中国老年人虚弱指数与死亡风险及队列差异

利用中国老年人健康长寿影响因素调查（ CLHLS ）2002－2011年跟踪调查数据,通过多种健康指标构建中国老年人虚弱指数,运用增长曲线模型和Cox等比例风险函数的研究方法,对中国老年人虚弱指数和死亡风险及其队列差异进行了深入分析。研究发现,女性虚弱指数比男性高,增长速度也比男性快,但是死亡风险比男性低;出生较晚的队列与出生早的队列相比,虚弱指数会更高,他们的增长程度更快;受教育程度高的老年人虚弱指数低,但是其增长速度却比受教育程度低的老年人要高。     

Geographic Ancestry and Cause-specific Mortality in a National Population

There are marked differentials in mortality risks across regions in Finland. No exhaustive explanation to this variation has been provided, however. The aim of this paper is to analyse how geographic ancestry, as proxied by persons’ birth region and population group, interrelates with cause-specific mortality risks. Focusing on people aged between their mid-thirties and late-forties, we use longitudinal population register data that offer opportunities to account for variables that represent both persons’ social background and their own social status at young adult age. Results of Cox proportional hazard models say that these variables have substantial effects on mortality of different causes, but only a marginal impact on the variation in death rates by birth region and population group. The geographic mortality pattern is found to be specifically prominent for causes of death that are fairly unrelated to persons’ lifestyles. Our findings suggest that genetic predisposal as expressed in terms of geographic ancestry might play a relevant role in understanding mortality variation within the population of Finland.     

Long-term effects of childbearing on mortality: Evidence from pre-industrial Sweden

This paper presents an analysis of the impact of childbearing history on later-life mortality for ever-married men and women using historical micro-level data of high quality for southern Sweden. The analysis uses a Cox proportional hazards model, estimating the effects on old-age mortality of number of births and timing of first and last births. By studying the effects of previous childbearing on mortality by sex and social status, we also gain important insights into the mechanisms relating childbearing to mortality in old age. The results show that number of children ever born had a statistically significant negative impact on longevity after age 50 for females but not for males. Analysis by social group shows that only landless women experienced higher mortality from having more children, which seems to indicate that the main explanations are to be found in social or economic conditions specific to females, rather than in the strictly biological or physiological effects of childbearing.     

Famine Mortality in Nineteenth-Century Japan: The Evidence from a Temple Death Register

Economic and demographic historians who have studied Japan's early modern period argue that preventive checks to fertility were the primary cause of Japan's stationary population in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and that the role of ‘positive’ checks was negligible. This paper presents evidence and a claim that mortality crises – famines in particular – also played an important role in checking population growth during this period. It analyses data from the death register of Ogen-ji, a Buddhist temple in the Hida region of central Japan. These data provide a remarkably detailed picture of the short-term demographic consequences of Japan's last great famine, the Tenpō famine of the 1830s. ‘Normal’ mortality patterns, by age and sex, are compared with patterns of mortality during the famine. Mortality of males rose considerably more than that of females, with the greatest rise occurring among young boys aged 5–14 and adult men aged 30–59. A surprising finding was that mortality at ages 0–4 rose relatively little, in part a consequence of a marked fall in the number of births during the famine. The Tenpō subsistence crisis was not the sole cause of population stagnation in the Ogen-ji population, but it was a prominent feature of the ‘high mortality regime’ that this population experienced during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.     

Fertility decline in a US population favoring large families: A hazard-model analysis of the effect of sib death on Amish fertility

This paper uses proportional hazards techniques and population data from a directory of the Old Order Amish of the Lancaster, PA settlement. It examines the effect of death of the immediately prior sibling on the risk of childbearing for up to 11 children. Prior research typically has pooled data for maternal cohorts. In contrast, separate models are estimated for each maternal cohort. The results are based on all reported first marriages of Amish women born between 1884–1973 (N = 4066). Hazard models run separately for children of each birth order reveal that net of maternal age and length of the prior birth interval (and other statistical and design controls), the death of the prior sib significantly increases the risk of a subsequent birth for the lower birth orders. Separate models by maternal cohort show that sib death increases the risk primarily for later cohorts. The pattern of effects from child mortality and other variables suggests changes in fertility behavior among the Amish, who have strong, traditional norms opposing contraception and favoring large families.     

Long-term mortality patterns in Chinese history: evidence from a recorded clan population

Human populations have lived on the earth for millions of years, yet the study of population history only began to be established in the mid-twentieth century. In spite of the considerable progress in the study of historical demography which has since been made, there have been hardly any detailed studies of fertility and mortality before the sixteenth century. This study, by analysing a set of Chinese genealogies, examines long-term mortality patterns in a selected clan population over a period of more than 1000 years. The result shows that, in this selected population, mortality fluctuated around a relatively high level and showed no secular change over the very long period studied. The study also provides a comparison between the mortality patterns found in the selected population and those observed in a much larger Chinese lineage population, as well as those recorded among the British elites born between the sixteenth and the early nineteenth century. Based on the findings of this research, the paper presents some tentative suggestions about long-term mortality changes in Chinese history.     

The Population of Centenarians in Brazil: Historical Estimates from 1900 to 2000

Since the nineteenth century, the census has provided the number of 100-year-olds in Brazil, one of the most populous countries worldwide. In 1900, 4,438 individuals reported themselves to be centenarians, a figure that increased about fivefold by the 2000 census. However, due to data quality issues, we are skeptical about the real size of the recorded population in the Brazilian census. We offer alternative estimates of the most likely number of centenarians during the twentieth century by combining variable-r relations with different mortality models. Our results indicate there was virtually no centenarian at the beginning of the twentieth century. The population has become larger than 1,000 individuals only in the 1990s, suggesting there has been an extensive, although diminishing, overenumeration of centenarians in the census records. Our results can help policymakers to plan the demands of a growing old age population in places that face stricter family and public budget constraints.     

1964～2005年我国人口受教育状况的变动——基于人口普查/抽查资料的分析

人口受教育状况通常被当作衡量某一国家或地区社会经济发展状况的重要指标。利用全国人口普查或抽查资料,运用趋势分析和队列分析方法,分析1964~2005年间我国人口受教育状况的变动情况;1982~2005年间分性别、分城乡人口受教育状况的变动情况;不同年代出生人口的受教育状况的变动情况。结果发现,我国人口平均受教育年限逐步提高,教育基尼系数逐渐降低,男女之间的教育差距逐步缩小,但城乡之间的差距继续扩大。每个队列人口平均受教育年限均有所提高,且各队列人口取得了不同方式和不同程度的"进步",其中既有年龄效应作用的结果,也有队列和时期效应作用的结果。     

The Seeming Paradox of Increasing Mortality in a Highly Industrialized Nation: The Example of the Soviet Union

A discussion of the surprising phenomenon of declining life expectancy in a highly developed country such as the Soviet Union during the 1970s shows that this result was probably due only in a small part to ‘true’ causal changes in the conditions of living. At least equally important is the weaknesses of the measure of life expectancy by itself. The logical difference between period and cohort measurement is one part of the explanation. Another important factor is the adverse selection of risks by war, which makes international and intertemporal comparisons less valuable. Factors like population redistribution or changes in the registration also contribute to the explanation. Thus; life expectancy (in particular period life expectancy) should not, without closer consideration, be accepted as a reliable indicator of human welfare under such circumstances.     

Adjusting Life Expectancy to Account for Disability in a Population: A Comparison of Three Techniques

Sullivan (1971) first suggested weighting life expectancy (LE) to account for the health of a population using a single indicator. Known as disability free life expectancy (DFLEs), this measure was somewhat limited due to a overly simplistic weighting scheme. Its introduction, however, spurred the development of a whole new class of measures known as health expectancy indicators. One of the first, disability-adjusted life expectancy (DALEs) (Wilkins and Adams, 1983), identified the period of time in a particular level of disability and weighted each level accordingly. While the weighting allowed for a health related quality-of-life distinction to be introduced into the DALE measure, the weights, by level of disability, were arbitrarily chosen and fixed for all ages and gender. To overcome this limitation, a health-adjusted life expectancy (HALE) was developed based in large part on the DALE methodology but utilizes more refined weights. The McMaster Health Utility Index Mark III (HUI3)) scores health on a continuum from 0 to 1 and when included on a national health survey, provides estimates that reflect important age, gender, and socio-economic factors. All three measures were calculated for the years 1986, 1991, and 1994 (household and institutional populations). Analysis revealed that HALEs were more appropriate for policy purposes due to their ability to account for indirect morbidity in both a disabled and non-disabled population.     

Operationalising caseload midwifery in the Australian public maternity system: Findings from a national cross-sectional survey of maternity managers

Background

Despite high-level evidence of the benefits of caseload midwifery for women and babies, little is known about specific practice arrangements, organisational barriers and facilitators, nor about workforce requirements of caseload. This paper explores how caseload models across Australia operate.

Effects of Lactation on Post-partum Amenorrhoea: Re-estimation Using Data from a Longitudinal Study in Guatemala

In this paper we re-estimate the effects of breastfeeding patterns on the timing of resumption of menses after controlling for maternal nutrition and maternal stressor variables. The analysis shows that simple hazard models, used on data from a longitudinal study in Guatemala, provide estimates of effects on timing of resumption of menstruation that are (a) comparable to others discussed in the recent literature and (b) generally consistent with hypotheses relating patterns of lactation, maternal nutritional status, and maternal stressors to processes that accelerate (decelerate) resumption of anovulatory cycles.     

人口地理与公共品供给效率——以四川省135个县(市)为例

利用四川省135个县(市)的数据,分析人口、地理因素对县(市)公共品供给效率的影响。研究发现,2008年135个县(市)平均公共品供给效率为0.672,整体水平还有待进一步提高;县(市)辖区人口密度的提高、所辖乡镇数量的增加有助于供给效率提高;复杂的地理环境增加了公共品提供成本,降低了供给效率;乡镇辖区面积扩大及人口增加有助于供给效率的提高。研究对提高地方公共品供给效率,完善地方政府及财政层级改革颇具参考价值和意义。     

Child schooling in Peru: Evidence from a sequential analysis of school progression

Primary enrolment rates are very high in Peru, but so are the failure and drop-out rates. Thus an understanding of the nature of child schooling should consider school progression from primary to secondary and higher levels, taking account of the conditional sequence with the previous level and self-selection into the next higher level of schooling. Using a unique correlated sequential probit model with unobserved heterogeneity the present paper does so and obtains richer results, argued to be better than the standard static estimates. It is shown that the same set of individual/parental/household characteristics may affect different levels of schooling differently.The author is much grateful to the Managing Editor and also the Journal referees for their helpful and constructive comments. She also wishes to thank Cardiff Business School for the research grant and Gerry Makepeace for comments on an earlier draft of the paper. The usual disclaimer applies. Responsible editor: Junsen Zhang.     

Parental divorce and partnership dissolution in adulthood: Evidence from a British cohort study

From a longitudinal survey of a British cohort born in 1958 this study finds that, by age 33, off-spring of parents who divorced are more likely to have dissolved their first partnerships. This finding persists after taking into account age at first partnership, type of first partnership (marital, pre-marital cohabiting union, and cohabiting union), and indicators of class background and childhood and adolescent school achievement and behaviour problems. Some of these factors are associated with partnership dissolution in their own right, but the association between parental divorce and second generation partnership dissolution is largely independent of them. Demographic factors, including type of and age at first partnership, were important links between parental divorce and partnership dissolution. Moreover, the estimated effects of parental divorce were substantially reduced when the demographic variables were taken into account, suggesting that cohabitation and early partnership may be important pathways through which a parental divorce, or the unmeasured characteristics correlated with it, affect partnership dissolution.     

The Role of Contraceptive Supply and Demand in Mexican Fertility Decline: Evidence from a Microdemographic Study

This paper uses retrospective life history data to assess the impact of family planning services on contraceptive use in a rural Mexican township. Between 1960 and 1990 contraceptive use rose and fertility declined dramatically. Both contraceptive supply and demand factors were influential in these trends. The start of the government-sponsored family planning programme in the late 1970s was associated with a sharp rise in female sterilization and use of the IUD. However, once we controlled for the changing socio-economic and demographic characteristics of the sample, the presence of family planning services had no significant effect on the likelihood that women used modern reversible methods compared to traditional methods. Men and women expressed concerns about the safety of modern methods such as the pill and the IUD. Efforts to increase modern contraceptive use should place greater emphasis on communicating the safety of these methods and improving the quality of services.     

Gender differences in psychosocial predictors of self-perceived health status in the elderly: Evidence from a Brazilian community study

ABSTRACT

This article aims to identify the psychosocial factors associated with self-perceived health status in the Brazilian elderly population and to present differences related to gender. The data were collected by questionnaire, including sociodemographic and behavioral questions, and scales for psychological dimensions. Self-perceived health status is related to level of education, physical activity, and self-efficacy in the total population. Regarding gender differences, self-rated health status among men is related to education level and self-efficacy and in women to level of education, physical activity, social support, and self-efficacy. These results can inform future health promotion interventions.