The socio-demographic legacy of the Khmer Rouge period in Cambodia

Passages funded by Australia's colonial governments accounted for 56 per cent of all arrivals from the United Kingdom between 1831 and 1860. In concert with a range of private, Colonial Office, and Poor Law sources in the UK, analysis of data on the emigrants' age, sex, occupation, county of origin, literacy, and religious persuasion, collected by colonial Immigration Agents, challenges the traditional view of Australia's government immigrants. Rather than indigent misfits, shovelled out by a system anxious to rid the UK of its poor, they were primarily well-informed, self-selecting, literate individuals who often sought help from philanthropic agencies or their local parish to enable them to finance their passage deposit, mandatory clothing, and travel to the port of embarkation. Comparative analysis of data on occupation and county of origin, which suggests that they were not the spillover of the North America-bound streams, further challenges the prevailing view.     

Selective Mortality During the Khmer Rouge Period in Cambodia

Aspects of the long‐term demographic impact of genocide during the period of the Khmer Rouge (1975–79) in Cambodia are analyzed. Mortality data for siblings from the Cambodia Demographic and Health Survey in 2000 demonstrate that excess mortality was extremely high and heavily concentrated during 1974–80. The study also shows that mortality was highly selective during that period. Adult males were the most likely to die, indicating that violent death played a major role. Individuals with an urban or educated background were more likely to die. Mortality by religious background is also assessed. Infant and early childhood mortality was very high during the period and was as prevalent in urban areas and among children born to educated mothers as in rural areas and among the less educated.     

The time budget in socio-demographic statistics

The paper describes a Polish time budget survey conducted in 1976 on a rotation sample of the whole (non-agricultural and agricultural) adult population. Different time budget indicators are presented and their linkages with other statistical data and usefulness for social policy formulation and evaluation are discussed. Some new time indicators, not used in previous surveys, are recommended. Usefulness of time budged surveys for assessing an account of labor force and investigating of the social distribution of labor time as well as leisure time is underlined. The possibility of using time budget data for analyses of the social distribution of some welfare outlays in the field of cultural participation and consumption is also indicated. The paper is concerned with some methodological problems and the applicability of time budget research, rather than a comprehensive presentation of survey results.     

The Impact of Past Conflicts and Social Disruption on the Elderly in Cambodia

Cambodia experienced violence during the rule of the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s. Many who died were the children or spouses of today's elderly. This may have resulted in an erosion of family support in a country where formal channels of assistance are virtually absent. This article examines the extent to which current Cambodian elderly experienced deaths of children or spouses, forced migration, and separation from family during the Khmer Rouge period and the extent to which these experiences are associated with adverse welfare conditions of older adults. Data come from a 2004 representative survey of persons aged 60 years and older. More than one in four report that a child died from violent causes during the Khmer Rouge period. More than one in five report death of multiple children. A striking, and on the surface counterintuitive, conclusion is that the impact of deaths on welfare is modest. The reasons, elucidated in the article, include close family integration, high fertility among the current generation of older adults, the probability that losses depended on family size, and the pervasiveness of poverty.     

The phoenix population: Demographic crisis and rebound in Cambodia

The study of mortality crises provides an unusual and valuable perspective on the relationship between mortality and fertility changes, a relationship that has puzzled demographers for decades. In this article, we combine nationally representative survey and demographic-surveillance system data to study fertility trends around the time of the Khmer Rouge (KR) regime, under which 25% of the Cambodian population died. We present the first quantitative evidence to date that attests to a one-third decline of fertility during this regime, followed by a substantial "baby boom" after the fall of the KR. Further analyses reveal that the fertility rebound was produced not only by a two-year marriage bubble but also by a surge in marital fertility that remained for nearly a decade above its precrisis level. Our results illustrate the potential influence of mortality on fertility, which may be more difficult to identify for more gradual mortality declines. To the extent that until recently, Cambodian fertility appears to fit natural fertility patterns, our findings also reinforce recent qualifications about the meaning of this core paradigm of demographic analysis.     

Women's perspective of maternity care in Cambodia

BackgroundConsideration of the needs of pregnant women and their ability and willingness to attend maternal services and pay for them is central to the provision of accessible and acceptable maternal care. Women's satisfaction with maternal services is poorly understood in many developing countries, including Cambodia in South East Asia. The objective of this study was to investigate women's perceptions and experiences of private and public skilled birth attendants, including midwives, during childbirth in Cambodia.MethodsA qualitative design using a naturalistic inquiry approach was undertaken to seek sensitive personal issue. Thirty individual in-depth interviews were conducted with women who had recently given birth at private and public health facilities in one province in Cambodia. Data were analysed using a thematic approach.FindingsWomen's choice of health facility was influenced by their perceptions of safety and staff attitudes. Reported barriers to the effective utilisation of public maternity services were costs associated with the birth, staff attitudes and a lack of supportive care during labour and in the postpartum period. Although private health care is more expensive than public health care, some women reported a preference for private birth attendants as they perceived them to provide safer and more supportive care in labour.ConclusionWomen expect, but do not always receive humane, professional, supportive and respectful treatment from public skilled birth attendants. While the removal of unexpected costs and geographical barriers are important to increasing public maternity care and service utilisation, improvements in maternity services should focus on addressing provider attitudes and enhancing communication skills during labour, birth and the immediate postpartum period.     

A critical disjuncture? The culmination of post-World War II socio-demographic and economic trends in the United States

This essay examines the consequences of major social, demographic and economic trends in the United States since World War II. These include rising women’s employment, the ‘Baby Boom’, the outlines of the so-called ‘new’ immigration, the increasing racial and ethnic diversity deriving from that immigration, the economic contexts in which recent US immigration has occurred, and recent technologically-induced features of global work flows that will condition immigration’s future reception and effects. Women’s wartime work experiences, together with their economic opportunities in the ensuing decades, boosted married women’s autonomy and domestic leverage. Rising economic prosperity encouraged marriage and family formation even as growing employment among married women of childbearing age made having and taking care of large families more difficult. World War II also spawned the expansion of migration to the United States, which in turn converted the country from a largely biracial society with a sizable white majority and a small black minority into a multiracial, multiethnic society with greater racial and ethnic boundary crossing and increasingly blurred colour lines. A major issue is whether currently changing economic conditions and social institutions will support and strengthen such tendencies or instead weaken them. Without robust job growth, the demographic legacy of the baby boom, which now involves ever-rising numbers of retired people, will be more difficult to support, especially given the country’s current fiscal deficits. Greater earnings inequality and weak job growth may also poison the climate for further immigration to the US, thus diminishing the chance that newcomers can continue contributing to the dissolution of fault lines among racial-ethnic groups and to the resolution of periodic labour shortages.     

Age-specific growth rates: The legacy of past population dynamics

Recent developments in population mathematics have focused attention on a function that is widely available but rarely examined: the set of age-specific growth rates in a population. In particular, this set of rates is sufficient for translating the current birth rate and age-specific mortality rates into the current age distribution. This growth-rate function contains all of the pertinent features of a population's demographic history that are required to relate major demographic functions for a particular period to one another. This article presents an expression for the age-specific growth rate and uses it to derive an equation for age distribution. We show how the value of the age-specific growth rate is determined by a population's demographic past and present various sets of growth rates corresponding to stylized demographic scenarios. Several noteworthy sets of growth rates observed in human populations are discussed. Finally, we explain why age-specific growth rates make it possible to determine the age distribution solely from information on current demographic conditions.     

The length of the human fertile period

Estimates of the. length of the human fertile period (that interval within the menstrual cycle during which insemination is associated with a non-zero probability of conception) are necessarily indirect. Moreover, those estimates do not seem in close agreement with one another. For instance, it has been suggested that:     

The length of the human fertile period

Abstract Estimates of the. length of the human fertile period (that interval within the menstrual cycle during which insemination is associated with a non-zero probability of conception) are necessarily indirect. Moreover, those estimates do not seem in close agreement with one another. For instance, it has been suggested that:     

The Effect on Elderly Parents in Cambodia of Losing an Adult Child to AIDS

Little systematic quantitative research is available on the parents of adults who become ill and die of AIDS despite their large number and the wide range of adverse consequences. This study, based on survey data from Cambodia, explores economic and social effects on parents in a country characterized by extreme poverty and a substantial AIDS epidemic. Results indicate that parents play a major role during the illness of an adult son or daughter, often sharing living quarters, providing care, and paying for illness‐related expenses. These contributions to the societal response to AIDS come at considerable cost to parents at advanced ages. Multivariate analysis suggests lasting negative consequences for parents’economic well‐being, and the consequences are more substantial if the adult child's death was from AIDS rather than from other causes. The study found little evidence of stigma associated with losing a grown child to AIDS: reactions from local community members are more likely to be sympathetic and supportive than negative. These results underscore the need for organizations dealing with AIDS to recognize the contributions older persons make in coping with the epidemic and to address the burden it imposes on them.     

Measurement and socio-demographic variation of social capital in a large population-based survey

Objectives The main objective of this study was to describe the variation of individual social capital according to socio-demographic factors, and to develop a suitable way to measure social capital for this purpose. The similarity of socio-demographic variation between the genders was also assessed. Data and methods The study applied cross-sectional data from the national Finnish Health 2000 survey (n = 8,028) which represents the adult population, aged 30 years and over. Several variables indicating social capital were condensed to dimensions on the basis of factor analysis. Participants were categorized into tertiles in each dimension of social capital by means of factor scores. The multinomial logistic regression model was used to produce the adjusted prevalences for the dimensions of social capital according to socio-demographic categories (age, gender, education, living arrangements, income, and type of region). Results Three dimensions of social capital were distinguished: social support, social participation and networks, and trust and reciprocity. Age had an inverse association with social support as well as participation and networks, and a curvilinear association between age and trust and reciprocity, the oldest age groups showing the highest level of trust. Married persons and those in the highest educational and income groups tended to have more social capital than other persons. Residents of urban and rural regions did not systematically differ from each other in their level of social capital although residents of urban regions participated less and showed less trust than people living in semi-urban or rural regions. Social support varied significantly with gender. The decline of social support by age was steeper in women than in men. Social participation and networks increased with education, the gradient appearing steeper among men. The difference between married and cohabiting men was substantial compared to women when it came to trust. Conclusions People who are young, married, educated, and well-off have plenty of social capital. This information might help various services to concentrate the actions on the people in danger of social exclusion. Our results also form a basis for the future by allowing the changes in social capital to be examined over time and over different studies.     

Proportional hazards life table models: an illustrative analysis of socio-demographic influences on marriage dissolution in the United States

The proportional hazards life table is a recently developed approach to the analysis of survival data when mortality risks vary among individuals. It assumes that at a given age (or duration since the start of a life) the force of mortality is a constant (specific to that age) multiplied by a proportionality factor which is determined by the characteristics of the individual and does not change unless these covariates do. In this paper, the method is reviewed for the case where the covariates are fixed at the start of the lifetime and illustrated by an application to marital dissolution in the United States.     

Mortality in Poland in the period 1950-1990

"In this paper, crude, specific [mortality] rates as well as nonstandardized and standardized indices of regional mortality differentials are analysed [for Poland] for the period 1950-1990, in order to show mortality differentiation, its increase by age, sex, and place of residence. Taking into account cause specific death rates, the pattern of causes of deaths was found to be similar to that existing in the western countries, although the level of standardized mortality is higher in Poland. Values of calculated indices of regional mortality differentials point to significant differences in mortality by voivodship."     

The United Kingdom's international migration in the inter-war period: Theoretical considerations and empirical testing

At the theoretical level, the paper has two aims: to develop a three-country migration model and to incorporate British emigration schemes of the 1920s into it. The model is tested on data of U.K. emigration to Canada, the U.S.A. and Australia from 1920 to 1936.     

The United Kingdom's international migration in the inter-war period: Theoretical considerations and empirical testing

Summary At the theoretical level, the paper has two aims: to develop a three-country migration model and to incorporate British emigration schemes of the 1920s into it. The model is tested on data of U.K. emigration to Canada, the U.S.A. and Australia from 1920 to 1936.     

The impact of routine assessment of past or current mental health on help-seeking in the perinatal period

BackgroundClinical practice guidelines now recommend that women be asked about their past or current mental health as a routine component of maternity care. However, the value of this line of enquiry in increasing engagement with support services, as required, remains controversial.AimThe current study aimed to examine whether assessment of past or current mental health, received with or without referral for additional support, is associated with help-seeking during pregnancy and the postpartum.MethodsA subsample of women drawn from the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health (young cohort) who reported experiencing significant emotional distress during pregnancy (N = 398) or in the 12 months following birth (N = 380) participated in the study.ResultsMultivariate analysis showed that women who were not asked about their emotional health were less likely to seek any formal help during both pregnancy (adjOR = 0.09, 95%CI: 0.04–0.24) and the postpartum (adjOR = 0.07, 95%CI: 0.02–0.13), as were women who were asked about these issues but who were not referred for additional support (antenatal: adjOR = 0.26, 95%CI: 0.15–0.45; postnatal: adjOR = 0.14, 95%CI: 0.07–0.27). However, considerable levels of consultation with general practitioners, midwives and child health nurses, even in the absence of referral, were evident.ConclusionThis study demonstrates that enquiry by a health professional about women's past or current mental health is associated with help-seeking throughout the perinatal period. The clinical and resource implications of these findings for the primary health care sector should be considered prior to the implementation of future routine perinatal depression screening or psychosocial assessment programmes.     

Supporting routine psychosocial assessment in the perinatal period: The concurrent and predictive validity of the Antenatal Risk Questionnaire-Revised

BackgroundAustralian clinical practice guidelines support comprehensive psychosocial assessment as a routine component of maternity care.AimTo examine the concurrent and predictive validity of the Antenatal Risk Questionnaire-Revised (ANRQ-R) when used across the perinatal period.MethodsWomen completed the ANRQ-R and a diagnostic reference standard (SAGE-SR) in the second and third trimesters and at 3-months postpartum. ANRQ-R test performance for cut-off scores at each time-point was assessed using Receiver Operator Characteristic (ROC) analysis.FindingsOverall sample sizes were N = 1166 (second trimester), N = 957 (third trimester) and N = 796 (3-month postpartum). 6.5%, 5.6% and 6.2% of women met SAGE-SR criteria for any depressive or anxiety disorder at these time-points (‘cases’), respectively. ROC analysis yielded acceptable areas under the curve (AUC) when the ANRQ-R was used to detect current (AUC = 0.789?0.798) or predict future (AUC = 0.705?0.789) depression or anxiety. Using an example cut-off score of 18 or more, the ANRQ-R correctly classified 72–76% of concurrent ‘cases’ and ‘non-cases’ (sensitivity = 0.70?0.74, specificity = 0.72?0.76) and correctly predicted 74–78% of postnatal ‘cases’ and ‘non-cases’ (sensitivity = 0.52?0.72, specificity = 0.75?0.79). Completion of the ANRQ-R earlier in pregnancy yielded greater positive likelihood ratios for predicting depression or anxiety at 3-months postpartum (cut-off ≥18: second trimester = 3.8; third trimester = 2.2).ConclusionThe ANRQ-R is a structured psychosocial assessment questionnaire that can be scored to provide an overall measure of psychosocial risk. Cut-off scores need not be uniform across settings. Such decisions should be guided by factors including diagnostic prevalence rates, local needs and resource availability.