Reconstructing the size of the African American population by age and sex, 1930–1990

We estimate the size of the African American population in five-year age groups at census dates from 1930 to 1990 using a three-part strategy. For cohorts born after 1935, we follow the U.S. Census Bureau in using classical demographic analysis. To estimate the size of cohorts born before 1895, we use extinct-generation estimates. For remaining cohorts, we implement an age/period/cohort model of census counts. All approaches are applied to a data set in which the age distribution of deaths has been corrected for age misreporting. Results provide strong confirmation of the basic validity of Census Bureau estimates of census undercounts for African Americans while extending estimates to new cohorts and periods. Our estimates are less consistent with an historical series prepared by Coale and Rives (1973).     

An Ecological Model of Social Interaction between Deaf and Hearing Students within a Postsecondary Educational Setting

Deaf students are enrolling in postsecondary educational institutions in the United States in greater numbers than ever before. However, attrition rates remain high. Models for explaining persistence in college link success to student integration within the informal and social fabric of their institution. The research reported in this paper is the result of a study of social integration of deaf and hearing students within a residence hall on the campus of Rochester Institute of Technology. It was found that characteristics of both the individual and of the postsecondary environment are important in explaining interaction levels. An ecological model is proposed as a framework for describing and analyzing student integration within informal and social dimensions of college life.     

Perceptions of nonreciprocal touch in romantic relationships

College students attributed meaning on a questionnaire to 31 types of nonreciprocal touch occurring in opposite-sex romantic relationships. Subject sex and origin of touch (self vs. partner) had minor effects on attributed meanings. Subjects most often perceived these touches as expressing warmth/love, and rarely as expressing dominance/control.The authors are grateful to Richard Heslin and Jeffrey Fisher for their assistance in designing the study, and to C. Van Nelson for assistance in data analysis.     

Indirect measures of child mortality: Overview and application to Brazil, 1980

Mortality rates in the early childhood years are valuable indicators of a population's standard of living, especially in high mortality countries in the developing world. This study summarizes the logic of indirect techniques of mortality estimation, and applies the methods to sample data from the 1980 census of Brazil. The results for metropolitan areas show that children in affluent households have an average expectation of life that is around ten years higher compared to the children of the poor. Multivariate analysis using the mortality ratio proposed by Trussell and Preston found that mother's education was the most important determinant of child mortality, followed by the effects of running water in the house, father's schooling, membership in the social security system and region of the country. Given the potential usefulness of the indirect methods to a wide range of researchers outside of the field of demography, the study presents detailed examples of the computational steps required of the various techniques.     

Poverty orderings and welfare dominance

This paper examines the partial orderings of discrete distributions derived from various poverty indices and sets of welfare functions. The poverty ordering with respect to some indexP is the ordering obtained whenP ranks consistently over a range of admissible poverty lines. The poverty orderings derived from the headcount ratio, the per-capita income gap and another distribution-sensitive index are characterized in some detail when the poverty standard is allowed to take any positive value, and these orderings are shown to coincide with the natural interpretation of first, second and third degree welfare dominance, respectively. Additional results are then obtained for the situation in which the admissible poverty lines cannot exceed some finite upper bound.We are particularly indebted to Nick Kiefer for initial insights into the issues addressed in this paper. We have also had helpful comments from Amartya Sen, from an anomymous referee, and from many seminar audiences. Financial support from the Krannert Endowment Trust and the Leverhulme Trust is gratefully acknowledged.     

A Dynamic Model of Investment in the U.S. Beef-Cattle Industry

Reproduction constraints lead to some a priori information that may prove valuable in econo- metrically modeling inventory dynamics within the U.S. cattle herd. The distributed-lag models estimated for animal inventories suggest an implicit incorporation of the age distribution of the herd that is crucial to understanding the retention/culling (investment) decisions. The estimated equations are validated using post-sample observations that were withheld prior to estimation. The final-form dynamic equations have complex roots and protracted price and investment effects. The parameter estimates are used to calculate intermediate and long-run elasticities at the means of relevant variables.     

The effects of defamilization and familization measures on the accumulation of retirement income for women in the UK

This article is concerned with the link between the effects of pro-market pension reforms on women and familization/defamilization measures. It aims to contribute to the study of this link in three ways. Firstly, it identifies defamilization/familization measures that have the potential to reduce negative effects of pro-market pension measures on women. Secondly, based on the examples from the United Kingdom, it shows that the government’s willingness to provide sufficient defamilization/familization measures to assist women to deal with the negative effects of the pro-market pension measures should not be taken for granted. Thirdly, it suggests ways for tackling this problem.