A technique for measuring preferences for spending reductions

A question format for assessing people's preferences for spending reductions which can be used as part of telephone-administered surveys is discussed. Experiences with two field tests of the format are promising in that the response rates to question series as well as the validities of measures obtained from using the format compare favorably with similar assessments of rank-order formats. While cautionary use of the cutback technique is recommended, the findings reported here are encouraging enough to warrant further experimentation with it.     

A new technique for measuring household changes

Because many recent policy decisions have been aimed at effecting changes in the socioeconomic characteristics of families or households, it has become necessary to isolate policy-induced changes from demographic changes in households over time. To obtain such longitudinal data, the family records from three panels of the Current Population Survey that were interviewed both in March, 1964, and March, 1965, were used in a computer record-matching operation.The resulting data confirm that approximately 20 percera of all households are mobile in the period of a year as evidenced by the nonmatched households that were found in 1964 but not present in 1965. More important, the data indicate that S percent of the nonmobile family households became individual households, or the reverse, and 15 percent of all the remaining households changed in family size. These last two statistics represent the first national estimates of gross changes in the demographic characteristics of households.In addition to data on changes in households, this relatively inexpensive method can be used to match Current Population Survey persons' records and provide longitudinal data on the persons within households. Over all, this prototype technique offers policy planners an analytical tool with the necessary statistical controls for assessing the effects of policy decisions and predicting policy success.     

A new service for demographic analysts: the Dynamic Data Base

This is an introduction to the services available through the Dynamic Data Base (DDB), set up in 1984 at the International Statistical Institute (ISI) in Voorburg, the Netherlands. The primary objective of the DDB is to promote policy-relevant analysis of demographic and related data. Although originally consisting of files containing survey data from 40 of the developing countries participating in the World Fertility Survey (WFS), its holdings have expanded so that by the end of 1986, the DDB held over 250 files relating to individuals, households, and communities from surveys in some 60 countries. The article includes information on holdings, documentation and archiving procedures, data access, software development and distribution, and analysis training     

A technique for measuring the effect of economic base on opportunity for blacks

An assessment of the occupational opportunities for selected groups of in-migrants (i.e., Negroes) requires a technique which controls for effects of both national and local employment patterns. We suggest a measure based upon the location quotient and referred to as the "differential opportunity ratio" as a method which provides the necessary controls. It is applicable in the comparative studies of cities and in analyses of other population groups for which data are available.     

A demographic explanation for the recent rise in European fertility

Between 1998 and 2008 European countries experienced the first continent-wide increase in the period total fertility rate (TFR) since the 1960s. After discussing period and cohort influences on fertility trends, we examine the role of tempo distortions of period fertility and different methods for removing them. We highlight the usefulness of a new indicator: the tempo- and parity-adjusted total fertility rate (TFRp*). This variant of the adjusted total fertility rate proposed by Bongaarts and Feeney also controls for the parity composition of the female population and provides more stable values than the indicators proposed in the past. Finally, we estimate levels and trends in tempo and parity distribution distortions in selected countries in Europe. Our analysis of period and cohort fertility indicators in the Czech Republic, Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden shows that the new adjusted measure gives a remarkable fit with the completed fertility of women in prime childbearing years in a given period, which suggests that it provides an accurate adjustment for tempo and parity composition distortions. Using an expanded dataset for ten countries, we demonstrate that adjusted fertility as measured by TFRp* remained nearly stable since the late 1990s. This finding implies that the recent upturns in the period TFR in Europe are largely explained by a decline in the pace of fertility postponement. Other tempo-adjusted fertility indicators have not indicated such a large role for the diminishing tempo effect in these TFR upturns. As countries proceed through their postponement transitions, tempo effects will decline further and eventually disappear, thus putting continued upward pressure on period fertility. However, such an upward trend may be obscured for a few years by the effects of economic recession.     

Software for demographic research

Software that has been specifically developed to perform demographic analyses on both microcomputers and mainframes is reviewed. The emphasis is on those programs with wide distribution. Consideration is given to packages of demographic programs; fertility estimation and analysis; mortality estimation and analysis; nuptiality; migration; data collection, management, and quality testing; and population projections and models. Information is included on the addresses of the distributors of the software packages and programs.     

Knox meets Cox: Adapting epidemiological space-time statistics to demographic studies

Many important questions and theories in demography focus on changes over time, and on how those changes differ over geographic and social space. Space-time analysis has always been important in studying fertility transitions, for example. However, demographers have seldom used formal statistical methods to describe and analyze time series of maps. One formal method, used widely in epidemiology, criminology, and public health, is Knox’s space-time interaction test. In this article, we discuss the potential of the Knox test in demographic research and note some possible pitfalls. We demonstrate how to use familiar proportional hazards models to adapt the Knox test for demographic applications. These adaptations allow for nonrepeatable events and for the incorporation of structural variables that change in space and time. We apply the modified test to data on the onset of fertility decline in Brazil over 1960–2000 and show how the modified method can produce maps indicating where and when diffusion effects seem strongest, net of covariate effects.     

A note on the measurement of accuracy for subnational demographic estimates

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 (MAPE-T) 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.     

Dual record demographic surveys: A re-assessment

Summary A Review of 'Population Growth Estimation': A Handbook of Vital Statistics Measurement, by Eli S. Marks, W. Seltzer and K. J. Krotki. pp. 496.     

The cocos-keeling islands: A demographic laboratory

The Cocos Islands, which are situated in the Indian Ocean approximately halfway between Colombo and Fremantle, were first peopled early in the nineteenth century and were gradually developed as a very isolated coconut plantation with a labour force consisting partly of persons of Malay stock descended from the original group of settlers and partly of Bantamese contract labourers from Java. As the Cocos-born population increased in size, the dependence on contract labour decreased and, before the end of the century, all immigration ceased. The 1947 Malay population of the islands was about 1,800.

The islands are fascinating from a demographer's point of view because there was a virtually complete registration of live births, deaths and marriages and a partial registration of stillbirths. With these registration records it was possible to construct the life history of every individual from birth, through infancy and childhood to marriage, and thence through fatherhood or motherhood to death.

The picture revealed by an analysis of these records is that of a population with very high fertility and with mortality at a high level before the first World war and at a medium level after that war. Crude birth rates varied between 50 and 60 per thousand population during the period 1888 to 1947. Crude death rates were between 30 and 40 per thousand population until 1912 but under 2.0 per thousand population after 1918.

Most Cocos girls married before reaching the age of 20 and there were an average of between eight and nine live births per woman living through the childbearing period. There was a steady decline in the average number of live births with advancing age at marriage from age 16 onwards. A significantly high proportion of those dying in the middle of the childbearing period had never married, but the fertility of those marrying at an early age (14, 15 and 16) and dying before reaching the age of 36 was slightly higher than that of those who married at a similar age and survived. Women who survived to the age of 55 were of higher fertility than those who died between the ages of 40 and 55. An analysis of birth intervals revealed significant differences (a) between birth intervals after a stillbirth or after a live birth in which the child died in early infancy, and birth intervals after a live birth in which the offspring survived for longer than 0.4 years, and (b) between the interval from first to second birth and the subsequent birth intervals. There was a difference of almost exactly a year between the average birth interval after a stillbirth or live birth ending in a neo-natal death and the average birth interval after the birth of a child surviving to age 2; there was a similar difference of a year between corresponding median birth intervals.

From 1888 to 1912 infant mortality was well above 300 per thousand. After 1918 infant mortality averaged rather under 100 infant deaths per 1,000 live births. The reduction in infant mortality rates was accompanied by an increase in the mortality of children aged 1 to 4, and the heavy incidence of mortality at these ages after 1918 is the most striking feature of the analysis of mortality by age. Whilst mortality in infancy fell much more heavily on males than on females, early childhood mortality was much higher in Cocos for girls than for boys. The life table computed for the period 1918 to 1947 indicated a life expectancy of about 50 years for males and 47 years for females.     

A demographic perspective on the Muslim world

A demographic perspective is relevant to understanding the position of Muslims in today’s world. This paper examines the size and growth of Muslim populations, and whether most Muslims live in overwhelmingly Muslim countries. It also examines indices of poverty and human development for Muslimmajority countries, and the growth of the youth population; finally, it examines the key components of population growth: mortality and fertility. Mortality has declined sharply over the past 15 years in many Muslim countries, though not in all, and Muslim countries are no longer prominent among the ‘outliers’ with higher mortality than expected on the basis of their income levels. Fertility rates are also declining sharply in a number of major Muslim-majority countries, raising interesting issues about attitudes of different schools of Islamic jurisprudence, village-level religious leaders and ordinary Muslims towards contraception and abortion, as well as the role of socio-economic development and family planning programs in fertility declines. Despite these declines, past high fertility in many Muslim-majority countries leaves as a legacy a rapidly growing adolescent population and a burgeoning, inadequately educated labour force.     

Fertility preferences and subsequent childbearing in Africa and Asia: A synthesis of evidence from longitudinal studies in 28 populations

Survey data on fertility preferences have played a central but controversial role in fertility research and advocacy for family planning. We summarize evidence from longitudinal studies in 28 Asian and African populations on the relationship between preferences and subsequent childbearing. While we found no consistent association between women's desire to delay childbearing and subsequent fertility, the baseline desire of women to stop childbearing was a powerful predictor of subsequent fertility in all populations and increased in strength as overall contraceptive use in the study populations rose. Partners’ desire also exercised some influence but was of modest importance in most populations. However, the correspondence between desire to stop and behaviour was found to be far from perfect. Weak implementation of preferences by contraception is likely to be the major cause of this preference–behaviour discrepancy. Uncertainty and instability in preferences may also contribute to the discrepancy, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa.     

Dual record demographic surveys: A re-assessment

A Review of ‘Population Growth Estimation’: A Handbook of Vital Statistics Measurement, by Eli S. Marks, W. Seltzer and K. J. Krotki. pp. 496     

A new technique to estimate infant mortality with an application for El Salvador and Colombia

The paper presents new estimates of infant mortality for Colombia and El Salvador for the years 1950--1970. These estimates are obtained by using a technique which improves on Brass's method in that it suppresses the assumption of constant mortality and introduces instead assumptions about linear and nonlinear changes in mortality risks affecting various cohorts of individuals.     

The new point in population theory: some questions in the current demographic textbooks]

The current population theory in China emphasize that human reproduction must keep pace with the production of goods and services. The author of this paper challenges this theory and believes that the relationship between these two kinds of production, human reproduction should take the principal place. Production of goods and services must first meet the needs of people. Keeping population growth in pace with production of goods and services is of secondary importance. The demographic transition from high fertility and high mortality to low fertility and low mortality in developed country was not caused by poverty, hunger, and surplus of the labor force, and it was not the end result of forcing population growth to stay in pace with material production. Increasing productivity to provide abundant goods depend on improving the quality of the population. When the purpose of consumption is not only for survival, demands for material goods and leisure will take precedence over demands for children. An-emphasis on keeping population reproduction in pace with the production of goods and services tends to ignore the importance of increasing productivity which is the key to the improvement of living standards.     

Count data models for demographic data

"This paper deals with the estimation of single equation models in which the counts are regressed on a set of observed individual characteristics such as age, gender, or nationality....We propose a generalized event count model to simultaneously allow for a wide class of count data models and account for over- and underdispersion. This model is successfully applied to German data on fertility, divorces and mobility." (SUMMARY IN FRE)     

Population momentum for gradual demographic transitions

Population momentum is the ratio of a population's ultimate size after a demographic transition to its initial size before the transition. For an instantaneous drop to replacement fertility, Nathan Keyfitz found a simple expression M K for the momentum. However, as Keyfitz pointed out, `no one thinks that any country will drop immediately to stationary reproduction patterns'. We present results concerning the momentum of a population whose demographic transition is completed within a finite time. First, we provide an exact analytical formula for such a population's momentum. Second, for rapid fertility transitions, we obtain a simple exact expression for momentum that reduces to Keyfitz's M K if the transition is instantaneous. We show, by example, that our simpler formulae are accurate approximations to population momentum for transitions that take as long as 100 years. Finally, we show that the speed of fertility decline makes a substantial difference to population momentum.     

Studying Marxist theory on population and initiating a new situation in demographic research]

Within Marxist ideology are important population theories that led to the establishment of demography and the work of population control in China. Marxist population theory should be studied in order to build a scientific system of concepts in population theory. Both Marx and Engels spoke of the relationship between human reproduction and material production, and of how the modes of social development determine population development. Marx also established the view that a normal population and surplus population both were mutually adaptable with a certain production basis. In any historical period, the total population is not determined subjectively by man's wishes, but is a product of historical development. The Maoist population theory is derived from Marxist theory. Borrowing from historical materialism, Mao said that of all the objects in the world, man is the most precious. Nevertheless, he continued, while China's large population is good, it brings many difficulties; thus, population must be controlled. The study of demography should follow Marxist and Maoist population theories, even though the study of Marixst population theory is relatively recent and much remains to be learned.     

Progress in demographic methodology

This paper examines developments in demographic methodology during the past decade or so. It focuses on methodological advances in the analysis of mortality of infants and young children, of adults, and on problems of mortality estimation in small populations. The other major areas reviewed here are related to the study of birth intervals, parity progression, proximate determinants of fertility, and the demography of the family. Concluding remarks relate the methodological issues to the information explosion in demography.