China's ‘later’ marriage policy and its demographic consequences

Using data from China's One-Per-Thousand Fertility Survey conducted in 1982, a cohort analysis is carried out to estimate the demographic consequences of the later marriage policy implemented in the People's Republic of China. The findings show that the later marriage policy had a strong positive effect on mean age at first marriage and first birth but a negative impact on the length of the first-birth interval, suggesting that the depressing effects on fertility of the administratively enforced postponement of marriage are more or less offset by adjustments over the first-birth interval by Chinese couples.     

AIDS, “reversal” of the demographic transition and economic development: evidence from Africa

Using country- and region-level data, I investigate the effect of HIV/AIDS on fertility in Africa during 1985–2000. Results differ depending on the variation used and the estimation method. Between estimates that exploit cross-sectional variation suggest a positive significant effect of HIV/AIDS on fertility, whereas within estimates that are identified of off time-series variation show both positive and negative results depending on the HIV/AIDS variable used. These within estimates are insignificant in most of the specifications.     

Macro‐demographic effects of the transition to adulthood: Multistate stable population theory and an application to Italy

We exploit a multistate generalisation of a classical, one‐sex, stable population model to evaluate structural and long‐term effects of changes in the attainment of adulthood. The demographic framework that inspired this paper is provided by Italy, where a strong delay in the transition to adulthood and union formation has been observed over the last several decades. Italy has also experienced very low fertility levels, and the subsequent ageing problems have become of primary concern. We first discuss a theoretical framework based on the model developed by Inaba (1995) and then include the process of transition to adulthood. We consider explicitly some specifications of the general model, and we present two distinct empirical applications, one using macrosimulation and the other one using a linear approximation. Our principal aim is to evaluate the impact of the delay in the attainment of adulthood on reproduction and on the age structure of the population.     

Increasing fertility in cohabiting unions: evidence for the second demographic transition in the united states?

As cohabitation becomes increasingly common and accepted, one might expect the meaning of this arrangement to change. In some countries in Europe (e.g., Sweden), as cohabitation became more prevalent, it moved from a deviant status to an acceptable alternative to marriage. Will the same thing happen in the United States? To investigate this question, I examine increases in the proportion of births occurring in cohabiting unions, using data from the 1987–1988 National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) and the1995 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG). The standardization and decomposition procedure shows that most of the growth in the proportion of births to cohabitors is the result of increases in the proportion of women cohabiting, rather than changes in union formation behaviors surrounding pregnancies.     

The impacts of rapid demographic transition on family structure and income inequality in Brazil, 1981–2011

This study analysed the impact of changing family structure on income distribution. Specifically, it analysed how changes in the proportions of different categories of family in the population contributed to increases in the income of the richest and poorest social strata in Brazil, and the consequent impacts on income inequality. Rural and urban families were compared in order to understand how these dynamics had different impacts on more developed (urban) and less developed (rural) areas. The results emphasize how changes observed in family structure are more pronounced among the richest families, contributing to an increase in (i) the income of the richest families and (ii) income inequality between the richest and poorest families, as well as between urban and rural areas.     

Family policy and couples’ labour supply: an empirical assessment

This paper empirically examines the effect on couples’ labour supply of a universal at-birth cash benefit and a government subsidy equal to 50% of child care expenditure for working parents. The method is first to simulate the effects on labour supply over the adult lifecycle using a calibrated dynamic utility maximisation model of a representative couple, using data drawn from waves of a longitudinal survey for Australia. Then using the same data, the effect of family benefits and the child care subsidy on couples’ hours worked is econometrically estimated. The 50% child care subsidy was found to increase the average couple’s labour supply by the equivalent of 0.75 to 1 h per week whilst children are of pre-school age, and less on average over the couple’s working lifetime. The cash benefit changes were found to have a negligible effect on labour supply.     

Growth in family income inequality, 1970–1990: Industrial restructuring and demographic change

Industrial restructuring and changing population composition frequently have been treated as competing explanations of growing U.S. income inequality. Using the Gini coefficient, we employ a model of conditional change to explore the relative effects of each on changes of family income distribution between 1970 and 1990, across 784 metropolitan areas and public use microdata areas (PUMAs). Changes in both industrial structure and population characteristics are found to have significant and opposite effects on family income distribution, although there are sharp differences by decade in the dynamics that underlie increasing inequality. Our central conclusion is that it is too soon to eliminate deindustrialization as a significant cause of increased earnings inequality.     

Welfare Attitudes and Social Expenditure: Do Regimes Shape Public Opinion?

This article examines the link between regime types, social expenditure, and welfare attitudes. By employing data on 19 countries taken from the World Values Survey, the main aim is to see to what degree the institutions of a country affect the attitudes of its citizens. According to Esping-Andersen (The three worlds of welfare capitalism. Polity Press, Cambridge, 1990) welfare regimes can be classified into Liberal, Conservative, and Social Democratic categories. With this as my point of departure, I put forward two research questions: the first concerns the direct influence of regime type on people’s attitudes; the second seeks to trace the contours of the regime types by arguing that both social expenditure and welfare attitudes are products of a country’s institutional arrangements. These questions are answered through regression modelling and by examining the interplay between welfare attitudes, social expenditure, and welfare regimes. First, we see that there are significant differences in aggregated attitudes between countries belonging to the Liberal and the Conservative regimes, with the former’s citizens holding more rightist views than those of the latter. This is explained by the history and organization of welfare benefits of the two variations of Esping-Andersen’s classification. Second, by graphing welfare attitudes against social expenditure the outline of the three regime types mentioned above may be seen. Similar correspondence is not found with regards to an Eastern European category. All in all, this study renders some support for the regime argument.     

Indigenous demography and public policy in Australia: population or peoples?

This paper reviews the application of demographic analysis to Indigenous Affairs public policy in Australia as an exemplar case of the demography of disadvantage. Demography has found a natural and successful role using census, survey and administrative data, but for the most part this is restricted to a series of gap analyses based on a deficit model of Indigenous well-being as measured by standard social indicators. While useful for macropolicy settings, translation of these research findings into coherent policy on the ground is thwarted by a lack of ethnographically informed data that account for the intercultural world in which many Indigenous people exist and operate. This is because the categories and contexts deployed are uncritically those of the mainstream, and not those reflective of Indigenous social structures or life projects. This inadequacy is explored against the background of an emerging dialogue between demography and anthropology. Ironically, Australian demographers pioneered such a dialogue but so far it has failed to penetrate demographic research that informs Indigenous public policy.     

Declining fertility and policy intervention in Europe: Some lessons for Australia?

The contemporary fertility situation in Europe is outlined with emphasis on trends in the late 1990s. It is shown that while most European countries have lower fertility levels than Australia there is wide variation between countries with respect to both their levels of fertility and their rate of fertility decline. While almost all countries are experiencing fertility decline the rate of decline is higher and the fertility is lower in countries where the male-breadwinner model is strongest. Attempts to influence fertility in European nations are discussed, particularly those involving the introduction of family-friendly policies. It is clear that despite popular beliefs to the contrary, societies where male-breadwinner models influence policy most are those with lowest fertility. The lesson for Australia is that family-friendly policies not only are desirable from the perspective of moving toward gender equality but are likely to stabilize or perhaps even marginally increase fertility.     

The Quality of the Urban Environment Around Public Housing Buildings in Montréal: An Objective Approach Based on GIS and Multivariate Statistical Analysis

The question of the “insertion” in space of public housing into the surrounding urban environment is not new. It has often been examined from the perspective of the social environment, but more rarely from that of the physical environment and the accessibility of public and private services and facilities. To qualify the immediate urban environment around Montréal’s public housing buildings in its complexity, we are proposing a methodological approach based on the use of several spatial databases in GIS: (1) the Montréal public housing database, (2) individual census data for the Montréal CMA, (3) a satellite image, (4) a land use map, and (5) location data on a series of public and private services and facilities. Use of these spatial data enables us to identify various combinations of advantages and disadvantages within the urban living environment in which Montréal’s public housing buildings have been located, according to three dimensions: the social environment, the physical environment, and the accessibility of services and facilities. Our final results show that only a small proportion of public housing tenants (7%) live in residual spaces, that is, in quite unattractive areas of the city which combine a number of urban disadvantages: a degraded physical environment, a high level of social deprivation, and few or no services and facilities.

Public primary health care and children’s health in Brazil: evidence from siblings

The Family Health Program (Programa Saúde da Família) is an initiative of the Brazilian Ministry of Health designed to deliver free primary health care services within communities and households. The program was implemented by municipalities in different periods of time, creating variation in its availability among siblings of different ages. The empirical approach uses this variation to estimate the effect of the program on children’s health in Brazil, in an attempt to control for family and municipality unobserved factors possibly related to the program’s adoption. The results indicate that children for whom the Family Health Program was available in their municipalities during the prenatal period are healthier than children for whom the program was not available during the same period of their lives.     

Māori Cultural Efficacy and Subjective Wellbeing: A Psychological Model and Research Agenda

Māori, the indigenous peoples of New Zealand, experience a range of negative outcomes. Psychological models and interventions aiming to improve outcomes for Māori tend to be founded on a ‘culture-as-cure’ model. This view promotes cultural efficacy as a critical resilience factor that should improve outcomes for Māori. This is a founding premise of initiatives for Indigenous peoples in many nations. However, research modeling the outcomes of increased cultural efficacy for Indigenous peoples, such as Māori, remains limited. We present cross-sectional data modeling the links, and possible causal direction, between Māori cultural efficacy and active identity engagement and levels of (1) satisfaction with personal circumstances and life versus (2) satisfaction with government and the state of the nation more generally (N = 93 Māori). Our data support an opposing outcomes model in which Māori cultural efficacy predicts satisfaction with personal aspects of life, but may simultaneously decrease satisfaction with the nation and methods of governance for Māori peoples. Possible mechanisms governing these opposing effects are discussed.     

On Well-Being and Public Policy: Are We Capable of Questioning the Hegemony of Happiness?

Measuring the well-being of citizens has become established practice in many advanced democracies. In the move to go beyond GDP, indicators of subjective well-being (SWB) have come to the fore, and are increasingly seen as providing a ‘yardstick’ to guide public policy. A strong version of this position is that SWB can (and should) provide the sole basis on which to design and evaluate public policy. This article argues that the increasing dominance of the subjective definition of well-being is problematic, and amounts to a hegemony of happiness. The article examines the fundamental assumptions behind different accounts of well-being, and develops a critique of the ‘strong position’ that sees SWB as the ultimate guide for public policy. First, the connections between the modern debate and classical schools of thought are discussed, and the strong Benthamite SWB approach is contrasted with the alternative Aristotelian capabilities approach. Next, the article examines current practice, using the UK’s Measuring National Well-being Programme as a case study. Finally, the article concludes that SWB has questionable legitimacy as a summary indicator of objective quality of life, and does not, on its own, provide a reliable metric for public policy. The capabilities approach, which takes a pluralist perspective on well-being and prioritises freedom and opportunity, offers a richer and more useful foundation for policy.     

A user’s guide to Lisbon: mobilities,spatial apprenticeship and migrant urban integration*

This paper engages with the ‘mobility turn’ scholarship in order to provide tools for the study of migrants’ integration to urban space. The analysis of urban mobilities draws attention to the practical know-how that underlies mobility practices. I argue that migrants’ urban apprenticeship – that is, the ways migrants learn (to use) city spaces – shape their access to urban resources and their participation in urban life. Based on fieldwork conducted in Lisbon, Portugal, I explore how migrants’ urban knowledges play out in their everyday practices and resonate with broader concerns over migrant integration.     

Inequality and demographic response to short-term economic stress in North Orkney,Scotland, 1855–1910: Sector differences

We examine economic inequality and social differences in infant and child mortality, and fertility responses to food price changes in North Orkney, 1855–1910, using linked vital records. This small population featured a diverse occupational structure, limited land resources, and geographic isolation from mainland Scotland. Segments of Orkney’s non-agricultural working population were living so close to the margin of subsistence in normal years that an increase in food prices in bad years cost the lives of their children. Delayed childbearing, in addition to increased labour intensity, occupational diversification, and poor relief, failed to mitigate the negative effects of unfavourable prices in this group. While previous studies for Western Europe show a strong social gradient in mortality responses to food prices, and for Eastern Asia a strong household gradient, this study shows a strong sectoral gradient, indicating low standards of living for the non-agricultural working population well into the twentieth century.     

The colonialism of Canada’s Métis health population dynamics: caught between bad data and no data at all

In the last two decades, Canada’s brand of colonial recognition politics has fueled several social and cultural changes that have, in turn, produced startling growths in the “Métis population” in Canada. Demographers and policy makers alike have expressed dubiousness about the extent to which “non-demographic factors” (that is, factors other than fertility and mortality) are fueling this growth, a dubiousness expressed in the growing use of “ethnic mobility” to explain population growth. In this article I explore the historical contexts within which the idea of a single Métis population took hold as a statistical technology, the kinds of social and cultural juxtaposition that making use of a single population masks, and the impact single population estimates have on the ability of Métis nation policy actors to fashion evidence-based policy relevant to the concerns of the Métis nation. While the dynamics and the data perused in this article are specific to Canada, they possess broader resonances with other nation-states grappling with their colonial histories and longstanding Indigenous peoples as these dynamics relate to official data dynamics.     

Population change and farm dependence: Temporal and spatial variation in the U.S. great plains, 1900–2000

I investigate the relationship between county population change and farm dependence in the Great Plains region during the twentieth century, using spatial data analysis techniques. This research is rooted in a long-standing sociological and demographic interest in population responses to economic transitions and informs the theoretical understanding of urbanization processes. Using census and environmental data, the analysis challenges earlier assertions of a simple transition in the relationship between farm dependence and population change that accompanied modern technological advancements, namely tractors (the mechanization thesis). Rather than observing the proposed positive-to-negative shift, study results show a negative association throughout the pre- and post-mechanization periods. Partial support is found if the thesis is revised to consider the relationship between population change and the change in farm dependence rather than the level of farm dependence. Findings show mixed support for an alternative argument that nonfarm industries moderate the influence of farm dependence (the industry complex thesis). In contrast to earlier applications of the thesis, industrial relations in the Great Plains context are characterized by specialization rather than cooperation.     

A comment on De Jong and Sell's ‘Changes in childlessness in the United States: A demographic path analysis’

I found De Jong and Sell's recent paper! to be a study in contrasts. On the one hand, the authors have done a good job of scouring the literature for information pertinent to their work. It is evident from the breadth of sources cited that they were both persistent and thorough in this task. I also found their discussions of possible explanations for changing patterns of childlessness to be very good.