Demographic crisis: The impact of the Bangladesh civil war (1971) on births and deaths in a rural area of Bangladesh

Summary In Matlab Bazaar Thana the Cholera Research Laboratory has registered the births, deaths and migrations in a population of approximately 125,000 since 1966. Although this rural area was not the scene of any significant armed encounters, striking changes in birth and death rates were registered during and after the conflict. Birth rates did not change during the relatively brief period of the civil war, but a small decline was registered for one year after the war. Fertility rates which had been declining slightly and irregularly in the pre-war baseline period may have increased slightly during the war and fell substantially in all age groups in the year following the war. The crude death rate, which rose by 37 per cent during the war, was a very sensitive reflection of the administrative and economic problems. Overall infant mortality rose by only 15 per cent over pre-war levels because all of the increase was observed in the post-neo-natal component, which traditionally accounts for less than one-third of the total infant mortality in Bangladesh. Children and older adults accounted for the majority of excess deaths which were largely attributed to acute diarrhoeas and other gastro-intestinal causes. The death rate at ages 1-4 rose by 43 per cent and at ages 5-9 soared to 208 per cent above pre-war baseline rates. All increases in age-specific mortality rates fell to baseline levels during the year following the war, except the 5-9-year age group, in which rates continued to be high largely because of deaths due to dysentery.     

Nonreporting of births or nonreporting of pregnancies? Some evidence from four rural counties in North China

Coale and Banister argue that in China, elevated sex ratios in retrospective surveys are in part a function of collecting birth histories in a culture in which the definition of a birth may exclude mortality shortly after birth: an infant death in the West may be a stillbirth in east Asia. I present data from a recent sample survey featuring a retrospective pregnancy history. These data reveal that at least in the first pregnancy, from which the preponderance of sample births arise, there is no evidence of elevated female infant mortality or of high numbers of stillbirths, but that reported sex ratios are unusually high. The proportion of stillbirths grows for later pregnancies, but not enough to account for high sex ratios. Retrospective fertility data regarding recall over a recent interval are vexed less by a misunderstanding of what a live birth is than by a “misunderstanding” of what a (reportable) pregnancy is.     

Weather,nutrition, and the economy: Short-run fluctuations in births,deaths, and marriages,France 1740–1909

This paper analyzes short-run fluctuations in national time series of vital events for France in the period 1740 to 1909. Fertility, mortality, and nuptiality form a simultaneous system which interacts with economic and meteorological conditions. In the short run, the demographic variables are endogenous. Economic and meteorological conditions are exogenous. Our indicator of economic conditions is the price of wheat, the principal food crop. Biometric models of fertility and empirical research on the biologically-based interrelations of fertility and mortality provide insight into the expected timing of events. We combine these results with empirical research on the effects of nutrition on fertility and mortality, research in medical biometeorology, and French historical demographic and economic research to formulate our model. The resultant distributed lag system is estimated. We find that the economic/nutritional effects are more likely to be statistically significant in predicting the time path of vital events than are the demographic variables or the effects of meteorological conditions.     

Reconciling the needs and wants of respondents in two rural Ethiopian communities

This paper uses the Quality of Life research carried out by the Wellbeing in Developing Countries (WeD) Research Group to examine the importance respondents have attributed to a variety of goals in two rural communities in Ethiopia. The results are analysed at the community, household and individual levels to expose the contestation involved in expressions of goal preference at different levels, and the power relations that underlie and contribute to the formation of these goal preferences. In this way, taking communities or households as homogenous units is shown to be inaccurate and potentially misleading. Analysis of individual case studies also provides insight into the complex decision-making process where people with access to limited resources are forced to give certain goals priority depending on current exigencies. The fact that the ordering of priorities can change with time highlights the dangers of any one-off measure being considered as a time-independent picture of individuals’ goals. By relating the results of the research to Doyal and Gough’s Theory of Human Need, the paper considers to what extent ‘universal’ human needs correspond to the most important goals as expressed by respondents in the Ethiopian research. Whilst considerable support is found for needs such as health, food and shelter, several respondents in the two research sites consider needs such as education to be unnecessary. This incongruence between the priority of people’s goals and theories of need leads us to question what the aim of development should be: to assist beneficiaries in the pursuit of what they want, or provide the things that they are thought to need.

Some characteristics and the transition of the population reproduction patterns of China's national minorities

The population reproduction patterns of China's minority groups differ to some extent from those of China as a whole. The population of some of the national minorities, such as the Mongolian, tibetan, and Hezhen nationalities, was actually decreasing before liberation. Cited as causal factors are the oppressive policies of past dynasties, lack of medical care in minority areas, and, in some instances, the religious imposition of strict celibacy on significant numbers of the male populaton. After libertation, reproductive patterns were characterized by a high birth rate and low mortality, resulting in a high growth rate. For example, in 1939-408 the birth rate among the Mongolian nationality in Inner Mongolia was 21.7, and the death rate was 28.3, resulting in a negative growth rate. In the period 1952-3, the birth rate rose to 41.5 while the death rate fell to 17.9 resulting in a growth rate of 23.6. This rapid transition is attributed to State policies of accelerated economic and cultural development in the minority areas, and the development of medical facilities. At present, a 3rd population pattern, characterized by a low birth rate, low mortality, and consequent low growth rate, is being seen among the national minorities. This is attributed to the leadership exhibited by minority cadres in family planning work. While advocating family planning, the State adopted a more flexible policy towards the minorities. A government directive stipulates that the specific rules can be drawn up according to the actual conditions by the nationality autonomous local authorities and the related provinces and autonomous regions. Family planning work has been achieved through the mobilization of the minority populations by the cadres, and by mass education on population theory and the relation between religious beliefs, marriage, and customs and family planning. Freedom of the minority people to preserve or reform their religious belief and customs has been absoluetely respected.     

A note on the under-registration of births in Britain in the nineteenth century

In this note an attempt has been made to estimate the incompleteness of birth registration in Great Britain in the first decades of civil registration. For Scotland, registration appears to have been reasonably complete after 1861. For England and Wales, however, there seems to have been a considerable initial deficiency, with a consistent improvement over time and no sudden change following the 1874 amending Act. The estimates given in this note suggest that, to allow for under-registration in England and Wales, registered births should be multiplied by a factor of about 1.094 for the period 1841-5, the factor falling steadily to 1.o by 1880. It should be emphasized that the methods of estimation used in this note are indirect and the results very approximate. In the view of the writer, the estimates tend in general to be somewhat too low, especially for the earlier part of the period covered.     

The impact of the labour market on the timing of marriage and births in Spain

This paper investigates how education and the labour market affect Spanish individual decisions on the timing of marriage and births, using a Cox hazard approach. It disentangles men and women, and two groups, Cohort 1945–1960 and Cohort 1961–1977. Results show that female employment delays marriage in Cohort 1945–1960, but it has a reverse effect in Cohort 1961–1977. We also find evidence that employment is a barrier for family formation since employed women postpone births in both cohorts. The precarious Spanish labour markets, captured by female unemployment rates, delay family formation, especially by putting off marriage. Male unemployment, at the individual level, impacts negatively on fertility only through delaying marriage.

The determinants of fertility in rural Peru: Program effects in the early years of the national family planning program

Using data from the 1991 Peru Demographic Health Survey, a linked Situation Analysis, and a unique region-level data set, this paper examines the determinants of fertility in rural Peru before and after the 1985 enactment of its National Policy on Population. The empirical framework combines a model of the timing and spacing of conceptions with a model of the timing of the placement of family planning services in communities in order to control for non-random placement of services. Results show the program helped reduce fertility post 1985. The magnitude of the effects is quantified with simulations. All correspondence to David Guilkey.We thank the editor and two referees for detailed comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Funding support for this project was provided by the MEASURE Evaluation Project under a Cooperative Agreement between the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Carolina Population Center (Number HRN-A-00-97-0018-00). The views expressed herein are those of the authors and not the sponsoring agency. Responsible editor: Junsen Zhang.     

The effects of siblings on the migration of women in two rural areas of Belgium and the Netherlands, 1829-1940

This study explores the extent to which the presence and activities of siblings shaped the chances of women migrating to rural and urban areas in two rural areas of Belgium and the Netherlands during the second half of the nineteenth and first decades of the twentieth century. Shared-frailty Cox proportional hazard analyses of longitudinal data from historical population registers show that siblings exerted an additive impact on women's migration, independently of temporal and household characteristics. Just how siblings influenced women's migration depended on regional modes of production and on employment opportunities. In the Zeeland region, sisters channelled each other into service positions. In the Pays de Herve, where men and women found industrial work in the Walloon cities, women were as much influenced by their brothers' activities. Evidence is found for two mechanisms explaining the effects of siblings: micro-economic notions of joint-household decision-making and social capital theory.     

The impact of professional and personal satisfaction on perceptions of rural and urban: Some analytic evidence

Studies of rural-urban location decisions traditionally used ana priori definition of rural/urban based on population size. A group of 29 physicians (study group) practising in communities of less than 10 000, that were part of a larger sample, perceived their communities as ‘urban’. A matched group of physicians (control group) in the same communities, who perceived the communities as ‘rural’, was selected. The research question raised was: Are there personal and professional factors that could reliably predict the perception of rural and urban? A logistic regression analysis was done using professional and personal satisfaction items as predictors of the two groups. The analysis gives some evidence that, once the effect of community size is removed, the perception of rural urban can be explained by satisfaction with the following: (i) access to specialist expertise, (ii) quality of education for children, (iii) quality of life for children and (iv) quality of housing; satisfaction with size of community was not a significant predictor of rural/urban perception.     

The effect of the Great Blackout of 1965 on births in New York City

A comparison of the number of births in New York City nine months after the Great Blackout of 1965 with comparable periods for the previous five years shows no increase in births associated with the blackout.     

Effects of the one-child family policy on second and third births in Hebei,Shaanxi and Shanghai

This paper uses the proportional hazards model to assess the effect of the Chinese one-child policy on second and third births. The differential effects of the policy between the urban and rural areas and by the sex of previous children are highlighted. First, the urban-rural differentials have increased much after the policy, suggesting a more rapid increase in the costs of children and stricter government controls in the urban areas. Second, the sex of children has become a more important factor after the policy. The considerably higher risks to a subsequent birth among sonless families indicate the persistent strong son preferences among Chinese parents, especially in less developed areas. Although son preferences seem suppressed in Shanghai, the higher risks to a second birth after the death of a son compared to a daughter are indicative of the son preferences even in Shanghai. Relaxation of the one-child policy may increase the Chinese fertility.     

A Comment on Ali Tas˛ıran's `Wage and income effects on the timing and spacing of births in Sweden and in the United States'

This note reviews and evaluates Taşıran's (1995) claim that estimated female wage effects on Swedish fertility dynamics reported by Heckman and Walker (1990) are not robust to the use of microwage data. The results reported here indicate that once individual wage measures have been purged of measurement error, estimated female wage effects are not sensitive to the introduction of microwages. The results reported by Heckman and Walker (1990) persist even with the use of microwage data. Received: 8 March 1996/Accepted: 4 December 2001 I thank Tom MaCurdy, Eric French and two anonymous referees for useful comments. This research was supported by NICHD grants HD-19226 and HD-28685. The usual disclaimer applies. Responsible editor: Klaus F. Zimmermann.     

The debate on population and the environment: Australia in the global context

This paper reviews the debate on population and the environment. The Australian debate is emphasized, but set within a global context, in recognition of the important interdependencies between countries of the North and South. The population-environment debate is long standing and highly controversial. It has been waged primarily as a war of ‘facts’ concerning capacity to support people at global, national and/ or regional levels. This has been inconclusive for it has failed to give due recognition to the inherent uncertainties in our knowledge, the paradigms which influence our judgements of key parameters, and the political ideology which has permeated the debate from the time of Malthus. Recent attempts to put the debate on a more analytical footing are considered. A framework which recognizes the inherent uncertainty in our knowledge of population-environment linkages is critical and decisions should be guided by the precautionary principle. Significantly the debate has been marginalized in mainstream discussion of each of population and the environment, both internationally and within Australia. It is suggested that this is a major barrier to progress towards sustainability. A population policy for Australia requiring development of institutions and decision-making processes which give a centrally important place to population-environment linkages in the day-to-day affairs of government, and which engage the community in debate about ‘desirable futures’ at national, regional and local levels, is endorsed. Importantly, the policy should require consideration of these issues within the context of Australia’s responsibilities both globally and to future generations.     

The transition to parenthood in Puerto Rico: Occupational status and the timing of first births

This study examines the relationship between occupational status and fertility timing during a period of rapid development in Puerto Rico. Our fundamental hypothesis is that women with higher status occupations face greater opportunity costs than those with less valued jobs and therefore will be more likely to postpone parenthood until later ages than women without such high costs. We test this hypothesis using event history techniques with data from the 1982 Puerto Rico Fertility and Family Planning Assessment, an island-wide survey of women between the ages of 15 and 49. The analysis examines the effects of occupational status on the timing of first births, and finds strong support for the basic hypothesis, especially regarding the post-ponement of teen births. After the teen years, the effects are less pronounced. Overall, it appears that employment opportunities have played an important role in childbearing decisions in Puerto Rico.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Population Association of America, Denver, Colorado, 30 April–2 May 1992.     

Regression analysis of the relationship between the birth rate and proportion of first order births in 1981]

Generally speaking, various fertility indicators such as the birth rate, average fertility rate, and total fertility rate have a close relationship. Various regression analyses have also been made by using different data on population statistics to describe their internal relationships. A regression analysis of the relationship between the birth rate and proportion of first order births, however, has not been made. Data collected by family planning staff at various places show that the places with a high rate of first order births normally have a lower birth rate, and the places with a low rate of first order births very often have a high birth rate. From here we may find that the proportion of the first order births is moving in two opposite directions, and there is no determined relationship between them. It is impossible to use one indicator to calculate the other's indicator. Only a regression analysis can be made to study the relationship between the two. The birth rate and proportion of first order births in 1981 showed some negative relationship, but the use of a regression equation should still be restricted. The regression equation between the birth rate and proportion of first order births may reflect a correct relationship when the region and the number of first order births are fixed. Therefore, any factor which has an impact on the number of first order births also has an influence on the use of regression equation.     

Ethnographic perspectives on the enumeration of aboriginal people in remote Australia

This paper compares population counts and age distributions from the last two Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) enumerations of the Aboriginal population of Aurukun, Cape York Peninsula, with the results of detailed ethnographic surveys of the same population at similar points in time. This reveals substantially lower numbers for the ABS counts, particularly of young adults and children. Reasons for this discrepancy are sought in the ethnographic realities of remote indigenous communities and an alternative methodology for Aboriginal enumeration in remote regions is suggested.