Our population predicament: a new look

Issued to mark the Population Reference Bureau's 50th anniversary, this issue updates the story of world population presented in its popular predecessor of 1971, "Man's Population Predicament." Estimated at 1/2 billion in 1650, world population reached about 2 billion in 1930, 4 billion in 1975, and is projected to be about 6 billion in 2000. Most of today's rapid growth is occurring among the 3/4 of the world's peoples living in less developed countries where the post-World War II gap between high birth rates and falling death rates has only recently begun to narrow. This growth, coupled with high consumption in developing countries, is putting tremendous pressures on the Earth's resources, environment, and social fabric. New evidence on Europe's population transition and from China, Indonesia, and Thailand in the 1970s suggests that well-designed family planning programs can speed fertility decline but rapid worldwide attainment of replacement level fertility will also require special development efforts and measures that go beyond family planning. Current projections of the world's ultimate peak population range from 8 billion in the mid 21st century to 11 billion in about 2125, depending on when replacement-level fertility is reached. China's drive for a drastic birth rate reduction and the oil crisis might change fertility behavior more rapidly than most demographers have heretofore thought likely.     

The temporal relationship of marriage,conception, and birth in Massachusetts

An investigation into the timing of first births in relationship to the date of marriage in Massachusetts confirmed the finding of previous national and local birth timing studies that first births likely to have been conceived before the marriage of their parents constitute a substantial proportion of all first births. The differential frequency of premaritally conceived births among various subgroups appeared to account for the variation noted in the overall timing patterns of first births after marriage. Data were gathered through linkage of certificates of birth of a sample of legitimate first children with the marriage record of their parents. Analysis of the marriage-first birth interval by maternal age and race, type of marriage ceremony, and occupation of the bride and groom were conducted and comparisons with previously published data were made. Separate consideration was given to the frequency and characteristics of those births likely to be premaritally conceived and those likely to have been conceived after the wedding.     

A longitudinal study of domestic water conservation behavior

A 1988 study of a school-linked sample in a metropolitan and a regional urban area established baseline data for knowledge, attitudes, intentions, and behavior with regard to water management and conservation (Murphy, Watson, & Moore, 1991). This paper reports on a 1991 follow-up, utilising both longitudinal and cross-sectional samples of students, teachers and parents, which aimed at identifying changes within the community since the initial study. In addition, the study sought to identify factors influential in change and the extent to which the pattern of relationships between knowledge, attitudes, intentions and behaviors had remained stable over time. The results indicated that there was a move towards greater conservation as measured by the variables studied over the three year period, that media interventions and water costs were perceived as influential in this change, and that reported conserving behavior continued to be better predicted by stated intentions than by knowledge. Little difference in the pattern of intervariable relationships was observed across the time span studied.     

ANOTHER STEP IN THE STUDY OF RACE RELATIONS

Recent qualitative researchers have argued the need for a more sensitizing approach to race research that elevates in importance the concerns and interests of those under study. This article illustrates how Herbert Blumer's work on race relations, critical race theory, and participatory action research may help this objective. These projects' similar epistemologies advance a type of social imagery that has powerful emancipatory implications in regard to racial oppression. Simply put, dominant renditions of social reality–including structural imperatives and racial identities–are illustrated to be socially constructed and hence open to negotiation. As a result of this shift, sensitizing methodologies (e.g., storytelling and collaboration) are employed that allow minorities an opportunity for self-representation. The liberating potential of all these projects can be further enhanced by relating their conceptual links to recent developments in contemporary social theory. Specifically, the typical concerns with process, interaction, and experiential meanings are intersubjectively mediated and not reducible to an objective subjective theoretical framework. Rather than simply personal or external, all knowledge is recognized to be fluid and coproduced. By grounding research on this intersubjective region, equitable exchanges are possible.     

Relations of School Children's Comforting Behavior to Empathy-Related Reactions and Shyness

The purpose of this study was to examine empathy-related and personal correlates of children's comforting reactions. Quantity and quality of third to sixth graders' comforting of a crying infant were assessed and their relations with situational and dispositional empathy-related responding, shyness, and vagal tone were examined. Quantity and quality of boys' comforting were related to reports of sympathetic/empathic responding to an empathy-inducing film, whereas quantity of girls' comforting was associated with low facial and heart rate markers of vicarious distress in another context. Quality of comforting was associated with markers of girls' vicarious distress. Comforting was negatively related to younger children's shyness and marginally, positive correlated with girls' vagal tone. Suppression of vagal tone was associated with quantity of comforting.     

Clinical guidelines: a defense in medical malpractice suits

Clinical pathways, or practice guidelines, have been gaining wider acceptance from physicians and hospitals seeking to constrain increasing operating costs for inpatient care. The authors believe that properly developed and agreed upon guidelines can also be used in certain cases as appropriate standards of care in determining if medical malpractice has occurred. Adherence to the guidelines could then be asserted by defendants as an affirmative defense in a medical malpractice suit.     

The dynamic household as a logical concept and its use in demography

Event history models for aggregate units such as households are complicated by the fact that such entities do not have a well-defined identity through time. The difficulties of applying conventional transition-based models to household change are discussed. More generally, what constitutes time and change are also considered. It is argued that many changes occurring within households such as leaving home are better-considered as fuzzy than crisp phenomena. An alternative perspective based on household change considered as an evolving network is proposed. The implications for sample designs which are designed to track explicithousehold dynamics (such as the Panel Study on Income Dynamics) are discussed. The ways in which particular forms of analysis come to dominate the scientific literature, including those for analysing household change is discussed in relation to non-linear dynamic models. Finally, it is argued that there would be considerable benefits if insights available from the physical, mathematical and biological sciences were to be more widely incorporated within technical demography.Les modèles d'analyse biographique d'unités agrégées, telles que les ménages, sont complexes, car ces entités ne peuvent être définies avec précision au cours du temps. Nous discutons ici les difficultés d'appliquer les modèles habituels basés sur des transitions, aux changements connus par les ménages. Plus généralement, nous analysons ce qui constitue «le temps» et le «changement». Nous montrons ainsi que de nombreux changements connus par les ménages, tels que la décohabitation, sont mieux saisis comme des évévements «flous» plutôt que comme des événements ponctuels. Nous proposons dès lors une autre perspective, basée sur les changements survenus dans des réseaux en évolution. Nous en discutons les implications sur les méthodes d'échantillonnage destinées à tracer l'évolution explicite des ménages (telles que l'étude par panel sur l'évolution des revenus). Les façons selon lesquelles certaines formes d'analyse en viennent à avoir une position dominante dans la littérature scientifique, y compris celles qui permettent l'analyse des changements dans les ménages, sont discutées en liaison avec les modèles dynamiques non-linéaires. Finalement, nous montrons qu'il y a des avantages importants à ce que des approches suivies dans les sciences physiques, mathématiques et biologiques, soient plus largement introduites dans les techniques d'analyse démographique.     

The increase in marital status differences in mortality up to the oldest age in seven European countries, 1990–99

We investigate mortality differentials by marital status among older age groups using a database of mortality rates by marital status at ages 40 and over for seven European countries with 1 billion person-years of exposure. The mortality advantage of married people, both men and women, continues to increase up to at least the age group 85–89, the oldest group we are able to consider. We find the largest absolute differences in mortality levels between marital status groups are at high ages, and that absolute differentials are: (i) greater for men than for women; (ii) similar in magnitude across countries; (iii) increase steadily with age; and (iv) are greatest at older age. We also find that the advantage enjoyed by married people increased over the 1990s in almost all cases. We note that results for groups such as older divorced women need to be interpreted with caution.