Determinants of contraceptive switching behavior in rural Sri Lanka

This study examines the influence of a selected set of determinants of contraceptive method switching in rural Sri Lanka. Of interest is the question of how change in contraceptive practice at the individual level can account for patterns observed at the aggregate level. Based on calendar data on contraceptive use over a 3-year period, collected for more than 3,000 married women in a 1986 survey, the multivariate analysis shows that women who attain all or a significant proportion of their desired fertility tend to switch to more effective methods. Women who experience method failure tend to switch methods, usually to a type that is more effective. The woman's background determinants of age and education have small but significant effects on method switching, whereas the effect of household economic well-being is not significant. There is strong indication that rural couples are practicing contraception in a nonrandom fashion, switching methods in accordance with changes in their fertility motivations and contraceptive experience.     

A Markov chain for calculating the durability of marriage

"The usual Markov model of marriage permits informative experiments on the effect of alterations in the transition rules. It can tell, for example, what difference it would make to the durability of marriage if there was no divorce and the other transitions were as observed. This is in addition to the capacity of the usual model to find the effect of small changes in the transition rates. Canadian data for 1970-1982 permit comparisons over time, and show among other things not only that married men live longer than single, but that the difference is increasing; the increase in the 'marriage bonus' over time also appears for women." (SUMMARY IN FRE)     

National indicators for health for all

This paper examines available international data relevant to the World Health Organization model of health status. It explores the possibility of constructing useful measures of health status, health policy, social and economic status, and provision of health care based on these data. A five-factor model is developed and tested empirically using World Bank statistical data from 123 countries. Two factors representing dimensions of country affluence and population density are found to explain 78 percent of the variations in the health status indicator. The countries with health status indicator levels worse than those predicted by the model are predominantly third-world countries; a majority are African. Countries with health status indicator levels better than predicted are mainly in Asia, Latin America, and Europe. Some generally accepted causal relationships were not supported by the findings in this analysis.     

Changes in wealth in the United States, 1962–1983

A simulation model is developed to account for observed changes in mean household wealth both overall and by age cohort over the 1962–1983 period in the United States. There are three major findings. First, capital gains are the major factor explaining overall wealth changes and account for 77% of the simulated growth in wealth over the entire period. Second, for cohorts under age 40, inheritance and inter vivos transfers dominate observed changes in wealth. Indeed, the oldest age groups appear to have transferred sizable amounts of their wealth to younger generations inter vivos, raising the wealth of these younger groups substantially above what it would be based on saving. Third, while differences in portfolio composition favored the younger cohorts over this period, such differences do not explain a large portion of the great variation in real wealth changes by cohort over the two decade period.The authors wish to thank Kevin Camerlo, Maury Gittleman and Kim Hiskey for research and programming assistance.     

农村劳动者流动中的几个问题

在中国现有的研究和相关的政策建议中,流动常常都被看做是缓解乡村"剩余"人口(劳动者)压力的一种方法,也是实现现代化的一种主要手段。换句话说,乡村被看做中国现代化的主要障碍之一,它带来的更多是问题而不是解决问题的方法。作者提出,研究人员和决策者应该更多地考虑农村外出劳动者对于流出地发展所做的重要贡献。     

Fertility waves,aggregate savings and the rate of interest

During the last fifty years there have in many countries been large movements in the growth of labor productivity, real wage rates, the rate of interest, and the household savings ratio. In this paper we use an overlapping generations model to study if demographic shocks, like the baby boom, can generate the kind of movements observed. Simulations show this is indeed the case. We also study the interactions between a pay-as-you-go pension system and demographic disturbances.We are grateful to Laurence Ball, Alex Cukierman and two anonymous referees for helpful comments.     

Frank wallace notestein (1902-1983)

Abstract Frank W. Notestein, one of the architects of modern demography, died on 18 February 1983, after a long struggle with emphysema. President Emeritus of the Population Council, and former Professor of Demography at Princeton University, he had been living in retirement in Newtown, Pennsylvania, with his wife of fifty-six years, née Daphne Limbach.