Multidimensional Poverty in China: Findings Based on the CHNS

This paper estimates multidimensional poverty in China by applying the Alkire-Foster methodology to the China Health and Nutrition Survey 2000–2009 data. Five dimensions are included: income, living standard, education, health and social security. Results suggest that rapid economic growth has resulted not only in a reduction in income poverty but also in a reduction in multidimensional poverty in the last decade, both in terms of its prevalence and intensity. However, many challenges remain. There are wide disparities across provinces and between urban and rural areas, with poverty being 1.5 times higher in rural areas than in urban ones in 2009. Moreover, rising deprivation in education in rural and less developed provinces should also be a policymaking concern.     

Infant and child mortality in India: trends in inequalities across economic groups

This paper examines the trends in economic inequalities with respect to infant and child mortality in India using three rounds of the Indian National Family Health Survey conducted in 1992–1993, 1998–1999, and 2005–2006. The paper uses concentration index, and pooled discrete-time survival regression model to examine the aforementioned trends and regional patterns. The findings suggest a decreasing trend in economic inequality in infant mortality but an upward trend in economic inequality in child mortality in India. Economic inequalities in infant mortality have narrowed in the southern region, whereas they have widened in the western region and risen in the northern region. However, mixed trends in concentration indices were found in the different regions of India in the case of child mortality.     

The Effect of School Quality on Black-White Health Differences: Evidence From Segregated Southern Schools

This study assesses the effect of black-white differences in school quality on black-white differences in health in later life resulting from the racial convergence in school quality for cohorts born between 1910 and 1950 in southern states with segregated schools. Using data from the 1984–2007 National Health Interview Surveys linked to race-specific data on school quality, we find that reductions in the black-white gap in school quality led to modest reductions in the black-white gap in disability.     

中日两国人口老龄化再比较研究

中日两国不仅人口年龄结构发展变化趋势基本相同,而且影响年龄结构发展变化的社会经济因素非常相似。因此,日本经历过的人口老龄化挑战,将在中国陆续出现,日本当年采取的应付老龄化对策,将对中国有借鉴意义。     

人口年龄结构变动下的最优退休年龄动态模型构建与应用——以陕西省为例

文章主要以社会福利最大化为基本前提,假定社会福利最大化条件下的退休年龄为最优平均退休年龄,通过建立人口年龄结构变动下的最优退休年龄动态模型,以陕西省人口数据和养老保险相关数据为基础,测算了社会福利最大化条件下的陕西省最优平均退休年龄。得出结论:满足社会福利最大化时,陕西省最优平均退休年龄将会从2010年的58.4岁,逐步提高到2020年的59.6岁,进而提高到2030年的61.3岁。     

Informal Food Production in the Enlarged European Union

How widespread is the production of food in old and new member states of the European Union and what is the social meaning or logic of such activities? We show that growing food is (a) more widespread in former communist countries than in traditional market economies and (b) is predominantly a hobby or recreational activity in affluent countries, but a coping strategy in reaction to experienced difficulties in making ends meet in poorer nations, and especially so in the former communist countries.     

我国私营家族企业人力资源管理存在的问题与对策研究

我国私营家族企业已成为社会主义建设事业的重要力量。但是私营家族企业在发展中也出现了一些问题,特别是在人力资源管理上存在诸多的误区,这已成为私营家族企业进一步发展的阻碍。私营家族企业任人唯亲的现象较严重,忽视对企业人力资源的职业培训教育,缺少有效的激励机制和"以人为本"的优秀企业文化,私营家族企业的员工保障制度也不健全。因此要积极制定解决我国私营家族企业人力资源管理缺陷的对策,从而促使私营家族企业健康发展。     

Growing Wealth Gaps in Education

Prior research on trends in educational inequality has focused chiefly on changing gaps in educational attainment by family income or parental occupation. In contrast, this contribution provides the first assessment of trends in educational attainment by family wealth and suggests that we should be at least as concerned about growing wealth gaps in education. Despite overall growth in educational attainment and some signs of decreasing wealth gaps in high school attainment and college access, I find a large and rapidly increasing wealth gap in college attainment between cohorts born in the 1970s and 1980s, respectively. This growing wealth gap in higher educational attainment co-occurred with a rise in inequality in children’s wealth backgrounds, although the analyses also suggest that the latter does not fully account for the former. Nevertheless, the results reported here raise concerns about the distribution of educational opportunity among today’s children who grow up in a context of particularly extreme wealth inequality.     

A lost family-planning regime in eighteenth-century Ceylon

Based on Dutch colonial registers (thombos), this paper reconstructs fertility for two districts in Ceylon, 1756–68. It overcomes challenges in data quality by establishing the outer bounds of plausible estimates in a series of scenarios. Among these, total fertility rates (TFRs) averaged 5.5 in one district, but only 2.7 in the other. These figures exclude the victims of infanticide, a custom noted in European travelogues between about 1660 and 1820. Sex ratios among children differed depending on the number of older siblings, and overall, 27?per cent of girls are missing in one district and 57?per cent in the other. There was little significant variation either in the TFR or the sex ratio by socio-economic status, suggesting that poverty was not a key factor in motivating infanticides. Instead, we argue that at least parts of Ceylon had a forward-looking culture of family planning in the eighteenth century, which was lost in subsequent decades.     

Jewish Involvement in Shaping American Immigration Policy, 1881–1965: A Historical Review

This paper discusses Jewish involvement in shaping United States immigration policy. In addition to a periodic interest in fostering the immigration of co-religionists as a result of anti-Semitic movements, Jews have an interest in opposing the establishment of ethnically and culturally homogeneous societies in which they reside as minorities. Jews have been at the forefront in supporting movements aimed at altering the ethnic status quo in the United States in favor of immigration of non-European peoples. These activities have involved leadership in Congress, organizing and funding anti-restrictionist groups composed of Jews and gentiles, and originating intellectual movements opposed to evolutionary and biological perspectives in the social sciences.     

Changes in functional limitation and survival among older Taiwanese, 1993, 1996, and 1999

Using data from the Survey of Health and Living Status of the Elderly in Taiwan, we investigate changes in difficulties in walking and climbing stairs, tasks that represent basic lower-body movements less likely to be influenced by changes in environment and social roles than are activities and instrumental activities of daily living. Results are shown for unadjusted prevalence rates and rates adjusted for changes in population composition. The findings indicate that Taiwan does not appear to be experiencing the improvements in functioning witnessed recently in the United States. Prevalence of functional limitation increased between 1993 and 1996 and between 1996 and 1999. One possible reason is the change in old-age survival, which appears to have benefited those who have functional limitations, especially in a severe form. The Universal Health Insurance programme, established in 1995, may have increased access to care and thus the survival of those in poorest health.     

The dynamics of the population sex ratio in India, 1971-96

This paper reconstructs the trend in the population sex ratio in India between 1971 ad 1996 from available information on changes in sex differentials in mortality in the country since the beginning of the century. It is estimated that, although the mortality of females relative to that of males in India has improved since 1968, the population sex ratio increased between 1971 and 1981, stayed constant between 1981 and 1991, and started to decrease only after 1991. This implies that the recorded decrease and increase in the periods 1971-81 and 1981-91 respectively were both spurious and were the results of undercounts of females in 1971 and 1991. Another implication of this finding is that, owing to the lagged effect of past mortality on current trends in the population sex ratio, this ratio is a bad proxy for use in the study of changes in differential mortality by sex.     

The role of vole populations in prevalence of the parasite (Echinococcus multilocularis) in foxes

Effects of population fluctuation of the gray-sided vole(Clethrionomys rufocanus) on the prevalence (infection rates) of the parasiteEchinococcus multilocularis in red fox(Vulpes vulpes) populations was investigated from 1985 to 1992 in eastern Hokkaido (Abashiri, Nemuro, and Kushiro area), Japan. This parasite needs two hosts to complete its life cycle; the gray-sided vole as its intermediate host and the red fox as its final host. We found that: (1) Infection rates in foxes depended on the current-year abundance of voles in all three study areas, particularly in Abashiri. (2) In addition to this direct density-dependence, delayed density-dependence between the infection rate and the prior-year abundance of voles was detected in Nemuro and in Kushiro. (3) The regional differences in density-dependence pattern were related to regional differences in the winter food habits of red foxes: in Abashiri the proportion of voles in the fox’s diet greatly decreases in winter, while the proportion remains high in winter in Nemuro and in Kushiro, probably because of shallower snowpack. These results suggest that infection rates in foxes in Abashiri were less influenced by the prior-year prevalence, since the infection cycle might be interrupted in winter, when voles became less important in fox’s diet. In contrast, the state of the prevalence may carry over from year to year in Nemuro and in Kushiro, because red foxes continue to eat a considerable amount of voles throughout year. The regionally contrasted results for the relationship between infection rate in foxes and vole abundance were parallel to the regional difference in fluctuation pattern of vole populations, which are highly variable in Abashiri area, but less variable in Kushiro-Nemuro area. Drastic change in vole populations appears to affect the host-parasite system.     

Sun Belt Rising: Regional Population Change and the Decline in Black Residential Segregation, 1970–2009

The goal of this study is to examine the extent to which population shifts over the post–Great Migration period and divergent trends in segregation across regions contributed to the overall decline in black segregation in the United States in recent decades. Using data from the 1970 to 2000 decennial censuses and the 2005–2009 American Community Survey (ACS), our analysis indicates that black dissimilarity and isolation declined more in the South and West than in the Northeast and Midwest. Nevertheless, regional population shifts account for only a modest amount (8 % to 12 %) of the decline in black-white segregation over the period and for an even smaller proportion of the decline in black-nonblack segregation, in part because the largest declines in segregation occurred in the West while the region with the largest relative increase in the black population was the South. Using more refined census divisions rather than census regions provided some additional explanatory power (shifts across divisions explained 15 %–16 % of the decline in black-white segregation): divisions with larger gains in their share of the black population tended to have larger declines in black segregation. Overall, although the effect of the regional redistribution of the black population on declines in segregation was significant, of even greater importance were other causes of substantial declines in segregation in a wide array of metropolitan areas across the country, and especially in the West, over the past 40 years.     

Why poverty remains high: The role of income growth,economic inequality,and changes in family structure, 1949–1999

After dramatic declines in poverty from 1950 to the early 1970s in the United States, progress stalled. This article examines the association between trends in poverty and income growth, economic inequality, and changes in family structure using three measures of poverty: an absolute measure, a relative measure, and a quasi-relative one. I found that income growth explains most of the trend in absolute poverty, while inequality generally plays the most significant role in explaining trends in relative poverty. Rising inequality in the 1970s and 1980s was especially important in explaining increases in poverty among Hispanics, whereas changes in family structure played a significant role for children and African Americans through 1990. Notably, changes in family structure no longer had a significant association with trends in poverty for any group in the 1990s.     

增加农民收入与建设农村小康社会养老模式的关系分析

增加农民收入是我国农村解决"三农"问题的重要方面,同时也是解决农村全面建设小康社会养老问题的关键。农民收入低,负担过重,人口老龄化程度又不断加深,给我国农村老年人养老问题的解决带来了巨大困难。在农村全面建设小康社会历史性机遇面前,我们应综合我国农村经济发展的实际情况,采取积极有效的对策,增加农民收入,为农村养老问题的解决奠定基础。     

财政扶持政策对西部地区农民参加新农村合作医疗的影响——基于自然实验的研究途径

本文将对西部农民参加新农村合作医疗的财政扶持政策的实施作为一个自然实验,应用微观经济计量方法分析了财政扶持政策对西部农民参加新农村合作医疗的影响。研究结果表明,与2004年相比,2006年西部农民参加新农村合作医疗的概率增加了96.46%,说明针对西部农民参加新农村合作医疗的财政扶持政策作用效果显著。     

论独生子女家庭人力资本投资的性别偏好

家庭是孩子人力资本投资的主要单位,人力资本理论存在性别盲点,忽略了人力资本投资的社会性别因素。本文从社会性别视角研究独生子女家庭人力资本投资行为,分析了影响独生子女家庭人力资本投资的人口因素、经济因素和社会性别文化因素。研究发现,独生子女家庭中女孩人力资本投资得到了积极的改善,但社会性别仍然影响着家庭人力资本投资的性别偏好,独生子女家庭通过人力资本投资“表现社会性别”。     

Trends and determinants of contraceptive use in Kenya

This study uses the 1977-1978 Kenya Fertility Survey and the 1989 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey to examine trends and determinants of contraceptive use in Kenya. A substantial increase in contraceptive use occurred in Kenya over the decade. Yet although the increase was shared by all groups in the country, the amount of change differed greatly. A regression decomposition procedure revealed that shifts in population composition--that is, an increase in better educated women and in the proportion of women who want to cease childbearing--were the primary sources of aggregate change in contraceptive use.     

Sweden's marriage revival: an analysis of the new-millennium switch from long-term decline to increasing popularity

Usually seen as a forerunner in the development of new trends in family-demographic behaviour, Sweden has recently experienced a reversal in marriage trends, from a steady decline in marriage rate between the 1960s and 1990s, to a steady increase beginning in 1998. An event-history analysis of women's first marriages in the period 1991-2007, using register data, shows that compositional changes in labour-market activity and childbearing can only partly explain the reversal, and that apparently no part of it is explained by compositional changes in age, country of birth, educational level, and type of settlement. The evidence suggests that the popularity of marriage in Sweden is increasing, in contrast to what might be expected from the way demographic trends in Sweden and other Western countries are often portrayed in the literature.