Women's lives and rapid fertility decline: Some lessons from Bangladesh and Egypt

The recent experiences of Bangladesh and Egypt show thatfertility can sustain impressive declines even when women's lives remain severely constrained.Since the late 1970s, rural and urban areas in both countries have experienced steadydeclines in fertility, with recent declines in rural Bangladesh similar to those in ruralEgypt, despite lower levels of development and higher rates of poverty. This paperprovides an in-depth exploration of the demographic transition in these two societies andaddresses three basic questions: (1) have measurable improvements in economic opportunities forwomen been a factor in the fertility decline?; (2) can preexisting differences in gender systemsexplain the more rapid fertility decline in Bangladesh, despite the more modest economicachievements?; (3) can the development strategies adopted by the governments ofBangladesh and Egypt, be seen as additional factors in explaining the similar rural fertilitydeclines despite dissimilar economic circumstances? The paper concludes that neither gender systemsnor changes in women's opportunities appear to have contributed to declining fertility.Indeed, low levels of women's autonomy have posed no barrier to fertility decline in eithercountry. However, there is a case to be made that Bangladesh's distinct approach to development,with considerable emphasis on reaching the rural poor and women and a strong reliance onnongovernmental institutions, may have played a part in accelerating the transition in thatenvironment and in helping women to become more immediate beneficiaries of that process.

     

中国人口转变、人口红利与经济增长的实证

我国人口年龄结构的变动使得劳动负担逐渐下降,这对于储蓄水平的上升和劳动力投入效率的提高具有显著的促进作用;我国劳动负担比与经济增长呈现出明显的负相关,劳动负担比每下降1个百分点,经济增长将提高1.06个百分点,在过去的30年里劳动负担降低累计带来的经济增长占总增长的27.23%。通过计量检验证明人口年龄结构变动所产生的促进经济增长的人口红利是存在的。由此我们推断,由于未来的人口年龄结构变动趋向人口老龄化,劳动负担逐步上升,这将会对未来的经济增长造成制约。利用未来10～20年时间较轻的劳动负担的机遇期,我们应当建立良好的教育、人力资本投资、社会保障等方面的制度以及制定积极的人口政策,调整当前生育政策、适时执行宏观经济政策(劳动就业政策)来应对已发生的、正在进行的人口变动,使我国的经济继续保持强有力的增长态势。     

Integration or Fragmentation? Racial Diversity and the American Future

Over the next generation or two, America’s older, largely white population will increasingly be replaced by today’s disproportionately poor minority children. All future growth will come from populations other than non-Hispanic whites as America moves toward a majority-minority society by 2043. This so-called Third Demographic Transition raises important implications about changing racial boundaries in the United States, that is, about the physical, economic, and sociocultural barriers that separate different racial and ethnic groups. America’s racial transformation may place upward demographic pressure on future poverty and inequality as today’s disproportionately poor and minority children grow into adult roles. Racial boundaries will be reshaped by the changing meaning of race and ethnicity, shifting patterns of racial segregation in neighborhoods and the workplace, newly integrating (or not) friendship networks, and changing rates of interracial marriage and childbearing. The empirical literature provides complicated lessons and offers few guarantees that growing racial diversity will lead to a corresponding breakdown in racial boundaries—that whites and minorities will increasingly share the same physical and social spaces or interact as coequals. How America’s older population of elected officials and taxpayers responds today to America’s increasingly diverse population will provide a window to the future, when today’s children successfully transition (or not) into productive adult roles. Racial and ethnic inclusion will be reshaped by changing ethnoracial inequality, which highlights the need to invest in children—now.     

人口转变的储蓄效应和增长效应--论中国增长可持续性的人口因素

人口转变是挑战中国经济持续增长的一个重要因素.在这个过程中,个人的生命周期和代际更替之间的相互叠加,通过劳动供给、储蓄和科技进步等渠道对长期经济增长施加影响.本文分析表明,人口转变使得中国从20世纪60年代中期开始享受人口红利,并一直持续到2015年前后.为了迎接人口老龄化冲击,中国需要通过扩大就业、加快人力资本积累和建立适合于中国国情的可持续的养老保障模式三条途径来充分挖掘未来潜在的人口红利,推动中国经济持续增长.     

How the World Survived the Population Bomb: Lessons From 50 Years of Extraordinary Demographic History

The world population will reach 7 billion in late 2011, a demographic milestone that is causing renewed attention to the challenges caused by population growth. This article looks at the last 50 years of demographic change, one of the most extraordinary periods in demographic history. During this period, world population grew at rates that have never been seen before and will almost surely never be seen again. There were many concerns about the potential impact of rapid population growth in the 1960s, including mass starvation in countries such as India, depletion of nonrenewable resources, and increased poverty in low-income countries. The actual experience was very different. World food production increased faster than world population in every decade since the 1960s, resource prices fell during most of the period, and poverty declined significantly in much of the developing world. The article considers the economic and demographic explanations for the surprising successes of this important period in demographic history. It also looks at regions that have been less successful, especially Africa, and at the lessons for dealing with the important challenges that still remain.     

Exploration and Establishment of the Chinese Model of Demographic Transition

Exploration of Chinese paths of socialist construction and demographic transition paralleled each other from 1949 to 1978.Mortality rate decreased rapidly during the early 1950s as a result of the public health campaign,which initiated the process of demographic transition in China.Countering the problem of rapid population growth in 1950s,China put forward the theory and the concept of "realizing planned childbearing",and the Chinese model of demographic transition was brewing.Orientation of the Chinese path of demographic transition was reinforced in the 1960s in the context of intensifying contradiction between population and socio-economic development.Finally,China launched the demographic transition by vigorously implementing population control and family planning in the 1970s in the midst of "Cultural Revolution" when the rapidly increasing size of population exerted great pressure on economic development.The Chinese path of demographic transition is determined by the changing characteristics of the times and China’s special national conditions.     

中国人口转变道路的探索和选择

从1949年到1978年,中国在进行社会主义道路探索的同时也在进行着对中国人口转变道路的探索。建国初期,通过开展群众卫生运动,死亡率迅速下降,开启了中国人口转变的进程。20世纪50年代,初次面对人口快速增长问题,中国提出了"实现有计划的生育"的理论和构想,人口转变的中国道路开始孕育。经历了"大跃进"时期的思想动摇、工作停滞和此后的人口继续快速增长等种种波折之后,人们在人口与社会经济矛盾激增的过程中明确了中国人口转变道路的方向。最后,在"文革"期间,脆弱的国民经济和日益增长的人口压力迫使中国选择了一条主动控制人口过快增长、实行计划生育的人口转变道路。这条道路是由时代发展特征和中国的特殊国情共同决定的。     

Countries with Rapid Population Growth and Resource Constraints: Issues of Food,Agriculture, and Development

Recent long‐term demographic projections suggest a fast deceleration of global population growth and the eventual peaking of world population later in this century at about 9.2 billion, roughly 50 percent above the present level. Some low‐income and food‐insecure countries, however, have projected populations in 2050 that are multiples of present ones. In some of these countries agriculture must play a leading role in their development efforts because they have high economic dependence on that sector. For those among them that have scarce agricultural resources, a prima facie case can be made that the high population growth rates projected may not be compatible with the development potential offered by such resources. Their demographic projections may need to be revisited, taking into account such inadequate potential. The global demographic slowdown notwithstanding, the “population explosion”‐related issues pertaining to food and agriculture will not become irrelevant but will be become increasingly localized.     

Population growth and economic development

The paper deals with the relationship between the population growth and economic development in Yugoslavia and its republics, covering the period after the Second World War. Yugoslavia is a developing country with a specific demographic and economic structure which makes her unique in Europe. Its territory is comprised of both relatively developed regions where demographic transition is over, and underdeveloped regions with high natural increase of population where the demographic transition is only just beginning. Correlation and regression methods were used to quantify this relationship. The economic development and structural changes are discussed, relating to human factor. An adequate population policy through family planning is stressed as important in obtaining an increased return to scale with a more positive role of demographic factor.     

人口转变完成后的中国人口老龄化

在人口转变完成之后。由于人口惯性的存在,人口老龄化将比人口转变过程中的人口老龄化速度更快。中国已经基本完成人口转变,进入了人口老龄化的加速时期,老年人口比重和规模以及老年人口乘数均快速上升。因此,必须在思想上对人口老龄化问题真正重视,实现人口政策和人口工作的重心从控制人口数量向数量与结构并重转变,并尽快完善我国的养老保障制度。     

从一次人口转变到二次人口转变——现代人口转变及其启示

在扼要解析狭义人口转变及其经典模型的基础上,认为第二次人口转变的提出,是结合人口"中间变量"从广义上阐释了人口变化的内在动因与作用机理,进而在宏观、中观和微观三个层面引入了对现代人口转变与社会变迁关系的思考。主张人口转变是一个多维的动态历史过程,蕴涵着婚姻、生育、家庭、健康、人口调控等系列转变。提出第二次人口转变在中国的城市地区已露端倪。最后特别指出人口转变不仅仅是人口变化,更重要的是将其嵌套的社会变迁,两者关系的空前紧密折射着社会变化与社会需求。过去30年中国通过计划生育让人口"适应"了经济腾飞,而今后三、五十年以至更长时间,应使人口的"主体"地位逐步复归,让经济社会发展适应新的人口变化与社会需求,提高人口生存与生命质量,这才是发展的目的本身。     

山东省人口红利的过程判断及其对经济增长作用研究

在人口转变过程中。由于出生率与死亡率下降初始时间与速度的不同步,后者先于前者发生。会形成一个“中间大,两头小”有利于经济发展的人口年龄结构,人口学家称这段时期为“人口机会窗口”或“人口红利（demo-graphic dividend）”。本文根据人口类型划分标准对山东省及其区域人口红利进行了过程判断,并通过计算劳动力对经济增长的贡献率即劳动贡献率来显示人口红利对经济增长的推动作用,最后提出了充分实现山东省人口红利的途径。     

日本失去的二十年——基于中日人口红利比较的视角

"人口红利"是人口因素与经济增长关系研究的深入和发展。亚洲地区经济高速增长和工业化国家人口老龄化条件下经济增长,分别对应第一次"人口红利"和第二次"人口红利"。中国与日本相比,无论是经济增长模式还是人口转变模式,都有着极为相似之处,本文旨在通过对比分析中日两国人口发展与经济发展之间的变化,借鉴日本人口红利期的经验和教训,为中国充分实现第一次人口红利、创造第二次人口红利提供参考。     

The new point in population theory: some questions in the current demographic textbooks]

The current population theory in China emphasize that human reproduction must keep pace with the production of goods and services. The author of this paper challenges this theory and believes that the relationship between these two kinds of production, human reproduction should take the principal place. Production of goods and services must first meet the needs of people. Keeping population growth in pace with production of goods and services is of secondary importance. The demographic transition from high fertility and high mortality to low fertility and low mortality in developed country was not caused by poverty, hunger, and surplus of the labor force, and it was not the end result of forcing population growth to stay in pace with material production. Increasing productivity to provide abundant goods depend on improving the quality of the population. When the purpose of consumption is not only for survival, demands for material goods and leisure will take precedence over demands for children. An-emphasis on keeping population reproduction in pace with the production of goods and services tends to ignore the importance of increasing productivity which is the key to the improvement of living standards.     

九十年代以来我国人口迁移的若干新特点

根据对 2 0 0 0年人口普查资料的分析 ,认为二十世经九十年代以来我国人口迁移表现出如下新特点 :一是人口迁移与流动进入新阶段 ,二是人口迁移的宏观流向呈现新模式 ,三是城市内部迁移成为新热点 ,四是城乡人口互动蕴涵新挑战 ,五是“人口窗口”提供新机遇。     

亚洲人口老龄化的发展、挑战以及应对策略

人口老龄化已经成为亚洲国家必须面对的一个十分紧迫的问题,与西方相比,亚洲国家的老龄化问题更加复杂,这种复杂性不仅在于过快的老龄化速度,更重要的是亚洲在经济、制度发展方面远未成熟,同时老龄化又存在城乡失衡、性别比例失衡等现象。老龄化对亚洲未来经济发展带来了挑战,亚洲内部的产品内分工链、区域生产网络等维持亚洲竞争能力的区域合作模式很大程度上是建立在人口红利基础上的,老龄化的发展将使得亚洲传统发展模式无法持续。面对这些挑战,亚洲国家必须迅速采取有效措施积极应对。     

Population pressure and fertility in pre-transition Thailand

Before the demographic transition in Thailand, fertility was high, but not uniformly so. As in other pre-transition settings, Thai fertility responded to pressures and opportunities created by socioeconomic structure and land availability. Drawing upon provincial data from the 1947 and 1960 censuses of Thailand, we find a strong 'frontier effect' on Thai fertility in the 1950s. Fertility was higher in sparsely settled frontier provinces and lower in provinces with higher population density relative to cultivatable land. This finding is robust and holds up with controls for agricultural employment, land quality, and the sex ratio (an indicator of sex-selective migration). The effect of population pressure lowers the likelihood of marriage and of marital fertility. The findings from Thailand are consistent with the research of Easterlin on the nineteenth century United States and with other pre-transition societies. We suggest how demographic transition theory might be broadened to include fertility dynamics in pre-transition societies.     

Demographic challenges and health in Germany

Demographic challenges are affecting the health care system in Germany and globally: a growing aging population; low birth rates; sociopolitical, women’s health, and health care economic issues; and immigration. During a recent Fulbright Scholar program, scholars from several disciplines including demography, sociology, medicine, and nursing examined these demographic challenges facing Germany and other industrialized countries. Enormous challenges exist for industrialized and developing countries related to these demographic changes, the complexity of health care economics, and population issues. In Germany, the shifting population demographics are affecting health care, financing of the German health care system, and the growth of immigrant populations.     

中国人口转变研究综述

20世纪后半叶,中国人口再生产类型的根本性转变对国家经济建设和社会发展产生了深远影响;对中国人口转变过程和目前所处阶段还有不同观点。从人口统计数据来看,中国已完成人口转变;从经济发展和现代化实现程度分析,人口转变还没有完成;有观点认为,中国人口转变不仅已经完成,而且进入后人口转变期。2l世纪,伴随人口转变过程的不断深化,中国人口转变问题将趋于多元化和复杂化,这既为中国人口发展提出挑战,也必将进一步丰富中国人口转变理论与实践。     

Demographic Theory: A Long View

This essay argues that demographic theory over the last half‐century has substituted short‐term explanations, often focusing on single demographic events, for long‐term theory. This means not only that the explanations cannot be employed to forecast the situation in the more distant future, but they are inadequate even for short‐term analysis. A basis for a longer‐term theory of fertility transition is proposed, employing the concept of social structure and demographic behavior adjusting, slowly and after a considerable lag, to each of three modes of production. The focus is on the transition from agricultural to industrial production, especially as this is occurring in the most advanced industrial societies. Three major conclusions are drawn. (1) Unanticipated fertility changes over the last 50 years can be incorporated within a single demographic transition theory. (2) Societal and demographic changes are still at an early stage of their transition to full adjustment to industrialization. (3) The trend, associated with women's participation in the work force, toward below‐replacement fertility will continue, but at some stage most governments will probably attempt to raise fertility to replacement level even if the effort is extremely expensive and slows economic growth.