China's Below‐Replacement Fertility: Recent Trends and Future Prospects

Between 1970 and 1990, China experiencoed a rapid and sharp fertility decline—from total fertility rates of approximately six births to two. The degree to which Chinese fertility has continued to fall after 1990 is controversial. We use survey data from the 1997 National Population and Reproductive Health Survey and from the 2001 Reproductive Health and Family Planning Survey to document recent trends in Chinese fertility. Our estimates provide further evidence that China's fertility is well below‐replacement level at the turn of the twenty‐first century—with TFR levels of approximately 1.5 children per woman. Trends in parity‐specific cohort fertility by age also suggest below replacement completed fertility for cohorts still in the childbearing years. In the article's second section, we identify key components of low period fertility in order to frame our discussion of two questions: 1) in what ways is Chinese low fertility different from/similar to that in other low‐fertility countries? And 2) what are the likely future trends in Chinese fertility?     

The Correspondence Between Fertility Intentions and Behavior in the United States

Using data from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, we describe the correspondence between intended family size and observed fertility for US men and women in the 1957–64 birth cohorts. Mean fertility intentions calculated from reports given in the mid‐20s modestly overstate completed fertility. But discrepancies between stated intent and actual fertility are common—the stated intent at age 24 (for both women and men) is more likely to miss than to match completed fertility. We focus on factors that predict which women and men will have fewer or more children than intended. Consistent with life‐course arguments, those unmarried, childless, or (for women) still in school at approximately age 24 were most likely to underachieve their intended parity (i.e., had fewer children than intended at age 24). We discuss how such discrepancies between intentions and behavior may cumulate to produce sizable cross‐group fertility differences.     

Confirming and Expanding the Usefulness of the Extended Satisfaction With Life Scale (ESWLS)

The role of stress, particularly economic hindrance,in the prediction of global life-satisfaction wascontrasted between typically younger (n = 109)and more mature (n = 66) undergraduate students. Participants completed a Personal Projects AnalysisAppraisal Matrix including six stress dimensions, aswell as a single-item measure of globallife-satisfaction. Discriminant function analysesconducted on the students' Personal Project appraisalsrevealed that project challenge and economic hindranceaccounted for 25% of the variability inlife-satisfaction for the mature students, but none ofthe stress dimensions predicted life satisfaction forthe younger students. These results indicate that therole of stress in the prediction of life-satisfactionvaries as a function of age, with project challengeand economic hindrance playing a significant role inolder students' lives. The results are discussed inrelation to the developmental context of personalprojects as life tasks and the varying contexts foracademic pursuit between mature and typically youngerundergraduate students.     

White and nonwhite trends in first birth timing: Comparisons using vital registration and current population surveys

The magnitude of racial differences in first birth timing vary greatly depending upon the data sources from which they are estimated. Vital registration data (Heuser 1976; with updates from the National Center for Health Statistics 1974–1990) show that in recent years nonwhites have higher risks of a first birth at virtually all ages compared to whites. As a result very large and historically novel differentials in childlessness are forecast using these data (see Rindfuss et al. 1988; Chen & Morgan 1991; Morgan & Chen 1992). However, retrospective fertility history data collected from the 1980, 1985 and 1990 Current Population Surveys (CPS) suggest much smaller racial differences in completed childlessness and isolate racial differences in probabilities of first births at young ages. Differences also exist between theses two series for whites prior to the mid-1960s but not afterwards. Reasons for these differing estimates are suggested and examined. We conclude that a substantial portion of the differences result from an accumulation of biases in the vital registration estimates that affect primarily estimates of first birth timing. Thus, the CPS data provide a more firm basis for racial comparisons of first birth timing.     

Rank aggregation using latent-scale distance-based models

Rank aggregation aims at combining rankings of a set of items assigned by a sample of rankers to generate a consensus ranking. A typical solution is to adopt a distance-based approach to minimize the sum of the distances to the observed rankings. However, this simple sum may not be appropriate when the quality of rankers varies. This happens when rankers with different backgrounds may have different cognitive levels of examining the items. In this paper, we develop a new distance-based model by allowing different weights for different rankers. Under this model, the weight associated with a ranker is used to measure his/her cognitive level of ranking of the items, and these weights are unobserved and exponentially distributed. Maximum likelihood method is used for model estimation. Extensions to the cases of incomplete rankings and mixture modeling are also discussed. Empirical applications demonstrate that the proposed model produces better rank aggregation than those generated by Borda and the unweighted distance-based models.

     

The Interpretation of Line of Regard by Prelingually Deaf Children

The ability of 5- to 12-year-old deaf children to utilise and interpret another person's visual line of regard (where the eyes are looking) was studied in four experiments using cartoon faces. The children had little difficulty in determining whether or not a face was looking directly at them. They had more difficulty, however, with more complex tasks requiring them to infer mental states of desire and intention from line of regard and to ignore line of regard when it was inappropriate to attend to this cue. Deaf children raised in a hearing environment appear to have more difficulty with these more complex tasks than hearing children. The results are discussed in terms of the special difficulties facing some deaf children in the development of skills involving utilisation of line of regard and the implications for the development of joint attentional behaviour, theory of mind and dyadic social interaction in deaf and hearing children.     

Public and private employment over the business cycle: A ratchet theory of government growth

Previous researchers have attempted to explain the growth in the size of government over time. Some have observed a “ratchet” effect and have attributed these observed jumps in the relative size of government to ideological shifts in response to severe crises. We explain these observed ratchets as the consequence of asymmetries in the response of government employment to the business cycle. A public-choice oriented model of the employment response to the cycle is developed and applied to state and local government employment data. The data confirm the presence of ratchet effects that correspond to the business cycle. Moreover, virtually all of the growth in the ratio of state and local government employment to private employment has occurred during recessions. The authors greatly appreciate the extensive comments of Randall 0. Holcombe and the late Richard McHugh on an earlier draft of this paper. Don Bellantés work on this paper was aided by a grant from the John M. Olin Institute for Employment Practice and Policy.     

Risk,Resiliency, and Urban Governance: The Case of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games

This article uses preparations surrounding the 2010 Winter Olympic Games as an opportunity to examine the idea and practice of resiliency in the field of security, public safety, and urban governance. The enthusiasm for resiliency today is said to connect with broader shifts in the logics of security in response to the proliferation of disruptive events that are difficult to anticipate and potentially catastrophic in impact. How, though, is it possible to plan for an unknown and unknowable future? This article outlines three sets of practices for building urban resiliency that, while seemingly routine and mundane, and associated primarily with the domain of emergency management, exemplify a field of governmental activity that has flourished after 9/11 but received little scholarly attention to date.