The Decline of marital fertility in Japan

Summary Studies concerning the demographic history of Tokuwara and Meiji Japan suggest that fertility rose substantially before declining during the twentieth century. Were the motivations and circumstances which held down natality during the feudal period similar to those which account for the modern fertility decline and the low birth rate obtaining in the Japan of to-day? The thesis of this paper is that the pre-modern situation was fundamentally different from the modern one. During the Tokugawa era infanticide and abortion were used, independently of parity, to eliminate weak offspring whose chances of survival were deemed poor. Desired natality generally exceeded natural fertility. With the rise of income per head during the Meiji period the population's need for these desparate practices vanished. To-day parity-specific control characterizes fertility. Parityspecific control was diffused throughout Japan in response to declining desired fertility. Desired fertility fell significantly below natural fertility sometime during the late nineteenth or early twentieth century and the wish to reduce actual fertility to the desired level stimulated the adoption of parity-specific control. The speed of decline in marital fertility was partially governed by official policies toward contraception and abortion, contraception and abortion.     

Health education evaluation and beliefs and practices in rural Tamil Nadu

This paper reports the findings of 2 studies in North Arcot District of Tamil Nadu, one of which was an evaluation of health education programs. A wide range of information is made available on the local Tamil names for allopathic diseases, their etiology, beliefs related to preventive and curative practices, significance and medical consequences of recourse to doctors and practitioners of indigenous systems of medicine. The attitude survey covers a variety of topics about which not much is known -- immunization, sanitation, environment, antenatal care and allopathic medicine. The data suggest that allopathic treatment is preferred for most diseases, although traditional or spiritual methods continue to be used for certain diseases, many of which are believed to be the cause of infant and child mortality.     

Human sexuality: the controversy continues

Sex education should be an integrated component of population education programs in the Philippines. There are, however, a variety of objections to this approach, which are linked to proposals that sex education is more relevant to biology and medicine curriculums. The Population Education Program of the Philippines conducted a study of 2093 parents and 4550 teachers to determine who registered objections to teaching certain population education content, what they objected to, and why such objections were raised. Findings show that only 3% of the sample reacted unfavorably to the inclusion of controversial topics, such as sex terms, illustrations of sex organs and the naming of contraceptive devices. The issues remaining to be solved are: content, terminology, teacher competence, parents' involvement, and teaching aids.     

A future for fishing?

This article outlines the potential in the fishing industry viewed from the present. The author argues that current methods are still relatively inefficient and that increases of 50–100 per cent can be expected in the next 10–20 years. Further that these larger catches can contribute markedly to world protein requirements. The article includes consideration of system fishing and concludes with a picture of the British fishing industry being among the most advanced in the world.     

Changes in the social definition of early childhood and the new forms of symbolic violence

Conclusion The nursery school may be considered an institution and a market where the habits produced by the family are moulded, developed and standardized; thus, it is confronted with an objective definition of early childhood embedded in pedagogical practices. The proper objective of a sociology of nursery-school practice is the analysis of the lag between the functions delegated to the school by the different social classes and the functions which it objectively tends to fulfill. Here we have the best test of the lag between the pedagogic demands of the different classes and what the schools supply-which is very abstract, with results that are only visible at a later stage in the school career. It is not so much a question of learning to read or of preparing to do so (the acquisition of certain logical operations or a developed sensitivity, of acquiring a few I.Q. points). This learning takes place through many varied activities which apppear to be far from the learning function.All told, the conditions for understanding nursery-school exercises flow from the conditions for inventing these exercises. For instance, in games of manipulation, construction, classifying various objects, is not some knowledge of Piaget (at least in the sense of some psychologikal knowledge) needed to understand that practical manipulation is also logical manipulation, to see in cube games the learning of logic? Similarly, the language naïveté cultivated in language games is a clever naïveté, which supposes for example a cultured re-discovery of popular archaic language or of child talk. p ]Is it not likely to appear as pure childishness to those who, without the ncessary cultural knowledge, do not have the keys to decipher these ostensibly naïve exercises? Similarly, the conditions for understanding children's drawings as artistic learning (and the nursery school as an educational institution) are the very conditions for understanding modern art as art.It is not just a matter of perception and understanding; as the objective definition of early childhood proper to the different social classes becomes pervasive both in the relationship with school and in the socialization practices of the family, it patterns the children's habitus (as long-lasting internalized dispositions), which in turn influence the child's behavior and attitude towards school.The perception categories and the different forms of treatment of young children appropriate to each social class are not simply the result of the diffusion of definitions of early childhood produced by the autonomous evolution of scientific and artistic disciplines. They are the products of all the social and cultural conditions which define the class situation. We may also wonder whether at least some pedagogy and certain types of exercises do not presume that the child has socially marked attitudes, produced in some classes by family inculcation. For instance, a general attitude of disinterested interest is required by a pedagogy offering multiple activities and open to an attitude of active research and exploration. Does not this attitude suppose as an existential possibility the condition of social classes protected from economic pressure and from the urgency of immediate life, a general attitude towards life nearer to leisure than to the constraints of work?Thus, in confronting supply with demand—here even less than elsewhere-there is no question of comparing the expectations arising from users' opinions with the program offered in the official definition of the institution. The expectations are those which arise from objective determinations inherent in each social group, the forms of treatment and perception of early childhood. To analyze the program-and therefore to ascertain the social conditions governing the use of the nursery school—the dominant definition of early childhood on which the institution is founded must be brought to light. Moreover, the way in which this definition is written into the curriculum (and, subsequently, into pedagogical practice) must also be studied. This implies that the preliminary condition for a sociological analysis of the functions performed by the nursery school for the different social classes would be an analysis of a) the components of this dominant definition of early childhood and b) of the social conditions in those groups which make it possible to identify these components.We wish to thank P. Bourdieu for his advice during our research. R. Collins provided useful suggestions after reading the first version of this paper.     

Demographic crisis: The impact of the Bangladesh civil war (1971) on births and deaths in a rural area of Bangladesh

Summary In Matlab Bazaar Thana the Cholera Research Laboratory has registered the births, deaths and migrations in a population of approximately 125,000 since 1966. Although this rural area was not the scene of any significant armed encounters, striking changes in birth and death rates were registered during and after the conflict. Birth rates did not change during the relatively brief period of the civil war, but a small decline was registered for one year after the war. Fertility rates which had been declining slightly and irregularly in the pre-war baseline period may have increased slightly during the war and fell substantially in all age groups in the year following the war. The crude death rate, which rose by 37 per cent during the war, was a very sensitive reflection of the administrative and economic problems. Overall infant mortality rose by only 15 per cent over pre-war levels because all of the increase was observed in the post-neo-natal component, which traditionally accounts for less than one-third of the total infant mortality in Bangladesh. Children and older adults accounted for the majority of excess deaths which were largely attributed to acute diarrhoeas and other gastro-intestinal causes. The death rate at ages 1-4 rose by 43 per cent and at ages 5-9 soared to 208 per cent above pre-war baseline rates. All increases in age-specific mortality rates fell to baseline levels during the year following the war, except the 5-9-year age group, in which rates continued to be high largely because of deaths due to dysentery.