ethnic differences. District‐level estimates of “political capital” are introduced and merged with two waves of Demographic and Health Survey data. The effects on models of contraceptive use are explored. Results confirm that measures of political capital explain residual ethnic differences in use, providing strong support for a political approach to the analysis of demographic behavior.
Is There a Stabilizing Selection Around Average Fertility in Modern Human Populations?
Authors: Mueller Ulrich
Published: January 2004

Possibly the greatest challenge for an evolutionary explanation of demographic transition is the fact that fertility levels universally start to fall first among the well‐to‐do, well‐educated, healthy classes, which can be explained only by some voluntary or at least adaptive action. The problem of how restraints on fertility could have evolved by natural selection has been tackled with group selection models as well as with stabilizing selection models. The latter model, which is critically discussed in this article, posits that some intermediate (rather than maximal) level of fertility is optimal for long‐term reproductive success. Tests of stabilizing selection in human populations are rare, their results inconclusive. Here four sets of data are analyzed: they are samples drawn from the 'class of 1950 of the US Military Academy at West Point (cohorts 1923–29), retired US noncommissioned officers (cohorts 1913–37), and western German and eastern German physicians (cohorts 1930–35), all containing fertility data over two generations, and from European royalty (cohorts 1790–1939) containing fertility data over four generations. Deterministic as well as stochastic fitness measures are used. It is found that maximal, not average, fertility in the first generation leads to maximal long‐term reproductive success. Also against prediction, no decreasing marginal fitness gains by increasing fertility can be observed. The findings leave little space for considering stabilizing selection as a plausible mechanism explaining the course of demographic transition but indicate instead that biological evolution today is as fast and vigorous as ever in human history. Even in large populations, all people living today may be the descendants of just some few percents—a much smaller proportion than generally believed— of the people living some generations ago.
The Retrenchment of Marriage: Results from Marital Status Life Tables for the United States, 1995
Authors: Schoen Robert , Standish Nicola
Published: January 2004

Marital status life tables were calculated using 1995 US rates of marriage, divorce, and mortality. Compared to figures for 1988, the proportion of persons surviving to age 15 who ever marry remained fairly steady at about five‐sixths of all men and seven‐eighths of all women. The average age at first marriage rose substantially: to 28.6 years for men and 26.6 years for women. The probability of a marriage ending in divorce changed little and was .437 for men and .425 for women. It is likely that no US period or cohort will ever have half of all marriages end in legal divorce, though the highest cohort may reach 47 percent. Patterns of marriage and divorce observed since 1970 show the effect that cohabitation continues to have on the American family, where it is delaying, but not replacing, marriage.
Population and Progress in the Middle Ages: A Review Essay*
Authors: Goldstone Jack A.
Published: January 2004

Book reviewed in this Article:

Julian L. Simon, The Great Breakthrough and Its Cause, edited by Timur Kuran

Angela Hattery, Women, Work, and Family: Balancing and Weaving

John I. Clarke, The Human Dichotomy: The Changing Numbers of Males and Females

Giovanni Andrea Cornia and Renato Paniccia (Eds.), The Mortality Crisis in Transitional Economies

Caleb E. Finch, James W. Vaupel, and Kevin Kinsella (Eds.), Cells and Surveys: Should Biological Measures Be Included in Social Science Research?