Macro-effects of changes in household preferences for children

The basic ideas underlying the analysis in this paper are that family size can be viewed as an economic life cycle decision and that there are decision trade-offs among fertility, consumption, and leisure. A micromodel of life cycle choice is developed and embedded in an economic-demographic macromodel. The macromodel is then used in a series of computer experiments to assess the effects on the population and the economy of changes in household preferences for children. The experiments include factual and counterfactual simulations of Canadian historical demographic experience and simulations of alternative future scenarios. The analysis and conclusions have general relevance for countries that have been through a fertility boom-and-bust sequence.We are grateful for the support received from Health and Welfare Canada's Review of Demography and Its Implications for Social and Economic Policy and from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. We are grateful also to Christine H. Feaver, who carried out the computer-related aspects of the work on which this paper is based.     

Population in context: A typology of environmental driving forces

This paper presents a typology and qualitative model of causation for use in assessing the relative contributions of population growth to problems of pollution, lost biodiversity, and natural resource depletion. Population growth is placed in context as one of eight key driving forces that shape environmental quality today. It is treated primarily as an impact amplifier, along with technology. Root causes are traced to paradigmatic beliefs—especially anthropocentrism and contempocentrism—which find expression in unsustainable consumption patterns and designs of political economy.     

Migrant stock vs. lagged migrant flow as a determinant of migrant settlement. A comment on Anjomani and Hariri

In a recent contribution to this Journal Anjomani and Hariri present an interesting study of United States interstate migration which explicitly incorporates so-called flow diversion and flow creation effects. Their discussion and evaluation of the model, however, are marred by several factors. This paper contrasts the roles of migrant stock and lagged migration in migration analysis and then addresses (a) the problems encountered when the family-friends effect is proxied with measures of lagged migrant flows, (b) the problem of using a two-period lagged value of earlier migrant flow as an explanatory variable, and (c) this paper suggests an alternative method of correcting the Anjomani-Hariri model's problems with multicollinearity.The author is grateful to Walter J. Wadycki and to David A. Macpherson for helpful comments and suggestions. The author, of course, bears full responsibility for all errors that remain. This research benefited from a grant from the Miami University Committee on Faculty Research.     

Reflections on sustainability,population growth,and the environment

The related terms, sustainable and sustainability, have become popular and are used to describe a wide variety of activities which are generally ecologically laudable. At the same time, the term compromise is heard more frequently because the needs of the environment often are in conflict with the needs of humans. A brief examination of the question of compromise shows that a series of ten compromises, each of which saves 70% of the remaining environment, results in the saving of only 3% of the environment. Judging from the ways in which the terms sustainable and sustainability are used, their definitions are not very precise, especially when compromises are involved. An attempt is made here to give firm definition to these terms and to translate the definition into a series of laws and hypotheses which, it is hoped, will clarify the implications of their use. These are followed by a series of observations and predictions that relate to sustainability.     

Community-Run Fisheries: Avoiding the “Tragedy of the Commons”

This paper discusses how fishing communities around the world avoid destructive overfishing through local and largely informal self-management. The paper offers many examples that undermine the widespread assumption that the tragedy of the commons is inevitable without government regulation.     

Earth,the Business of the Future: From Ego Energy to Eco Energy

Just as we have a turn around manager to save a failing business organization, so it is held, we need a turn around perspective to retrieve the Earth from being in a deficit position. Hence the paradoxical emphasis upon the Earth as the business of the future. Two important distinctions are offered which together provide a new frame of reference for bonding the human and the Earth. The initiating event for the first distinction was a business conference whose purpose was to explore the emerging domain of ego energy. In a parallel way, it is proposed we explore the yet to be discovered domain of eco energy. With eco energy we open our narrowed human window to cosmic perception. With cosmic perception, the energy of the universe can flow through us. The second distinction is between looking at and seeing. Looking at refers to treating our world as a collection of objects. As a collection of objects the Earth can be processed as a series of business transactions. With seeing we relate to our world as a communion of subjects. Such seeing offers transforming power for the human and the Earth to engage in the dialogue of powerful listening and speaking on both individual and planetary scale. These two sets of distinctions are sounded like echo chambers against ten ecologically guiding statements. These ten guiding statements become a reality-testing, experiential framework. Such a turn around perspective offers a different vision to be operationalized in our individual, community, and business lives. Then we can see clearly and respond with eco energy to the Earth, the business of the future!     

The welfare effects of labour force growth with internationally mobile capital

The effects of labour supply growth on the welfare of preexisting destination and non-emigrating source populations are analysed. This growth occurs in open economies where free trade in capital goods is possible. Traditional small economy arguments for population growth rely on the existence of priced though internationally immobile factors. When all factors are freely-traded and population grows naturally the case rests either on market distortions or common property within families. In an integrated world labour growth can lead to capital flight and increasing wage differentials. With international interactions, immigration increases preexisting welfare in destination countries but generally (not always) reduces it for non-emigrants in source countries. Immigration provides efficiency gains to all originally resident in source countries. Natural population growth anywhere promotes efficiency gains everywhere.     

Native wage impacts of foreign labor: a random effects panel analysis

Natives often fear labor market competition of foreigners, as they may induce declining wages and rising unemployment as in the case of natives and immigrants being substitutes. However, there is also the potential that they are complements, producing positive wage and employment effects. This issue is examined in a framework with two types of labor, such that low qualified native and immigrant workers (blue collar), although substitutes for one another, are potentially complements to high qualified native workers (white collar). This is thought to accurately reflect the past West German immigration experience. Examining the wage functions of white and blue collar natives in a random effects panel model using a vast sample of micro data, we actually find that foreigners negatively affect the wages of Germans on the whole. Relatively small gains are made by white collar employees with less than 20 years experience, but these are outweighed by the larger negative effects experienced by blue collar employees.We wish to thank Don DeVoretz, Riccardo Faini, Andrea Ichino, and participants at the following 1993 conferences for their valuable comments where drafts of this paper were presented: The Economics of International Migration: Econometric Evidence at the University of Konstanz, Internationale Migration und Arbeitsmarkt der Schweizerischen Gesellschaft fur Statistik und Volkswirtschaftslehre at the University of St. Gallen, Adjustment Policies in Previously Centrally Planned Economies: Which Lessons from Developing Countries Experiences at the University of Brescia, and Congress of the European Society for Population Economics in Budapest. Substantial revisions were made following the valuable suggestions of two anonymous referees and the special issue editor Wolfgang Franz, for which we are grateful.     

A simple method for projecting or estimating α and β: An extension of the Brass Relational Gompertz Fertility Model

This paper proposes a simple method that analytically links the parameters and , which are not demographically interpretableand measurable in the Brass Relational Gompertz Fertility Model, with demographic measures of median age and interquartile range. We also extend the Brass model that deals only with age-specific fertility to age-parity-specific fertility, first marriage, divorce, remarriage, and leaving the parental home. The method has been successfully tested by fittings to 180 reliable observed demographic schedules in various countries and periods, and to nearly 10,000simulated schedules with various combinations of possible values (including the extremes) of and . Our proposed method that uses median age and interquartile range instead of and as input is useful in the population and family household projections. It releases the traditionalunrealistic assumption in population projections that the curve of the fertility schedule moves to the right or left in a parallel way. Instead, using our proposed method, one can assume that the demographic events would be delayed or advanced, while the curve becomes more spread or more concentrated, or, more specifically, assume that young people delay the events more than the older persons do, or vice versa. Our proposed method is also useful to formulate assumptions on future demographic trends for purposes of policy analysisand planning. It can be used to indirectly estimate demographic schedules when the detailed age-specific data are not currently available, which is useful for developing countries and sub-region studies in developed countries. A crucial point for a successful application of the method is that the standard schedule chosen can capture the general pattern of the demographic process in the population under study.     

On Exponential Growth and Half-Lives: A Comment on Bermingham

A recent paper (hereafter referred to as the Paper), Bermingham (2003), presented what appeared to be an analytical review of current situation of declining population growth rates in many parts of the world. The Paper suggested that the increasing growth rates before about 1970 constituted exponential growth, but that the currently declining growth rates were not exponential growth. Hence, the paper asserted that we should not use the terms exponential growth and doubling times in describing the current situation. Many of the suggestions in the paper are contrary to established mathematics. These suggestions are examined here in some detail.     

Sexual and Reproductive Strategies Among Serbian Gypsies

This paper deals with a full range of sexual and reproductive behaviors among different tribes of Gypsies in Serbia. The examined traits include rates of fertility, mortality, age distribution, education, crime rates, and parental care. In addition, Gypsy traditions of culturally prescribed sexual behavior are also studied. It is found that Gypsy tribes employ different reproductive strategies, ranging from an extreme, for humans, r (reproductive) strategy to a more typical K (parental) strategy. The reasons bringing about these differences come from the Gypsies' readiness to adjust their behavior and reproduction in order to create the most favorable strategy in a given environment. This paper elucidates and contrasts the more typical r-selected Gypsies with a group of K-selected Gypsies living in a Serbian village.     

Three Centuries of Global Population Growth: A Spatial Referenced Population (Density) Database for 1700–2000

The Earths surface has changed considerably over the past centuries. Since the start of the Industrial Revolution in the early 1700s, humans from the Old World started to colonize the New World. The colonization processes lead to major changes in global land use and land cover. Large parts of the original land cover have been altered (e.g., deforestation), leading to extra emissions of GHGs to the atmosphere and enhancing global climate change. The spatial and temporal aspects are still not very well known. More and more global integrated environmental assessments concerning global sustainability require long time series of global change indicators, of which population is an important one. This study presents an update of the geo-referenced historical population maps for the period 1700–2000, part of the History Database of the Global Environment (HYDE), which can be used in integrated models of global change and/or global sustainability.     

Changing Industrial Metabolism: Methods for Analysis

Research in the field of industrial metabolism traditionally has been focused on measuring and describing physical flows of economic systems. The metabolism of economic systems, however, changes over time, and measuring material flows is insufficient to understand this process. Understanding the relation between economic activities and material flows can help to unravel the socio-economic causes of these physical flows. Three issues are addressed: The importance of spatial scales and trade flows, empirical analysis of relations between economic development and material flows, and treatment of behaviour of and interactions between stakeholders. For each of these issues, methods for analysis are suggested.     

Factors Affecting Birth Rates among White Women 20–24 Years of Age: A Trend Analysis (January 1972–march 1992)

Using Current Population Survey data, Vital and Health Statistics data, photoperiod data and temperature data, this article attempts to provide an interdisciplinary explanation of monthly (N = 243) variation in the dependent variable representing the birth rate (the rate of conceptions that become live births) for white women 20–24 years of age. Among the selected explanatory variables, four were found to play significant roles in accounting for the variation of the birth rate. They were rates of female absence from the labor market (nonparticipation plus unemployment), male employment rates, length-of-night variations and the days in the month of conception. Rainwater's concept of validating activities (1974) and recent quality of life research regarding domains serve as a basis for development of the concepts compensatory validation and contextual compatibility. Research and policy implications are discussed.     

Do family caps reduce out-of-wedlock births? Evidence from Arkansas,Georgia, Indiana,New Jersey and Virginia

During the 1990s, 23 states implemented family cap policies as a means to reduce the incidence of out-of-wedlock births among welfare recipients. Using Current Population Survey data from 1989 to 1999, we examine the impact of family cap policies on the birth rates of single, less-educated women with children. We use the first five states that were granted waivers from the Department of Health and Human Services to implement family caps as natural experiments. Specifically, we compare trends in out-of-wedlock birth rates in Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, New Jersey and Virginia to trends in states that did not implement family caps or any other waivers prior to the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. We employ several techniques to increase the credibility of results from our natural experiment, such as the inclusion of multiple comparison groups, controls for differential time trends, and difference-in-difference-in-differences estimators. Our regression estimates generally do not provide evidence that family cap policies reduce the incidence of out-of-wedlock births among single, less-educated women with children.     

Purchased child care,optimal family size and mother's employment Theory and econometric analysis

The paper develops a model of family size decisions in which couples choose explicitly a combination of mother's time and purchased childcare (e.g. childminders, nannies) for the care and rearing of children. The theoretical model implies that the impact of the mother's wage on her completed fertility varies with the market price of childcare, and that this effect increases (becoming less negative or more positive) with the level of her wage. Econometric analysis of British micro-data confirms the main predictions of the model.I am grateful to Robert E. Wright for research assistance, and to the Economic and Social Research Council for supporting this research as part of the research programme Income Inequality, Gender and Demographic Differentials. Financial support from the Nuffield Foundation grant no. PT/9, Family Formation and Employment Activity is also gratefully acknowledged.     

Multiple-Scale Integrated Assessments of Societal Metabolism: Integrating Biophysical and Economic Representations Across Scales

The crucial challenge for integrated analyses of socioeconomic systems is keeping coherence in their multidimensional representation. Our approach describes the hierarchical structure of socioeconomic systems using the profile of allocation of human activity over a set of compartments defined at different hierarchical levels (e.g., whole countries, economic sectors, individual households). Compartments are characterized in terms of intensive variables (intensity of both exosomatic energy flows and added value flows per unit of human activity) and the extensive variable Total Human Activity population. In this way, relations of congruence across hierarchical levels can be used to link non-equivalent analyses. That is, changes in demographic variables, economic variables, technical coefficients, indices of environmental loading, institutional settings, and social aspirations are no longer independent of each-other even if described within different scientific disciplines.     

Immigrant and native responses to welfare reform

We investigate the effect of welfare reform in the US on the employment and hours of work of low-educated foreign-born and native-born women. For foreign-born women, we investigate whether the effect of welfare reform differed by year of immigration. We also examine whether the immigrant provisions of welfare reform had a chilling effect on those who remained eligible for benefits. Results suggest that welfare reform induced low-educated women to increase their labor market attachment; reform had larger effects on the least educated native-born women and among foreign-born, larger effects on more recent arrivals. The chilling hypothesis is not supported.All correspondence to Robert Kaestner. The authors thank Lynn Karoly, Christoph Schmidt, seminar participants at the University of Illinois and New School University, and several anonymous referees for comments on a previous draft of this paper. Robert Kaestner is grateful to the Luce Foundation for partial support for this research. Responsible editor: Christoph M. Schmidt.     

Transnational Grannies: The Changing Family Responsibilities of Elderly African Caribbean-Born Women Resident in Britain

This paper explores the role and position of grandmothers in African-Caribbean families resident in Britain. The data used for this paper comes fromm a sample of 180 life-history interviews collected in 1995–1996 from three generations of Caribbean-origin people living in Britain and the Caribbean. Findings from this research suggest that African-Caribbean grandmothers resident in Britain have come to play a less active role within their immediate family compared to earlier historical periods. At the same time however, these grandmothers have come to take on a more a transnational emissary role for their family and kin located throughout North America and Europe. Caribbean-born grandmothers appear to be using more modern means for fulfilling certain traditional tasks like child shifting, story telling or acting as a social safety net. Using their agency African Caribbean-born grandmothers have been able to carve out new niches for themselves despite changes in family structure brought about by migration and settlement patterns in Britain.     

Interstate migration of the US poverty population: Immigration “pushes” and welfare magnet “pulls”

This study evaluates the social and demographic structure of poverty migration during the 1985–90 period based on an analysis of recent census data. Particular attention is given to the roles of two policy-relevant factors that are proposed to be linked to poverty migration. The first of these is the role of immigration from abroad and its effect on the net out-migration of longer-term residents with below-poverty incomes, from States receiving the highest volume of immigrants. Such a response, it is argued, could result from job competition or other economic and social costs associated with immigration. The second involves the poverty population magnet effect associated with State welfare benefits (AFDC and Food Stamp payments) which has come under renewed scrutiny in light of the impending reform of the federal welfare program. The impact of both of these factors on interstate poverty migration is evaluated in a broader context that takes cognizance of other sociodemographic subgroups, and State-level attributes that are known to be relevant in explaining internal migration. This research employs an exceptionally rich data base of aggregate migration flows, specially tabulated from the full migration sample of the 1990 US census (based on the residence 5 years ago question). It also employs an analysis technique, the nested logit model, which identifies separately the push and pull effects of immigration, welfare benefits, and other State attributes on the migration process. Our findings are fairly clear. The high volume of immigration to selected US Statesdoes affect a selective out-migration of the poverty population, which is stronger for whites, Blacks and other non-Asian minorities as well as the least-educated. These results are consistent with arguments that internal migrants are responding to labor market competition from similarly educated immigrants. Moreover, we found that the impact of immigration occurs primarily as a push rather than a reduced pull. In contrast, State welfare benefits exert only minimal effects on the interstate migration of the poverty population—either as pulls or pushes, although some demographic segments of that population are more prone to respond than others. In addition to these findings, our results reveal the strong impact that a State's racial and ethnic composition exerts in both retaining and attracting migrants of like race and ethnic groups. This suggests the potential for a greater cross-state division in the US poverty population, by race and ethnic status.Data Used: 1990 US census tabulations of full migration (residence 5 years ago) sample. Note: Detailed 1990 census statistics on migration of the poverty and nonpoverty populations for individual states can be found in: William H. Frey Immigration and Internal Migration for US States: 1990 Census Findings by Poverty Status and Race, Population Studies CenterResearch Report No. 94-320.This research is supported by the University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty Small Grants Program and by NICHD grant No. R01 HD29725. The migration data for this paper were prepared at the Population Studies Center, University of Michigan from 1990 US Census files. The authors acknowledge Cathy Sun for computer programming assistance, and Ron Lue-Sang for preparing maps and graphics.