Household division of labor and cross-country differences in household formation rates

This paper considers the extent to which the gender division of labor affects the likelihood of household formation. Using repeated cross sectional data covering highly-developed nations, we consider the differential effects of aggregate social norms regarding the division of household labor. Controlling for other factors that affect the marriage market, our findings indicate that more egalitarian norms are associated with an increase in the probability of forming a household. When additionally controlling for individual attitudes, we find that, ceteris paribus, more egalitarian women are less likely to form a household, while more egalitarian men are more likely to do so. This pattern of results is consistent with economic models of the marriage market where partners contract over the future household division of labor. Moreover, given the salience of household formation as a proximate determinant of fertility, our results potentially shed light onto the process of below replacement fertility and the economic challenges associated with it.     

Demography and the new economy

The term ‘New Economy’ is used to refer to two distinct developments. The first is the increasing importance of pure services, particularly those related to information, and the corresponding decline in the importance of the goods-producing sector. The second is the liberalization of product and labour markets and the resulting decline of institutions like lifetime full employment. This development has been particularly evident in Australia and other English-speaking countries. Although there are connections between these two developments, their demographic implications are quite different. An information-based economy implies long periods of education, late childbearing and a reversal of the trend towards early retirement. Labour market liberalization implies extensive use of redundancy as a tool for labour force flexibility and an accentuation of the trend for workers over 50 to withdraw from the labour market. This trend has been sustainable so far because the baby boom has resulted in an increase in the proportion of the population aged 25 to 54. Within the next decade, this proportion will start to decline. If current institutions are maintained, an economic «ageing crisis» will arrive at least a decade earlier than would be suggested by an examination of traditional dependency ratios.     

Life expectancy and schooling: new insights from cross-country data

I argue that the relationship between life expectancy and schooling crucially depends on which measure of life expectancy one uses. In particular, I show that while the change in life expectancy at birth between 1960 and 1990 is positively correlated with percentage change in schooling, the change in life expectancy at age?5 is, at best, uncorrelated with percentage change in schooling. This evidence suggests that increasing life horizon beyond the early crucial childhood years for formal acquisition of human capital is not as quantitatively important as previously thought.     

County child poverty rates in the US: a spatial regression approach

We apply methods of exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA) and spatial regression analysis to examine intercounty variation in child poverty rates in the US. Such spatial analyses are important because regression models that exclude explicit specification of spatial effects, when they exist, can lead to inaccurate inferences about predictor variables. Using county-level data for 1990, we re-examine earlier published results [Friedman and Lichter (Popul Res Policy Rev 17:91–109, 1998)]. We find that formal tests for spatial autocorrelation among county child poverty rates confirm and quantify what is obvious from simple maps of such rates: the risk of a child living in poverty is not (spatially) a randomly distributed risk at the county level. Explicit acknowledgment of spatial effects in an explanatory regression model improves considerably the earlier published regression results, which did not take account of spatial autocorrelation. These improvements include: (1) the shifting of “wrong sign” parameters in the direction originally hypothesized by the authors, (2) a reduction of residual squared error, and (3) the elimination of any substantive residual spatial autocorrelation. While not without its own problems and some remaining ambiguities, this reanalysis is a convincing demonstration of the need for demographers and other social scientists to examine spatial autocorrelation in their data and to explicitly correct for spatial externalities, if indicated, when performing multiple regression analyses on variables that are spatially referenced. Substantively, the analysis improves the estimates of the joint effects of place-influences and family-influences on child poverty.

Geographic Information Systems and Spatial Data Processing in Demography: a Review

This paper reviews the use of geographic information systems (GIS) software for spatial data processing in demography. The review begins with an introduction to GIS. Next, it traces the three major types of spatial data problems confronting demographers: the geocoding and geoprocessing of microdata, estimation of detailed population surfaces, and combining data aggregated to incompatible zone systems. GIS and non-GIS solutions to these problems are contrasted, with examples from published research. Spatially pre-processed datasets available to demographers are then discussed. The author concludes by noting that the solutions GIS provides to previously intractable data problems in spatial demography might encourage a focus on dynamic processes of population change in local areas.     

Historical Demography: Achievements and Prospects

Historical demography as a separate discipline came into existence when family reconstruction was first developed for the analysis of a pre-transition population. This paper assesses the significant achievements made in this field of population studies since then. Attention is also paid to equally significant findings obtained from aggregative analysis based on back projection, and to a large body of research results for the period of the demographic transition. In the last part of the paper, new research directions are discussed. Data issues as well as methodological ones are raised. Special attention is given to newly emerging Asian historical demography where different source materials require different methods and techniques, which in turn are expected to broaden the scope of the so far disproportionality fertility-oriented field. Finally, discussions are extended to economic, cultural and institutional aspects of the subject, with a plea not to isolate demographic analysis from other branches of historical research.     

The Ergodic Theorems of Demography: a Simple Proof

Standard proofs of the ergodic theorems of demography rely on theorems borrowed from positive matrix theory, tauberian theory, and the theory of time-inhomogeneous Markov matrices. These proofs are efficient and expedient, but they give little direct insight into the mechanism that causes ergodicity. This paper proposes a simple and unified proof of the two ergodic theorems. It is shown that the birth dynamics can be decomposed into a smoothing process that progressively levels out past fluctuations in the birth sequence and a reshaping process that accounts for current period-to-period changes in vital rates. The smoothing process, which causes the birth sequence to lose information on its past shape, is shown to be the ergodic mechanism behind both theorems.     

Politics and fertility: a new approach to population policy analysis

This paper aims to explain why divergentpopulation policies and programs arise in otherwisesimilar countries and to clarify how such policiesrelate to fertility decline. An analysis wasundertaken of demographic and policy change over a 30year period in four pairs of developing countries: Algeria and Tunisia; Bangladesh and Pakistan; thePhilippines and Thailand; and Zambia and Zimbabwe. Insome countries, popular demand for family planningfacilitated changing policy. In others, independentfactors, such as economic crisis or internationalpressure, pushed policy makers into action onpopulation policy, often in the absence of populardemand. In these countries, governments whichidentified a coherent rationale, usually economic, forreducing population growth, tended to develop moresuccessful policies. Strong and financially securecoalitions of policy elites were important in sharingthe political risk associated with such policies. Analysis of these processes has lessons for policymakers and researchers interested in expeditingimplementation of new approaches to population andreproductive health.     

Advancing Methodological Knowledge Within State and Local Demography: a Case Study

Much of the academic literature dealing with state and local demography involves the development and evaluation of methods for estimating population. The focus on estimation methods is not surprising because they are used in many states to allocate resources. The quality control in regard to the validity and reliability afforded these methods by the traditional academic peer review process is important because, among other things, it serves to reduce the high potential for conflict that exists when resources are at stake. There are, however, methods being used by state and local demographers that have not been subject to peer review. While not necessarily unsound, these fugitive methods serve to keep the potential for conflict high because of the uncertainty regarding their validity and reliability. This paper examines just such a situation in the form of a case study. It is a discussion of a regression model developed in Nevada following the 2000 census that led to conflict over its use to estimate the population of Clark County, Nevada in 2002. The discussion reveals statistical and methodological shortcomings in this model that lead to an alternative model not subject to these shortcomings. This example illustrates how this type of analysis and discussion can lead to a wider understanding of methods on the part of practitioners through the corrective process of academic peer review. It also suggests that states in which estimates are used to allocate resources would be well-served by subjecting new methods being considered for use to academic peer review before they are adopted.     

Demography in China: from zero to now

After 20 years of neglect the study of population and demography in China have come to be considered imperative. China has even accepted $50 million from the UN Fund for Population Activities to defray the cost of the 1982 census and help pay for action, training, and research programs. Institutions directed toward population studies have been established in many provinces during the 1970s. The principal types are population training and research institutes and offices within institutions of higher learning. In addition institutes outside the system of higher education and special units of population studies in various medical colleges were initiated. Between 1957-77 the large increase in population began to cause economic problems which were not admitted until the late 1970s. Since 1979 the country's efforts to lower the level of fertility have been organized in major policy statements calling for 1 child/couple and a rate of natural increase causing zero population growth by the year 2000. The Institute of Population Research was created in 1974 and it has provided population projections that have helped form population policy with a major focus on historical stages of growth in China as well as counteracting the lopsided population optimism which existed earlier. In 1978 a conference was held on the science of population theory which identified areas for study such as: 1) population and economics, 2) capitalist population theories, 3) population policies, 4) family planning and economics, and 5) population problems in foreign countries. The author describes some of the literature which was published after the 1978 conference and the reappearance of academic journals in 1979 as well as the 1979 conference. 1980 and 1981 studies dealt with such topics as debates on Malthusian theory, zero population growth, urban and rural populations, historical demography, housing, employment, health improvement of the population, minorities, and fertility determinants. Chinese scholars have also begun to cooperate with their foreign colleagues in a variety of studies. In order to illustrate the wide variety of directions which Chinese population studies are taking the author provides a bibliography of population studies from 1977-81.     

人口学视野下的婚姻家庭研究：内容与方法

人口学视野下的婚姻家庭研究在其内容与方法上呈现出鲜明的特色。本文采用文献计量分析方法。将新中国成立以来人口学婚姻家庭研究的发展划分为两个主要阶段．并分别对婚姻和家庭研究及其主要方法进行了归纳分析,发现人口学研究着重于将婚姻家庭放在整个人口生命周期中,与各主要人口事件和人口过程相联系,尤其关注婚姻家庭与生育之间的关系,指出婚姻家庭作为重要的人口事件和人口社会经济特征,其研究的进一步拓展与深化需要结合多学科视角。     

Racial differences in birth health risk: A quantitative genetic approach

In the United States the gap between black and white babies' birth weights has remained largely unexplained. Rather than trying to measure all relevant variables, we used a genetically informative design to study the relative importance of genetic and environmental factors. Employing multiple indicators of "birth health risk," we found that the racial differences increased with the magnitude of the shared environmental effects. This suggested that possible genetic effects would not pertain to fetal genes, although genes affecting the mother's physical or physiological characteristics could be important because they contribute to shared environment in our analysis.     

Explaining spousal differences in reproductive preferences: A gender inequality approach

Using data from the 1988 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey we show that, contrary to some earlier findings, substantial differences in fertility goals exist between spouses in sub-Saharan Africa. Further, we indicate that gender inequality is associated with these differences in fertility goals. Women in dyads that give nonnumeric responses to questions on preferred family size are very likely to have low status, which may lead them to have high fertility. The need for more research at the micro level is stressed, given the social, economic, and environmental costs of neglecting to do so.     

Fertility and commuting: evidence based on first-birth rates of young working women

The paper studies how commuting, as a demographic, social and economic process, is linked to fertility. It is hypothesised that daily mobility may have changed marriage and cohabitation propensities and, consequently, birth rates. Fertility is affected by cross-space income flows and by their impact on well-being at municipal level caused by commuting. The empirical evidence reveals common and distinct effects of commuting on fertility of those women who involved in daily mobility and not. Increase in the proportion of commuters is associated with a decrease in first-birth rates for both commuters and non-commuters, as they probably tend to stay childless while interacting with single co-workers, friends, and acquaintances. However, first-birth rates of commuting women increase with growth of individual earnings and the average levels of taxable earnings in places of residence. First-birth rates of non-commuting women increase with individual earnings, but drop with growth of average levels of taxable earnings in the place of residence.     

Introduction: Demography of American Indians and Alaska Natives

Population Research and Policy Review -     

Level of development of a country: A possible new approach

Human development is a multidimensional phenomenon. It depends on a number of non-monetary aspects of life (social indicators of development). Per capita gross domestic product (PCGDP) is a means to achieve these nonmonetary aspects of life. To what extent PCGDP of a country is transformed into social development is an important phenomenon. Income elasticities of social indicators with respect to PCGDP reflect such relationship. This study attempts to find income elasticities of eight social indicators of development with respect to per capita real gross domestic product (PCRGDP) adjusted for purchasing power parity and expressed in international dollars for four points of time: 1960, 1970, 1980 and 1990. The income elasticities of social indicators may be identified as necessity, luxury and inferior. On the basis of the nature of the income elasticities of the social indicators of development the level of development of a country may be identified. This paper attempts to identify the level of development of a country on the basis of the nature of the income elasticities of the social indicators of development.     

Demography and COVID-19: risks,responses and impacts

Journal of Population Research -