The fertility effect of catastrophe: U.S. hurricane births

Anecdotal evidence has suggested increased fertility rates resulting from catastrophic events in an area. In this paper, we measure this fertility effect using storm advisory data and fertility data for the Atlantic and Gulf-coast counties of the USA. We find that low-severity storm advisories are associated with a positive and significant fertility effect and that high-severity advisories have a significant negative fertility effect. As the type of advisory goes from least severe to most severe, the fertility effect of the specific advisory type decreases monotonically from positive to negative. We also find some other interesting demographic effects.     

Transportation Difficulty of Black and White Rural Older Adults

The purpose of this study was to understand self-reported transportation difficulty among rural older adults. We used data from the UAB Study of Aging (255 Black and 259 White), community-dwelling participants residing in rural areas. We examined the relationship of predisposing characteristics, enabling resources, and measures of need for care with self-reports of transportation difficulty. Blacks reported having more transportation difficulty than Whites (24.7% vs. 11.6%; p ≤ .05). When we introduced other variables, race differences disappeared, but there was a race by income interaction with transportation difficulty. Whites with lower incomes were more likely to have transportation difficulty than Whites with higher incomes. When data from Blacks and Whites were analyzed separately, income was the only variable associated with transportation difficulty among Whites. Among Blacks, income was not related to transportation difficulty but several variables other than income (age, gender, marital status, MMSE scores and depression) were.     

Leaving Home and Living Alone: An Historical Perspective

This paper provides a temporal and spatial perspective on a variety of household forms in present-day Europe. Compared with the situation in pre-industrial England, many more people now live on their own but there are some surprising continuities in household forms. Notably, pre-industrial households were no more likely than present-day ones to include distant relatives, and the recent rise in the proportion of one-person families has simply returned the position to that produced by early widowhood in the seventeenth century. Nor has the general increase during recent decades in the proportion of one-person households reduced the variation within Europe in the frequency of living alone which remains much less likely in southern and parts of eastern Europe than in western Europe and Scandinavia. A more thorough comparative exercise is hampered by inconsistencies in the design of tables used to illustrate household types in different countries, and it is suggested that a standard set of tables should be agreed and produced for different national populations.     

Nondrinker Mortality Risk in the United States

The literature has shown that people who do not drink alcohol are at greater risk for death than light to moderate drinkers, yet the reasons for this remain largely unexplained. We examine whether variation in people’s reasons for nondrinking explains the increased mortality. Our data come from the 1988–2006 National Health Interview Survey Linked Mortality File (N = 41,076 individuals age 21 and above, of whom 10,421 died over the follow-up period). The results indicate that nondrinkers include several different groups that have unique mortality risks. Among abstainers and light drinkers the risk of mortality is the same as light drinkers for a subgroup who report that they do not drink because of their family upbringing, and moral/religious reasons. In contrast, the risk of mortality is higher than light drinkers for former drinkers who cite health problems or who report problematic drinking behaviors. Our findings address a notable gap in the literature and may inform social policies to reduce or prevent alcohol abuse, increase health, and lengthen life.     

On the estimation of multidimensional demographic models with population registration data

In this paper the estimation of multidimensional demographic models is investigated in situations where population registration data are available. With this kind of aggregate data, estimation by traditional methods is not possible. We look at two versions of the multidimensional model: the constant intensities model and the linear integration model. Some logical inconsistencies in the derivation of the latter are discussed. In particular, we argue that the linear integration model is not compatible with a Markov process. A new algorithm for the estimation of the constant intensities model with population registration data is proposed. Some preliminary results on the mathematical and statistical properties of this method are given. The algorithm is applied to Dutch nuptiality data.     

Private provision of public goods between families

We consider a two-stage voluntary provision model where individuals in a family contribute to a pure public good and/or a household public good, and the parent makes private transfers to her own child. We show not only that Warr’s neutrality holds, regardless of the different timings of parent-to-child transfers, but also that there is a continuum of Nash equilibria which individuals’ contributions and parental transfers are indeterminate, although the allocation of each’s private consumption and total public good provision is uniquely determined. Furthermore, impure altruism or productivity difference in supplying public goods may not break our results above.     

Which Fishers are Satisfied in the Caribbean? A Comparative Analysis of Job Satisfaction Among Caribbean Lobster Fishers

Lobster fishing (targeting the spiny lobster Panulirus argus) is an important economic activity throughout the Wider Caribbean Region both as a source of income and employment for the local population as well as foreign exchange for national governments. Due to the high unit prices of the product, international lobster trade provides a way to improve the livelihoods of fisheries-dependent populations. The specie harvested is identical throughout the region and end market prices are roughly similar. In this paper we wish to investigate to which extent lobster fishers?? job satisfaction differs in three countries in the Caribbean and how these differences can be explained by looking at the national governance arrangements.     

What influences respondents to behave consistently when asked to consent to health record linkage on repeat occasions?

This study constitutes the first longitudinal exploration of consent to link survey and administrative data. It examines variations in consent over time and explores the influence of the respondents’ characteristics (both observed and latent) and the impact of the interviewers on consent co-operation. Respondent inclination to consent is modelled as a latent construct. Most respondents behave consistently over time. However, this consistency is not driven by a strong inclination to consent but rather by the circumstances of the respondents at the time of the interview and by the impact of the interviewers themselves. The findings also show that the change in consent behaviour over time is a clear indication that consent should be treated as a dynamic phenomenon at the individual level.