Fertility and nuptiality changes in Spain from the late 18th to the early 20th century

Abstract 1.1. The course of Spanish population growth from the end of the 16th to the beginning of the 18th century was set by the effects of what demographers call 'catastrophic' mortality. As in most European populations, the occasional but recurrent ravages of epidemics, especially plague, wiped out the excess of births over deaths accumulated in 'normal' years. How accurate and close to reality this statement is cannot be discussed here; but we shall assume that, until the rSth century, short-term growth was offset by mortality above the normal levels caused by epidemics.     

Population and resources

Rapid growth of the world's population is recent. World food production has increased in close proportion. No one can say when or in what fashion population growth will end; whether by our deliberate choice, or by catastrophe, or by some limit of the Earth.In the United States, during a century and a half of rapid growth, farming has diminished from being the major economic activity to an almost trivial fraction. At the same time, farm production has increased many-fold. One result is that the American public spends a smaller portion of its income on food than, probably, has any society in human history. Not all of the world has shared in this agricultural revolution and, once in recent decades, and now again, evidence suggests food production may fail to increase with population. Certainly no guarantee can be offered that food production will always be adequate.Pessimism on the outcome is warranted if only because of profound disagreement among those who should be best informed. Many look only to the near future and persistently advocate growth. Only a few look to the long-run and the inescapable disasters of persistent growth.Presented at the symposium on Population and Scarcity: The Forgotten Dimensions.     

The End of the Demographic Transition: Relief or Concern?

Demographic transition theory might seem to imply that, after a period of exceptional population growth resulting from the time lag between mortality and fertility declines, every population, and then the whole world population will stabilize and, consequently, no more acute population problems will appear. Does the claim, recently gaining credibility, that the end of the transition is at hand actually imply a stage without major population problems? Nothing is less sure. First, it is just a claim, the realization of which still entails a period of dramatically rapid population growth in some countries, especially the poorest. But more tellingly, the end of the transition is also the end of the paradigm on which we have been relying to understand and anticipate demographic changes. Nobody knows what might ensue later: How long and low can fertility fall? How long and high can life expectancy increase? How far can population aging go? As many questions without answer and probably as many problems whose size we cannot even imagine lie ahead.     

Nuptiality in the Course of the Demographic Transition: The Experience of the Balkan Countries

The paper examines marriage patterns in four Balkan countries during the course of the demographic transition. It is shown by analysis of the available data that cultural and institutional factors, such as family type, kinship structure or religious doctrines, alone, cannot explain adequately all the features of nuptiality in the region. Without denying the importance of the ‘cultural-institutional’ approach, it was found necessary to expand it by taking into account the distinctive historical and developmental context in a given country or region. It is argued that the relative importance of marriage postponement (and celibacy), birth control, and out-migration, as parts of a complex system of ‘adjustments’ to sustained population growth, was determined by the rate of this growth, as well as by the pace of socio-economic development and a number of other factors (including institutional and cultural ones). The experience of the Balkan countries is explored with this assumption as a background.     

U. S. population growth as an abstractly-perceived problem

Recent public opinion polls report that a majority of Americans consider the nation’s population growth rate to be a “serious” problem. Little systematic evidence exists on whether they view the problem as a factor that the individual married couple should consider in deciding on family size. A survey of 134 adult women living in a limited-income family housing project in a relatively small and isolated American community suggests: the view that continued population growth is a problem in the United States is endorsed more strongly than the view that the couple has a responsibility to limit its fertility because of overpopulation; and concern with population growth is only loosely associated with acceptance of the individual responsibility attitude. Among subgroups of respondents, Catholics were more likely to hold a negative attitude toward population growth than to possess the individual responsibility view and they exhibited a correlation between the two attitudes. Protestants were distinguished by no difference in or correlation between the acceptance of the two attitudes. A correlation between the attitudes was especially pronounced among Catholics with high achievement values. It is suggested that measures explicitly intended to control population growth probably cannot be adopted until there is a strong correlation between the two attitudes.     

Posterity and population growth: fertility intention among a cohort of Nigerian adolescents

Population growth is probably the greatest global challenge of the twenty-first century and fertility is a central element of this growth. Fertility is a human attribute which depends almost entirely on social, economic, political, cultural and psychological frameworks, making fertility intention an element of what individuals learn from a very young age as part of their socialisation into society. The fundamental significance of socio-psychological, environmental and cultural factors in what adolescents are assimilating on fertility cannot be exaggerated, yet, relevant information is limited. Eight factors deduced from ecological model and theory of planned behaviour were used to predict fertility intention among a cohort of Nigerian adolescents, using cross-sectional design. Mean fertility intention was 4.06 ± 1.34. Age and religion had no effect, but gender did. Self esteem, perceived parental expectation of fertility, attitude towards fertility and peer-related subjective norm are significant predictors. Media and ethnic attitude are insignificant predictors of, but are significantly related to fertility intention. Attitude towards a four-child family and perceived behavioural control yielded insignificant relationships with, and also failed to predict fertility intention. Perceived parental expectation of fertility, an interpersonal factor of the ecological model is the single most important predictor (β = 0.707, R² = 0.506, r = 0.711, and partial r = 0.710). Fertility intention points towards fertility decline, though sluggish and diminutive, thereby failing to reflect the need of Nigeria’s population pyramid to thin out from the base.

     

The Contribution of Job and Partner Satisfaction to the Homeostatic Defense of Subjective Wellbeing

Two studies investigate subjective wellbeing (SWB) homeostasis. The first investigates the contribution of job satisfaction (JS) and partner satisfaction (PS) to the homeostatic defense of SWB. The extant model of homeostasis does not include either variable. The second study investigates the relationship between Homeostatically Protected Mood (HPMood) and other factors involved in the homeostatic model. It has been proposed that HPMood is the basic, biologically determined, positive mood that saturates SWB and other related variables, and forms the basis of the SWB set-point. Thus, if HPMood is an individual difference and it perfuses other homeostatic variables, then HPMood should be responsible for much of the shared variance between such variables. Two comparative samples are involved. One is a group of 171 Hong Kong Chinese recruited through convenience sampling. The other is a group of 343 Australians recruited via a general population survey. Results indicate that both JS and PS predict significant variance in Global Life Satisfaction beyond the existing factors in the homeostatic model. It is also found that, after controlling for the effect of HPMood, the strength of correlations between SWB and other homeostatic variables is significantly diminished. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

How and why journalists avoid the population-environment connection

Recent surveys show that Americans are less concerned about population than they were 25 years ago, and they are not connecting environmental degradation to population growth. News coverage is a significant variable affecting public opinion, and how reporters frame a problem frequently signals what is causing the problem. Using a random sample of 150 stories about urban sprawl, endangered species and water shortages, Part I of this study shows that only about one story in 10 framed population growth as a source of the problem. Further, only one story in the entire sample mentioned population stability among the realm of possible solutions. Part II presents the results of interviews with 25 journalists whose stories on local environmental problems omitted the causal role of population growth. It shows that journalists are aware of the controversial nature of the population issue, and prefer to avoid it if possible. Most interviewees said that a national phenomenon like population growth was beyond the scope of what they could write as local reporters.     

Evolution and population dynamics in stochastic environments

Inter-generational temporal variability of the environment is important in the evolution and adaptation of phenotypic traits. We discuss a population-dynamic approach which plays a central role in the analysis of evolutionary processes. The basic principle is that the phenotypes with the greatest long-term average growth rate will dominate the entire population. The calculation of longterm average growth rates for populations under temporal stochasticity can be highly cumbersome. However, for a discrete non-overlapping population, it is identical to the geometric mean of the growth rates (geometric mean fitness), which is usually different from the simple arithmetic mean of growth rates. Evolutionary outcomes based on geometric mean fitness are often very different from the predictions based on the usual arithmetic mean fitness. In this paper we illustrate the concept of geometric mean fitness in a few simple models. We discuss its implications for the adaptive evolution of phenotypes, e.g. foraging under predation risks and clutch size. Next, we present an application: the risk-spreading egg-laying behaviour of the cabbage white butterfly, and develop a two-patch population dynamic model to show how the optimal solution diverges from the ssual arithmetic mean approach. The dynamics of these stochastic models cannot be predicted from the dynamics of simple deterministic models. Thus the inclusion of stochastic factors in the analyses of populations is essential to the understanding of not only population dynamics, but also their evolutionary dynamics.     

A brief discussion on the effect of religion and feudal superstitions on China's population growth]

According to Marxism, population development is subject to the determination of production means under certain social and historical conditions, but it is also influenced by ideology, religions, and other factors. China is a country with numerous religions and traditional superstitions. Their impact on China's population growth cannot be underestimated. All religions and feudal superstitions have a role in the increase of the population, and they oppose birth control and abortion. Similarly, traditional feudal concepts of having more children for good fortune, ancestral worship, and filial piety also encouraged early marriage and having more children, and they have contributed to population growth. On the contrary, "individualism" practiced by Buddhist monks and nuns, the "sacred war" believed by Islamic people, and the offering of human sacrifices by many primitive religions, and the murdering of baby twins have served to reduce the population. Most of the religions and feudal superstitions are in favor of increasing the population. The popularity of Buddhism in the past was caused by an oversupply of the labor force. Many farmers became Buddhist monks as a way to earn a living. Since liberation, unhealthy religions and feudal superstitions have been prohibited but their everlasting infulence upon the people cannot be ignored. Uncontrolled population growth is harmful to the nation's economy and improvement of people's livelihood. In family planning work, attention should also be given to the prevention of interference from religions and feudal superstitions in people's ideology.     

Population growth in Java in the 19th century

Abstract In demographic literature Java occupies a special position. It is the island where in the nineteenth century a 'population explosion' occurred. In other developing countries this took place in the twentieth century. Following the official figures Java had a population size of about 4.5 million in 1815 (Raffles's Census) and 28.5 million in 1900. The result is an extraordinary rate of growth of 2.2% per year. In this paper it is argued that it is impossible to correct the data by adjusting them. A more promising method is to study the factors which are responsible for the demographic situation, i.e. economic conditions, the so-called pax neerlandica and the health situation in the period 1800-1850. This period has been specially studied, because it is crucial for the calculation of population size which is normally based on the 1815 period. It is suggested that Java cannot really claim to be an exceptional case in the period 1800-1850. This means that the growth rate - in line with the estimates of Carr Saunders and Sauvy -has to be estimated (greater accuracy is not possible) as between 0.5% and 1.0); per annum. On the basis of estimates and calculations, the population size of Java may have been somewhere between 8 and 10 millions around 1800, the latter estimate being the more realistic figure. The view that there was exceptionally rapid population growth in Java in the nineteenth century is to an important degree the product of a Europe-centred approach to the history of Java.     

The colonialism of Canada’s Métis health population dynamics: caught between bad data and no data at all

In the last two decades, Canada’s brand of colonial recognition politics has fueled several social and cultural changes that have, in turn, produced startling growths in the “Métis population” in Canada. Demographers and policy makers alike have expressed dubiousness about the extent to which “non-demographic factors” (that is, factors other than fertility and mortality) are fueling this growth, a dubiousness expressed in the growing use of “ethnic mobility” to explain population growth. In this article I explore the historical contexts within which the idea of a single Métis population took hold as a statistical technology, the kinds of social and cultural juxtaposition that making use of a single population masks, and the impact single population estimates have on the ability of Métis nation policy actors to fashion evidence-based policy relevant to the concerns of the Métis nation. While the dynamics and the data perused in this article are specific to Canada, they possess broader resonances with other nation-states grappling with their colonial histories and longstanding Indigenous peoples as these dynamics relate to official data dynamics.     

中国的人口转变完成了吗?

本文依据 1 998年我国人口一些重要指标所达到的水平 ,并通过与发达国家同类指标达到相同或相近水平时间的比较 ,判定我国人口转变过程在 2 0世纪末已经结束 ,人口增长从低增长走向零增长和人口结构性变动成为调节人口增长势态的主要因素这两个后人口转变时期人口变动的基本特征在我国已经开始显现出来     

Historical Population Estimates: Unraveling the Consensus

The mid‐twentieth century witnessed the emergence of a remarkable consensus on quantitative estimates of world population growth after 1650. This was the achievement of Walter Willcox, supported and modified by Alexander Carr‐Saunders and John Durand, and was endorsed by United Nations publications. It had its origins in eighteenth‐ and nineteenth‐century work, largely carried out in Germany. Willcox was particularly interested in demonstrating seventeenth‐century population growth as evidence of the global impact of European expansion, and this probably led to a too‐ready acceptance of estimates with little real basis. More recent estimates do little to shake the consensus, but extend the historical series back over two millennia or further. The article examines the strength and influence of a consensus based in the earlier period on surprisingly insecure data. It then turns to the most suspect element in the consensus, the pre‐twentieth‐century estimates for Africa. Finally, little hope is expressed that future researchers will be able to establish reliable estimates, especially for dates earlier than the eighteenth century.     

Smallpox and Epidemiological-Demographic Change in Europe: The Role of Vaccination

The relationship between smallpox epidemics, overall mortality and population growth, as reflected in an excess of births over deaths, has been examined with regard to the main sources of evidence from different parts of Europe. Epidemiological-demographic changes concomitant with different phases in the introduction of immunisation against the disease have been assessed in the light of evidence from records showing some causes of death as well as numbers of burials. By the eighteenth century; smallpox epidemics appear to have become predominant as an influence on fluctuations in overall mortality in much of Europe. Evidence is reviewed which suggests that although inoculation had probably protected many from smallpox after the mid-eighteenth century, to an extent that could have reduced overall mortality, vaccination enthusiastically promoted after 1800 had a dramatic epidemiological-demographic impact. Data from many sources have been summarised and indicate that the disease was virtually brought under control in North Western Europe during the course of the nineteenth century. Smallpox had probably caused between 8 and 20 per cent of all deaths directly in eighteenth-century Europe as well as unquantifiable secondary and associated morbidity and mortality. The removal of such a deleterious disease from a chain of infections affecting the population at this time, accounted for much of the increasingly more important role of mortality decline as the significant factor in demographic change. The evidence is circumstantial, but suggests that the unprecedented population growth of the early decades of the nineteenth century could in large part have been due to the control of smallpox through vaccination measures. The virtual elimination of the disease as a killer in Europe by the end of the century, following legislation and revaccination programmes was a unique achievement with further consequences for sustained population growth and improvements in health which for many were the only source of improvements in the standard of life.     

Indigenous fertility in the Northern Territory of Australia: what do we know? (and what can we know?)

In the Northern Territory of Australia, Indigenous people make up 30% of the population. Demographic features of the Indigenous population are thus important for understanding Northern Territory population dynamics, but our understanding of what is happening within the Indigenous population is limited by poor data and limited research attention. This paper exploits birth registration and census data to explore Northern Territory Indigenous fertility trends over a 20-year period. It investigates whether fertility decline identified for the 1960 and 1970s is a contemporary feature of Indigenous fertility in the Northern Territory. Results show that our understanding of Northern Territory Indigenous fertility is heavily constrained by data and that trend analysis is essential for avoiding erroneous conclusions because of annual fluctuations. The outstanding feature of Indigenous fertility in the Northern Territory is women becoming mothers at extremely early ages, particularly in rural and remote parts of the Territory. Age patterns appear to have changed little since the middle of last century despite modest declines in age-specific fertility at the youngest ages. While these declines may continue, any trends will be slow to emerge. Continued close scrutiny of data sources and monitoring of trends is needed to ensure that Northern Territory population dynamics are properly understood, and care must be taken in interpreting results to make certain policy interventions aimed at population outcomes are appropriate and achievable.     

Cohort Replacement and Homeostasis in World Population, 1950–2100

Using a simple empirical approach, we analyze world and regional‐level cohort replacement as determined by the key components of population dynamics, i.e. fertility, survival, and migration, for 1950–2010, using UN data. We define two kinds of homeostatic relationships among these components: fertility responses to mortality change (type I) and migration responses to changes in net reproduction (type II), and show that both can be observed to some degree in this period. We examine the extent of cohort replacement embodied in the medium‐variant UN population projections over 2010–2100 and consider how the international migration assumptions made in such projections would be affected by a homeostatic perspective.     

Residential Mobility Across Local Areas in the United States and the Geographic Distribution of the Healthy Population

Determining whether population dynamics provide competing explanations to place effects for observed geographic patterns of population health is critical for understanding health inequality. We focus on the working-age population—the period of adulthood when health disparities are greatest—and analyze detailed data on residential mobility collected for the first time in the 2000 U.S. census. Residential mobility over a five-year period is frequent and selective, with some variation by race and gender. Even so, we found little evidence that mobility biases cross-sectional snapshots of local population health. Areas undergoing large or rapid population growth or decline may be exceptions. Overall, place of residence is an important health indicator; yet, the frequency of residential mobility raises questions of interpretation from etiological or policy perspectives, complicating simple understandings that residential exposures alone explain the association between place and health. Psychosocial stressors related to contingencies of social identity associated with being black, urban, or poor in the United States may also have adverse health impacts that track with structural location even with movement across residential areas.     

Why is Housing Always Satisfactory? A Study into the Impact of Cognitive Restructuring and Future Perspectives on Housing Appreciation

The current study focuses on residents’ perceptions of residential quality. The influence of two psychological factors is examined: cognitive restructuring and future perspectives. For cognitive restructuring, it is hypothesized that residents who cannot change a suboptimal housing situation show higher appreciation scores in order to prevent unhappiness and psychosocial complaints. By contrast, the future perspectives hypothesis argues that residents who can change a suboptimal housing situation show higher appreciation scores because they have a better situation to look forward to. Respondents indicated their appreciation of 23 dwelling aspects on a scale ranging from 0 (extremely unattractive) to 100 (extremely attractive). A weak impact was found for cognitive restructuring: residents living in a suboptimal housing situation and who do not intend to move showed a higher mean appreciation for an owner-occupied house and for a traditional architectural design than similar residents who did intend to move. No effect was observed for future perspectives. Why is housing always satisfactory? A previous study and the current one show that residents who live in a suboptimal housing situation might show relatively high residential satisfaction because they lower their aspirations (“I don’t need much”), because they are satisfied with what they have (“what I have is fine”) and, to a lesser extent, because they make the best of a situation that they cannot change (cognitive restructuring).     

Happy to Help? Exploring the Factors Associated with Variations in Rates of Volunteering Across Europe

The frequency of formal volunteering varies widely across European countries, and rates of formal volunteering are especially low among Eastern European countries. Why are there such large differences in volunteering rates when it is known that volunteering is beneficial for well-being? Using data from the latest round of the European Social Survey, we test three hypotheses to explain these cross-national differences in volunteering. We ask whether people in countries with low frequencies of volunteering spend more of their time on informal volunteering activities; whether they differ on socio-demographic variables which are known to be linked to volunteering rates; or whether they show less well-being benefit from formal volunteering. Contrary to the first hypothesis, we find a positive correlation between formal and informal volunteering. We further conclude that national differences in rates of volunteering cannot be fully explained by differences in the social, psychological or cultural factors associated with volunteering nor the outcome of volunteering. It is likely that contextual factors, such as a country’s historical background or institutions, determine levels of volunteering to a large extent.