At the margins: agriculture,subsidies and the shifting fate of North America’s native grassland

We examined patterns of shifting cropland cultivation in the US Great Plains from the dust bowl to the beginning of the twenty-first century, by comparing land-cover data from 400 sample sites across the region from the 1930s, 1950s, 1970s, 1990s and 2000s. The small area land-cover data were nested within 50 target counties across the region. To understand the use of marginal land for cultivation since the Great Depression, we argue, requires consideration of the long term dynamics of demography, technology and policy. We draw on these historical dynamics, and their interactions with programs aimed at reducing environmental impacts of agriculture, to tell the story of how and when marginal lands have been brought into use. In a multilevel panel design, macro- and micro-level covariates were used to predict levels of encroachment on marginal soils. We conclude that land retirement programs (like the Conservation Reserve Program) have had a generally stabilizing effect on the micro-level patterns of land use in recent decades, but that increased levels of encroachment on marginal soils and native grassland remain a problem in areas with higher or increasing population densities.     

Moving Toward a Holistic Conceptual Framework for Understanding Healthy Aging Among Gay Men

In the last four decades, we have witnessed vast and important transitions in the social, economic, political, and health contexts of the lived experiences of gay men in the United States. This dynamic period, as evidenced most prominently by the transition of the gay rights movement to a civil rights movement, has shifted the exploration of gay men’s health from one focusing primarily on HIV/AIDS into a mainstream consideration of the overall health and wellbeing of gay men. Against this backdrop, aging gay men in the United States constitute a growing population, for whom further investigations of health states and health-related disparities are warranted. In order to advance our understanding of the health and wellbeing of aging gay men, we outline here a multilevel, ecosocial conceptual framework that integrates salient environmental, social, psychosocial, and sociodeomgraphic factors into sets of macro-, meso-, and micro-level constructs that can be applied to comprehensively study health states and health care utilization in older gay men.     

Integrating macro- and micro-level approaches in the explanation of population change

Demographers study population change across time and place, and traditionally they place a strong emphasis on a long-range view of population change. This paper builds on current reflections on how to structure the study of population change and proposes a two-stage perspective. The first stage, discovery, focuses on the production of novel evidence at the population level. The second stage, explanation, develops accounts of demographic change and tests how the action and interaction of individuals generate what is discovered in the first stage. This explanatory stage also provides the foundation for the prediction of demographic change. The transformation of micro-level actions and interactions into macro-level population outcomes is identified as a key challenge for the second stage. Specific instances of research are discussed.     

Toward a comprehensive demography: rethinking the research agenda on change and response

This essay drafts a new interdisciplinary agenda for research on population and development. Starting from Kingsley Davis's 1963 formulation of change and response, Davis's analytical categories are broadened to include inertia as well as change and to encompass both demographic and non-demographic responses at the micro, meso, and macro levels. On that basis the essay proposes what can be called a comprehensive demography, an approach drawing principally on micro-level methodologies like those employed in anthropological demography. Like anthropological demography, comprehensive demography questions the rationality of actors, emphasizes cultural infuences, and stops short of the postmodernist extremes of anthropology. But it also takes explicit account of higher-level social, economic, and political factors bearing on demographic behavior and outcomes. The conclusion raises some epistemological issues. Illustrative examples are offered throughout to demonstrate the feasibility of the approach, mainly referring to sub-Saharan africa and the Caribbean and often drawn from the authors' own fieldwork.     

A Micro-Level Event-Centered Approach to Investigating Armed Conflict and Population Responses

In this article, we construct and test a micro-level event-centered approach to the study of armed conflict and behavioral responses in the general population. Event-centered approaches have been successfully used in the macro-political study of armed conflict but have not yet been adopted in micro-behavioral studies. The micro-level event-centered approach that we advocate here includes decomposition of a conflict into discrete political and violent events, examination of the mechanisms through which they affect behavior, and consideration of differential risks within the population. We focus on two mechanisms: instability and threat of harm. We test this approach empirically in the context of the recent decade-long armed conflict in Nepal, using detailed measurements of conflict-related events and a longitudinal study of first migration, first marriage, and first contraceptive use. Results demonstrate that different conflict-related events independently shaped migration, marriage, and childbearing and that they can simultaneously influence behaviors in opposing directions. We find that violent events increased migration, but political events slowed migration. Both violent and political events increased marriage and contraceptive use net of migration. Overall, this micro-level event-centered approach yields a significant advance for the study of how armed conflict affects civilian behavioral responses.     

先天性残疾与获得性残疾预防策略的比较性研究

利用2006年第二次全国残疾人抽样调查资料对我国先天性残疾和获得性残疾的现患水平和致残因素进行分析,并根据分析结果提出两类残疾的预防策略和措施。我国人口获得性残疾的现患水平远高于先天性残疾,且不同年龄、收入、地区人群的先天性和获得性残疾的现患率存在着较大差异。先天性残疾发生的高危年龄主要在婴幼儿和青少年时期,而不同类型获得性残疾的高危年龄并不一致。在婴儿和青少年时期为传染性疾病致残,而随着年龄的增长,因非传染性疾病致残的比例越来越高,因创伤及伤害致残的比例在15～39岁之间达到最大。在生命的不同时期,控制先天性残疾和获得性残疾的策略和重点应该是不一样的,需要制订系统的策略和措施进行终生预防。     

论人口战略研究的重要性和迫切性

在新的历史时期,我们面临的人口问题依然严峻,人口问题已经不仅是数量的压力,而且其复杂性日益显现。人口问题已经不是我们过去单纯的人口数量控制和计划生育政策所能够解决的,必须对人口发展战略进行研究。而一个专门的协调和研究机构,一定的经费支持是开展这项研究的基本条件;目前需要重点研究问题包括:人口数量、人口素质、城市化与劳动就业、人口分布与资源环境的承载力以及人口老龄化等问题。     

Towards a unified approach in macro and micro-level planning

A forum was held among population experts in the ESCAP region to discuss ways of integrating complex, macro-modular planning with micro-level, community-based population programs. The experts mentioned types of planned development projects which might have the greatest impact on fertility rates. The issue of whether population reduction targets are influenced by socioeconomic considerations or whether they, in turn, exert an influence was debated. Examples of programs from the People's Republic of China, the Republic of Korea, and the Philippines were cited to point up areas where population and socioeconomic development programs are integrated. Model building and community participation were mentioned as 2 approaches to development planning.     

城市化的城乡差别效应和城乡协调发展

城市化作为人口和地域的乡 -城转化过程 ,必然会对城市和乡村两个方面产生各种差别效应。深入研究这种差别效应 ,对统筹城乡发展 ,具有重要意义。本文主要利用 2 0 0 0年人口普查省内迁移有关数据 ,分析乡 -城迁移体现于收入水平、年龄结构、生育水平、受教育程度、劳动就业、人口分布等特征的城乡差别效应。认为全面建设小康社会 ,必须充分注意城市化的差别效应对城乡协调发展的影响 ,实施城乡协调型的城市化战略 ,走城市化推动型的城乡协调发展道路。     

中国妇女生育水平变动考证和未来人口发展的策略选择

1990年以来各类人口调查和相关学者的研究结果显示,目前的低生育水平的实现有外在政策强力的作用,更有中国社会经济发展内生化的作用;真实的生育水平既不是调查包括人口普查所显示的那样低(低于1.5),也不是有关部门和政府所想象的那样高。调查显示农村居民平均生育意愿不会高于2个孩子,这是生育率持续稳定的根本。众所周知,为了保证人口稳定持续的发展,应使妇女生育率保持更替水平或至少接近更替水平。从人口发展规律和人口发展与社会经济发展相适应的规律出发,结合当前我国居民生育意愿和生育水平走低的实际,我们应该抓住生育政策调整的最佳时期,调整应该在最佳时期即未来5-10年内完成。     

海外新移民与当代农村文化变迁——基于福建沿海J村的调查分析

作为当代农村人口流动的一种新现象,海外新移民潮的兴起对迁出地社会文化变迁的影响日益显著。本文以福建沿海J村为个案,通过对农民生活方式转变、个人价值观念更新以及农村传统伦理道德规范变化的依次分析,从微观角度对当代出国移民潮所引发的农村文化变迁进行解读,指出该现象是一个“传统”与“现代”发生搏弈、变异与融合的复杂过程,并呈现出“双刃剑”效应。     

Household demographic factors as life cycle determinants of land use in the Amazon

This paper seeks to broaden the application of demographyto environmental studies by complementing existing macro-level approaches, which feature aggregate populations, with a micro-level approach that highlights household life cycles. I take up the case of small farm households in the Brazilian Amazon to present a theoretical framework that identifies demographic characteristics which dispose families to engage in different forms of land use as household age structures change. Empirical models show that net of theeffects of farmer background, neighborhood context, institutional context, and off-farm incomes, demographic variables indicative of the household life cycle exert significant effects on the prominence of land uses with distinct environmental ramifications. The findings not only reveal micro-level demographic factors which affect Amazon land cover, they yield implications forfuture changes in rainforest landscapes in northern Brazil, and suggest household life cycle models as an avenue for further demographic research on environmental change in Latin America and other contexts.     

人口安全预警指标体系及其量化探讨

本文在简要阐述人口安全概念的基础上,对人口安全测评指标体系的构建及其量化,笔者按照构建的总体指导思想与原则的确立、测评体系结构框架的设置、可操作指标的筛选并用树状图把指标体系显示出来和对入选指标逐一进行量化的逻辑思路,构建了一套系统全面、简明、科学、可行的人口安全测评指标体系及其量化预警标准,旨在为研究和制定“十一五”人口发展战略以及该论题的后续深入研究提供参考依据。     

Values: their place in population education

In an attempt to resolve the crucial issues relating to dealing with the value dilemmas of students, population educators in the Philippines convened a series of conferences. The Philippine population education teachers, trainers, and administrators participating in the conferences agreed that a fusion of the affective and cognitive processes was necessary and that there should be more student involvement and self-made decisions on the part of students. An issue still unresolved is whether schools should inculcate values in the students or let them resolve or discover values by themselves; the strategies suggested range from open-ended or value processing to close-ended value teaching. Teachers and supervisors stressed that all strategies should be undertaken since they complement each other, but the choice and availability of materials to support and reinforce the strategy continues to be a problem for many participants. Preliminary studies conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of a value clarification strategy support the contention that value clarification processes do make a difference in certain patterns of student behavior, attitudes, and knowledge. Research also shows that the value clarification strategy is ineffective with teachers who are highly authoritarian, closed-minded, and dogmatic. The Population Education Program has responded to recommendations of the conference participants and taken some definite action, such as the implementation of value clarification strategies as part of the teacher training program and development of a list of Filipino values to serve as guides in teaching value-laden population issues.     

Thinking about several problems of the research of our family planning strategy]

On the basis of 1982 census data, it is estimated that from 1987-1997 13 million women will enter the age of marriage and child-bearing each year. The tasks of keeping the population size around 1.2 billion by the year 2000 is arduous. Great efforts have to be made to continue encouraging one child/couple, and to pursue the current plans and policies and maintain strict control over fertility. Keeping population growth in pace with economic growth, environment, ecological balance, availability of per capita resources, education programs, employment capability, health services, maternal and child care, social welfare and social security should be a component of the long term development strategy of the country. Family planning is a comprehensive program which involves long cycles and complicated factors, viewpoints of expediency in guiding policy and program formulation for short term benefits are inappropriate. The emphasis of family planning program strategy should be placed on the rural areas where the majority of population reside. Specifically, the major aspects of strategic thrusts should be the linkage between policy implementation and reception, between family planning publicity and changes of ideation on fertility; the integrated urban and rural program management relating to migration and differentiation of policy towards minority population and areas in different economic development stages. In order to achieve the above strategies, several measures are proposed. (1) strengthening family planning program and organization structure; (2) providing information on population and contraception; (3) establishing family planning program network for infiltration effects; (4) using government financing, taxation, loan, social welfare and penalty to regulate fertility motivations; (5) improving the system of target allocation and data reporting to facilitate program implementation; (6) strengthening population projection and policy research; (7) and strengthening training of family planning personnel to improve program efficiency.     

区域人口发展战略管理的实施机制及政府政策创新研究

区域人口发展战略管理研究是理论发展和现实要求的结果。区域人口发展战略管理的实施环节是其重要的组成部分。区域人口发展战略管理的实施机制包括：区域人口发展战略管理的实施协调机制、信息整合机制和政策整合机制。其中，政府的政策创新包括：营造良性的发展环境、制定区域协调发展的经济社会发展规划、完善整合区域协调发展的政策、加强区域人口统计、信息指导和人口治理及完善区域协调发展的法律法规。     

人口变动对企业人力资源管理的影响

人口作为企业外部环境最主要和最基本的自变量,与企业的人力资源管理有着十分密切的关系。现阶段,人口变动对企业人力资源管理的影响作用主要表现为:企业外部人口环境的动态变化影响企业人力资源的发展战略并对其管理水平提出了更高的要求;人力资源管理对象人口学特征的演变对传统和事务性的人力资源服务提出了特殊要求。为此,需要政府通过宏观调控,不断改善企业的外部人口环境,也要求企业适时对人力资源管理方式加以转型。     

百万以上少数民族老龄化程度的分层测算

老龄化是当今面临的一大社会问题。通常老龄化的界定主要采用老年人口占比这一指标来量化。以发展的视角与人口年龄结构划分标准而言．单一指标的老龄化论断削弱了学术的严谨性和对现实的指导性。为精确各个族群老龄化的差异,以发展的视角分析出台减缓老龄化进程的相关策略．使区域经济发展与老龄化进程趋向协调．本文基于第四、五、六次人口普查数据资料．对百万以上18个少数民族的老龄化程度进行新的分层测算。在分析其老龄化现状的基础上。给出1990年、2000年、2010年三个时段的年龄结构类型．分层测算了18个民族20年间年龄结构类型或老龄化进程的速度和差异．为国家制定分层策略提供数据化支撑,     

Integrating Theory and Research on the Institutional Determinants of Fertility

This article links recent conceptual theories regarding the determinants of fertility with research designs appropriate for testing those theories. The most important causal factors in these theories--typically social or cultural institutions, occasionally emergent properties of the collective behavior of individuals--are properly conceptualized at the macro level. Research designs must therefore feature variation at this level and are at a minimum comparative. Noncomparative micro-level research designs will be misspecified from the standpoint of theory. A case is also made for continuing to incorporate the observation of individual-level behavior into any comprehensive research design. A focus on macro determinants of fertility does not imply that fertility outcomes are determined at the institutional level. Instead, there remains some process whereby systemic properties are translated into individual behaviors. Recommendations for comparative community-level studies are discussed. The multilevel analysis framework is reviewed as a paradigm for the conceptual features of cross-contextual analysis.     

中国人口再分布的社会经济合理性及其“多中心集聚”分析

文章通过人口、经济不均衡性及重心变动分析,充分揭示了当前我国人口分布的空间格局及其变化状况。结果表明,中国人口区域偏集依然严重,且还有加剧的趋势,同时“人口一经济”间的契合度也不高,甚至还出现人口重心移动与投资重心移动相背离的情况,这对近期人口空间格局的发展非常不利。为此,研究认为,在当前的中国人口、经济形势下,构建以“多中心集聚”为导向、“人的城镇化”为内涵的新型城镇化体系,是未来进行人口合理再分布的必由之举。