Male nonworkers: Who are they and who supports them?

Although male nonworkers have become a larger fraction of the population since the late 1960s, very little is known about who they are or who supports them. Using data from the March Current Population Survey and the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, this article fills that void The picture that emerges is that there is a small cadre of marginal workers who often do not work for periods of a year or more. The vast majority of nonworking men (men who do not work at all during the year) receive unearned income from at least one source, and the amount of unearned income they receive varies significantly by their reason for not working. Family members provide an important alternative source of support for nonworking men who have little or no unearned income of their own.     

Injectable contraceptives: how safe are they?

Controversy still surrounds the use of the injectable contraceptive, Depo-Provera, in 3rd world countries, when it has yet to be approved in the US, Canada, Japan, and other developed nations. Some medical professionals maintain Depo is both safe and effective and could curb rapid population growth worldwide. With no conclusive decision made, some countries have approved Depo while others have not yet decided. Originally approved for a variety of uses, Depo is approved in the US only as a treatment for advanced endometrial cancer; however, it is now available in 65 countries and is used as a contraceptive in the Philippines. Depo and its companion Norigest are both progestonogenic injectables and were developed in the late 1950s. Injectables inhibit ovulation and thicken cervical mucus, thereby preventing fertilization. The reservoir usually lasts from 3-6 months, and its action cannot be reversed until the body has completely absorbed the drug. Injectables are highly effective; most accidental pregnancies occur shortly after the 1st injection before the drug has taken effect or at the end of an interval when its effect is wearing off. Overall the rate of fertility return corresponds to the rates for the pill and the IUD. Injectables have the advantage of preventing side effects brought on by estrogens; thus they would be beneficial to women desiring to use contraception but who cannot manage pill side effects. They do not interfere with lactation and have the lowest failure rate of the reversible methods. Important to developing countries is that injectables require no effort on the part of the user. Injectables do disrupt the menstrual pattern and Depo use often results in weight gain. Little is known about the longterm risks of Depo; however, in 1973 the US Food and Drug Administration withdrew approval of Depo for pregnancy-related uses because of links to birth defects. Other recent studies have uncovered other possible effects including uncertainty about whether injectables affect the composition of breastmilk or whether they raise blood glucose levels. Ethics have entered into the controversy with the "contraceptive double standard" where Depo has been exported to 3rd world nations when it has been ruled unsafe for American women. Campaigns have been organized against the distribution and use of injectables in the developed nations and a few in the 3rd world have begun to organize. While the Philippines has approved Depo, it is not yet considered an official method of the National Population Program. Policymakers await a more thorough analysis of factors for and against the promotion of the drug.     

Who signs China's one-child certificate,and why?

A policy of 1 child/family was initiated in China in 1979 to help control population growth. An estimation model is presented using 1985 fertility survey data to estimate characteristics associated with deciding to comply with the policy. After accounting for place of residence, woman's education, husband's occupation, marriage duration, presence of a son, family structure, and house size were found to significantly influence compliance. Age, child mortality experience, husband's education, and woman's occupation, however, did not. No conclusions could be made on the influence of income and wealth in adhering to policy.     

Population Measures of Subjective Wellbeing: How Useful are they?

This article focuses on the contributions and, importantly, the limitations of subjective wellbeing (happiness/satisfaction) measures as indicators of broad population wellbeing and societal functioning. The popular practice of comparing happiness among countries gives a skewed view of how well their people are faring. Charting trends over time in happiness and mental health gives contradictory pictures of population wellbeing; even the responses to different questions within the same survey can yield very different findings. Asking people about their own lives and about social conditions produces contrasting results. These issues challenge the orthodox model of human development, which places Western liberal democracies at its leading edge. According to an alternative, psychosocial-dynamics, model, some, at least, may be societies in decline. Reconciling these views is no simple matter.     

Parental investment responses to a low birth weight outcome: who compensates and who reinforces?

This study analyzes how parental investment responds to a low birth weight (LBW) outcome and finds important differences in investment responses by maternal education. High school dropouts reinforce a LBW outcome by providing less investment in the human capital of their LBW children relative to their normal birth weight children whereas higher educated mothers compensate by investing more in their LBW children. In addition, an increase in the number of LBW siblings present in the home raises investment in a child, which is consistent with reinforcement, but this positive effect tends to be concentrated among high school dropouts. These results suggest that studies analyzing the effects of LBW on child outcomes that do not account for heterogeneity in investment responses to a LBW outcome by maternal education may overestimate effects of LBW on child outcomes for those born to low-educated mothers and underestimate such effects for those born to high-educated mothers.     

Women's birth expectations,are they fulfilled? Findings from a longitudinal Swedish cohort study

BackgroundThe importance of women's expectations on the experience of birth has shown contradictory results regarding fulfilment. The aim of this study was to describe pregnant women's expectations of birth and to investigate if these expectations were fulfilled. An additional aim was to determine if unfulfilled expectations were related to the mode of birth, use of epidural and the birth experience.MethodsThis research investigated a prospective regional cohort study of 1042 Swedish-speaking women who completed a questionnaire about birth expectations in late pregnancy and were followed up with two months after birth. Five areas were under study: support from partner, support from midwife, control, participation in decision making and the midwife's presence during labour and birth. An index combining expectations and experiences was created.ResultsCertain background characteristics were associated with expectations as well as experiences. Statistically significant differences were shown between expectations and experiences in support from midwife (mean 3.41 vs 3.32), support from partner (mean 3.70 vs 3.77), and midwife's presence (mean 3.00 vs 3.39). Experiences ‘worse than expected’ regarding decision making and control were associated with modes of birth other than vaginal and four out of five areas were associated with a less positive birth experience.ConclusionSome women had high birth expectations of which some were fulfilled. An expectation on support from the midwife was less likely to be achieved, while support from partner and the midwives’ presence were fulfilled. If the woman's expectations were not fulfilled, e.g. became ‘worse than expected’ this was associated with a less positive overall birth experience as well as with instrumental or surgical mode of birth.     

Dual Citizenship Rights: Do they Make More and Richer Citizens?

In the 1990s, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Costa Rica, and Brazil passed dual citizenship laws granting their expatriates the right to naturalize in the receiving country without losing their nationality of origin. I estimate the effects of these new laws on naturalization rates and labor market outcomes in the United States. Based on data from the 1990 and 2000 U.S. censuses, In find that immigrants recently granted dual nationality rights are more likely to naturalize relative to immigrants from other Latin American countries. They also experience relative employment and earnings gains, together with drops in welfare use, suggesting that dual citizenship rights not only increase the propensity to naturalize but may also promote economic assimilation. The effects of dual citizenship on improved economic performance, if mediated through naturalization, are consistent with American citizenship conferring greater economic opportunities.     

Self-care: Why do parents leave their children unsupervised?

We used a preferences-and-constraints model to develop four hypotheses to explain why parents may choose self-care (an unsupervised arrangement) as the primary child care arrangement for their children over supervised alternatives and tested them in a multivariate framework using 1995 data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation. We found that the choice of self-care over supervised care alternatives is linked to the availability of parents' time to care for children, the child's level of responsibility and maturity, and the neighborhood context. However, we found no evidence that parents' ability to pay for child care is related to the choice of self-care. The results also suggest that parents use different decision-making processes, depending on their children's ages.     

Internal migration: why do Filipinos move?

The rapid movement of Filipinos from 1 part of the Philippines to another is not a new phenomenon, but mobility has been increasing. A study conducted by Peter C. Smith revealed that interprovincial lifetime mobility of the national population increased from 15.8% in 1960 to 17.6% in 1970, while interregional mobility increased from 12.7% to 13.4%. People still disagree as to whether the size and rate of growth of the population are excessive, but there seems to be total consensus as regards its spatial imbalance. Because internal migration appears to be an important factor in national development, a need exists to examine different aspects of internal migration, such as the directions taken by migration flows, the migrants' reasons for moving, the migrants' characteristics, the migrants' success or lack of success at their places of destination, the social problems accompanying internal migration, effforts to deal with the problems caused by internal migration, and the implications of migration trends for policy and for the country's development programs. The most dominant migration trend in the Philippines in recent years has been toward the urban, or more accurately the suburban, areas adjacent to Metropolitan Manila. The city of Manila itself suffered a net outflow, further pointing to the trend toward suburbanization. Migration flows are primarily caused by economic reasons. About one half the sample of a Filipinas Foundation Study moved to provinces other than the province of birth in the pursuit of employment and other economic opportunities. A study of the country's migrant population age 15 and older showed that 53% of migrants were female. For male migrants, age ranges from 20-40; it ranges from 15-35 for females. Where cash income is concerned, migrants in Pernia's study of rural urban migration were better off than nonmigrants. Migrants were, on the average, as well off as native urbanites or metropolitanites. Among the more significant points raised by scholars and researchers are the following: urbanization is an inevitable and irreversible process, and it is wise to plan for it; the problem is not rapid urbanization but unbalanced urbanization, i.e., the concentration of urbanization in Metro Manila; steps to alter national urban patterns might include establishing a migration guidance office; the need exists for an explicit, firm, and consistent population distribution policy; and solutions that anticipate problems having to do with internal migration and prevent these problems from arising will, in the long run, be more effective than curative solutions.     

Who benefits from paid family leave? Impact of expansions in Canadian paid family leave on maternal employment and transfer income

This paper estimates the impact of a recent expansion in Canadian paid family leave from 25 to 50 weeks on maternal employment and transfer income. It finds the expansion coincided with increases in transfers to mothers of children age zero to one relative to mothers of children age three to four, and with decreases in returns to work in the year after birth. These changes were concentrated among economically advantaged groups of women, defined by marital status, education, and non-wage income. Despite these changes, there was no evidence of a decrease in returns to work or relative employment for mothers of children age one.

Parental leave policies,intra-household time allocations and children’s human capital

This paper uses a general equilibrium model of marriage and divorce to assess how public policies on parental leave and leave benefits affect intra-household decision making, family structure, intergenerational mobility, and the distribution of income. The benchmark economy is calibrated to US data to replicate some characteristics relevant to the interaction between the marriage and labor markets. The effects of unpaid leave, paid leave benefits, and mandated leave on human capital investment, distribution of income, and welfare are then analyzed.      

Choosing a contraceptive method: why does it matter?

The use of contraceptives varies widely among Asian countries. Based on the most recent survey data available, the rate varies from nearly 8/10 married women aged 15-44 in Taiwan to fewer than 1/10 in Pakistan and Nepal. Women in East Asian countries are most likely to practice contraception, followed by those in Southeast Asia, with lower contraceptive prevalence rates found in South Asia. The rates of some East Asian nations now match those of the US and other developed nations, while in most South Asian nations contraception is spreading slowly. Contraceptive methods in use vary widely by country. The leading method in the greatest number of countries is sterilization, but in most countries several methods are nearly equal in popularity. Only in India is sterilization used by a majority of those people who practice contraception. Japan is the only country in which a majority of contraceptors use condoms, and only in China do 1/2 use IUDs. The choice of a particular contraceptive method is strongly influenced by 1) methods available through family planning programs, or promoted through the use of target systems; 2) religous and cultural factors; 3) concerns about side effects and safety; 4) ease of access to particular methods; 5) the medical profession; and 6) legality--in Japan the pill is illegal. In most countries the type of contraceptive that people prefer has changed since the introduction and promotion of modern methods of contraception. In general, there has been a shift to more effective methods. An increase in female sterilization at the expense of other methods such as the IUD or pill is the most common pattern. In countries where female sterilization is unpopular, use of such modern methods as the pill, IUD, or condom has increased at the expense of traditional methods.     

Homosexual moral acceptance and social tolerance: are the effects of education changing?

Using data from the General Social Survey, this research evaluates the effect of education on both the moral acceptance and social tolerance of homosexuality in America and how that effect has been changing. In terms of moral acceptance, it is shown through multivariate logistic regression that while education is associated with more liberal attitudes, it has not significantly influenced trends. In the second part of the analysis, these results are compared to a similar investigation of social tolerance. From this, it is seen that education has a stronger connection with tolerance, but its effect has been decreasing over time.