Toward a general theory of fertility: A causal modeling approach

A general theory of fertility is derived hypothesizing that the demand for children is primarily an outcome of social psychological processes within the family, subject to certain socioeconomic constraints. Two broad social psychological processes are posited as determinants of fertility. The first suggests that the attitudes or tastes of family members influence the demand for children. The second maintains that the nature of the husband-wife interaction (in terms of power, conflict, decision making, and marital satisfaction) determines family size. Socioeconomic variables, in the form of the normative social structure and social stratification, and economic constraints, such as income and price, are hypothesized to influence fertility through their impact on social psychological processes within the family. The overall theory is tested on two independent samples—one in Ankara, Turkey, the second in Mexico City, Mexico—using a structural equation methodology.     

Toward a gender politics of aging

The article proposes a Gender Politics of Aging approach to the study of aging societies. The approach recognizes the feminization of old age, ageism’s roots in sexist discourse, and the need to recognize the role of politics in driving demographic debates. Drawing together arguments from feminist gerontology and political demography, the article argues that the intersection of politics and gender must be considered if appropriate responses to an older, feminized demography are to be produced. I conclude that the work of aging feminists provides a rich vein of research and praxis from which a gender politics of aging approach can draw.     

Toward a national population policy

Canada has notexplicit national population policy although various policies do have an effect on the size, rate of growth, distribution, and composition of the nation's population. Traditionally, Canada has been pronoatalist, particularly favoring immigration. In response to the 1974 Bucharest World Population Conference, the Canadian government solicited public testimony regarding a population policy for the nation. Environmentalists urged population limitation with a view to maintaining the ecosystem. Social justice and reallocation of resources were urged by an 2nd group. The quality of life argument was used by both proponents and opponents of population limitation. Canada has increased its world assistance for economic and population activities. With 1 of the highest growth rates of the developed countries, (in 1976-1977, 1.3% vs. .8% for the U.S. and .4% for France), Canada needs to propound a slow growth ethic. With future fertility at replacement level, Canada will look to immigration for population input.     

Community: Toward an integration of research,theory, evaluation,and public policy considerations

This article presents a paradigm for the analysis of communities and investments designed to improve them. Its fundamental objective is to provide the researcher, the theoretician, the evaluator, and the public policymaker with a common analytic framework. Direct and indirect effects of investment programs (e.g., in education, economic development, and health) can be documented longitudinally, and the community analyzed as an independent, dependent or mediating variable. The roots of this approach in social science and policy theory are explored. Five concepts (Status, Change, Interaction, Duality of Interaction and Change, and Viability) are incorporated. Community is operationally defined to include fifteen sectors whose interactions and changes can be studied systematically over time. This approach can help to clarify how a community, its people, culture, and institutions, and the outside world both influence and are influenced by investment programs.     

Toward a New Conceptualization of Settlements for Demography

It has long been recognized that where people live and work can be a relevant factor in helping to explain demographic behavior, yet the treatment of location in censuses and surveys remains surprisingly crude. Emphasis is still being given to the urban–rural dichotomy based on definitions that most countries around the world introduced 40 to 50 years ago and have modified little since. Given the increase in the complexity of settlement systems in recent decades in less developed as well as in more developed contexts, this simple classification is no longer adequate for examining the role of settlement in demographic processes. The time has come to rethink how settlement should be differentiated in population data collection and analysis. Contemporary technologies and methodologies make it possible to analyze spatially referenced data in ways that are more rapid and sophisticated than could have been imagined when the conventional approach was devised.     

Toward a general analysis of endogenous Easterlin cycles

Easterlin believed that there were two features associated with the birth cycles he observed: the cycles were related to the labor market, and they might be self-generating. This paper tries to set up a model that contains both of these two features. We suppose that the welfare of various age-specific cohorts are determined by their respective marginal productivity, and that the underlying technology which puts together labor force of various age-specific cohorts can be characterized by a general production function. Under these weak assumptions, we show that the well-analyzed cohort and period models along the lines of Lee (1974) are restricted versions of our general setting. Given that both the cohort model and the period model were rejected by statistical tests, we adopt the coefficient values obtained from the estimation of the unrestricted version to perform the bifurcation analysis. We go beyond the previous study which focused upon the possible existence of limit cycles, and show that the U. S. fertility limit cycle solution is unstable. Therefore the population trajectory will never converge to that limit cycle.We thank Professors Kenneth Wachter, Shripad Tuljapurkar, and two anonymous referees for their valuable help, comments and suggestions.     

Toward a U.S. population policy

The gratifying media results from a concerted national and local publicity effort when Zero Population Growth (ZPG) released its recommendations for a national population policy are reported. Support was received from 10 members of Congress and local leaders. 8 ZPG chapters and the Washington office held press conferences casting the meaning of increased population growth in regional terms. In Cincinnati, ZPG focused on the shortage of landfill space, in San Francisco the water shortage, and in Massachusetts the rapid urbanization of prime farmland. The Congressmen emphasized that the U.S. must have a comprehensive population policy before it can tell other countries they must. Among the ZPG policies recommended are: zero population growth by 2008, increased funding for family planning services and education, special programs for teenagers, greater public education on population dynamics, increased funding for contraceptive research, enforcement of existing immigration laws, comprehensive review of immigration policy, equal rights for women, and more equitable income tax policy.     

Toward Authenticity

Scholars suggest we construct stories or narratives to help us create order and rationalize events that are difficult to explain. In contemporary society, journalists serve as mediated storytellers, and one story journalists have told from the perspective of sense-making is that of mothers who kill their children, a crime that can defy understanding. This qualitative textual analysis examines ten cases of maternal infanticide to determine the collective narrative told by journalists, exploring the dialectical and rhetorical functions of narrative. The analysis reveals that the news narrative offers moral lessons about the consequences of maternal incompetence and “inappropriate” feminine sexual behavior. The author questions whether the journalistic paradigm of detachment—traditionally associated with a masculine narrative style—is the best way to tell stories of women's lives and suggests feminist research practices can be used to capture the complexities of mothering work, as well as other complicated situations in women's and men's lives.     

Impact of a Homonegativity Awareness Workshop on Attitudes Toward Homosexuality

The current study evaluated the effects of a homonegativity awareness workshop on attitudes toward homosexuality and examined individual difference variables associated with attitude change. Participants included 71 female and 43 male students (approximate mean age?=?23). Compared to a control group of introductory psychology students, participants were less homonegative and erotophobic (F(1, 359)?=?62.47 and 15.92, ps?<?.001) after the workshop. Implications for contact with gay and lesbian persons through structured intervention programs on attitudes toward homosexuality are discussed in terms of both the practice and theory of reducing prejudice and discrimination.     

The quality of student life: Toward a coherent conceptualization

Under various guises, the concept of the quality of student life (QSL) has received much attention in the higher education literature. Unfortunately, its various uses have in common that they all lack conceptual coherence. In an effort to remedy this situation, and render QSL useful for researchers, administrators and student services personnel, this paper does three things. First, a conceptual framework is used as a means of organizing a wide-ranging review of relevant literatures across several disciplines. Integration of the inferences derived yields a new formal definition of QSL. Next, building on a critique of four theoretical models of QSL, a new ecological formulation is advanced which stresses the need to consider various on- and off-campus contexts if efforts to assess student satisfaction and happiness are to be meaningful. Third, a number of salient methodological issues are examined in light of this formulation. To the extent that these approaches collectively yield a more coherent conceptualization of QSL, it is concluded that the idea of QSL deserves much greater prominence than it now enjoys.     

Abstract Reasoning as a Predictor of Attitudes Toward Gay Men

This study examined the hypothesis that participants scoring lowest on a measure of abstract reasoning skills would have the highest levels of anti-gay prejudice. It was further hypothesized that abstract reasoning scores would account for variance in prejudice beyond that accounted for by previously established correlates of attitudes toward gay men: sex of the respondent (men being more prejudiced than women), contact with gay people (less contact being associated with higher prejudice), and right-wing authoritarianism (RWA; positively correlating with prejudice). It was also expected that abstract reasoning skills would be negatively correlated with RWA. The results supported each hypothesis. The predictor most strongly related to anti-gay prejudice was RWA, followed by contact with gay people, abstract reasoning skills, and sex of the respondent.     

Towards a theory of insect epidemiology

Summary An attempt is made to consolidate and extend some of our current thoughts on insect epidemiology using graphical reproduction models. Starting with a simple model with a single equilibrium point, the elementary hypothesis is proposed that epidemics erupt when this equilibrium point increases substantially through improvement of the insect's habitat. The extension of this model to more than one coincident equilibria, some of which may be locally stable, is discussed and generalized using the theory of habitat suitability. Use of equilibrium manifolds is suggested to permit greater dimensionality. Lastly, an explanation of insect epidemics, based on the effects of time delays in the response of density-dependent processes, is elaborated and generalized. The influence of spatial dimensions and insect dispersal on the theory is discussed. Scientific Paper No. 4890, College of Agriculture Research Center, Washington State University. Modified from a paper presented at the joint meeting of the Sociedad Mexicana de Entomologia and the Pacific and Southwestern Branches of the Entomological Society of America, held at Guadalajara, Mexico, April 17–22, 1977. This work was conducted under Project 102 and was supported by the State of Washington and the National Science Foundation (Grant Nos. GB-30752 and GB-34718).     

Toward a reappraisal of social indicators for housing in developing nations

The need for social indicators to monitor and evaluate progress in the achievement of certain predetermined goals is now very evident. However, the design and construction of these indiactors still leave much to be desired. This paper analyzes the application of social indicators for housing in the context of the developing nations. The problem of changing standards of acceptable housing over time and the different images and needs of the diverse inhabitants bring the validity of present indicators for housing into question and at least, point out the need for talking social and cultural variables into consideration.     

Convergence of a Discrete-Time Age-Structured Population Toward a Given Steady State Through Controlled Immigration

To explore the concept of stability in an age-structured population with migration, a Markov transition matrix model is built, where age classes can be of different length, and the time step is not necessarily equal to the length of the age class. The conditions under which a vector of the model has a steady population structure are identified, as well as those under which the age structure converges to a given steady state, through a series of decisions or controls of letting immigrants in or forbidding them entry into the country. The decisions are expressed as vectors of proportions of immigrants. In the steady state, when the increment of population is proportional to its size, the age- or stage-structure remains unchanged between transitions.     

Toward a multidimensional understanding of heterosexism: the changing nature of prejudice

Extending the theoretical understanding of modern prejudice into the realm of heterosexism, it is argued that shifts in the manifestation of prejudice against lesbians and gay men have occurred resulting in an increasingly multidimensional modern heterosexism. Four subdomains of modern heterosexism are identified that are conceptually and empirical distinct from the more traditional hostile heterosexism: aversive heterosexism, amnestic heterosexism, paternalistic heterosexism, and positive stereotypic heterosexism. The Multidimensional Heterosexism Inventory is offered as an instrument to capture the four theorized subdomains of modern heterosexism, and an examination of reliability and validity of the scale is presented.     

Toward a Multidimensional Understanding of Heterosexism: The Changing Nature of Prejudice

ABSTRACT

Extending the theoretical understanding of modern prejudice into the realm of heterosexism, it is argued that shifts in the manifestation of prejudice against lesbians and gay men have occurred resulting in an increasingly multidimensional modern heterosexism. Four subdomains of modern heterosexism are identified that are conceptually and empirical distinct from the more traditional hostile heterosexism: aversive heterosexism, amnestic heterosexism, paternalistic heterosexism, and positive stereotypic heterosexism. The Multidimensional Heterosexism Inventory is offered as an instrument to capture the four theorized subdomains of modern heterosexism, and an examination of reliability and validity of the scale is presented.     

The costs of immigration to taxpayers: Toward a uniform accounting framework

Large scale immigration to the United States and a sluggish national economy have brought to the forefront of the current immigration policy debate, the question of whether immigrants fully pay—in the form of taxes—for the public services they use. Recent estimates of the costs of immigration differ so widely that they have confused rather than enlightened that debate. This paper argues that a uniform accounting framework must be agreed to if future studies are to provide credible and reliable estimates of costs and benefits upon which immigration policy can be formulated. The key conceptual, factual, and accounting issues that are to be addressed for the development of such a framework are outlined.