Fraught with Ambivalence: Reproductive Intentions and Contraceptive Choices in a Sub-Saharan Fertility Transition

Demographic studies that search for signs of fertility transition in sub-Saharan Africa rarely examine the complex gamut of individual aspirations and misgivings, hopes and frustrations, failures and triumphs that accompany the emerging declines of fertility rates in the subcontinent. This study draws upon qualitative data collected in peri-urban areas of Maputo, Mozambique’s capital and largest metropolis, to explore contradictory meanings and feelings surrounding changes in fertility intentions and contraceptive choices. It argues that although changes in these two aspects of reproductive life are interrelated, they are predicated on distinct types and configurations of external pressures and psychological apparatus, which is often manifested as a puzzling disjunction between fertility preferences and contraceptive use. This disjunction can be further reinforced by persistent gender divisions in reproductive views and strategies. Informal social interaction plays an important role in building societal consensus over fertility matters, but because such interaction deals with reproductive intentions and contraceptive use through largely different mechanisms, it may also help accentuate the intentions-contraception disjunction. This study’s findings therefore call upon both researchers and policymakers to attend more closely to the multidimensionality of fertility transitions in sub-Saharan societies and specifically to the complexities underlying such popular notions as “unmet need for family planning,” “spacing” versus “limiting” births, or “spousal communication” on reproductive matters.     

The Predictive Validity of Subjective Mortality Expectations: Evidence From the Health and Retirement Study

Several recent studies suggest that individual subjective survival forecasts are powerful predictors of both mortality and behavior. Using 15 years of longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study, I present an alternative view. Across a wide range of ages, predictions of in-sample mortality rates based on subjective forecasts are substantially less accurate than predictions based on population life tables. Subjective forecasts also fail to capture fundamental properties of senescence, including increases in yearly mortality rates with age. To shed light on the mechanisms underlying these biases, I develop and estimate a latent-factor model of how individuals form subjective forecasts. The estimates of this model’s parameters imply that these forecasts incorporate several important sources of measurement error that arguably swamp the useful information they convey.     

关于生育旺盛人口优生知识与态度的调查研究

优生是提高我国人口素质的基础,与生育者优生知识的掌握和对优生的态度有直接的关系。加大优生宣传教育的力度,使生育者更多地了解和掌握优生知识,并应用于生育实践,对提高我国的人口素质有重要意义。     

A Reproductive Health Survey Of Rural Women in Hebei

Areproductivehealthsurvey,supportedbytheChinaFamilyPlanningAssociationandAmericanWelfareFoundation,andincollaborationwiththeHebeiFamilyPlanningAssociation,wasconductedin1995,on657womenaged18-49inruralareasofTangshanCity,ZhuozhouCityandXingtaiCityofnorthChina'sHebeiProvince.Amongthem,620weremarried,37singleandsixwidowed.FindingsandanalysisI.TheintegrationoffamilyplanningwithMCHcarehasgreatlyprotectedandvigorouslypromotedruralwomen'sreproductivehealth.Fertilitydeclinehasmitigatedthehar…     

The Construct of Content Validity

Many behavioral scientists argue that assessments used in social indicators research must be content-valid. However, the concept of content validity has been controversial since its inception. The current unitary conceptualization of validity argues against use of the term content validity, but stresses the importance of content representation in the instrument construction and evaluation processes. However, by arguing against use of this term, the importance of demonstrating content representativeness has been severely undermined. This paper reviews the history of content validity theory to underscore its importance in evaluating construct validity. It is concluded that although measures cannot be “validated” based on content validity evidence alone, demonstration of content validity is a fundamental requirement of all assessment instruments.     

The Emotions and Reproductive Health

It is surprising that social demography has so little to say on the emotional underpinnings of demographic behavior. The central proposition of this essay is that emotions are particularly important for understanding the problems of reproductive health. This understanding allows one to consider the usual determinants of personal autonomy, or access to knowledge or services, but also to take into account the fact that much sexual and reproductive behavior is motivated by emotional states that can suppress prior knowledge, services, or agency. The essay draws upon the emerging theoretical literature on emotions in the disciplines of sociology and anthropology to explore the role of emotions in behavior and outcomes related to reproductive health. It looks especially at the cultural meaning, the ideal, and the experienced reality of the emotion of “love.” All these aspects of what is a positive emotion have important positive as well as negative implications for the diagnosis and treatment of reproductive tract problems and for unsafe sexual activity.     

延迟退休的影响效果分析

近年来．延迟退休的问题引发了学术界和社会大众的广泛讨论。本文将研究视点放在提高退休年龄对养老金支付和劳动力就业的影响效果方面。通过构建不同的计量模型,实际估算了延迟退休对养老保险基金收支变化的影响．以及对劳动力市场的就业挤出效应。结果发现：提高法定退休年龄对养老金缺口存在一定的补偿效应。但从短期来看效果有限;而对就业总量的确将产生挤出效应。并发现,老年人就业岗位与青年人就业岗位之间存在替代性,也就是说延迟退休将严重影响青年人的就业。因此建议政府要慎重考虑并只能在适当的时机推动延迟退休。     

Structural Analyses Of The Quality Of Life Of Children At Risk

Quality of life (QOL) is usually assessed in terms of levels. This paper, in contrast, examines the structure of the quality of life of its subjects: two groups of children at risk, children who were kept at home and those who were removed from home. The social workers who made the decisions were asked to assess the children’s quality of life using Shye’s Systemic Quality of Life Model. The study’s main finding is that the QOL structure of the two groups of children differs both from the theoretical “ideal” (or “healthy” structure) and from each other. The QOL structure of the children who were kept at home was closer to the ideal than that of the children who were removed. The difference from the ideal in both groups is consistent with the fact that both groups of children at risk, whose QOL is compromised by definition. The greater proximity to the “ideal” of the QOL structure of the children who were kept at home suggests that the social workers who made the decisions viewed these children as having a healthier QOL than the children who were removed from home.     

Fertility Intentions and Residential Relocations

This research addresses the question of whether fertility intentions (before conception) are associated with residential relocations and the distance of the relocation. We empirically tested this using data from two birth cohorts (aged 24–28 and 34–38 in the first survey wave) of the German Family Panel (pairfam) and event history analysis. Bivariate analyses showed that coupled individuals relocated at a higher rate if they intended to have a(nother) child. We found substantial heterogeneity according to individuals’ age and parental status, particularly for outside-town relocations. Childless individuals of average age at family formation—a highly mobile group—relocated at a lower rate if they intended to have a child. In contrast, older individuals who already had children—the least-mobile group—relocated at a higher rate if they intended to have another child. Multivariate analyses show that these associations are largely due to adjustments in housing and other living conditions. Our results suggest that anticipatory relocations (before conception) to adapt to growing household size are importantly nuanced by the opportunities and rationales of couples to adjust their living conditions over the life course. Our research contributes to the understanding of residential mobility as a by-product of fertility decisions and, more broadly, evidences that intentions matter and need to be considered in the analysis of family life courses.     

The Correspondence Between Fertility Intentions and Behavior in the United States

Using data from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, we describe the correspondence between intended family size and observed fertility for US men and women in the 1957–64 birth cohorts. Mean fertility intentions calculated from reports given in the mid‐20s modestly overstate completed fertility. But discrepancies between stated intent and actual fertility are common—the stated intent at age 24 (for both women and men) is more likely to miss than to match completed fertility. We focus on factors that predict which women and men will have fewer or more children than intended. Consistent with life‐course arguments, those unmarried, childless, or (for women) still in school at approximately age 24 were most likely to underachieve their intended parity (i.e., had fewer children than intended at age 24). We discuss how such discrepancies between intentions and behavior may cumulate to produce sizable cross‐group fertility differences.     

生育权的法律定位

生育权的法律属性是生育权制度研究的基本问题 ,在生育权的法律属性上 ,可谓仁者见仁 ,智者见智。本文在综合论述生育权的基础上得出 :生育权是公民人身权中的一种身份权 ,是具有夫妻关系的配偶共同而平等享有的权利     

生育外部性及生育成本分析

生育虽然是一种家庭行为,但它同时也是具有外部性的社会行为。生育成本包括私人成本和社会成本两部分。由于家庭在生育决策问题上很少考虑社会成本,导致家庭生育意愿与社会需求不一致。通过缴纳社会抚养费等方式,将部分社会成本转化为私人成本,是实现调节生育行为的必要手段。     

生育现代化和测度指标体系

本文阐述了生育现代化的涵义,构建了测度生育现代化进程的指标体系,并且根据设立的指标对我国生育现代化进程进行了测算。     

Reproductive mobilities

ABSTRACT

This special issue brings reproduction into a critical mobilities framework. We extend scholarship in cross-border reproductive care and medical mobilities into new theoretical and empirical directions. Reproductive mobilities articulates the mutual constitution of reproduction and mobilities. Human (and nonhuman) movement not only shapes reproduction but produces reproductive imaginaries, desires, futures, trajectories, as well as the subjectivities and ‘becoming-ness’ of diverse reproductive subjects. Through the lens of reproduction, we examine how contemporary mobilities—and immobilities—intersect with gendered, racialized, sexually expressive, nation-inscribed, fertile, infertile, young, aging, pregnant, surrogate, and/or otherwise non/reproductive bodies and persons. Can human reproduction be analyzed without noticing all things mobile and immobile that converge to construct reproductive (and non-reproductive) desires and practices? Can mobility and immobility be considered without thought to how worlds and worlding comes about? Mobility facilitates reproduction, and new possibilities for reproduction; reproduction is mobile at scales from the molecular to the transnational. This effort to bring the fields of reproduction and mobilities into dialogue does not introduce a new sub-field but rather creates the opening for a trajectory of empirical work and theoretical ideas that invigorates mobilities with newfound attention on the matter and becoming-ness of reproduction.     

Reproductive Health

Raisingpublicawarenessofreproductivehealththroughopeningclasses.ChinahassteppedupitseffortsinpromotingreproductivehealthandMCHsince1990.FollowingtheICPDandFWCW,inparticular,remarkableprogresshasbeenmadeinthatregard.By1997,atotalof3,180MCHorganizationshadbeensetup.AnMCHnetworkconsistingofpublichealthorganizationsatalllevelshastakenshape,providingwomenwithawholesetofservicesfromearlypregnancycheck-uptopre-natalcheck--up,high--riskpregnancy,inpatientdeliveryandpost-natalhomevisit.Maternal…     

黄河上游带状城镇群城镇化发展研究

黄河上游地区城镇空间结构上已经开始趋向群体化,并逐渐在形成带状结构的城镇群。在群体化过程中,城镇化的速度及规模决定着黄河上游城镇群体化的水平以及速度,本文力图通过采用三种预测方法对未来黄河上游地区的城镇化水平的预测,推论未来一段时间内黄河上游地区的城镇化速度及规模,从而为黄河上游带状城镇群的合理发展提供可信的数据。     

A Note On The Changing Geography Of Cancer Mortality Within Metropolitan Regions Of The United States

An investigation made of the geography of cancer mortality rates within the most populous metropolitan regions of the United States and the New Jersey-New York-Philadelphia metropolitan corridor shows that during the early 1950s, as expected, central city counties had substantially higher cancer mortality rates, especially respiratory and digestive, than did suburbs. Two decades later, differences between the central cities and the suburbs had narrowed and sometimes disappeared.     

论社会保障制度改革

加入WTO的外部压力和经济转型的内部压力带来日益严重的失业问题和弱势群体,使得我国社会风险日趋严重。但目前存在结构性偏差的社会保障制度还难以应付上述风险。为此,当前社会保障制度改革决策的基点在于结构性调整,即在社会保障的制度安排上应迅速强化社会救济制度。同时,在社会保障的制度变迁中应将国企产权关系的调整与社会保险制度的调整结合起来,适时地将国有资产的变现收入划入社保基金。另外,在社会保险的制度供给上应大力推行强制性的补充养老保险制度。