Black America in the 1980s

This Bulletin reviews recent demographic and socioeconomic trends in the US black population in order to assess changes in the status of blacks relative to whites since publication of the 1962 edition of Gunnar Myrdal's 1944 classic "An American Dilemma." Blacks numbered 26.5 million in 1980, 11.7% of the total population, with 85% residing in urban areas compared to 71% of whites. Some suburbanization is now occurring among blacks but the majority remain segregated in central cities. In the 1970s, more blacks moved into the South than moved out in a reversal of the historic pattern. Blacks have shared the baby bust since the mid-1960s but teenage and out-of-wedlock fertility remain much higher than for whites as well as overall fertility (2.3 compared to 1.8 births/woman in 1979). Black infant mortality is still double that of whites and life expectancy is 6 years shorter (68.3 vs. 74.4 years in 1979). Single parents (mostly mothers) with children now comprise 31% of black families compared to 10% for the general population. Divorce and separation have risen faster for blacks than whites. Many of these gaps are related to blacks' continuing socioeconomic disadvantages: median family income is 56% that of whites; the poverty rate is 3.5 times higher; unemployment is twice as high. Occupational status has improved for blacks and their educational attainment is now close to that of whites, but these gains may be slowed and income differentials unimproved if the current administration's reversal of socioeconomic policy remains unchanged. Blacks are also affected more than other groups by the recent surge in immigrants who compete directly for the low-level jobs on which many blacks must still rely. (author's).     

Who Goes to College,Military, Prison,or Long-Term Unemployment? Racialized School-to-Labor Market Transitions Among American Men

This paper analyzes the selection processes behind post-schooling transitions into college enrollment, military service, long-term unemployment, and incarceration relative to civilian employment, examining to what extent these processes are racialized. Rather than analyzing a complete set of alternatives, previous research typically focuses on a limited set of these alternatives at a time, and rarely accounts for incarceration or long-term unemployment. Using individual-level panel data on the first post-high school transition from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 Cohort, results show that white men experience positive transitions (college enrollment and military service) at higher rates and for longer periods than black men, who experience negative transitions (long-term unemployment and incarceration) at higher rates for longer periods than whites. Competing risk Cox regression analyses reveal that blacks’ transitions are polarized, showing that blacks in the upper distributions of standardized test scores and socioeconomic status are more likely to pursue a college education relative to their white counterparts, whereas blacks in the bottom of the standardized test score and socioeconomic status distribution are more likely to experience negative transitions than whites. Unlike prior research finding that military service provided “bridging careers” for racial minorities, black men are no longer more likely to join the military than whites. Instead, blacks now face a much higher risk of incarceration. Implications for intra-generational mobility and changing opportunity structures for racial minorities are discussed.     

Family planning practice and women's fertility decision-making power

This paper investigates the effects of family planning practice on fertility decision-making power in South Korea. The log-linear analysis of the 1981 survey data by the Institute of Population and Health Services Research, Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea, shows that those urban and rural women who practice family planning or have experienced abortion exercise greater influence on a couple's fertility decision making than those who do not practice family planning or who have had no abortion experience. In addition, there is the interactive effect of abortion experience and contraceptive use on fertility decision making among urban women. This finding is significant because regardless of how birth control is available within a society, birth control use enhances women's decision making power where fertility is concerned.     

The differential attainment of family size goals by Race

Summary The 1973 U.S. National Survey of Family Growth is used to examine the effects of removing number and timing failures from the reproductive histories of various cohorts of white and black married women. Blacks are more fertile than whites primarily because of their greater unwanted fertility. Removing number and timing failures from the past reproductive histories of American women would have reduced their fertility considerably. These reductions would have been greater for blacks than for whites and would be greater if some wanted pregnancies had continued to terminate in foetal loss.     

Modelling Households: A Synthesis

The 1973 U.S. National Survey of Family Growth is used to examine the effects of removing number and timing failures from the reproductive histories of various cohorts of white and black married women. Blacks are more fertile than whites primarily because of their greater unwanted fertility. Removing number and timing failures from the past reproductive histories of American women would have reduced their fertility considerably. These reductions would have been greater for blacks than for whites and would be greater if some wanted pregnancies had continued to terminate in foetal loss.     

Regional-sub-cultural explanations of black fertility in the United States

Summary This paper re-examines the relevance of the hypothesis concerning the Southern sub-culture and black fertility in the United States. According to zero-order correlation analysis, Southern-born blacks show higher fertility than those born in other regions. But a dummy-variable regression technique applied to the data from the 1970 public-use sample indicates that the Southern origin - independent of other factors-is not different from other regions. Southern birth has the effect of increasing black fertility, but much less so than birth in the North Central region. Southern blacks show higher fertility because of their lower socio-economic background. It is concluded that geographical regions in the United States have little or no cultural meaning in explaining reproductive behaviour.     

Regional—sub-cultural explanations of black fertility in the United States

This paper re-examines the relevance of the hypothesis concerning the Southern sub-culture and black fertility in the United States. According to zero-order correlation analysis, Southern-born blacks show higher fertility than those born in other regions. But a dummy-variable regression technique applied to the data from the 1970 public-use sample indicates that the Southern origin — independent of other factors-is not different from other regions. Southern birth has the effect of increasing black fertility, but much less so than birth in the North Central region. Southern blacks show higher fertility because of their lower socio-economic background. It is concluded that geographical regions in the United States have little or no cultural meaning in explaining reproductive behaviour.     

Cohort estimates of nonmarital fertility for U.S. Women

Historical trends in U.S. nonmarital fertility have been compiled almost exclusively from vital statistics on births. This paper complements this historical record by providing cohort estimates of nonmarital fertility for cohorts of U.S. women spanning approximately 50 years of cohort experience. Life table estimates using retrospective marital and fertility histories in the June 1980, 1985, 1990, and 1995 Current Population Surveys reveal nonnegligible levels of nonmarital fertility historically. For women born between 1925 and 1929, nearly 1 in 10 had at least one nonmarital birth by age 30. For women born between 1965 and 1969, more than 1 of 4 had one or more nonmarital births by age 30, with roughly 1 of5 white, 3 of 5 black, and 1 in 3 Hispanic women having at least one nonmarital birth by age 30. Life table estimates reveal a twofold increase between ages 20 and 30 in the percentage of women with at least one child outside of formal marriage for all cohorts of white and Hispanic women, and an increase of roughly two-thirds for all cohorts of black women. I also document qualitative differences in nonmarital fertility by race/ethnicity, with the percentage of nonmarital births following a divorce or marital separation for white women approximately twice that for black or Hispanic women. Finally, I introduce a new measure, the cohort nonmarital fertility ratio (CNMFR), which provides a cohort complement to the standard period nonmarital fertility ratio. Conservative estimates reveal a roughly threefold increase in the CNMFR for women born from 1925-1929 to 1950-1954 for both whites and blacks, despite substantially higher levels of nonmarital fertility among black women. Overall, these findings reveal surprisingly high levels of nonmarital fertility for women born since the 1920s and confirm that nonmarital fertility has become an increasingly substantial component of overall U.S. fertility.     

The difference in unwanted births between blacks and whites

Blacks are more likely than whites to have unwanted births. A common explanation for that difference is that blacks use less effective contraceptive methods, use contraception less effectively, and use contraception less often than whites. Analysis of data from 17 cities in our family planning evaluation project suggested that, among women living in low-income neighborhoods, the black-white difference in unwanted births was not due to (1) blacks reaching desired completed parity at younger ages than whites, (2) differences in age or parity in our black and white samples, (3) black-white differences in current use of physician-administered contraception, or (4) blacks being more likely than whites to adopt physician-administered contraception after having an unwanted birth. Black-white differences which might have contributed to relatively more unwanted births among blacks were (1) blacks desired fewer children, (2) blacks were less likely than whites to use nonphysician-administered methods and more likely than whites to use no contraception, and (3) blacks had higher failure rates than whites subsequent to the adoption of physician-administered methods and when not using those methods. Comparisons are made with the 1965 and 1970 National Fertility Studies, and program implications of the findings discussed.     

The Persistence of High Fertility in the American South on the Eve of the Baby Boom

Pockets of high fertility persisted in some areas of the American South through the Great Depression. Most other areas of the country adopted modem fertility patterns considerably earlier in the century; these “laggard” areas are clear exceptions to the national demographic revolution in family building. In this paper we attempt to identify the factors that account for the persistently high fertility in some southern regions. We use county-level data for 1940 to assess the utility of three theoretical models of fertility: structural, diffusion-innovation, and health. Differences by race are also considered, in view of the distinctly different histories of whites and African-Americans in the south. Our findings suggest that unicausal explanations for the persistence of high fertility are too simplistic; all three theoretical perspectives receive empirical support. Considerable similarity is observed in the findings for blacks and for whites. Yet important differences also emerge, especially the more powerful effects of structural variables on white fertility. We conclude that the evidence indicates the need for “diversity” in the study of demographic behavior. Not only should we examine a variety of causal mechanisms for demographic phenomena; we also should consider the varying utility of those mechanisms across different social groups.     

Racial differences in contraceptive choice: Complexity and implications

Previous research has failed to generate consensus about why black fertility has persistently exceeded that of whites in the United States. In an effort to shed light on this question, this article examines black/white differences in sociodemographic factors affecting contraceptive choice. Using data from the 1976 and 1982 National Surveys of Family Growth, we find a complex pattern of black/white differences. Not only does contraceptive choice vary by race, but the effects of such variables as age, marital status, and education also differ between blacks and whites. For example, compared with whites, black married women avoid coital methods, and compared with blacks, white women shift contraceptive behavior more as they change marital status. The complex nature of the racial differences in contraceptive choice are interpreted as reflecting differences in marriage patterns and trends.     

Demographic aspects of fertility in Thailand

Abstract Data from a national rural and urban sample survey are analysed in order to examine various demographic aspects of fertility in Thailand. Marital fertility rates found for Thailand are among the highest in Asia. Particularly noteworthy is the persistence of high fertility at older ages of childbearing for rural women. Cumulative fertility shows a pronounced relationship with age at marriage and current marital status. Women who marry at an older age or who experience disruption of their marriages are clearly more likely to have fewer children ever born. Differences in both current and cumulative fertility are strongly associated with residence. Rural women who constitute the vast majority of Thai women, experience the highest fertility, Bangkok-Thonburi women experience the lowest fertility and provincial urban women are characterized by an intermediate fertility level which is closer, however, to the experience of their counterparts in the capital than in the countryside. Rural-urban fertility differences are mitigated but by no means eliminated by differences in infant mortality. In both rural and urban areas a positive association between cumulative fertility and infant morality is evident. Breast-feeding, commonly practised for extended periods-among both rural and urban Thai women, undoubtedly serves to some extent as an intervening variable in this relationship. A comparison of current fertility with cumulative fertility strongly suggests that a decline in marital fertility has been under way recently among urban women, especially those residing in the capital, but not at all among rural women. Although it seems safe to assume that the urban fertility decline results in large part from an increasing use of contraception among urban women, those still in the reproductive ages who were using or had previously used birth control were characterized by higher cumulative fertility than women who had never practised contraception. Evidently couples resort to family planning only late in the family building process after they have already achieved or exceeded the number of children they wish to have.     

Segregation of minorities in the metropolis: two decades of change

Data from Census 2000 show that black-white segregation declined modestly at the national level after 1980, while Hispanic and Asian segregation rose in most metropolitan areas. Changes that may have produced greater changes for blacks proved to have insignificant effects: there was no net shift of the black population toward less-segregated areas, segregation at the metropolitan level did not decline more in areas where the incomes of blacks came closer to the incomes of whites over time, and the emergence of more multiethnic metropolises had no impact. As in the past, declines were centered in the South and West and in areas with smaller black populations. Increases in Hispanic and Asian segregation in individual metropolitan areas were counterbalanced by a net movement of these two groups toward areas of lower segregation. These increases were associated especially with the more rapid growth in the Hispanic and Asian populations. Hispanic segregation increased more in regions where group members had declining incomes relative to the incomes of whites and included a growing share of immigrants.     

Location of adult children as an attraction for black and white elderly return and onward migrants in the United States: Application of a three-level nested logit model with census data

This article assesses the influence of the location of adult children on the 1985-90 interstate migration of black and white elderly "nonnatives" (i.e., those whose state of residence in 1985 was different from their state of birth) in the United States, based on the application of a three-level nested logit model with 1990 census data. The model accounts for (1) the choice between departing and staying put, (2) the choice between return and onward migration, and (3) the choice of a specific destination. The main findings are as follows. First, elderly nonnatives were strongly attracted by the location of their adult children when they made their migration decisions at all levels of the choice framework, and this attraction was stronger for the widowed than for those of other marital statuses. This finding can be taken as empirical support for Eugene Litwak's theory of the modified extended family. Second, in the return/onward and destination choice processes, the attraction of the location of adult children was found to be stronger for whites than for blacks. This finding is consistent with the finding of Hogan et al. (1993) that whites had stronger inter-generational connections than did blacks.     

Multiple Meanings of Minority Concentration: Incorporating Contextual Explanations into the Analysis of Individual-Level U.S. Black Mortality Outcomes

Prior research on mortality for U.S. blacks focuses on the detrimental effects of minority concentration and residential segregation in metropolitan areas on health outcomes. To date, few studies have examined this relationship outside of large U.S. central cities. In this paper, we extend current research on the minority concentration and mortality relationship to explain the rural advantage in mortality for nonmetropolitan blacks. Using data from the 1986–1994 linked National Health Interview Survey/National Death Index, we examine the rural-urban gap in mortality for U.S. blacks. Our findings indicate that blacks in nonmetropolitan areas experience a lower risk of mortality than metropolitan central city blacks after indicators of socio-economic and health status are controlled. Our findings also point to the importance of accounting for contextual factors. Net of individual level controls, minority concentration exerts differential effects across metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas, such that nonmetropolitan black residents experience a lower risk of mortality in high minority concentration areas than blacks in metropolitan central city areas. This finding suggests a reconceptualization of the meaning for minority concentration with respect to studies of health outcomes in nonmetropolitan communities.     

Residence background,socioeconomic status,and fertility

Previous research has demonstrated that socioeconomic differentials in fertility are heavily influenced by couples with rural background. These studies show an inverse relationship between fertility and socioeconomic status for couples of rural background, but no relationship for urbanorigin couples. The effect of urban background on rural fertility differentials has not been examined. This study investigates the potential effect of urban-origin couples on socioeconomic differences in fertility in rural areas. Data from the 1967 Survey of Economic Opportunity are analyzed to show that rural socioeconomic fertility differences are not influenced by the presence of persons of urban background.     

A decomposition of trends in the nonmarital fertility ratios of blacks and whites in the united states, 1960–1992*

We use a method of standardization and decomposition developed by Das Gupta to update Smith and Cutright’s analysis of demographic factors responsible for increases in the nonmarital fertility ratio (illegitimacy ratio) among blacks and whites in the United States. We create standardized rates for each year between 1960 and 1992, and consistent, exhaustive decompositions of the nonmarital fertility ratio for any interval during this period in terms of four components: (1) the age distribution of women of reproductive age, (2) the proportion of women unmarried at each age, (3) the age-specific birth rates of married women, and (4) the age-specific birth rates of unmarried women. Nonmarital fertility ratios are much higher among blacks than among whites, but both increased monotonically from 1960 to 1992. During the last 10 years, each increased by nearly 10 percentage points. Increases in the proportion of women not married, at all ages, account for the preponderance of the increase in black nonmarital fertility ratios. Increasing rates of unmarried childbearing, however, have played a role during the most recent decade (1983–1992). For whites, from 1960 until 1975, declines in marital fertility were most important in producing increases in the proportion of children born out of wedlock. Since then, these proportions have increased primarily because of increases in unmarried women s birth rates, and secondarily because of declines in the proportion of women who are married. These trends are consistent with arguments that emphasize declining economic incentives to marry and reduced access to, and acceptability of, abortion.     

2000年以来中国城乡生育水平的比较分析

我国城乡生育水平、发展趋势及差异程度的对比研究对于人口发展问题意义重大。首先通过运算,得出了城乡总和生育率指标数值,呈现出2000年以来十年间城乡生育状况,然后对这些数据进行了细致的比较与分析。研究结果表明：尽管十年中生育水平呈现波动状态,但农村总和生育率一直都低于1．8,城镇则低于1．3,差异近几年有逐步缩小的趋势;城乡生育水平差异主要来自二孩生育率的差异,二孩生育率近十年来有微弱上升趋势;一孩生育率受民俗等因素影响较大,城镇波动大于农村;平均生育年龄推迟现象在城镇、农村一直都在缓慢持续。