Women's transitions in the labour market: a competing risks analysis on German panel data

This paper analyses the transitions between the three states of non-employment, part-time and full-time work of a sample of married women living in West Germany. The questions addressed concern the dynamics of women's labour market transitions and the association of the probability of transition with household and individual characteristics. A non-parametric duration analysis shows that women have a similar attachment to full-time and part-time work in terms of survival, and that survival in non-employment is shorter than in the other two states. Estimates of a parametric discrete-time competing risks duration model show that wives of retired husbands go into full-time work, children under 3 years have a disincentive effect on part-time work and that part-time work is a state that German women prefer to stay in and not a first step to full-time employment, whereas foreign women living in West Germany prefer full-time jobs.I thank Rebecca Blank, John F. Ermisch, Siv Gustafsson, John Micklewright, Pravin Trivedi, Jane Waldfogel and two anonymous referees for helpful discussions and comments, and Hans-Peter Blossfeld for providing access to these data through his research project at the European University Institute of Florence. Responsible editors: Siv S. Gustafsson, John F. Ermisch     

Contraceptive practice in the Philippines: a synthesis

This article puts together all available data on contraceptive prevalence and effectiveness from 1968-83 in an attempt to assess the Philippine family planning program's performance in reducing fertility. 3 indicators of contraceptive effectiveness are discussed -- Pearl pregnancy rates, 12-month continuation rates, and effective protection level. Findings on factors associated with contraceptive prevalence are presented and discussed, with special emphasis on the effects of the Outreach project variables. The argument is that popualtion programs can influence demographic behavior, but the extent of this influence largely depends on the quality of program design and implementation.     

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.     

Environmentalism and Contraceptive Use: How people in less developed settings approach environmental issues

The rise in environmental concerns around the globe has prompted increasing research on the links between such concerns and behavior. However, most studies have focused on pro-environmental behaviors in affluent western societies, such as willingness to pay for environmental protection, pro-environmental political actions, and consumption patterns. Using multiple data sets from the Chitwan Valley Family Study in Nepal, this paper examines the impact of environmental perceptions on contraceptive use in a rural agricultural setting. The results of our analyses show that perceptions about certain aspects of the environment are related to individuals' subsequent use of contraceptives. Specifically, those individuals who think that their environment—agricultural productivity—has deteriorated are more likely to use contraceptives than those who think that their environment has improved or has remained about the same. This study thus provides a first step in our understanding of the relationships between environmental perceptions and fertility behavior in a less developed setting. Paul Mohai is Professor in The School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan.     

Contraceptive practice required to meet a prescribed crude birth rate target: a proposed macro-model (tabrap) and hypothetical illustrations

TABRAP (TArget Birth Rate Acceptor Program) is a computer programmed model that provides a direct solution to the problem of determining the total annual numbers of contraceptive acceptors required to achieve a prescribed crude birth rate target path. Applied to an initial population for which age structure, the fertility schedule, and expected trends in life expectancy and age-specific proportions of females married are known, TABRAP incorporates the following factors: age at acceptance, with acceptors drawn from currently married nonusers; age-method-specific attrition rates of users; a potential fertility schedule of acceptors that allows for aging and sterility; and allowance both for postpartum anovulation and nine months for gestation to time properly the averted births. TABRAP generates annual data on acceptors, couple-years of use, births averted and age-specific fertility rates that meet the crude birth rate target. Resulting changes in population size, age structure and crude vital rates, also yielded, are invariant with respect to acceptor age and method mix. Assuming a target to reduce the crude birth rate from 45 to 30 in ten years, TABRAP is illustrated for seven mixes of acceptor age-method combinations applied to a population approximately that of Thailand, circa 1965.     

An economic analysis of pregnancy resolution in Virginia: specific as to race and residence

This study analyses an economic model of pregnancy resolution; that is, a model of the choice by a pregnant woman to abort her fetus or carry it to term. This analysis, using an analytical model derived from the household utility framework, adds to previous research by presenting race and residence specific estimates of how individual characteristics, history of abortion, and the community-based factors determine women's choices of giving birth vs. abortion. The main data for estimating the model were drawn from the 1984 vital statistics of all induced abortions and live births in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The major findings indicate that low parental education, high maternal age, previous early abortions, and the availability of abortion providers all significantly reduce the probability of choosing the live birth option. Married status and the availability of family planning clinics significantly increase the probability of the live birth option. The findings also suggest that women's choices between abortion and live birth vary substantially with race (white vs. black) and residential (urban vs. rural) location.I am very grateful to Professors Michael Grossman and Theodore Joyce at CUNY/NBER for their advice and comments on earlier version of this paper, to Professors William Hsiao at Harvard and Richard Ernst at USC for their supportive encouragement and insightful comments, and finally to two anonymous referees for their constructive suggestions in revising this analysis.     

Listening to pregnancy dreams: towards a Jungian Inner Map of pregnancy, lactation, weaning and post-weaning

From a Jungian perspective, there is a psychological pattern in the pregnancy, lactation, weaning and post-weaning process, which amounts to a 'physiological initiation' into motherhood, which is relatively unknown in current Western culture. This paper shows how this pattern in dream themes can be elucidated, forming an Inner Map of pregnancy. This map should help mothers better adjust to incipient motherhood, before the birth, and consequently help them to bond better with their babies. Building on the Inner Map, a research program is proposed into bone mineral metabolism post-weaning aimed at empirically grounding Jungian psychology.     

The concept and measurement of child dependency: An approach to family formation analysis

Abstract Two distinctions appear crucial in the study of human fertility: (1) aggregate versus individuallevel analysis; and (2) true explanations versus 'demographic explanations', using Stinchcombe's terminology. Social demographers analysing fertility have been accustomed to using fertility measurements derived from aggregative population analyses, and have largely terminated their analytic efforts at the level of a 'demographic explanation'. The failure to arrive at a social analysis of the process of fertility decision-making may in part to be due to this measurement heritage, which may be inappropriate for individual-level analyses. As a first step in the direction of creating measurement suitable for such analyses, fertility decision-making is labelled as family formation decision-making, and this is linked to the concept of child dependency. Measures of child-years-of-dependency (CYD) are proposed for use in family formation analysis. These integrate current quantity and tempo measures, and have greater potential for use at the level ofthe family. They require no additional data beyond fertility histories, are flexible in terms of non-modal family situations (e.g. divorce, infant or child mortality) and may be indicators of criteria used by couples in planning their fertility. Refinements of the basic CYD measures are explored. These include analyses of average versus marginal costs of child-rearing, age gradients of costs and social class differentials in costs. All of these are intended to make CYD measures more useful in individual cost-benefit analyses of child-bearing and child-rearing.     

Fraught with Ambivalence: Reproductive Intentions and Contraceptive Choices in a Sub-Saharan Fertility Transition

Demographic studies that search for signs of fertility transition in sub-Saharan Africa rarely examine the complex gamut of individual aspirations and misgivings, hopes and frustrations, failures and triumphs that accompany the emerging declines of fertility rates in the subcontinent. This study draws upon qualitative data collected in peri-urban areas of Maputo, Mozambique’s capital and largest metropolis, to explore contradictory meanings and feelings surrounding changes in fertility intentions and contraceptive choices. It argues that although changes in these two aspects of reproductive life are interrelated, they are predicated on distinct types and configurations of external pressures and psychological apparatus, which is often manifested as a puzzling disjunction between fertility preferences and contraceptive use. This disjunction can be further reinforced by persistent gender divisions in reproductive views and strategies. Informal social interaction plays an important role in building societal consensus over fertility matters, but because such interaction deals with reproductive intentions and contraceptive use through largely different mechanisms, it may also help accentuate the intentions-contraception disjunction. This study’s findings therefore call upon both researchers and policymakers to attend more closely to the multidimensionality of fertility transitions in sub-Saharan societies and specifically to the complexities underlying such popular notions as “unmet need for family planning,” “spacing” versus “limiting” births, or “spousal communication” on reproductive matters.     

Contraceptive sterilization in the U. S.: 1965 and 1970

There was an impressive increase between 1965 and 1970 in the prevalence of contraceptive sterilization, an increase that accelerated in the later years of the period and was shared in by virtually all subgroups considered. Among couples in 1970 for whom sterilization had been an option (recognizing that it is a terminal method), about one of every five had chosen this method of contraception. About half of all sterilizations were vasectomies, though vasectomies have outnumbered tubal ligations in recent years. Differentials in prevalence and in increases during 1965–1970 are reported for a number of life-cycle and social variables. In addition, a profile of the contraceptive sterile is presented for recent sterilizations. Significant proportions are relatively young and of low parity at the time of sterilization. In the context of the continued diffusion of the pill and IUD and increases in legal abortion, the net demographic effect of increasing sterilization is regarded as low, though sterilization is an important component of an effective fertility control regime.     

Immigration restrictions and the American worker: An examination of competing interpretations

This paper examines three competing interpretations of support for tougher immigration restrictions. One interpretation posits that tighter restrictions are favored by those in direct competition with immigrants for jobs, namely low or unskilled workers who toil in labor markets that are low-paying and often unstable. A second line of thought is that greater restrictions are favored by workers who perceive immigrants as potential competitors in labor markets, even though there may be no real basis for such perceptions. The third interpretation explaining support for tougher restrictions is rooted in a broad based cultural nativism or nationalism, and relies heavily on traditional theories of prejudice and discrimination. Data for the study are derived from the 1992 National Election Survey, Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research. Contrary to theoretical expectations, neither actual nor perceived economic insecurity explain variations in current levels of support for tougher immigration restrictions among American workers. The theoretical significance of the findings are discussed and elaborated. Suggestions are made for future research in this important area of inquiry.     

Correlated individual frailty: an advantageous approach to survival analysis of bivariate data

"We develop a new model of bivariate survival based on the notion of correlated individual frailty. We analyze the properties of this model and suggest a new approach to the analysis of bivariate data that does not require a parametric specification--but permits estimation--of the form of the hazard function for individuals. We empirically demonstrate the advantages of the model in the statistical analysis of bivariate data." (SUMMARY IN FRE)     

The Role of Contraceptive Supply and Demand in Mexican Fertility Decline: Evidence from a Microdemographic Study

This paper uses retrospective life history data to assess the impact of family planning services on contraceptive use in a rural Mexican township. Between 1960 and 1990 contraceptive use rose and fertility declined dramatically. Both contraceptive supply and demand factors were influential in these trends. The start of the government-sponsored family planning programme in the late 1970s was associated with a sharp rise in female sterilization and use of the IUD. However, once we controlled for the changing socio-economic and demographic characteristics of the sample, the presence of family planning services had no significant effect on the likelihood that women used modern reversible methods compared to traditional methods. Men and women expressed concerns about the safety of modern methods such as the pill and the IUD. Efforts to increase modern contraceptive use should place greater emphasis on communicating the safety of these methods and improving the quality of services.     

Sexual orientation and earnings: a register data-based approach to identify homosexuals

This paper examines earnings differentials between homo- and heterosexual individuals by identifying sexual orientation with the help of information from register data. Register data enable us to avoid the misclassifications of sexual orientation often mentioned as a potential bias in survey-based studies. The results show that gay men are at an earnings disadvantage as compared to male heterosexuals while the earnings differential between lesbians and heterosexual women is very small. Our results are in line with results from previous research but are more reliable since we use a more reliable measure of sexual orientation than previous research.     

From birth expectations to birth forecasts: a partial-adjustment approach

"As women's expectations about their own future fertility tend to deviate systematically from realizations, these expectations cannot be used directly for forecasting purposes. This paper discusses a partial-adjustment approach for deriving forecasts from the expectations. The sensitivity of the results to various assumptions is examined. Empirical results obtained for the Netherlands seem promising."     

Cohabitation and Contraceptive Use in the United States: A Focus on Race and Ethnicity

Population Research and Policy Review - While cohabitation has been increasing and a growing context to have and raise children, there has been little attention to one of the key determinants of...     

Microcredit,Family Planning Programs,and Contraceptive Behavior: Evidence From a Field Experiment in Ethiopia

The impact of community-based family planning programs and access to credit on contraceptive use, fertility, and family size preferences has not been established conclusively in the literature. We provide additional evidence on the possible effect of such programs by describing the results of a randomized field experiment whose main purpose was to increase the use of contraceptive methods in rural areas of Ethiopia. In the experiment, administrative areas were randomly allocated to one of three intervention groups or to a fourth control group. In the first intervention group, both credit and family planning services were provided and the credit officers also provided information on family planning. Only credit or family planning services, but not both, were provided in the other two intervention groups, while areas in the control group received neither type of service. Using pre- and post-intervention surveys, we find that neither type of program, combined or in isolation, led to an increase in contraceptive use that is significantly greater than that observed in the control group. We conjecture that the lack of impact has much to do with the mismatch between women’s preferred contraceptive method (injectibles) and the contraceptives provided by community-based agents (pills and condoms).