Household demographic factors as life cycle determinants of land use in the Amazon

This paper seeks to broaden the application of demographyto environmental studies by complementing existing macro-level approaches, which feature aggregate populations, with a micro-level approach that highlights household life cycles. I take up the case of small farm households in the Brazilian Amazon to present a theoretical framework that identifies demographic characteristics which dispose families to engage in different forms of land use as household age structures change. Empirical models show that net of theeffects of farmer background, neighborhood context, institutional context, and off-farm incomes, demographic variables indicative of the household life cycle exert significant effects on the prominence of land uses with distinct environmental ramifications. The findings not only reveal micro-level demographic factors which affect Amazon land cover, they yield implications forfuture changes in rainforest landscapes in northern Brazil, and suggest household life cycle models as an avenue for further demographic research on environmental change in Latin America and other contexts.     

On the maximal life span of humans

"Mortality data from the Netherlands are analyzed using recently developed statistical methods in the field of extreme value theory. It is shown that there is a finite age limit. A 95% confidence interval for the age limit is 113-124 years. The results suggest differences between men and women. The suggested hypotheses could be tested on a larger data set." (SUMMARY IN FRE)     

Indonesia’s social capacity for population health: the educational gap in active life expectancy

In this paper, we lay the initial groundwork for anticipating Indonesia’s future burden of disease by developing a demographic model of population health. We develop this model within the analytic framework of a Markov-based multistate life table model to calculate an important indicator of the burden of disease, the expected years of active life of elderly Indonesians. The magnitude of the gap points to the potential consequences of improvements in the nation’s educational level for the future burden of disease. The results show that having some education increases life expectancy but it also expands the expected years with a major functional problem. Overall educational attainment levels, however, are very low, indicating that Indonesia’s elderly are at the leading edge of improvements in the nation’s social capacity for health. The life tables suggest that at the early stages of development, longer life is accompanied by an expansion of morbidity.     

Modeling the psychological determinants of life quality

A number of subjective well-being scales were compared and evaluated. The Satisfaction With Life Scale emerged as a good measure of general life satisfaction and the Affective Intensity Measure appeared to adequately assess the characteristic level of emotional intensity. Most other scales seemed to reflect both life satisfaction and duration of positive versus negative affect. Of the single item measures, those created by Fordyce were the strongest, whereas for the multi-item scales, several performed at adequate levels. The widely used Bradburn scales showed several undesirable psychometric properties and alternative scales are suggested.     

人口学界对“以人为本”思想的理解和研究

“以人为本”思想起源甚早,国内外许多领域的专家、学者以及实际工作者对这一思想都有过阐述和研究。从我国人口学的视角出发,结合三十多年以来我国计划生育政策的实践与发展,系统地总结了国内人口学界对“以人为本”思想的理解和研究。     

Ideology and social indicators of the quality of life

This paper explores the possibility that social-psychological, evaluative measures of social well-being/quality of life (QOL) perceptions may embody unintended ideological elements. We argue that individual QOL satisfactions are likely caused, in part, by ‘satisfactions’, or conservative orientations, vis-à-vis societal institutions. Four dependent measures of QOL attitudes-overall life satisfaction, service satisfaction, community satisfaction, and powerlessness-are derived from factor analyses and established measurement procedures. Each of these QOL indicators is found to exhibit significant bivariate associations with measures of political-economic ideology. These relationships are somewhat reduced, but persist at statistically significant levels, when socio-demographic background variables are held constant. We then discuss the implications of our results for theory and method in the social indicators field.     

Resistance and acceptance: Ambivalent attitudes toward the aging body and antiaging practices among older Korean migrants living in New Zealand

ABSTRACT

Using intersectionality as a conceptual framework, this study investigated how older Korean women living in New Zealand perceived their aging bodies, antiaging practices and/or products, and how they used such products. Thematic analysis identified three themes: tension between acceptance of the aging body as an inevitable process and transformation of the aging body into a healthy body, juggling between abstinence and use of antiaging products and practices, and redefining natural aging. The findings challenge binary interpretations between “acceptance” of and “resistance” to the experiences of the aging process and the use of antiaging practices.     

The increasing risk of poverty across the American life course

This article extends the emerging body of life course research on poverty by empirically identifying the incidence, chronicity, and age pattern of American poverty and how these dimensions have changed during the period 1968-2000. Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we construct a series of life tables that estimate the risk of poverty for adults during their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s, and compare these estimates for Americans in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Our empirical results suggest that the risk of acute poverty increased substantially, particularly in the 1990s. This observed increase was especially pronounced for individuals in their 20s, 30s, and 40s; for all age groups with respect to extreme poverty; and for white males. On the other hand, the risk of chronic poverty declined during the 1990s (as measured by the percentage of the poor who experienced five or more years of poverty within a 10-year interval). The results in this article tell a very different story than the Census Bureau's yearly cross-sectional rates, which have shown little overall change in the U.S. poverty rate during this 30-year period. In contrast, a life course approach reveals a rising economic risk of acute poverty for individuals, one that is consistent with recent observations and research suggesting that a growing number of Americans will eventually find themselves in an economically precarious position.     

On the structure of urban population size and social and economic development]

The relationships among urban population size and structure and level of socioeconomic development are examined using a variety of published international sources. The need to control urban population dynamics in order to promote development is stressed.     

Bargaining over family size: The determinants of fertility in Brazil

Understanding how households make fertility decisions is important to implementing effective policy to slow population growth. Most empirical studies of this decision are based on household models in which men and women are assumed to act as if they have the same preferences for the number of children. However, if men and women have different preferences regarding fertility and are more likely to assert their own preferences as their bargaining power in the household increases, policies to lower fertility rates may be more effectively targeted toward one spouse or the other. In this paper, we test the relevance of the single preferences model by investigating whether men and women's nonwage incomes have the same effects on the number of children in the household. We find that while increases in both the man and woman's nonwage income lower the number of children in the household, an equivalent increase in the woman's income has a significantly stronger effect than the man's. In addition, we find that increases in women's nonwage transfer income have the strongest effects on the fertility decisions of women with low levels of education. The most important policy implication of our results is that policies aimed at increasing the incomes of the least-educated women will be the most effective in lowering fertility rates.     

Predicting overall life satisfaction: The role of life cycle and social psychological antecedents

Assessments of subjective well-being have been guided by a diversity of assumptions about overall life satisfaction's antecedents. Need hierarchy, affect, discrepancies between aspiration and attainment, and feelings of personal efficacy have all been suggested to be important predictors of satisfaction. But social psychological antecedents of satisfaction, such as indices of alienation, have heretofore not been considered, despite their link to the sociological tradition. These analyses suggest that for 1423 rural Wisconsinites, feelings of alienation are important predictors of overall life satisfaction. However, the impact of each of the two dimensions of alienation considered here varies with the respondent's position in the life cycle. Implications of these findings for research on life satisfaction are noted.     

The impact of family policies on fertility in industrialized countries: a review of the literature

This paper examines the theoretical propositions and empirical evidence linking policies and fertility. More specifically, the analysis presented in this paper draws attention to the complex mechanisms that theoretically link policies and demographic outcomes: mechanisms that involve imperfect information and decisions that are rationally bound by very specific circumstances. As to the empirical evidence, studies provide mixed conclusions as to the effect of policies on fertility. While a small positive effect of policies on fertility is found in numerous studies, no statistically significant effect is found in others. Moreover, some studies suggest that the effect of policies tends to be on the timing of births rather than on completed fertility.

Gender, resources across the life course, and cognitive functioning in Egypt

In this article, I evaluate the life-course determinants of cognitive functioning among 1,003 women and men aged 50 and older in Ismailia, Egypt. Three questions motivate this analysis: (1) Do older women have poorer cognitive functioning than do older men?; (2) Do cognitive resources accrued in childhood and adulthood have net positive associations with later-life cognitive functioning for women and men?; and (3) To what extent do differences in the amounts and effects of women’s and men’s cognitive resources account for gaps in their cognitive functioning? Compared with men, women have lower Modified-Mini Mental Status Exam (M-MMSE) scores for overall cognitive functioning. Cognitive resources in childhood and adulthood are jointly associated with the M-MMSE score. About 83% of the gender gap in mean M-MMSE scores is attributable to gaps in men’s and women’s attributes across the life course. Gender gaps in childhood cognitive resources—and especially schooling attainment—account for the largest share (18%) of the residual gender gap in cognitive functioning.Preferential investments in the human resources of boys have been common to many resource-poor settings (King and Mason 2001; Lloyd 2005), and the effects of such investments on gender gaps in child health are known (e.g., Hill and Upchurch 1995). Less well known is the extent to which gender gaps in resources that are accrued across the life course account for gender gaps in later-life health, despite known gender differences in the risks of illness, disability, and death. Demographic research on later-life health also has focused on physical conditions, even though dementia and neuropsychiatric disorders account for a large (~3%) and growing share of the disease burden worldwide (World Health Organization [WHO] 2007).This article assesses the determinants of cognitive functioning among older women and men (e.g., those aged 50 and older) in Ismailia, Egypt. It explores whether and to what extent (1) women have poorer cognitive functioning than men, (2) cognitive resources in childhood and adulthood have net positive associations with cognitive functioning for women and men, and (3) differences in the amounts and effects of women’s and men’s cognitive resources account for differences in their cognitive functioning. Egypt is a superb setting in which to conduct this work because of long-standing gender gaps in opportunities across the life course (e.g., Yount 2001; Yount and Sibai forthcoming) and poor knowledge about their potential effects on later-life cognitive functioning.     

Effect of body image on gestational weight gain in overweight and obese women

Problem or backgroundThere is little information available describing how women who are overweight or obese in pregnancy perceive their bodies, and in particular the effect of body image dissatisfaction on gestational weight gain.QuestionTo describe how women who are overweight or obese in pregnancy perceive their body, and the effect of body image on gestational weight gain.MethodsThis prospective nested cohort study evaluated self estimation of body weight, preferred body shape, dieting behavior, satisfaction with body weight and shape, and gestational weight gain in pregnant women who were overweight or obese, through self-completed questionnaire in early pregnancy in South Australia from October 2010 to February 2012.FindingsOf the 442 women who completed the questionnaire, 25.8% correctly identified their BMI, with 70.1% under-estimating and 4.1% over-estimating their BMI. Women who were obese were significantly less likely to correctly identify their BMI, as were younger women. Women who incorrectly identified their BMI were significantly more likely to have higher gestational weight gain (P < 0.001). Approximately 45% of women indicated dissatisfaction with their weight or body shape, with this being more common in women of higher parity and higher BMI. Dissatisfaction was significantly related to gestational weight gain.ConclusionWomen who report increasing dissatisfaction with their body size and shape are more likely to gain excessive weight during pregnancy. Further research should explore insights about maternal body image and diet related behaviors.     

Education,health and family size as determinants of labor market activity for the poor and nonpoor

The effect of head’s and wife’s educational attainment, health and the number of the head’s dependents under 18 on the amount of time spent in the labor force by white and black male heads of both poor and nonpoor families is investigated in this paper. The technique employed is multivariate regression analysis using disaggregated data from the 1967 Survey of Economic Opportunity. While educational attainment has a positive effect on the supply of labor of nonpoor heads, it has an insignificant effect on the black poor and a nonlinear effect on white poor heads. The health of head and wife has a very important effect on the ability of the poor to supply labor services while for the nonpoor the health effect is insignificant. For both the poor and nonpoor, there is a positive relationship between family size and the supply of labor. Evidence is also presented to indicate that the black husband’s and wife’s labor market activity are substitutes while they are complementary within white families.     

Variations in interstate migration of men across the early stages of the life cycle

The results reported here show that the stage of an individual's life cycle not only has direct effects on the likelihood of migration, but also establishes a context within which the motives to migrate are evaluated and acted upon. One contextual impact of the life cycle concerns the effects of length of residence on migration. The results show that the probability of migrating declines more rapidly over time for married males with children than for singles males--i.e., the difference between the likelihood of migration for single males and married males with children widens with increasing length of residence. Much of this difference may be due to the greater number and strength of community ties for individuals who are married with children. These ties are not well developed at the beginning of a residence but continue to strengthen over the course of a residence. In addition, there are variations in the levels of job rewards and location-specific resources across the life cycle and there are two variations across the early life cycle in the effects of independent variables on the initial rate of migration. One resource (self-employment) and one job reward (prestige) have different effects for single individuals than for either group of married males. If the span of the life cycle considered in this analysis were broadened to include older men, additional differences in the effects of independent variables might be uncovered. In research with cross-sectional data containing a wider range of ages than the data used here, Heaton et al. (1981) found that economic variables were more important in determining the migration of younger individuals than that of older individuals, whereas noneconomic factors were more important determinants of the migration of older than of younger individuals. The results of this paper and Heaton's results suggest that at different stages of life people use a somewhat different "subjective cost-benefit calculus" in making migration decisions. The importance of certain migration determinants may vary significantly depending on whether an individual is married, whether he or she has children, and/or whether he or she is in the labor force or retired. Additional research on these issues could greatly contribute to our understanding of migration.     

Inequality in life expectancy, functional status, and active life expectancy across selected black and white populations in the United States

We calculated population-level estimates of mortality, functional health, and active life expectancy for black and white adults living in a diverse set of 23 local areas in 1990, and nationwide. At age 16, life expectancy and active life expectancy vary across the local populations by as much as 28 and 25 years respectively. The relationship between population infirmity and longevity also varies. Rural residents outlive urban residents, but their additional years are primarily inactive. Among urban residents, those in more affluent areas outlive those in high-poverty areas. For both whites and blacks, these gains represent increases in active years. For whites alone they also reflect reductions in years spent in poor health.     

Quality of life and city size: An exploratory study of Nigeria

This paper examines the variations in the quality of life at the relatively neglected inter-urban scale in a developing nation. Based on a sample survey of 3800 heads of households in Nigerian cities ranked into three categories: large, medium and small, the study found that level-of-living is related to city size, with the residents of large cities having a higher quality of life than those in the medium and small cities.     

广州人口老龄化与共享社区的构建

本文通过广州市不同时期、不同社区老年人口的研究 ,提出广州市社区人口老龄化的特征 :人口老龄化不但存在城乡差别 ,而且城市内部也存在差异 ;不同时期形成的社区以及不同地理区位的社区的人口老龄化也有不同之处。根据广州老龄化社区的现状 ,认为共享社区的构建要通过生存资源、发展机会、社会成果等方面的共享实现     

Age,gender and daily life: An analysis of social involvements

Variety of role involvements based on the allocation of time is an alternative indicator of multiple roles. The measure of variety developed by Altergott (1982) is analyzed for a sample of U.S. adults, aged 18–88. The multivariate analysis of the structural and personal factors that account for the level of variety is presented. Age is negatively associated with variety. Women have lower levels of variety than men. While the amount of variety in men's daily life is influenced by family, health and preference, the amount of variety in women's daily life is affected by work and education. Opportunity structures and individual propensities affect levels of variety. The conclusions support the development of the behavioral measurement of multiple roles. Variety of role involvement in daily life provides a sensitive indicator that varies with age, gender and personal resources.