Differential fertility in peasant communities: A study of Six Iranian Villages

Summary This paper attempts to study the relation between socio-economic status and fertility in a sample of six villages in Iran. An index of socio-economic status was constructed. The data reveal positive association between socio-economic status and fertility behaviour of rural couples. When duration of marriage, age of woman at marriage and contraceptive use were introduced into the socio-economic status-fertility relationships, they failed to alter the original findings. Because socio-economic status is related to a number of variables which directly or indirectly influence fertility, additional variables such as miscarriage, stillbirth and lactation must be incorporated into rural surveys on fertility differentials.     

Interrelations between migration and fertility in Thailand

Based on special tabulations of 1960 census data on migration within Thailand, this analysis attempts to assess the role of migration in the urbanization process and the relation between migration and fertility. The importance of migration to urban growth is evidenced by the clearcut positive relationship between the percentage of persons classified as either lifetime or 5-year migrants and the urban character of their 1960 place of residence. Yet, the evidence also points to an increasing proportion of urban growth in recent decades attributable to natural increase. The specific relation between fertility and migration varies depending on the measure of migration used: Compared to nonmigrants in their place of destination, the fertility levels of lifetime migrants are not very different; but those of 5-year migrants are considerably lower. Regardless of migration status, however, fertility level is markedly lower for those living in urban places compared to those in rural places. This suggests the important role of both migration and urbanization in affecting fertility levels in Thailand.     

The effect of female migration on infant and child survival in Uganda

This article uses data from the 1996 Uganda Demographic and Health Survey to examine whether migration of women improves the survival chances of their children to age five. We expand on prior research by testing not only the hypothesized positive effect of rural-urban migration, but also the effects of other migration stream behaviours on child survival. Results show that up to 10% of children die before age five and within-group differences in mortality exist among urban and rural children depending on their mother's migration status. Only urban-urban migration was significantly related to child survival, compared to rural non-migrants, after controlling for other factors, although other streams of migration (rural-urban, urban-rural, rural-rural) were positively related to child survival. Generally, migration explains a small component of the variance in child survival. Several other factors, including parents' education, household size, household headship, mother's age at birth, duration of breastfeeding, and place of delivery have a significant predictive power on child survival.     

Household diversity and dynamics of recent immigrants in Australia

The family and friends that immigrants live with are important sources of assistance and support, especially in the period immediately following migration. The paper uses data from the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Australia to examine the living arrangements of recent immigrants, the transitions in household structure they experience during the first few years of settlement and whether the changes in living arrangements are related to other changes that immigrants experience during the early settlement period such as changes in marital and employment status. Multivariate logistic regression models are used to examine the relation between immigrants’ characteristics and their experience of changes in living arrangements. Many live in extended family households soon after arrival, but set up their own households when they are more settled. Changes in immigrants’ household structure and living arrangements during the first few years of settlement are usually related to age, visa category of migration and change in marital status.     

Changing patterns of Internal Migration 1970–1990: A comparative analysis of jews and whites in The United States

Independently conducted yet complementary sets of data from the 1970/1971 and 1990 National Jewish Population Surveys and the U.S. censuses of the same changes in the internal migration of Jews and whites during the periods 1965–1970(1971) and 1985–1990. Interstate lifetime and five-year migration rates among Jews increased to levels significantly surpassing those of whites. Adjusting Jewish migration rates for the educational achievement of their white counterparts did not have much of an effect on lifetime migration or on the recent migration of the 1970/1971 Jewish population; however, it accounted meaningfully for the migration propensities of Jews in the period 1985–1990. These findings suggest that socioeconomic status has begun to play a larger role in promoting different migration patterns than in promoting ethnic group differences. Further, the direction of Jewish migrations followed those of whites (i.e., from the Northeast and Midwest to the South and West); and due to their higher migration rates, Jews have considerably narrowed the regional distribution differences between themselves and whites. I interpret these results as evidence of the weakening role of ethnicity in present-day America.     

How useful are the demographic surveys in explaining the determinants of early marriage of girls in the Terai of Nepal?

In recent decades significant changes in Nepalese society have greatly contributed to the increase in age at marriage of girls in Nepal. Factors responsible for these changes include educational development, urbanization and development of mass communications. However, many parents still marry their daughters at very young ages and this practice is particularly prevalent in the Terai region. This paper examines several demographic data sets with a view to assessing their utility for understanding the determinants of early age of marriage of girls in the Terai. The Nepal Family Health Survey (1996), Nepal Demographic and Health Surveys (2001, 2006), the Nepal Adolescents and Young Adults Survey (1999) and the 2001 Population Census of Nepal describe changes in at marriage over time. Factors such as sex, religion, education, geographic region, place of residence (rural/urban), economic status of the household and of women, and occupation are included in these data sets. However, other factors such as age at menarche, dowry and cost of marriage and cross-border marriage migration, which have been found to affect the prevalence of the lower age at marriage of girls in the Terai region, have not been included in the existing demographic surveys. Findings from the current study suggest that these variables should be included in future demographic surveys.     

Migration and retirement in the life course: an event history approach

Migration at older ages is commonly explained by reference to the search for greater amenity, and subsequently by the onset of greater dependency, but the links between mobility and specific life course transitions have rarely been articulated. We aim to establish the timing of migration in relation to retirement from the labour force, and to determine how its intensity varies around the retirement event. We also seek to identify how household and individual characteristics shape the propensity and timing of migration, differentiating moves according to distance and with particular attention to the characteristics of the spouse. Data are drawn from the first six waves of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey, a nationally representative panel study covering the period 2001–2006. Migration events are identified relative to retirement and event history methods are employed to establish the characteristics predisposing households to relocate around retirement. Results demonstrate that retirement acts as a trigger to migration but the propensity to move falls as retirement age rises and the hazard is increasingly concentrated in the year retirement occurs. Within this framework the presence, health, education and retirement status of a spouse exert a significant influence on the likelihood of migration, though with different effects for long and short distance moves. Results highlight the importance of variations in underlying life-course trajectories in shaping retirement migration and demonstrate that only a minority of moves at ages 55–69 are directly associated with retirement, underlining the need for caution when identifying retirement migration using age as a proxy measure.     

Net migration and migration effectiveness: A comparison between Australia and the United Kingdom, 1976–96 Part 1: Total migration patterns

A nation’s population is redistributed through migration flows and counterflows between its constituent subnational areas, resulting in a geographical pattern of net migration gains or losses which may change from one time period to another. Migration effectiveness is the indicator commonly used to measure net migration as a proportion of gross migration turnover for any territorial unit. This paper explores the effect of net migration in two different countries, Australia and the United Kingdom, using measures of migration effectiveness computed from period-age migration data sets for a system of city regions assembled for four consecutive five-year periods in each country. While the evidence suggests that the overall effectiveness of net migration has declined over the 20-year period in both countries, marked similarities and contrasts are apparent in the spatial patterning of migration that together provide useful analytical insights into the changing space economies of the two countries.     

Rural–Urban Migration and Cross-National Variation in Infant Mortality in Less Developed Countries

The relationship between migration and child health in individual countries is well known, but the cross-national variation in this relationship is largely untested. Using Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data from 52 medium and low income countries, this study examines the effect of rural–urban migration on infant mortality and whether its effect varies cross-nationally. A secondary objective is to determine whether there is a relationship between the time a child is born in the migration process and infant mortality. Hypotheses are developed on the basis of competing theories on the relationship between migration and health. There are modest, but significant cross-national effects of rural–urban migration on infant mortality, which were better revealed in the presence of family- and child-level variables. The results also show that the unadjusted effects of rural–urban migration are quite substantial, but were largely accounted for by family- and child-level factors including education, socioeconomic status (SES), marital status, birth order, maternal age at child’s birth, and inter-births intervals. The results largely point to a selection process, which is further confirmed by results showing that the hazards of infant death increase with length of urban residence. Programs that target increasing maternal education, improving household SES, and lengthening interbirth intervals would therefore greatly benefit child survival in less developed countries.     

农村外出妇女的生育意愿分析——基于鄂州、黄石、仙桃三地数据

本文利用2009年2月在鄂州、黄石、仙桃农村外出和未外出育龄妇女的调查数据,通过列联分析和logistic二元回归分析,从四个方面分别考察了外出与未外出育龄妇女生育意愿的关系及其影响因素。结果发现．育龄妇女的意愿子女数主要受其年龄、受教育程度、职业状况等个人特征的影响,外出过的妇女的意愿子女数要显著少于未外出过的妇女,这种差异主要是由于外出妇女与未外出妇女本身的结构差异所引起的,外出本身对育龄妇女的意愿子女数并没有显著作用;在生育目的上,外出与未外出妇女存在显著性差异,外出能弱化传统思想在妇女生育动机中的作用;在意愿生育性别和意愿生育时间这两个方面外出和未外出妇女没有显著性的差异。     

Internal Migration and Life Satisfaction: Well-Being Paths of Young Adult Migrants

Internal migration is typically associated with higher income, but its relation with life satisfaction remains unclear. Is internal migration accompanied by an increase in life satisfaction and does this increase depend on the reason for moving? What are the aspects of life underlying overall life satisfaction that change following migration? These questions are addressed using longitudinal data from the Swedish Young Adult Panel Study. Migration is defined as a change in municipality of residence. Comparing migrants to non-migrants, it is found that internal migration is accompanied by a short to medium term increase in life satisfaction for those who move due to work (work migrants), as well as those who move for other reasons (non-work migrants). However, only work migrants display an improvement in life satisfaction that remains significant 6 or more years following the move. Work and non-work migrants also differ in the aspects of life that change following migration. For work migrants the move is accompanied by an improvement in occupational status positively associated with well-being 6–10 years after the move. For non-work migrants, a persisting increase in housing satisfaction follows migration, but this housing improvement is accompanied by only a short to medium term increase in overall well-being.     

An interactive contextual model of migration in Ilocos Norte,the Philippines

This paper develops and estimates an interactive contextual model of migration in Ilocos Norte, the Philippines. It focuses on how contextual features alter the effects of family class status and community development level on the family's migration decisions. The model estimates show a curvilinear relation between class status and migration, but the pattern differs in accordance with the prevalence of migration from the community in the past. In addition, the effects of socioeconomic development and agricultural commercialization patterns vary with context. These results demonstrate the importance of using interactive models for analyzing the contextual influences on migration.     

Duration of Residence and Prospective Migration: The Evaluation of a Stochastic Model

The objective of this paper is to evaluate the empirical accuracy of the Cornell mobility model. Migration is formulated as a stochastic process governed by non-stationary probabilities: during a given interval of time, an individual is presumed to undergo a risk of migrating that decreases as he continues to reside in the same community. The major hypothesis, then, is that a person's propensity to move declines as his duration of residence increases.A secondary hypothesis proposes that age interacts with this relationship. Longitudinal data (5,000 residential histories from the Netherlands system of population registers) were analyzed and translated into prospective probabilities that are age- and duration-specific.Both hypotheses were substantiated. Specifically, the relationship is negative, curvilinear, and varies significantly by age. To facilitate simulation analysis of the model, the relationships found in the data are summarized in a set of logarithmic prediction equations.The findings of this paper underscore the fundamental limitation of stationary probability models in portraying migration and suggest that the non-stationary alternative is a more accurate formulation. More generally, processes of change which bear only a formal resemblance to migration (for example, brand switching or attitudinal change) may be governed by a principle of cumulative stability too. The evidence warrants further inquiry into the applicability of the model to other social processes where inertialike factors operate.     

Migration and fertility in the Philippines: Hendershot's selectivity model revisited

A demographer compared 1983 data on 5092 currently married migrant and nonmigrant women living in the Philippines to determine whether migration was still selective in terms of fertility behavior or not. Fertility was basically the same between migrant and nonmigrant women in their early reproductive years, but clear differences existed between older migrants and nonmigrants as indicated by children ever born (CEB). In fact, migration did not significantly affect cumulative fertility at all (correlation ratio=.03). Moreover its effect was further reduced when the researchers controlled for age and duration of marriage. Besides level of education and contraceptive use status contributed more to explanations of fertility differentials (correlation ratio=.09 for both) than did migration. The mean number of CEB adjusted for all variables fell with level of education from 4.18 for those with primary education to 3.63 to those with college education. This result identified education as a means to reduce high fertility in the Philippines. On the other hand, the mean was higher among women who ever used contraception than it was for those who never used it (4.21 vs. 3.72). Apparently considerable family size motivated mothers to use contraception. Since women who migrated to cities tended to be in the beginning of their reproductive period, considerable natural increase could occur in urban areas. Therefore the Philippines needed to devise a strategy for reducing fertility among migrant women as well as strategies for other groups such as professional/career oriented women and women who remained at home to tend to children and/or the home.     

A note on migration and employment

This paper examines the nature of the relation between migration and employment. A preliminary investigation confirms a previous observation that the employment rate of migrants is generally lower than that of non-migrants. A further analysis, however, suggests that this does not mean that migration has no effect on employment; in fact, the two appear to be strongly related. Migration enables some unemployed and initially disadvantaged persons to improve their employment status, making it more nearly comparable, though not equal, to that of the general population.     

Stable age by region distributions

If the pattern of fertility, mortality and interregional migration exhibited by the United States population during 1950–60 were to continue in the future, the proportions of persons in the various age groups and regions would fluctuate from decade to decade. These fluctuations would become less marked with time, however, and eventually all the proportions would stabilize at certain fixed values. This collection of values may be called astable age by region composition corresponding to the given schedule of fertility, mortality and migration. The same phenomenon may be observed when individuals move between socioeconomic categories as, for example, socioeconomic status or educational attainment levels. The substantial differences between these various situations conceal remarkable similarities. In each case the continued operation of schedules of fertility, mortality and mobility between categories may result in a stable composition. The purpose of this paper is to shed some light on the nature of these stable compositions, on the interrelation between their various components, and on their relation to the patterns of fertility, mortality and mobility which generate them.     

A Panel Based Analysis of the Effects of Race/Ethnicity and Other Individual Level Characteristics at Leaving on Returning

Individual level differentials between migrants and nonmigrants are examined to ascertain the likelihood of return migration to a prior residence based on characteristics at the time of departure from place of origin. Analysis focuses on comparisons of Hispanics, blacks and whites, examining the odds of return migration by education, employment status, marital status, home ownership, length of residence, gender, age, and migration interval. The 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79) is utilized to identify 13,798 preliminary migrations that may be followed by at least one return migration. Findings indicate a sharp decline in propensity to return migrate as length of absence from origin increases. Regardless of length of time since the preliminary migration, both blacks and Hispanics are more likely to return migrate than are whites. Individuals who resided at place of origin for longer periods before leaving had strikingly higher odds for return migration.     

Social status inconsistency and migration

We use NLSY79 panel data to extend the line of sociological research encouraged in the early work of Lenski by analyzing the effects of social status inconsistencies on the likelihood and direction of migration. Given that migration is often viewed as a way for individuals to locate prospective returns fitting for their qualifications, analysis of migration behavior offers an opportunity to examine the impact of status inconsistency. Key findings indicate that under-rewarded individuals, specifically relatively highly educated individuals in low status and low paying occupations, are more likely to migrate than are status consistent individuals. Over-rewarded individuals are less likely to migrate. These findings vary across metropolitan and nonmetropolitan places: individuals in nonmetropolitan areas who are under-rewarded or have mixed statuses have higher odds of migration than status consistent respondents. Individuals in metropolitan areas with inconsistent statuses are not more likely to migrate than status consistent respondents once other determinants of migration are entered in the analysis. Exploratory analysis shows migration increases the likelihood of achieving status consistency. Further examination of the interrelationship between migration and status inconsistency is recommended.     

中国老年人的生活自理能力状况与变化

本文利用2004年全国人口变动抽样调查数据对中国老年人的生活自理能力进行了分析,又与1994年老年人生活自理能力进行了对比。分析结果表明,2004年我国老年人中有8.9%生活不能自理,由此推算全国生活不能自理的老年人已经超过1200万人。分年龄、性别和城乡的老年人生活自理能力存在明显差别,年龄越大生活自理能力越差、女性不能自理比例高于男性、农村比城市差、中西部地区生活不能自理比例远高于东部地区。与1994年相比,中国老年人的生活自理能力总体上略有下降,需要进一步关注老年人的生活质量。     

Fertility and socio-economic status in Rural Bangladesh: Differentials and linkages

Summary Socio-economic differentials in fertility are examined by using data collected from a daily registration system covering over 100,000 persons in rural Bangladesh during the period 1968 to 1970. The findings indicate that fertility was generally higher among women in the higher than in the lower socio-economic groups. Several factors associated with high socio-economic status and their relation with the intermediate variables are discussed as providing the linkages with high fertility. These include, health status, breastfeeding, the enforcement of 'purdah' and migration.