生育行为对老年女性健康的影响

立足于老龄化和生育政策调整的背景,文章利用中国健康与养老追踪调查数据,通过建立加速时效时间模型,系统分析了包含子女数量、性别结构、生育时间和生育期长等在内的生育行为对女性进入老年时期的健康的影响,并进一步在个体层面上测算了老年女性的健康生存时间.实证结果发现,生育行为对老年女性的健康会产生重要影响.从健康角度来看,生男生女都一样;而多子不但不会多福,还会降低老年女性的健康福利;同时,初育年龄太大或太小都将不利于女性老年时期的健康水平,而生育期延长会显著提升女性老年时期的健康水平.文章还探讨了生育行为对老年女性健康的影响机制,认为在目前生育政策调整的背景下应关注生育行为改变对女性健康的潜在影响.     

Attitudes About Children and Fertility Limitation Behavior

The relationship between attitudes and individual behavior is at the core of virtually all demographic theories of fertility. This paper extends our understanding of fertility behavior by exploring how psychic costs of childbearing and contraceptive use, conceptualized as attitudes about children and contraception, are related to the transition from high fertility and little contraceptive use to lower fertility and wide spread contraceptive use. Using data from rural Nepal, I examine models of the relationship between multiple, setting-specific attitudes about children and contraception and the hazard of contraceptive use to limit childbearing. Specific attitude measures attempt to capture the relative value of children versus consumer goods, the religiously based value of children, and the acceptability of contraceptive use. Findings demonstrate that multiple measures of women’s attitudes about children and contraception were all independently related to their fertility limitation behavior.     

中国低生育水平下的生育意愿与生育行为差异研究

在国家实行全面两孩政策背景下,认清生育意愿与生育行为的差异,是把握中国未来人口形势变化的关键。文章利用2010年以来的四次全国性抽样调查原始数据,对中国育龄人群的生育意愿与生育行为的差异及影响因素进行分析。研究发现:中国目前意愿生育水平在1.82~1.88的区间范围内,其点估计值在1.86左右,已显著低于更替水平;越年轻的出生队列其生育意愿越低,中国未来的意愿生育水平可能会继续降低;育龄人群的意愿生育水平要显著高于其终身生育水平,且二者差异随年龄的减小呈递增趋势,中国未来生育水平存在进一步下降的可能性;没有生育政策限制下的终身生育水平仅为1.68,这可以作为生育政策调整对中国生育水平影响的上限。生育政策对当前育龄人群生育意愿与生育水平差异的贡献度在33%左右,全面两孩政策对中国生育水平的提升作用有限。     

The Surprising Global Variation in Replacement Fertility

It is frequently assumed by the general public and alsoby some population experts that the value ofreplacement-level fertility is everywhere an averageof 2.1 lifetime births per woman. Nothing could befurther from the truth. The global variation inreplacement fertility is substantial, ranging by almost1.4 live births from less than 2.1 to nearly 3.5. Thisrange is due almost entirely to cross-country differencesin mortality, concentrated in the less developed world.Policy makers need to be sensitive to own-countryreplacement rates. Failure to do so could result infertility levels that are below replacement and lead tolong-run population decline. For example, the currentreplacement total fertility rate for the East Africa regionis 2.94. Lowering fertility to 2.10 would, under currentmortality conditions, result in a regional birthrate 29 percentbelow replacement.     

The Correspondence Between Fertility Intentions and Behavior in the United States

Using data from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, we describe the correspondence between intended family size and observed fertility for US men and women in the 1957–64 birth cohorts. Mean fertility intentions calculated from reports given in the mid‐20s modestly overstate completed fertility. But discrepancies between stated intent and actual fertility are common—the stated intent at age 24 (for both women and men) is more likely to miss than to match completed fertility. We focus on factors that predict which women and men will have fewer or more children than intended. Consistent with life‐course arguments, those unmarried, childless, or (for women) still in school at approximately age 24 were most likely to underachieve their intended parity (i.e., had fewer children than intended at age 24). We discuss how such discrepancies between intentions and behavior may cumulate to produce sizable cross‐group fertility differences.     

符合二胎政策妇女的生育意愿和生育行为差异——基于计划行为理论的实证研究

文章通过对"江苏省群众生育意愿和生育行为调查"的2007年基线和2010年跟踪数据中符合生育二胎政策妇女的分析,从社会心理学入手,以计划行为理论为支撑,重新架构生育意愿到生育行为的理论框架,从微观视角来研究当政策赋予人们生育二胎权利时,妇女生育意愿和生育行为之间的差异及其影响因素。研究结果表明,该地区符合生育二胎政策的妇女中,四成妇女的生育意愿高于生育行为,六成妇女的生育意愿等于生育行为,尚没有妇女的生育意愿低于生育行为。当的确面临是否生育二胎的选择时,妇女会进行理性考虑,生育态度、主观规范和行为控制都对生育意愿和生育行为的差异产生显著影响。同时,生育计划的制定是实现生育意愿的重要推动力。     

民族间农民生育行为的比较研究--来自湖北省418户农户家庭的调查

文章通过对湖北省400多个农户点面调查分析发现,随着时代变迁,受教育程度的提高,农民的婚育行为发生着显著变化。主要表现为初婚年龄明显反弹,婚育间隔明显缩小,而生育间隔则受计划生育国策影响一度出现“人为”缩短痕迹。但在经过一段时间适应后,生育间隔再度回归“自然”。尽管在许多方面,民族间的婚育行为比较一致,但也存在不少差异。主要表现在苗族、土家族等少数民族女性初婚年龄要显著早于汉族,而平均婚育间隔与生育间隔则长于汉族。教育对农民的婚育行为有明显影响,主要表现为初婚年龄随受教育年限的增加而明显推后,生育数量的期望明显减少。     

论生育文化和生育文明

生育文明中表现了生育文化的种种现象和活动,生育文化也体现了生育文明的历史轨迹、进程和内容。生育文化的发展表现了不同时期人类生育文明的进步与发展,不体现生育文化内涵的生育文明显然是不存在的。然而,严格说来,生育文化和生育文明是既有密切联系,又有一定区别的两个不完全等同的概念。正确认识和理解生育文化和生育文明的概念、内涵、功能及其相互关系,对于推动新时期人口计生工作的深入发展,进一步开展人口和计划生育的理论研究,具有十分重要的意义和作用。     

The Biology of Behavior and the Study of Human Fertility: A Review Essay*

Books reviewed in this article: Paul‐André Rosental L'intelligence démographique: sciences et politiques des populations en France (1930–1960) James R. Carey Longevity: The Biology and Demography of Life Span Susan Scott and Christopher J. Duncan Demography and Nutrition: Evidence from Historical and Contemporary Populations Laura R. Woliver The Political Geographies of Pregnancy     

Reassessing the Insurance Effect: A Qualitative Analysis of Fertility Behavior in Senegal and Zimbabwe

A number of prominent demographers have recently reiterated the argument that a lasting mortality decline is a key determinant of the fertility transition. Of the main hypothesized pathways linking fertility to mortality, the one least studied is the insurance hypothesis: the notion that, in high‐mortality contexts, people decide to have more children in order to anticipate possible future child deaths and lessen the risks of having too few surviving offspring. In‐depth interviews and focus groups from Zimbabwe and Senegal are used to examine this hypothesis and to extend it into a broader theory of reproductive decision making under uncertainty. Whereas insurance strategies are frequent in Zimbabwe and occur in urban Senegal, in the higher‐mortality settings—the rural Senegalese site and the recent past described by respondents in Zimbabwe and urban Senegal—deliberate fertility‐limitation strategies are rare. The data depict fundamental changes in attitudes, strategies, and behaviors concerning family size over time and, in Senegal, over space. Important reproductive goals and risks extend far beyond numbers of children and mortality. Parents seek to have healthy, successful children for many reasons including companionship, descendants, and old‐age support. Diverse investments in child quality (their education, health, etc.) and quantity (numbers of births) are the main means to attain these goals and, less recognized by demographers, are also important ways for parents to manage uncertainty in family‐building outcomes; the “classic” insurance mechanism is only one, often minor, aspect of the quantity option.     

Is Fertility Behavior in Our Genes? Findings from a Danish Twin Study

This article investigates the fertility of Danish twins born during the periods 1870–1910 and 1953–64 in order to pursue two central questions for understanding human reproduction: Do genetic dispositions influence fertility and fertility-related behavior? Does the relevance of the “nature versus nurture” debate shift over time or with demographic regimes? The authors find that genetic influences on fertility exist, but that their relative magnitude and pattern are contingent on gender and on the socioeconomic environment experienced by cohorts. Among females born in 1880–90 and after 1955, about 30–50 percent of the variance in fertility is due to genetic influences; these influences are substantially smaller for earlier and for interim birth cohorts. Male fertility is generally subject to smaller genetic and larger shared-environment effects than female fertility. Because genetic effects are most prevalent in situations with deliberately controlled fertility and relatively egalitarian socioeconomic opportunities, the authors propose that the genetic dispositions affect primarily fertility behavior and motivations for having children. Analyses of fertility motivations, measured by age of first attempt to have a child, support this interpretation.     

Visual Capacity,Out-of-home Activities and Emotional Well-being in Old Age: Basic Relations and Contextual Variation

This work examined the role of visual capacity in connection with psychological, social network related, and socio-structural predictors of out-of-home everyday functioning and emotional well-being. The results are based on a sample of 1519 community dwelling elderly (55–98 years; mean age 70.8 years), 757 of them were living in urban, and 762 were living in rural regions, half-and-half from East and West Germany. Structural equation modeling supported the hypothesis of robust relations among age, vision, intellectual functioning, out-of-home everyday functioning, and emotional well-being that are largely independent of the regional and societal macro context. In detail, vision mediated the effect of age on out-of-home activities of daily living (ADL/IADL) and leisure activities, while intellectual functioning mediated the effect of vision on out-of-home leisure activities. All effects on emotional well-being were mediated by out-of-home leisure activities. Enriching the micro level model with psycho-social variables (i.e., outdoor motivation and social resources) and an indication of the socio-economic situation (i.e., financial resources) revealed some contextual variations: At this meso level of analysis, social resources contributed less and outdoor motivation contributed more to out-of-home leisure activities in the urban than in the rural sample. Second, outdoor motivation was significantly related to social resources in the urban, but not in the rural sample. Third, financial resources contributed modestly but significantly to out-of-home leisure activities in the East German, but not in the West German urban and rural samples. It is concluded that visual capacity plays a substantial role in a robust micro level model able to predict everyday functioning and well-being. If additional resources adding to the prediction of these outcomes are also taken into consideration in a meso level analysis model, the whole variable interplay becomes more strongly affected by macro contextual variation.     

Missing the Target? Correspondence of Fertility Intentions and Behavior in the U.S.

Building on a framework suggested by Bongaarts (2001)and using data from the 1979 National LongitudinalSurvey of Youth, we describe the correspondencebetween intended family size and observed fertilityfor the 1957 to 1961 birth cohorts of U.S. women andmen. Over an 18-year period (1982–2000), we showthat while aggregate intentions are quite stable,discrepancies are very common at the individual level.Women and men were more likely to err in predictingnumber of additional births in the period 1982–2000 thanto hit their target number. A very strong predictor of over-and underachieving fertility is initial intended parity. Thosewho intended more than two children tended to have fewerchildren than intended, while those who intended fewer thantwo children tended to have more children than intended. Inaddition and consistent with life course arguments, thoseunmarried in 1982, childless in 1982, and (for women) stillin school in 1982 were most likely to underachieve their 2000intended parity (i.e., have fewer children than intended). Weconclude by reflecting on how the circumstances that allowdiscrepancies between intentions and behavior to almost``balance'' in the U.S. may cumulate differently elsewhere toproduce much lower fertility.     

Using Discrete-Time Event History Fertility Models to Simulate Total Fertility Rates and Other Fertility Measures

Event history models, also known as hazard models, are commonly used in analyses of fertility. One drawback of event history models is that the conditional probabilities (hazards) estimated by event history models do not readily translate into summary measures, particularly for models of repeatable events, like childbirth. In this paper, we describe how to translate the results of discrete-time event history models of all births into well-known summary fertility measures: simulated age- and parity-specific fertility rates, parity progression ratios, and the total fertility rate. The method incorporates all birth intervals, but permits the hazard functions to vary across parities. It can also simulate values for groups defined by both fixed and time-varying covariates, such as marital or employment life histories. We demonstrate the method using an example from the National Survey of Family Growth and provide an accompanying data file and Stata program.     

生育性别偏好行为的双向选择——来自陕西省神木县的调查发现

本研究根据神木县经济、社会发展以及政策调整,结合群众的生育观念调查和访谈,以出生人口性别比变动趋势分析生育性别偏好的发展和变化。研究发现,在经济、社会发展以及政策调整进程中,存在生育性别偏好的双向选择：一方面,男孩功能随着经济与社会发展出现减弱,促进了不再追求生育儿子的生育性别偏好正向选择;另一方面,在男孩偏好文化顽固的地区,经济社会发展与政策调整刺激了男孩偏好,加剧了偏好儿子的生育性别偏好逆向选择。研究有利于明确经济、社会以及政策对于生育性别偏好的影响,从而为进一步制定有效的性别失衡治理政策提供依据。     

试论时期总和生育率、终身生育率与政策生育率的关系

通过对总和生育率(TFR)、终身生育率(CFR)与政策生育率(PFR)的概念及相关数据分析,论证总和生育率与政策生育率是完全不同的概念,不可直接比较。在特定条件下TFR、CFR和政策生育率会产生差异,在一个国家生育水平下降的历史时期,TFR必然小于当年49岁组女性的CFR;"超生率"、"未婚率"、"未育率"和"不孕率"的变化,决定了政策生育率与终身生育率的差异。借鉴日本经济与人口发展相关数据,可以相信由平均初婚年龄推迟、女性有偶率下降导致的生育水平下降很可能成为对我国人口均衡发展的最大潜在威胁。因此,当前以及今后相当的时期内,我国的政策生育率应高于1.8。     

生育理性和生育决策与我国低生育水平稳定机制的转变

自改革开放以来 ,我国人口生育率水平出现了迅速的转变 ,特别是 1 992年我国确立了市场经济为目标的经济改革以来 ,生育率水平更是进一步降低到更替水平以下。如果说 ,生育率的迅速转变是在国家计划生育政策干预下启动的 ,那么 ,在 1 990年代生育率的下降应该主要是社会和经济发展的结果。以市场经济为导向的经济改革和经济的迅速发展 ,已经为稳定我国城市地区人口低生育率水平提供了必要的经济条件 ,同时 ,制度、技术和文化等因素的变革已经为我国个人生育决策理性化创造了条件 ,低生育水平的稳定机制已经开始从政策控制为主转向群众自我控制为主的转变     

Fertility and social mobility

This article contains an analysis of part of the results of an inquiry into social mobility undertaken jointly by the Nuffield Research Unit of the London School of Economics and the Population Investigation Committee, in collaboration with the Ministry of Labour, based on nation-wide sample material collected by the Social Survey in England and Wales in 1949. Grateful acknowledgment is made to the Inter-Departmental Committee on Economic and Social Research for facilitating the collaboration with these government departments. In this paper, the relationship between fertility defined in terms of average family size of marriages of at least twenty years duration and social mobility is discussed. Two aspects of the latter phenomenon are discussed, namely, the position of sons on the social scale in relation to that of their fathers, and the change in the social status of a family in the period between the date of marriage and the date of the inquiry.

The conclusions reached stand in apparent contradiction to R. A. Fisher's ‘Theory of Infertility Selection’. It is shown that socially promoted families tend on the one hand to carry with them the family-building habits of the class of their origin, and, on the other, to acquire to some extent the fertility characteristics of the class into which they move.

The study of ‘personal’ social mobility throws some light on the question of the choice of the time-basis of socio-economic status allocation.     

Extra-Marital Cohabitation and Fertility

In France, as in many other Western European countries, attitudes and behaviour regarding marriage have changed drastically over the past 20 years. One of the major changes has been the increasing propensity to begin one's matrimonial career outside marriage: two-thirds of first unions begun in 1983–85 were outside marriage. A special survey was carried out at the end of 1985 to collect detailed information on life-courses for a sample of 4,091 women and men aged between 21 and 44 years. In a previous paper, we focused on the characteristics and on the outcome of first unions, with no account of interactions with fertility, which will be the guideline of the present paper.     

Group Normative Propensities,Societal Positioning,and Childbearing: Ethno-linguistic Variation in Completed and Desired Fertility in Transitional Central Asia

Population Research and Policy Review - Considerable research in western, low-fertility contexts has examined minority-vs.-majority fertility differentials, typically focusing on minority...