The influence of mumber and ages of children on residential mobility

Married couples without children are more geographically mobile than those with children, at least through age 45. Among husband-wife couples with children, ages of children exercises a consistent mobility differential; when age of family head is controlled for, families with children under 6 years old only are the most mobile both within and between counties, followed by those with children under 6 and 6–17 years old, and followed in turn by families with children 6–17 years old only. The relationship between number of children and the probability of moving within counties has a reverse J-shape for family heads at each age under 45; after age 45 the relationship assumes a more normal J shape. Number of children is inversely related to the probability of migrating (moving between counties) for husband-wife families in which the husband is under 35; after age 35 the relationship is erratic. The effect of ages of children generally holds for each size of family. Female family heads with children are generally more geographically mobile than male family heads (wife present) at the same age and with the same number and ages of children present.     

Spousal agreement on the value of children and fertility behavior

The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between the level of spousal agreement on the value of children and fertility behavior. Interviews with 441 once married couples from a probability sample in Robeson County, North Carolina, provide the data for testing the hypothesized relationships. The results indicate that the level of spousal agreement on the value of children is significantly related to live births, family size expectations and fertility planning. The introduction of duration of marriage and wife's education as controls did not significantly alter these relationships. An important implication of the findings is the need for research on the family formation process to focus on both the husband and wife.Paper No. 11446 of the Journal Series of the North Carolina Agricultural Research Service, Raleigh, North Carolina. The research for this study was initially supported by a grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (1 ROLH005321-02).     

Which couples at given parities expect to have additional births? An exercise in discriminant analysis

Do couples at given parities who expect to have additional births differ on selected characteristics from their counterparts who do not expect to have any more children? This question is examined herein focusing attention on the wife’s age, age at marriage, religion, and education and the husband’s education and income. The method used is the discriminant-function analysis. The data are from the 1965 U. S. National Fertility Study. The combined discriminatory power of the social and economic background characteristics examined herein has been found to be greater at higher parities than at lower ones, while the opposite is true of demographic characteristics.     

Modelling the impact of women’s education on fertility in Malawi

Many studies have suggested that there is an inverse relationship between education and number of children among women from sub-Saharan Africa countries, including Malawi. However, a crucial limitation of these analyses is that they do not control for the potential endogeneity of education. The aim of our study is to estimate the role of women’s education on their number of children in Malawi, accounting for the possible presence of endogeneity and for nonlinear effects of continuous observed confounders. Our analysis is based on micro data from the 2010 Malawi Demographic Health Survey, and uses a flexible instrumental variable regression approach. The results suggest that the relationship of interest is affected by endogeneity and exhibits an inverted U-shape among women living in rural areas of Malawi, whereas it exhibits an inverse (nonlinear) relationship for women living in urban areas.     

Job characteristics of spouses and their work shifts

This study builds on an earlier finding from the May 1980 Current Population Survey that one-third of full-time dual-earner couples with children in the United States include at least one spouse who works other than a regular day shift. Using the same data source, the relevance of husbands’ and wives’ job characteristics (occupation and industry) on their shift work status are considered, and the nature of the association between husbands’ and wives’ work shifts is explored. Four alternative models are initially posed and tested with log-linear analysis; these models vary in the extent to which a spouse’s shift work status is contingent upon the job characteristics of a husband or wife. None of these models fit the data. A modification of the simplest of the four models (using forward selection) is the best fitting model. It is not symmetrical: the wife’s shift is contingent upon both her occupation and industry and that of her husband, but the husband’s shift is contingent only upon his occupation and industry. There is a relationship between husband’s and wife’s shift, the direction of which depends upon the occupations of both spouses. This study demonstrates the importance of taking a “couple” perspective on shift work among married persons, and the need for models that include interaction effects.     

Leisure before and after parenthood

The leisure time of 117 wives and husbands was studied to determine the effect of parenthood on this time allocation. Data from both a weekday and a weekend day, both before and after the birth of the first child were analyzed. Ordinary least squares regression was used to analyze the time use model which controlled for weekend/weekday, and looked at the effects of personal characteristics such as wife's education and employment status, husband's wage rate, and number of years married as well as parental status. The time of the wife and the husband and the ratio of the wife's to husband's time were negatively related to parental status. Each personal characteristic was negatively related to the wife/husband ratio of leisure time and unrelated to husband's leisure.     

Parental retirement timing: the role of unanticipated events in the lives of adult children

Although anecdotal evidence of older parents postponing retirement to financially support their grown children is common, the empirical evidence is scarce. In this paper, we use data from the 1992 to 2010 waves of the Health and Retirement Study to identify a broad set of pivotal events in the lives of adult children. First, we determine whether these events affect subsequent financial transfers from parents to children over multiple years. Next, we determine whether those events that result in subsequent transfers also shift parental retirement expectations. Finally, we quantify the impact of the unexpected children’s events on retirement realizations, moving beyond the correlational analyses in prior literature. Our findings show that a child’s move out of a parental home decreases both expectations and realizations of working after age 65. The magnitude of this effect is similar to that of an own health shock experienced during pre-retirement years.     

First-generation effects on second-generation fertility

The number of children born to the second generation is shown to be inversely related to the predicted income of the first generation (father's father) and to the number of siblings in the second generation. This is true even when second-generation characteristics are taken account of. This long-term effect may be the result of parental influences on the tastes, opportunities or genes of their children. They do get an empirical expression because of the imperfect and partial measurement of second-generation characteristics.     

Labor force participation of working mothers and family formation: Some further evidence

This paper offers additional insight and evidence on the well-documented inverse relationship between female employment and fertility. Interviews with 388 working mothers from a probability sample in Robeson County, North Carolina, provide the data for testing the hypothesized relationships. Generally, the results indicate that lower fertility, lower desires and expectations, and earlier use of birth control are associated with work before the first birth and with employment of the longest duration. The timing of the first birth was not differentiated by variations in work experience. The results are conditional in that the relationships hold more for whites than for blacks or Indians.     

Parental Divorce and Children’s Schooling in Rural Malawi

A growing body of literature has examined the impact of different types of family structures on children’s schooling in sub-Saharan Africa. These studies have investigated how living arrangements, gender of the household head, parental death, and paternal migration are related to schooling. Although many sub-Saharan African countries have high divorce rates, very few studies have explored the impact of parental divorce on children’s schooling. The present study uses three waves of data from the Malawi Longitudinal Study of Families and Health (MLSFH) to investigate the effect of parental divorce on children’s schooling and the possible mechanisms driving this relationship. Unlike prior studies, this study uses child-level fixed-effects models to control for selection into divorce. Results show that parental divorce is associated with lower grade attainment and a larger schooling gap, defined as the number of years a child is behind in school (among children currently attending school). Although no association exists between parental divorce and current school attendance, girls affected by divorce are significantly less likely to be attending school. Differences in economic resources, maternal coresidence, or maternal psychological well-being do not explain the relationship between parental divorce and children’s schooling.     

The Role of Spousal Income in the Wife’s Happiness

Few studies have examined spousal income in the context of happiness. This paper analyzes the Indonesia family life survey and finds a positive relationship between the husband’s income and his wife’s happiness. Specifically, a 100 % increase in the husband’s income is related to a 0.72 % point increase in his wife expressing very happy, which is about 11 % of the proportion expressing that response. Surprisingly, among the husband’s characteristics, only his income (along with health) is statistically significantly related to his wife’s happiness. This positive relationship is particularly strong among old, educated, and poor (in absolute and relative terms) urban residents.     

The fertility of teachers in England and Wales

Data on the fertility of teachers in grant earning schools in England and Wales were collected in 1955 as part of a general survey into the social characteristics of teachers. The survey was financed by the Nuffield Foundation with a contribution from the Population Investigation Committee. A subsequent article will discuss some possible determinants of fertility and in particular the interrelationship between social mobility and fertility. The present note describes changes in cohort fertility of teachers since 1915 and compares average family size with that of other sections of the population. The average number of children per married male teacher declined from 1.81 for the pre-1920 cohort to 1.47 for 1930–34. Segmental data after 1935 indicate a rise to approximately 2 children per family. Comparison with the Family Census suggests that the number of children of teachers is between 10% and 20% below that of all professions combined when the age at marriage of the wife is taken into account.     

The prevalence of surgical sterilization in a suburban population

This report presents data on the prevalence of tubal ligations, vasectomies and remedial sterilizing operations among white couples, with wife aged 20–54, who subscribe to a pre-paid medical care program and live in a suburban area near San Francisco. Contraceptive operations, more than two-thirds of which were male vasectomies, were found among 23 per cent of these couples. Some form of sterilizing surgery (contraceptive or remedial) was found among 31 per cent. The prevalence of surgical sterilization, specifically vasectomies, in this population is high compared with that found across the nation or in the Western states in the 1965 National Fertility Study. Variations in the prevalence of tubal ligations and vasectomies by parity, education and religion are described. Their prevalence increases with the parity of the wife, has a marked inverse relationship with education, and is highest when neither husband nor wife is Catholic.     

Premature Birth and Asthma Among Young Puerto Rican Children

Puerto Rican children are more likely to have asthma than children in any other racial/ethnic group in the United States, yet little research has examined the factors contributing to childhood asthma among Puerto Ricans. Using data from a representative sample of mainland Puerto Rican children, the present study investigates the relationship between preterm birth and early-childhood asthma (i.e., in the first years of life). The roles of other risk factors (i.e., socioeconomic and demographic characteristics, environmental conditions, and maternal health behavior) in the development of asthma in early childhood also are considered. The analysis reveals a relatively high rate of asthma for preterm children as well as differences between term and preterm children in the risk factors for early-childhood asthma. Measures of socioeconomic status and the cleanliness of the home environment are related to asthma for term, but not preterm, children; in contrast, demographic characteristics and maternal health behavior are important risk factors for asthma among preterm children.     

Education,health and family size as determinants of labor market activity for the poor and nonpoor

The effect of head’s and wife’s educational attainment, health and the number of the head’s dependents under 18 on the amount of time spent in the labor force by white and black male heads of both poor and nonpoor families is investigated in this paper. The technique employed is multivariate regression analysis using disaggregated data from the 1967 Survey of Economic Opportunity. While educational attainment has a positive effect on the supply of labor of nonpoor heads, it has an insignificant effect on the black poor and a nonlinear effect on white poor heads. The health of head and wife has a very important effect on the ability of the poor to supply labor services while for the nonpoor the health effect is insignificant. For both the poor and nonpoor, there is a positive relationship between family size and the supply of labor. Evidence is also presented to indicate that the black husband’s and wife’s labor market activity are substitutes while they are complementary within white families.     

Economic considerations in family growth decisions

Abstract Examination of the fertility patterns of a sample of white Detroit couples at selected stages of the family life cycle indicates that, in a large American metropolis, family income is more closely related to the time when a family is formed and has its children than to the number of children it expects to have. In a longitudinal study, current income is strongly related to the timing of demographic events-the age at marriage, whether pre-maritally pregnant, the time interval from marriage to a given parity, and fertility during a two-year follow-up period. This paper also explores the hypothesis that a family's evaluation of its economic position and the choices it makes about important family expenditures has a relation to fertility apart from the family's objective current income level. Couples who consider their income adequate for their needs or relatively greater than that of their friends or peers, and those who expect substantial increases in the future, tend to expect more children than those who do not. Small but consistent differences obtain over the parities studied. Variables indexing alternative family expenditure patterns, such as cars, or savings for college education for children, are associated with lower family size expectations and longer spacing patterns.     

Changes in fertility expectations and preferences between 1962 and 1977: Their relation to final parity

Changing fertility expectations and preferences from 1962 to 1977 are compared with final parity in a longitudinal study. Results are strongly affected by initial parity in 1962. Final parity, 27 percent below expectations for those initially childless, illustrates the effect for couples free to change expectations downward of declining fertility preferences. Changes in expectations early in marriage had a significant long-term effect on final parity, as did early differences between wife’s expectations and husband’s preferences. Unplanned births increased final parity significantly. Religion, education, and income had no systematic relation to the discrepancy between initial expectations and final parity.     

The Association Between School Stress,Life Satisfaction and Depressive Symptoms in Adolescents: Life Satisfaction as a Potential Mediator

The aim of the present study was to investigate the interrelationships between school-related stress (school performance, teacher interaction), life satisfaction, and depressive symptoms, as well as the potential mediating role of life satisfaction on the association between school-related stress and depressive symptoms. A total of 1,239 adolescents (13–18 years of age) from public elementary and secondary schools in mid-Norway participated in the school-based survey. The data were analysed using structural equations modelling. The present study showed that stress of school performance was significantly and positively related to depressive symptoms and significantly and inversely related to life satisfaction. At the bivariate levels, stress of teacher interaction was associated with more depressive symptoms and reduced life satisfaction. However, these associations were non-significant in the multivariate analyses, controlled for stress of school performance. A significant inverse association was found between life satisfaction and depressive symptoms. Further, life satisfaction partly mediated the association between stress of school performance and depressive symptoms. The results reflect the complexity of the interaction between adolescents’ experience of school performance stress and mental health, and the role of life satisfaction as a potentially relevant mediator of this association.     

Son preference and the demand for additional children in pakistan

This paper tries to take into account the sequential element in fertility decisions and continues an investigation originally begun by Namboodiri. We examine the extent to which the “desire to have additional children” can be explained by a variety of economic, sociological, and demographic variables. The probit maximum likelihood estimation procedure is utilized, and the analysis is based on cross-sectional data on 2,910 currently married women obtained from a national survey conducted in Pakistan in 1968–1969. The principal finding is the presence of a strong son preference both for the husband and for the wife.