Demographers’ Involvement in Twentieth-Century Population Policy: Continuity or Discontinuity?

The second half of the twentieth century witnessed the development of a crusading spirit and massive technical aid aimed at reducing fertility levels and rates of population growth in developing countries, and also the involvement of demographers in these events. The demographers at Princeton University’s Office of Population Research, Frank Notestein and his colleagues, have been singled out by recent authors as playing a unique role in bringing about these changes, and they have been criticized for encouraging demographers to become involved, so eroding their scientific objectivity. This paper examines the development of relevant population thought and theory in the English-language literature over the first half of the twentieth century. It concludes that in the circumstances of the second half of the twentieth century, it was inevitable that developed countries and their demographers would become involved in controlling fertility levels in developing countries. The OPR story should be seen largely in terms of how the world’s leading demographic center and its demographic transition theory were swept along by global changes. As those developments started, attitudes to population change in densely settled Asia became Malthusian, even as population growth accompanied by mortality decline in Asia demonstrated that, at least in the short term, the positive checks were disappearing.     

发展中国家非自愿移民政策评价与展望

从总体上看．目前发展中国家非自愿移民政策不能适应非自愿移民实践活动的需要,存在着缺乏正式的国家移民政策体系、系统全面的移民安置计划、权威的国家移民管理机构以及健全的工程效益分享机制和移民参与机制等问题。当前。发展中国家出现了改进非自愿移民政策体系的积极态势。并且在建立与完善政府移民管理机构．提高移民计划实施能力方面正在作出努力。同时非政府组织在推动非自愿移民政策重构方面也在发挥越来越大的作用。但由于在政治、经济、文化、法律等方面存在巨大差异。发展中国家在建立与完善非自愿移民政策体系．改进非自愿移民安置效果方面还有很长的路要走。     

Low-Cost Computers for Education in Developing Countries

This paper studies the distribution of computer use in a comparison between two of the most dominant suppliers of low-cost computers for education in developing countries (partly because they involve diametrically opposite ways of tackling the problem). The comparison is made in the context of an analytical framework which traces the changing characteristics of products as income rises over time. The crucial distinction turns out to be the way sharing is handled in the two cases. In the one no sharing is allowed while in the other sharing is the basis of the entire product design. Put somewhat differently, the one computer is intensive in a high-income characteristic whereas the other relies entirely on a low-income characteristic.     

The World Social Situation: Development Challenges at the Outset of a New Century

World social development has arrived at a critical turning point. Economically advanced nations have made significant progress toward meeting the basic needs of their populations; however, the majority of developing countries have not. Problems of rapid population growth, failing economies, famine, environmental devastation, majority-minority group conflicts, increasing militarization, among others, are pushing many developing nations toward the brink of social chaos. This paper focuses on worldwide development trends for the 40-year period 1970–2009. Particular attention is given to the disparities in development that exist between the world’s “rich” and “poor” countries as well as the global forces that sustain these disparities. The paper also discusses more recent positive trends occurring within the world’s “socially least developed countries” (SLDCs), especially those located in Africa and Asia, in reducing poverty and in promoting improved quality of life for increasing numbers of their populations.     

The changing relationship between family size and educational attainment over the course of socioeconomic development: Evidence from Indonesia

Many studies from developed countries show a negative correlation between family size and children’s schooling, while results from developing countries show this association ranging from positive to neutral to negative, depending on the context. The body of evidence suggests that this relationship changes as a society develops, but this theory has been difficult to assess because the existing evidence requires comparisons across countries with different social structures and at different levels of development. The world’s fourth most populous nation in 2007, Indonesia has developed rapidly in recent decades. This context provides the opportunity to study these relationships within the same rapidly developing setting to see if and how these associations change. Results show that in urban areas, the association between family size and children’s schooling was positive for older cohorts but negative for more recent cohorts. Models using instrumental variables to address the potential endogeneity of fertility con rm these results. In contrast, rural areas show no significant association between family size and children’s schooling for any cohort. These findings show how the relationship between family size and children’s schooling can differ within the same country and change over time as contextual factors evolve with socioeconomic development.     

Poverty Diagnostics Using Poor Data: Strengthening the Evidence Base for Pro-Poor Policy Making in Lesotho

Increasingly national statistical agencies are being called upon to provide high quality data on a regular basis, to be used by governments for evidence-based policy development. Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) give impetus to this, and bring a prerequisite for comprehensive “poverty diagnosis”. Often the data that are required are not available, or are incomplete while the concepts that are to be used may be ambiguous or require adaptation to local conditions. The poverty analysis of Lesotho in this article represents a contribution towards the emerging culture of evidence-based policy-making in developing countries in that it explores changes in key poverty-related social indicators. Techniques for dealing with poor data are discussed and an approach to developing a poverty threshold adapted to the local conditions of Lesotho is described.     

论人口控制政策对突破低水平均衡陷阱的促进作用

当今世界主题是和平与发展,因此经济发展成为多数国家政府政策的中心。目前多数发展中国家实施了人口控制政策,这有利于减缓世界人口剧增的趋势。但是这是否有利于发展中国家的经济发展呢?文章结合一定前提,通过定性探讨纳尔逊低水平均衡理论在人口非自然增长情况下的具体体现,得出了结论:发展中国家实施人口控制政策能够降低突破低水平均衡陷阱的机会成本,有助于加快走出低水平均衡陷阱困境的状态;长期实施过紧的人口控制政策不利于国家经济的可持续发展;人口控制政策的松绑是一个渐进式过程。     

Case study: fertility decline in Iran

Iran has experienced one of the most successful family planning programs in the developing world, with 64 percent decline in total fertility rate (TFR) between 1986 and 2000. This paper focuses on Iranians’ unique experience with implementation of a national family planning program. Recognition of sensitive moral and ethical aspects of population issues resulted in successful collaboration of technical experts and religious leaders. Involvement of local health workers, women health volunteers and rural midwives led to great community participation. Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data in 2000 indicated a TFR of 2.0 births per women and 74 percent contraceptive use among married women. This case study will help policy makers and researchers in Moslem countries and other developing countries with high fertility rate to consider a successful family program as a realistic concept with positive impacts on nation’s health and human development.     

From Bucharest to Mexico: a decade of changing perceptions

The 2nd International Conference on Population held in Mexico City in 1984 had 3 main objectives: 1) to adopt the plan to changing demographic situations, 2) to enlarge the plan's scope so it can consider new views that have emerged since Bucharest, and 3) to reinforce the plan's operational aspects so that the plan can be applied more effectively. The Mexico conference had significant differences with the Bucharest gathering: 1) greater participation of developing countries, 2) clarification of the role of population and family planning in development, and 3) recognition of the status of women in development. Governments of many developing countries argue that they cannot wait for their countries to modernize sufficiently enough to stabilize their population levels. Participants in the Mexico conference agreed that family planning programs have been successful in reducing fertility at relatively low cost. The goal of a development-oriented population policy is to improve the people's standard of living by lowering fertility rates, improving health conditions and life expectancy, improving population distribution, and adopting sound economic policies. The overall objective of population policy should not be confined only to growth, distribution, and other demographic aspects; it is imperative that human life and human dignity be upheld.     

Structure of National Perceptions of Social Needs Across EU Countries

Back in 1975, the European Union (EU) Council of Ministers defined the poor as “individuals or families whose resources are so small as to exclude them from the minimum acceptable way of life of the Member State in which they live”. This widely quoted definition leaves room for discussion about what can be considered a “minimum acceptable way of life” in different countries and thus also whether national perceptions of minimum standards vary from one country to the next. The paper explores this latter issue by exploiting the first EU dataset allowing a comparative analysis of the items which citizens in the different Member States consider to be necessary for people to have an “acceptable” standard of living in the country where they live. It assesses the (in)variance of the structure of the perception of social needs between countries on the basis of an extension of the multidimensional scaling (MDS) method, and shows a high level of congruence between the 27 national patterns. An important consequence of this result is that it supports the approach which consists of measuring deprivation on the basis of a same set of (validated) items across all the Member States.     

The demographics of expropriation risk

It is often argued that capital should flow from aging industrialized economies to countries with fast-growing populations. However, institutional failures and the risk of expropriation substantially reduce developing economies’ attractiveness for foreign investors. We analyze the influence of a country’s demographic structure on international investment inflows, using a political economy model in which population growth potentially affects the risk of expropriation. We first explore how redistributive expropriation affects the welfare of different age groups and derive the government’s incentive to expropriate. We then analyze how the relative size of different generations influences the feasible volume of foreign investment.     

Three Fertility Compromises and Two Transitions

Demographers and those concerned with population policy are increasingly focusing on the steep fertility declines that occurred in developed countries from the 1960s and the consequent widespread below-replacement fertility levels. The decline has been termed the Second Demographic Transition. This paper argues that the recent demographic change can best be understood and analyzed if we broaden the concept to include the first demographic transition, and the three demographically more settled periods preceding, separating, and following the two fertility transitions. These more settled periods or “compromises” are examined to ascertain their nature and so to help predict the likely developments in the present or third compromise. It is argued that the third compromise has now extended for 20 years with little movement in fertility rates or other socioeconomic behavior which has been said to be associated with the second transition, and that this provides sufficient evidence for analysis. The approach has two key aspects. First, it is confined in Europe to countries that distinctly experienced the full five demographic periods, namely northwestern and central Europe. Second, the analysis gains strength by including non-European countries that progressed through all five stages, namely the English-speaking countries of overseas European settlement: USA, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand.     

Does globali zation affect human well-being?

The prevailing theorizing of globalization’s influence of human well-being suggests to assess both the favorable and unfavorable outcomes. This study formulates a dialectical model, adopts a comprehensive globalization measure and uses a three-wave panel data during 1980–2000 to empirically test direct and indirect effects of global flows’ human consequences. The outcomes from random effect modeling reveal significant positive impacts of political globalization, whereas economic and social globalization do not generate favorable influences when development level and regional differences are operated as controls. The overall globalization index is found to generate expected favorable influence on an overall human development index. Within developing countries, globalization’s human influence was not as significant as in industrial countries, however. Several hypotheses about globalization’s potential negative effects through increasing societal instabilities and reducing state power and social spending are not supported in analysis. It is concluded that globalization identified by increased global flows and exchanges contributes rather than hampers progress in human welfare.     

The Effect of Urbanization on China’s Fertility

The relationship between urbanization and fertility decline is known to be inverse in developed countries. However, the nature of this relationship in developing countries that already have relatively low fertilities is not well-understood. This study aims to illustrate how much urbanization contributed to China’s fertility decline between 1982 and 2008 and forecasts how much it can contribute to future reductions in fertility. The study examines changes in the total fertility rate (TFR) at both the national and provincial levels, given regional differences in the urbanization rate. The results show that changes in rural fertility behavior accounted for most of the decline in the national TFR between 1982 and 2008. This finding suggests that official birth control policies were instrumental in curbing China’s population growth. However, urbanization was responsible for about 22% of the decrease in TFR during this period, and its effect was especially important during the latter years (2001–2008). In most provinces, urbanization associated with a decline in provincial-level fertility. The forecasts indicate that urbanization will become the primary factor behind future declines in national fertility. Given the negative effect of urbanization on the TFR, it is possible to relax the one-child policy without having adverse implications for population growth.     

Labor supply responses and welfare effects from replacing current tax rules by a flat tax: Empirical evidence from Italy, Norway and Sweden

This paper employs a microeconometric framework to examine the labor supply responses and the welfare effects from replacing current tax systems in Italy, Norway and Sweden by a flat tax on total income. The flat tax rates are determined so that the tax revenues are equal to the revenues as of 1992. The flat tax rates vary from 23 per cent in Italy, 25 per cent in Norway, to 29 per cent in Sweden. In all three countries the labor supply responses decline sharply with pre-reform disposable income. The results show that the efficiency costs of the current tax systems relative to a flat tax may be rather high in Norway and much lower, but positive, in Italy and Sweden. In all three countries “rich” households – defined by their pre-tax-reform income – tend to benefit (in terms of welfare) more than “poor” households. In Italy and Sweden a majority will lose from a shift to a flat tax, while in Norway a majority is predicted to win. Received: 19 May 1998/Accepted: 02 July 1999     

Comparison of Urban Housing Satisfaction in Modern and Traditional Neighborhoods in Edirne,Turkey

Numerous cross-cultural studies have focused on certain aspects of urban housing conditions and their social consequences. However, most data on housing satisfaction is restricted to Western countries. Relatively little comparison has been made between these findings and those in developing areas where rapid urbanization is occurring and where concomitant problems in urban housing are emerging. Moreover, since primary cities of developing countries in the initial stage of economic development have received extensive attention in urban housing research, it would be interesting to examine a non-primary city where relatively good standards of living have been achieved. Thus, this study investigates people’s housing satisfaction in modern and historical neighborhoods. This paper addresses some conceptual and measurement issues related to the study of housing satisfaction. We build a conceptual model, which links the multiple dimensions of housing satisfaction, measured by a modified version of Bardo and Dokmeci’s (1992, Genetic, Social and General Psychology Monographs 118(3)) housing satisfaction scale, in a causal sense. An empirical examination of the model in traditional and modern neighborhoods reveals that social and environmental living conditions positively influence overall housing satisfaction. The results also indicate that the drivers of the social and environmental living conditions constructs differ between traditional and modern neighborhoods.     

The elasticity of labor demand and the minimum wage

We show that, contrary to widespread belief, low-pay workers do not generally prefer that the minimum wage rate be increased until the labor demand is unitary elastic. Rather, there exists a critical value of elasticity of labor demand so that increases in the minimum wage rate make low-pay workers better off for higher elasticities, but worse off for lower elasticities. This critical value decreases with unemployment benefits and increases with workers’ risk aversion. We also show that in some countries the benefits for long-term unemployed are so low that workers would probably prefer that the minimum wage rate be decreased. I thank the anonymous referees for helpful suggestions.     

Age-structure,urbanization, and climate change in developed countries: revisiting STIRPAT for disaggregated population and consumption-related environmental impacts

We focus on three environmental impacts particularly influenced by population age-structure—carbon emissions from transport and residential energy and electricity consumption—as well as aggregate carbon emissions for a panel of developed countries, and take as our starting point the Stochastic Impacts by Regression on Population, Affluence, and Technology (STIRPAT) framework. Among our contributions is to further disaggregate population into three particularly key age groups: 20–34, 35–49, and 50–64, and by doing so demonstrate that population’s environmental impact differs considerably across age groups, with the older age groups (ones typically associated with larger households) actually exerting a negative influence. Furthermore, those age-specific population influences are different (in absolute and relative terms) for the different environmental impacts we analyze. Also, we find that urbanization, in developed countries, best measures access to a country’s power grid, and thus, is positively associated with energy consumption in the residential sector. Finally, we suggest some modeling and methodological improvements to the STIRPAT framework.     

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.     

Male-female differences in labor market outcomes during the early transition to market: The cases of Estonia and Slovenia

Changes in women's relative wages and employment are analyzed, using social security data from Slovenia (1987–1992) and a retrospective labor force survey in Estonia (1989–1994). Estonia adopted liberal labor market policies. Slovenia took an interventionist approach. Nevertheless, relative wages for women rose in both countries. Factors favoring women included: returns to human capital rose in transition, benefiting women; relative labor demand shifted toward predominantly female sectors; low-wage women had a disproportionate incentive to exit the labor market, especially in Estonia. However, women were less mobile across jobs in both countries, so men disproportionately filled new jobs in expanding sectors. Received: 27 November 1997/Accepted: 20 December 1998