The three R's: Residence,religion, and reproduction

Survey research data collected in Rhode Island over a three year interval are used to test six propositions: 1) Suburbanites have higher family size than central city residents. 2) Any differences in family size between Catholics and non-Catholics are larger in central city than in suburban areas. 3) Within religious categories, suburbanites attend church more regularly. 4) Among Catholics, suburban residence is associated with less frequent Communion reception. 5) Among Catholics, church attendance frequency is positively associated with family size. Among non-Catholics no relationship exists. 6) The frequency with which Catholics receive Communion is more strongly associated positively with family size than is church attendance frequency. Propositions 1, 2 and 5 are rejected. Propositions 4 and 6 are accepted. Proposition 3 is accepted for non-Catholics only.     

流动人口带眷流动意愿研究

文章利用中国人民大学人口与发展研究中心于2009年在北京朝阳区、广东东莞市和浙江诸暨市组织进行的流动人口调查数据,分析流动人口带眷流动意愿。研究发现,流动人口最愿意带迁自己的配偶、父亲和子女;社会认同、长期居留意愿和年龄因素对于流动人口的带眷流动意愿有着较为显著的影响,其他因素如性别、担心父母的养老、受教育程度、住房来源和来流人地的时间等因素对于流动人口带迁不同家庭成员有显著影响。     

Desired family size and its determinants among urban Nigerian women: A two-stage analysis

This paper proposes and carries out a two-stage analysis of the determinants of desired family size, using data gathered from a sample of women in the city of Ilorin, Nigeria. The analysis first focuses on differences between women who report numerical family size desires and those who report nonnumerical desires. Findings suggest that there are important differences between these two groups, but there is little variation in the actual number reported by those expressing numerical desires. Implications of these findings for survey design are discussed. In particular, the practice of forcing numerical responses by instructing interviewers to probe when women report nonnumerical desires is questioned.     

无形城市背景下的城市家庭结构变迁

无形城市作为新时空背景下的城市发展形态,其高流动性和不确定性带来了城市家庭结构的变迁。无形城市中的家庭规模小型化得到强化,异化家庭不断增多并合理化;工业时代中所丧失的传统家庭的许多功能在无形城市中开始得到回归;家庭成员间的互动处在了互动时间过剩和互动深度不足的尴尬境地。这场城市家庭结构的变迁在一定程度上促进了城市社会公正和城市进步,但也给城市规划和城市经营带来了困惑,增加了城市管理和城市社会控制的工作难度。     

Young Women’s Dynamic Family Size Preferences in the Context of Transitioning Fertility

Dynamic theories of family size preferences posit that they are not a fixed and stable goal but rather are akin to a moving target that changes within individuals over time. Nonetheless, in high-fertility contexts, changes in family size preferences tend to be attributed to low construct validity and measurement error instead of genuine revisions in preferences. To address the appropriateness of this incongruity, the present study examines evidence for the sequential model of fertility among a sample of young Malawian women living in a context of transitioning fertility. Using eight waves of closely spaced data and fixed-effects models, we find that these women frequently change their reported family size preferences and that these changes are often associated with changes in their relationship and reproductive circumstances. The predictability of change gives credence to the argument that ideal family size is a meaningful construct, even in this higher-fertility setting. Changes are not equally predictable across all women, however, and gamma regression results demonstrate that women for whom reproduction is a more distant goal change their fertility preferences in less-predictable ways.     

An analysis of the size of the family household and family structure in China]

Since 1949, great social and economic changes have taken place in China. The entire economic structure and social relations are no longer the way they used to be. These changes have also had a strong impact on the size of family households and family structure. Major changes are summarized as follows: (1) The size of the present family household has been greatly reduced from its earlier size. The main reason for this reduction in size is the change of the social system. Under the new social system, the natural population growth rate and family structure have shown the greatest change from the past. (2) The major change in family structure is that small families have replaced the traditional large families. Under the large family system, several generations may stay together as one household, and brothers do not divide the large family even after they are married. Under the small family system, a household is normally limited to the parents and their children. With the gradual disappearance of large families, small families are increasing rapidly. Some households with three generations living together are still in existence, and the young and the old may support each other in their daily life. Both in cities and in rural areas, the traditional custom of respecting one's old parents still exists. There must be a value and necessity for the existence of this particular kind of family structure.     

Property Size and Land Cover Change in the Brazilian Amazon

This paper considers the size of a farmer’s property as a key variable influencing land cover and land cover change in rural areas of developing countries. Data from 126 rural familial properties in the region around the city of Santarém, Pará, in the Brazilian Amazon, indicate that property size is important for understanding the trajectories of land cover change. Past research has focused on the distinction between small family farms and large capitalized farms, arguing that family farmers have a higher deforestation intensity, or on estimating the strength of the effect of property size relative to economic or demographic factors. This paper shows that larger familial properties are able both to retain a larger area in forest and to have long enough cycles of use and fallow to allow previously used land to become forested again. Based on these analyses and discussion, we argue that land use and land cover research must consider property size as an organizing principle in order to better comprehend the reciprocal relationship between population and environment in frontier areas of the Brazilian Amazon and other rural landscapes.     

Reproductive ideals and educational attainment among white Americans, 1943-1960

Abstract Would the persistent inverse relation between educational attainment and family size in the United States be removed if actual fertility were equal to ideal? Data on ideal family size from 10 national surveys among white Americans of both sexes (from 1943 to 1960) show that gradeschool level respondents have higher ideals than the more educated even when age, religious affiliation, and farm residence are used as controls. Comparison of these ideals with the actual family size or ever-fertile women in the United States indicates that, on the average, the actual family size of all major educational groups falls below the ideal, but the college-educated are furthest from their ideal. If this group lessened the gap between actual and ideal family size, the educational differential in fertility would decrease, but at the price of increasing the rate of population growth.     

Desired family size in Thailand: Are the responses meaningful?

Data for both rural and urban women in Thailand indicate that the large majority of respondents are able to provide numerical responses to questions on desired family size. Although there is evidence that some women tend to rationalize the number of children they have when stating the number they would want if they were recently married, the vast majority of respondents prefer a number which is different from the number of living children they had at the time of the interview. Women who had already reached or exceeded their desired number were almost universal in stating they wanted no additional children, whereas only a minority of women who had yet to reach their desired family size said they wanted no more children. Finally, the proportion of women who practiced family planning is substantially greater among women who had already achieved or exceeded their desired family size than among women who had fewer than their desired number. The results thus suggest that, in Thailand at least, responses to family size preferences need to be interpreted with caution but nevertheless can be of use to the population analyst.     

Industrialization,family and fertility: A structural-psychological analysis of the Brazilian case

This paper addresses itself to some linkages between macro-social structure (industrialization, social class), social psychological variables (husband-wife decision making), psychological variables (attitudes), and fertility. A total of 726 currently mated women with proven fertility in five Brazilian communities were interviewed to determine various attitudes, their work experience, their participation in family decisions, their fertility ideals, and actual fertility. The five communities were selected along a rural-urban-industrialization continuum to include a village, two non-industrial cities, and two industrial cities (one of which was Sao Paulo). Family size in the industrial cities was small in all social strata, while in the non-industrial cities family size was large in the lower strata and declined in the upper strata. Further analysis revealed that smaller family size is associated with generally higher levels of status among women—higher educational levels, greater social contacts and more skilled employment, and equality in family decision making. Our analysis supports the hypotheses that industrialization influences fertility through shifts in the social status of women, both in their work and at home. New education and work opportunities facilitate the emergence of modern conceptions of the role of women in society and egalitarian decision making in the family. These attitudes and patterns of husband-wife interaction are related to smaller family size ideals and lower fertility.     

Modernity, Traditionality, and Junior High School Attainment in Turkey

This study focuses on the impact of modernityand traditionality on junior high schoolattainment of children in Turkey. Using thenationwide Turkish Family Structure Survey, theprimary objectives are to determine whetherjunior high school attainment varies by region,city size, and by family background. Based ona sample of 2025 16 year-old adolescents, weprovide the first multivariate, nationwideanalysis of the factors associated with juniorhigh school attainment of children in Turkey. The results of the multivariate logisticregression analysis show significant variationin children's junior high school attainment byfamily background, region and urban location,which are factors that help explain persistentgender inequality in education.     

Changing families and changing mobility: Their impact on the central city

Urban scholars and planners look to evidence of recent gains in the number of nontraditional households as a potential source of increase to the population sizes and tax bases of declining central cities. While it is now well established that substantial gains in the numbers of small, nontraditional households have occurred since the 1950s, it has not been demonstrated that: (a) these households are more likely to relocate in the city than traditional family households (husband-wife with children under 18); or (b) their cityward relocation patterns will significantly alter trends toward smaller city household populations. This paper addresses these questions by examining changes in city-suburb migration stream rates by household type over periods 1955–60, 1965–70 and 1970–75 for large metropolitan areas, and assesses their implications for potential changes in the aggregate sizes of city household populations.     

On the estimation of the distribution of desired family size for a synthetic cohort

Abstract Current procedures for the estimation of the desired family size distribution from parity-specific data on proportions of women wanting another child are shown to be biased. A new procedure is proposed. This procedure is based on the underlying relationship between parity and desired family size as measured by the extent to which members of the population implement their fertility preferences. Numerical examples are given.     

Systematic and chance components in fertility measurement

Abstract A Monte Carlo simulation model of fertility is developed to incorporate a decline in fecundability with age of women as well as a variation between women, and a family planning strategy in which couples prefer certain sizes of families and seek to lengthen the last planned birth interval. In the simulation of family planning and non-family planning populations, segmental parity tables are computed. These are tables in which the numbers of women in the columns representing the completed family sizes are sub-divided by rows representing the sizes of the families for shorter durations of marriage. The couples' success in their plans, under various conditions, and the rapidity with which family sizes stabilize, are among the results obtained from the simulation. The application of the tables to the estimation of family size preferences from observed family size distributions is also discussed.     

吉林省“计划生育服务车”基层服务研究

吉林省榆树市自2003年开展"计划生育服务车"基层服务以来,市计生局发挥服务车机动、便捷的特点,采取"直接进屯,服务到人,逐村推进,一年一回"的服务方式,有效地提高了避孕节育措施的落实率,稳定了农村育龄人群的生殖健康水平。在各方面综合因素作用下,服务车的发展运行健康、有序、规范,拓宽了人口计划生育事业的发展空间,提升了新时期人口计划生育工作的水平和品质,提高了农村计划生育人群和家庭的生育、生活和生命质量。表现了人口计生部门转变工作思路、改进工作方法,推进基层基础工作,乃至推进计划生育的整体工作力度。     

Recent changes in Negro fertility

Crude birth rates for the Negro population of the United States indicate that fertility declined while Negroes remained in the South and them climbed in the last twenty-five years as Negroes became urbanized. Cohort rates show more precisely the effects of the Depression upon childbearing as well as the magnitude and persistence of the post-Depression rise in fertility. More Negro women now become mothers, average family size has increased, and the proportion of women bearing six, seven, or eight children has risen. Negro fertility has risen despite the urbanization of Negroes and improvements in their socio-economic characteristics. Negro fertility rates present the paradox of falling when demographic transition theory would predict the maintenance of high rates and then rising when a decline would be expected. Urbanization does not appear to have reduced Negro fertility. Traditionally, urban living has dampened childbearing in two ways—first, health conditions in cities were inferior to those of rural areas, and thus urbanization affected fecundity adversely; second, city residents are more likely to know about and adopt birth control than rural residents. Negroes migrated to cities at the very time when diseases were being controlled and when public health and welfare facilities were being expanded to serve all residents. This has contributed to higher Negro fertility rates. If fertility rates are to fall because of family planning, not only must birth control be available but there must be a desire to limit family size. Such a desire may be linked to opportunities for social mobility. Negroes have not been assimilated into urban society as previous in-migrant groups were, and opportunities for mobility have been restricted. For these reasons Negroes may be slow to adopt stable monogamous families and the intentional control of fertility.     

城市老年人子女亲属网与子女外亲属网差序性的实证研究——以烟台市向阳街道三居民小区为例

本文依据2006年8月—9月份我院《胶东城乡老龄化问题》研究小组对烟台市向阳街道三个居民小区老年人进行的问卷调查数据资料,运用社会网络分析方法,探讨了城市老年人子女亲属网与子女外亲属网的差序性及其影响因素。本研究认为,城市老年人的亲属人际关系网存在内在差序性,这种差序性的形成与城市老年人社会经济地位及其亲属交往频度显著相关。     

Comparison and fairness in family planning]

There are two kinds of comparison in family planning (FP) practice. First, people compare the number of children they have with their desired family size. Second, people compare their number of children with other's. The extent of their satisfaction from the comparison often depends on their expectation. And people's expectation about their family size may have an impact on the level of fertility. One task in a FP program is to regulate people's objects for comparison and to reduce the number of children they expect to have. But, changes in people's desired number of children are largely dependent upon the socio economic charges which can not be achieved in short time. Therefore, it would be more advisable to direct people to compare their fertility behavior with those of couples who have only one child, rather than those who have 3 or 4. Satisfaction with family size also comes from a feeling of fairness. People not only look at what they get, but also at what others get. Fairness and justice in FP program implementation is important. If those who violate local birth control policies and regulations are not properly punished, other people would feel that the situation is unfair and they would regret that they did not do the same. The pressure brought by over-population to socio-economic development has been gradually felt by most people. But, it is still difficult to have them strictly observe the present fertility regulation policy. If restrictions of various kinds are enforced and education and publicity are used, people will feel that they are being treated fairly. This will facilitate the promotion of the FP program.     

流动人口外出对其家庭的影响

利用中国人民大学人口与发展研究中心2005年7月在四川南充的调查数据,对外出就业的流动人口及其家庭的情况等进行分析。调查结果显示,流动人口主要以单独或夫妻共同的形式外出,把孩子留给老家的父母抚养;他们大都会寄钱回家,这些收入对改善家庭的整体生活状况作用显著,在有家人外出的家庭中,对家人外出持支持态度的人数占据了绝对优势。但是,大量流动人口的外出也带来了一些负面影响,比如隔代抚养对留守儿童的教育不利;农村劳动力缺乏加重了留守成员的负担;以及农村社区贫富差距的扩大等。     

农村劳动力转移过程中存在的社会问题

改革开放以来,农村劳动力大量进城就业,长期居住、生活在城市,却无法得到城市社会的认同,致使城市内部出现了农民工与市民的二元社会分化,同时,农民工进城就业也给其家庭、计划生育以及子女教育带来了一定程度的影响,引发了一系列社会问题。这些社会问题将对农民工自身及整个社会发展产生深远的影响,应引起全社会的广泛关注和政府的高度重视。