Demographic determinants of labour market in Poland in 1990-2000

The author examines factors affecting Poland's transition to a market economy, including changes in the age, sex, and spatial distribution of the labor force. Educational status is also considered. The analysis concerns the period 1975-2000, with emphasis on the years from 1988 to 1990.     

Measurement of adult mortality in less developed countries: a comparative review

"This paper compares the direct and indirect methods used to measure adult mortality in the developing world. No other approach can substitute fully for accurate and complete vital registration, but in many countries it is unrealistic to expect the registration system to cover the majority of the population in the foreseeable future.... The difficulties involved in measuring adult mortality using surveys and other ad hoc inquiries are discussed.... While the choice of methods must depend on each country's situation, direct questions require very large samples and are unreliable in single-round inquiries. On the other hand, although indirect methods provide less detailed and up-to-date information than is ideal, they are adequate for many practical purposes. In particular, the experience of the 1980s suggests that questions about orphanhood perform better than earlier assessments indicated, and recent methodological developments have circumvented some of the limitations of the indirect approach."     

Age-sex structure of the United States in 2000: Early results from Census 2000

Recently data on age and sex for the United States have beenreleased in the Census 2000 data product Summary File 1. This paper presents someearly analysis on the shape of the age and sex structure from Census 2000 data throughstatistics and graphics on national and sub-national levels. Also highlighted are comparisonswith data from the 1990 census.     

Indonesian survey looks at adolescent reproductive health

The Baseline Survey of Young Adult Reproductive Welfare in Indonesia, conducted from September to December 1998, provides information about young Indonesians on topics concerning work, education, marriage, family life, sexuality, fertility, and HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. The survey interviewed 4106 men and 3978 women aged 15-24 years in three provinces of Java. Survey findings showed that 42% of the women and 8% of the men are currently or have been married. There was a strong inverse relationship between marriage and schooling, which suggests that greater educational attainment and a higher average age at marriage are likely to go together. Although most young couples prefer to delay and space births, only half of currently married young women are using any type of contraception. These results indicate that there is a need for better reproductive health care as well as improved reproductive health education. Moreover, the current economic crisis has lead to a decline in the use of the private sector for health care. Instead, young people are using the less-expensive government services, and young women are turning to pharmacies and midwives rather than to private doctors to obtain contraceptives. These findings have several policy implications including the need for reproductive health programs that provide services needed by young people.     

Survival of related individuals: an extension of some fundamental results of heterogeneity analysis

"Many ideas in the analysis of heterogeneous mortality are based on the relationship between individual and observed hazard rates. This connection is established with the help of conditional averaging procedure: The observed risk of death at age x is calculated among those who survive this age. The analogy of this result for bivariate survival model with correlated individual hazards is derived. In the case of correlated frailty model the parametric specification of the mean, variance and correlation coefficient of the bivariate frailty distribution among survivors is obtained. The relationship between local association measure and the characteristics of the bivariate frailty distribution among survivors is established." (SUMMARY IN FRE)     

Regression-like analysis of birth interval sequences

Employing a family of generalized linear models for the gamma distribution, the structure of birth interval data derived from three historical populations is examined. The relative importance of such factors as current age, parity of the mother, and duration of marriage in determining the length of succeeding intervals is investigated. The results suggest that the three data sets have a common, rather simple structure and various applications of such empirical models are considered.     

A decomaosition of trends in poverty among children of immigrants

Poverty levels among all children in the United States have tended to fluctuate in the past 30 years. However, among the children of immigrants, child poverty increased steadily and rapidly from about 12% in 1970 to 33% in the late 1990s before declining to about 21% in 2000. Using 1970, 1980, 1990, and 2000 Public Use Microdata Samples data, we identified key factors that underlie the fluctuations in immigrant child poverty from 1969 to 1999 and the divergence from children of natives. We found that roughly half the absolute increase in immigrant child poverty can be linked to changing conditions in the U.S. economy that make it more difficult to lift a family out of poverty than 30 years ago. These changes occurred disproportionately among children of parents with lower levels of education, employment, and U.S. experience but not among racial/ethnic minorities. Poverty risks among various racial and ethnic groups converged over time. The relative increase in poverty for immigrant versus native children owes largely to the divergence between immigrant and native families in racial/ethnic composition, parental education, and employment.     

Has the Chinese family planning policy been successful in changing fertility preferences?

Has China’s strict one-child policy been successful in changing fertility preferences? Using linked data from surveys conducted in four counties of northern China in 1991 and 1994, we compare reproductive behavior against prior fertility preferences and show when and where women change from wanting to not wanting more children. The acceptance of policy-sanctioned family size follows a development gradient and reflects the degree of enforcement. High acceptance occurs in the most urban, industrialized county and in the county with the most rigid family planning policy. Acceptance is weaker among women living in the poorest county and in the county where enforcement is most lenient.     

The Bangladesh fertility decline: an interpretation

The claim has been made, notably in a 1994 World Bank report, that the Bangladesh fertility decline shows that efficient national family planning programs can achieve major fertility declines even in countries that are very poor, and even if females have a low status and significant socioeconomic change has not occurred. This article challenges this claim on the grounds that Bangladesh did experience major social and economic change, real and perceived, over the last two decades. This proposition is supported by official data and by findings of the authors' 1997 field study in rural southeast Bangladesh. That study demonstrates that most Bangladeshis believe that conditions are very different from the situation a generation ago and that on balance there has been improvement. Most also believe that more decisions must now be made by individuals, and these include decisions to have fewer children. In helping to achieve these new fertility aims, however, the services provided by the family planning program constituted an important input.     

The Sacred and the Search for Significance: Religion as a Unique Process

Although many social scientists have assumed that religion can be reduced to more basic processes, there may be something unique about religion. By definition, religion has a distinctively meaningful point of reference, the sacred. Empirically, studies also suggest that religion may be a unique: form of motivation; source of value and significance; contributor to mortality and health; source of coping; and source of distress. These findings point to the need for: theory and research on the sacred; attention to the pluralization of religious beliefs and practices; evaluation of individual and social interventions that address spiritual problems and apply spiritual resources to their resolution; and collaboration between psychological and religious groups that draws on their unique identities and strengths.