Marshall on the population question. I

English economic thought was dominated for close to a half century by the system of economic analysis developed by Alfred Marshall (1842–1924) whose views relating to population are examined. The demographic and economic changes taking place within Marshall's lifetime are briefly summarised in the Introduction. There follows in Part I a review of the opinions of Marshall's predecessors and contemporaries respecting both the behaviour of the laws of returns, technical progress, etc., and the circumstances on which population growth had depended or was likely to depend. The optimum is included among the concepts here treated. Reactions to the late nineteenth-century decline in natality are noted. In Part II Marshall's treatment of the laws of returns and of capital formation, together with their significance for the population question, is examined. His treatment of technological and organisational change and of international trade as counterbalances to population growth is considered. His failure to make use of the optimum concept is remarked as is the theory of economic growth that appears to underly his analysis of demographic development.     

Fecundability and the Frequency of Marital Intercourse: A Critique of Nine Models

The biological and demographic literature on the effects or frequency of intercourse on fecundability is reviewed in this paper. While empirical work and model-building results agree well on the effect of change from low to moderate coital frequencies, inconsistencies emerge when increase from moderate to high coital frequencies is considered. Of the models considered, it may be argued that the explicit provision for unfavourable cycles makes Schwartz's model an improvement over Barrett and Marshall's, Lachenbruch's and Trussell's. Moreover, even though he used a very different approach, Bongaarts obtained results that are much closer to those of Schwartz et al. than the others. Bongaarts's model is used as a starting point for new modelling, to be reported in the next issue, which deals with these inconsistencies by taking into account the ageing of gametes.     

Fecundability,coital frequency and the viability of Ova

An extension of Barrett and Marshall's model expressing fecundability as a function of coital pattern is proposed. In particular, this extension includes the probability that the ovum remains alive. The extended model has been applied to Barrett and Marshall's data, a series of cycles for which basal body temperature curves and the date of coitus have been recorded. It was thus possible to estimate the daily probabilities of fertilization and, under certain assumptions, the proportion of lost ova. This proportion was estimated to be above 50 per cent, and increases with age. The increase of fecundability with frequency of intercourse is more moderate than that predicted by Barrett and Marshall's model.     

Recycling Judy and Corliss

This article analyzes the racial and sexual politics of the domestic sitcom Gimme a Break (NBC, 1981–1987). Gimme a Break starred black actress and singer Nell Carter as “Nell,” a former nightclub singer who was now the lascivious caretaker of a white family. As a single woman living with a single (widowed) white man and his children, the show's use of sexual humor clashed with its refusal to breach the interracial sex taboo. This article argues that Gimme a Break relied upon the delightful difference signified by Nell's black sass and sexuality, but labored to contain it. Part of this strategy was imbedded in Carter's grotesque body; its fat blackness was accorded hypersexuality through its link to the black blues tradition and aberrant black sexuality, but was also deemed unappealing, and therefore “safe,” within a white context. Another important strategy was to repeatedly deny that Nell and the white father were attracted to each other. However, the gags and storylines meant to disavow this attraction also had to first invoke it. The result of these contradictions and negotiations was that as long as the white father was present on the show, Nell's sexuality was potentially disruptive.     

Adam Smith on population

Adam Smith dealt with questions of population mainly in his Wealth of Nations. His discussion falls roughly under five heads and reflects in considerable measure his image of the English economy. (1) A country's population capacity, given the average level of consumption, was conditioned by the stock of land, the skill with which it was cultivated, and the degree to which division of labour could be increased and thereby augment output for domestic use and sale in external markets. (2) Growth of population was essentially in response to growth of the demand for labour and served to increase division of labour. (3) The social mechanisms underlying elevation of the scale of living are touched upon, and in an optimistic spirit. (4) The distribution of a country's population responded to its progress in opulence, with the rate of this progress conditioned by the degree to which inappropriate (e.g. mercantilist) policies were avoided. (5) Smith dealt briefly with such matters as colonies, education, size of economy, environmental influences, and public policy, all of which he recognized as significant for the quantity and quality of a country's numbers.     

James Mill on the Growth and Limitation of Population

The brief passages reproduced below from James Mill's 1821 work, Elements of Political Economy, present an early analysis of total and net fecundity, a discussion of the scope and limits of government influence on fertility, and a reflection on the goal of a stationary population. In his preface Mill describes the Elements as “a school‐book in political economy”—it was in fact based on the lessons he gave to his then barely teenaged son—and he disavows any claim to originality. Moreover, the chapter on wages, from which the excerpts come, has been generally disdained because of its espousal of the discredited wage‐fund theory of wage determination. But Mill's treatment of population is as fresh and stimulating as it is concise. James Mill (1773–1836) is now known more as the father of John Stuart Mill—and as the designer of the latter's famously rigorous education—than for his own writing. Born and educated in Scotland, Mill moved to England, making his living as a journalist. On the side, he was writing what became a three‐volume History of British India (1817), which led to long‐term employment in the London office of the East India Company. Mill's thinking on economics was strongly influenced by his friendship with David Ricardo and on public policy by Jeremy Bentham. The group of reformist thinkers that surrounded him, known as the philosophical radicals, were protégés in the main of Bentham. Mill, like others in this group, was a proponent of family planning, albeit far more cautious on the subject than the propagandist Francis Place. “Prudence,” which for Malthus meant only delay of marriage, Mill took equally to cover control of marital fertility: it should comprise measures “by which either marriages are sparingly contracted, or care is taken that children, beyond a certain number, shall not be the fruit.” In the last of the excerpts, offering an unapologetic vision of bourgeois leisure and affluence, he anticipates J. S. Mill's notable chapter on the stationary state (Book IV, Chapter 6) in the Principles of Political Economy (1848)—see the Archives item in PDR 12, no. 2. The text is reproduced from the 3rd edition of the Elements (London, 1826), this part of which is virtually the same as the first edition aside from some minor improvements in expression. The excerpts are from Chapter 2, Section 2, pp. 46–50, 57–59, and 63–66.     

中国区域长寿现象与区域长寿标准评价体系

区域长寿现象反映了一个地区在人口健康、自然环境、社会经济、文化等方面具有明显的区域优势。本文在归纳和总结了有关区域长寿现象研究发现的基础上,探讨了制定区域长寿标准及其评价指标体系的理论依据,对现有的中国区域长寿标准及其评价指标体系予以评论,并提出改进建议。     

Rural-to-urban Migration and Rising Evaluation Standards for Subjective Social Status in Contemporary China

People’s evaluation standards in rating social status may evolve when exterior living circumstances change, and studying whether and how migration process changes individuals’ evaluation standards in rating social status can shed new light on this issue. Utilizing the dataset from 2010–2012 China Family Panel Studies and by employing the anchoring vignette method, this study reveals for the first time that rural-to-urban migrants adopt higher standards than those who stay behind in the countryside, but their evaluation standards still remain significantly lower than those adopted by urban residents. Heterogeneity in transitions of reference points within the migrants group is also explored. Except for the eldest cohort, all other younger migrants employ significantly higher standards in rating social status than rural villagers; the new generation of migrants is not significantly different from the elder in terms of the evaluation standards. More importantly, the increase in evaluation standards of migrants becomes greater through the years, from the moment of departure from one’s hukou registration place. These findings challenge the prevalent practice of assigning or assuming an ad hoc reference group to migrants in many studies, and advance our understanding on the determinants of the reference points used to evaluate social status, on which little is known so far.     

Many Chinas? The Economic Diversity of China's Provinces

This note analyzes China's provincial diversity from two perspectives. First, the regional gross domestic products of China's 31 mainland provinces are compared with the national GDP of other countries. This demonstrates that China's most advanced provinces and urban areas have per capita GDP levels comparable to those of Sweden and Singapore. On the other hand, China's least developed provinces have a standard of living similar to those of Sudan and Honduras. The second part of the analysis demonstrates that China's economic diversity is not unique. In fact, European countries exhibit almost the same degree of income diversity as do Chinese provinces.     

Frank Fetter on Population Versus Prosperity

How population change affects human welfare was a central concern of economists during the decades that followed publication of Malthus's Essay. But from the middle of the nineteenth century, continuing for some one hundred years, population issues played a marginal role in economics, with leading figures of that discipline, particularly in the New World, turning their attention to the topic only episodically. The presidential address delivered by Frank Fetter to the American Economic Association in 1913 is a notable example of such attention. Frank Albert Fetter (1863–1949), much of whose career was spent as professor on the faculty of Princeton University, was a prominent economic theorist of the early decades of the twentieth century and author, among numerous other works, of the influential texts Principles of Economics (1904) and its two-volume successors, Economic Principles (1915) and Modern Economic Problems (1916 and 1922). Population was an early interest of Fetter's, as is shown by the topic of his doctoral dissertation, which he wrote, after studies at Indiana University, Cornell, and the Sorbonne, at the University of Halle (Versuch einer Bevölkerungslehre ausgehend von einer Kritik des Malthus'schen Bevölkerungsprincips, Jena: G. Fischer, 1894). His address to the AEA recalls that interest, looking back on the decade ending in 1910, a period of rapid population increase in the United States, fueled by heavy immigration. In the first part of the address, Fetter offers insightful comments on Malthus's novel humanitarian and democratic formulation of the population problem and on the contrasting demographic situation between Europe and the United States. But with the closing of the land frontier he sees American exceptionalism coming to an end, as the economic forces—abundant natural resources and progress in science and the “technical arts”—that heretofore counteracted the depressing effect of population growth on wages “have spent themselves.” At a time when the US population was about one-third of its present size, he argued that “we have passed the point of diminishing returns in the relation of our population to our resources.” Therefore “it is high time to revise the optimistic American doctrine of population.” To control “the fate and fortunes of the children of this and future generations,” the US would need a policy of conserving natural resources and retarding the increase of population. Of the two components of population growth—natural increase and immigration—only the latter is “controllable in large measure by legislative action.” Fetter thus devotes the second part of his address to a discussion of the effects of immigration on the American economy. His line of argument closely parallels an influential strand in the contemporary US debate on that issue. In the first decade of the century, the population of the United States grew by some 16 million and the number of immigrants was nearly 9 million. Fetter sees the potential for further immigration as nearly limitless, given an open-door policy. The motive to migrate to the United States would not cease “until real wages in America are leveled down to those of the most impoverished populations permitted to enter our ports.” Yet reducing American prosperity would afford “no permanent relief to the overcrowded lands,” as “natural increase quickly fills the ranks of an impoverished peasantry.” While unrestricted immigration is against the interest of the mass of the people, conflicting interests, ideas, and sentiments paralyze remedial action: individual or class advantage comes before consideration of the “larger national welfare.” Unless immigration is restricted, Americans may find “that they have bartered the peace and security of their children for the pleasures of a brief season.” The text of Fetter's address is reproduced below in full from American Economic Review, vol. 3, no. 1: Papers and Proceedings of the Twenty-fifth Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association, March 1913.     

On Estimating the Expectation of Life at Old Ages: Reply to Professor Coale

In 1758, an article containing the view that resources limit population growth was published in Copenhagen. This paper gives a short presentation of the author Otto Diderich Lütken's life and literary production. His radical views on the question of population are given, and a comparison is made with the theories of Thomas Robert Malthus. A brief account of his views on other economic issues is also presented. The literature concerning his writings is reviewed. A discussion of who influenced him, and of his influence on others, ends this paper.     

Men's influence on the onset and progress of fertility decline in Ghana, 1988–98

While lower fertility is commonly associated with women's reproductive autonomy, we demonstrate that the influence of men's education on reproductive decision-making increased during the first decade of rapid fertility decline in Ghana. Husband's education exerts a stronger influence on wife's fertility intentions than does her own education, and the magnitude of the effect of his education increased significantly from 1988 to 1998. Lower fertility in Ghana seems to be associated more with men's declining fertility desires than with women's increasing reproductive autonomy. Nevertheless, there is some indication that women's education may play a relatively greater role in reproductive decision-making as fertility decline progresses still further.     

Was Abraham Lincoln Gay?

Scholars and historians are blind to Lincoln's same-sex inclinations in part because of a personal aversion to male homosexuality, but more importantly because they fail to perceive the vast differences between the sexual culture of antebellum America and that of our own time, especially in regard to male-male physical and emotional intimacy. This article brings those differences to light and sets Lincoln's life in the context of the sexual culture of his own time. This enables one to see that Lincoln's same-sex sexuality was not only unproblematic, but commonplace, if not typical, in his day. Revising the Myth of Lincoln in regard to his same-sex inclinations will have a positive effect on contemporary culture, especially on the education and socialization of young boys.     

African urban life: Components of satisfaction in Sierra Leone

This comparative study finds relatively high satisfaction with the quality of life in three Sierra Leonean towns, but there are notable differences between men and women and between the towns in which domains support this satisfaction. The standard of living achieved, and the job and income which make it possible, are the most important factors in satisfaction with the quality of urban life, but the limits on women's mobility are indicated by the greater emphasis they place on housing and neighborhood. Dissatisfaction among the relatively advantaged, with their own position and with the country's progress in development, reflects the political disaffection of some members of this group.     

Urban poverty and health in developing countries: Household and neighborhood Effects

In the United States and other high-income countries, there is intense scholarly and programmatic interest in the effects of household and neighborhood living standards on health. Yet few studies of developing-country cities have explored these issues. We investigated whether the health of urban women and children in poor countries is influenced by both household and neighborhood standards of living. Using data from the urban samples of 85 Demographic and Health Surveys and modeling living standards using factor-analytic MIMIC methods, we found that the neighborhoods of relatively poor households are more heterogeneous than is often asserted. Our results indicated that poor urban households do not tend to live in uniformly poor neighborhoods: about 1 in 10 of a poor household’s neighbors is relatively affluent, belonging to the upper quartile of the urban distribution of living standards. Do household and neighborhood living standards influence health? Using multivariate models, we found that household living standards are closely associated with three health measures: unmet need for modern contraception, attendance of a trained health care provider at childbirth, and young children’s height for age. Neighborhood living standards exert a significant additional influence in many of the surveys we examined, especially for birth attendance.     

A test of the utility of social indicators for behavioral health service planning

Given current imperatives for more effective, responsive, and economical government, policy planners and administrators are seeking increasing assistance from social scientists. Here the usefulness of social indicators to the processes of policy planning and implementation in the delivery of mental health, alcohol and drug abuse services is investigated to determine whether social indicator data can contribute to more effective policy planning. In a two part study, the relationship between social indicators and Specific sources of these data were: population total, subdivided by geographic area and race (Caucasian, Black, and Other, which in Arizona is virtually all Native Americans) from the 1975 special census; population by age and ratio of dissolutions to marriages from the Arizona Statistical Review for 1977; crime rates from the Arizona State Justice Planning Agency for 1975; and cause of death rates from the Bureau of Vital Statistics, Arizona Department of Health Services for 1975. Subjective measures of psychological well-being were not available for the internal validational component of the study. state wide service utilization rates and The Negative Affect Scale measures the individual's level of anxiety, worry, loneliness, and sadness, and is associated with other measures that have been used in epidemiological studies to identify persons with psychological difficulties. The Psychiatric Screening Inventory assesses an individual's level of psychiatric impairment as evidenced by the frequency with which he or she reports having experienced each of the 22 psychological and psychosomatic symptoms on the scale. It has also been used in numerous epidemiological studies to investigated levels of impairment among various populations. The Positive Affect Scale reflects the degree to which the person is involved with, interested in, and experiences control over his or her physical and social environment. Active involvement with the world and frequent social participation are considered to be conducive to the experience of positive affect. The Perceived Quality of Life Scale measures the degree to which the persons is satisfied with the quality of his or her life. The score on this scale is a composite of the respondent's level of satisfaction in different areas of life such as standard of living, health, personal functioning, and family life. The greater the satisfaction in these separate areas, the higher will be the individual's overall evaluation of the quality of his or her life. psychological well-being in the community is examined. Both objective and subjective social indicators were studied. Both types of indicators were found to be useful and complementary in identifying service needs and states of well-being in the community.     

The Shape of South African Society and its Challenges

South Africa's negotiated settlement and its transition to democracy reads like a modern fairy tale. A brief review of South Africa's social indicators serves to temper some of optimism about the country's future. The indicators reflect the society's quality of life which has been shaped by its turbulent history. Political “caste formation”, changing political alliances, the reforms intended to forestall the demise of apartheid, and the race for global competitiveness have left indelible marks on the society's social indicators. A comparison of living conditions in South Africa with those of roughly comparable economies indicates that the country lags behind in securing overall and widespread socio-economic upgrading of the population at large. A review of a cross-section of South African indicators and their trends over time shows that South Africa is still a very deeply divided society with a very large backlog in socio-economic development. There is evidence of breakdown in the society's social cohesion. Popular expectations of future quality of life indicate that the euphoria following on the first democratic elections has been replaced by a sense of realism among all sectors of the population. It is concluded that quality of life as reflected in South Africa's social indicators may get worse before it improves. The challenge will be to avoid new forms of economic “apartheid” which would depress the quality of life of marginal sectors of the population at the expense of the economically privileged.     

城镇化、人民生活水平与旅游业发展的空间机理研究

本文基于空间计量经济学基本原理,引入地理地貌虚拟变量,对2010—2013年我国城镇化、人民生活水平与旅游业发展的相互作用机理进行了分析。研究结果显示,2010—2013年间中国旅游业发展存在显著的空间相关性,而且在地理区位上已然形成了稳固的差异化集聚群体;城镇化率变化虽未表现出对旅游业发展的显著直接影响,但是却有着潜在推动作用;城镇人民生活水平提高表现出对旅游业发展的显著正向促进,而农村人民生活水平则为不相关。此外,旅游业投资、地理地貌情况也对我国旅游业空间集聚的形成有着显著影响。     

Socio-economic status and life satisfaction in Turkey

The relationship between one's objective living conditions and his/her subjective well-being is a problematic one. This paper discusses the results of a survey conducted in Turkey to explore the impacts of socio-economic status on satisfaction with various domains of life, and satisfaction of basic, and social and psychological needs. The results from the univariate, bivariate analyses and the multiple discriminant analysis indicate that socio-economic status is a strong determining factor in satisfaction with life domains and satisfaction of needs.     

That Teenage Feeling

This article deconstructs news media representations of two custody abductions that took place in Aotearoa New Zealand in the mid-2000s. In the first case, the father abducted his five-month-old daughter; in the second case, the mother was held responsible for the abduction of her six-year-old son even though he was in the presence of his maternal grandfather. The analysis demonstrates that the media's pejorative construction of the mothers at the center of both cases was facilitated by a number of significant gaps and silences in the narration of the abductions. These silences, in lending support to a fathers' rights construction of custody disputes in which mothers are to blame for dispossessing fathers of their children, reveal the media's reliance on pro-father discourses, particularly fathers' rights discourse.