Cohort migration

Most migration analyses focus on net migration and are concerned with areal redistributions of population. Migration may also be studied as an event in the life-cycle of an individual, and migration rates may be defined as properties of cohorts. A number of efforts to examine migration as a cohort process has been hampered by the character of available data [or the United States. Rather than await the development of a registration system-either directly or via social security and tax records-the collection of residence histories is suggested as the most feasible approach to obtaining suitable data. A schematic representation of residence histories clarifies their relation to other types of migration data and illustrates the need to design such surveys with specific research purposes in mind. Exploratory work with the 1958 Residence History Supplement to the Current Population Survey (by Beale, Shryock, myself, and various colleagues) demonstrates the utility of this approach.Local studies have made fruitful use of residence histories but typically are unable to delineate birth cohorts or other appropriate base populations exposed to risk. Development of cohort migration techniques analogous to the life table approach to mortality or cohort Jertility analysis requires national data. But migration, unlike Jertility and mortality, involves events that are reversible and repeatable. Hence the demographer's stock of analytic tools requires expansion. To the sociologist-demographer, experimentation with cohort migration models seems to be getting at one of the crucial methodological problems of sociology, the analysis of social mobility. A mutually profitable interchange with students of social mobility is envisaged.     

CharacteriStics and utilization of midwives in a selected rural area of East Pakistan

The purpose of this study was to obtain information about the utilization of midwives (dais) by village women and to learn more about the characteristics and practices of those dais. Two interview schedules were prepared. The first was used to interview 632 village women to determine who performed or assisted with their last two deliveries. The second was used to obtain information from 21 dais.The results of the first phase may be summarized as follows: (a) 38 per cent of the women were delivered by relatives; (b) 33 per cent of the women delivered their own children; (c) 14 per cent were delivered by neighbors; (d) 6 per cent were delivered by dais; (e) 2 percent were delivered in hospitals; and (f) the remaining 7 per cent were accounted for by several minor categories.The results of the interviews with dais are summarized as follows: (a) they are mainly widows and older women; (b) they have no formal training; (c) they work for friends, neighbors, and relatives and receive a sari as compensation; (d) they cannot handle complicated deliveries; (e) they deliver 3-4 children a year; (f) their sterilizing procedures depend upon soap, water, and folk beliefs; (g) most think midwifery is a worthwhile service; (h) about one-half have a general understanding of the reproduction process; (i) most do not know how to prevent conception; and (j) about half think that it is a good idea to participate actively in a family planning program.     

The difference in unwanted births between blacks and whites

Blacks are more likely than whites to have unwanted births. A common explanation for that difference is that blacks use less effective contraceptive methods, use contraception less effectively, and use contraception less often than whites. Analysis of data from 17 cities in our family planning evaluation project suggested that, among women living in low-income neighborhoods, the black-white difference in unwanted births was not due to (1) blacks reaching desired completed parity at younger ages than whites, (2) differences in age or parity in our black and white samples, (3) black-white differences in current use of physician-administered contraception, or (4) blacks being more likely than whites to adopt physician-administered contraception after having an unwanted birth. Black-white differences which might have contributed to relatively more unwanted births among blacks were (1) blacks desired fewer children, (2) blacks were less likely than whites to use nonphysician-administered methods and more likely than whites to use no contraception, and (3) blacks had higher failure rates than whites subsequent to the adoption of physician-administered methods and when not using those methods. Comparisons are made with the 1965 and 1970 National Fertility Studies, and program implications of the findings discussed.     

The poor as a “perfect contraceptive population” and zero population growth

A goal of the federal family planning program is to enable women to have only those children they want, with priority given to the poor. Is that compatible with the goal of those who want zero population growth? This analysis shows that prevention of all unwanted births to women in low-income families would have yielded completed fertility much above that required for zero population growth.     

Comparing child protective investigation performance between law enforcement agencies and child welfare agencies

This study examines the comparative effectiveness of using law enforcement agencies for child protective investigation (CPI), in contrast with the traditional approach of CPI conducted by the public child welfare agency. The analysis uses 2006-2007 data from a natural experiment conducted in Florida to show modest differences in performance and cost-efficiency between the two approaches to CPI. These findings may have implications for other states considering outsourcing CPI to law enforcement.     

The impact of risk attitude,uncertainty and disequilibria on optimal production and inventory

Summary The empirical facts seem to indicate that in real economies the effect of uncertainty tends to decrease production. The limitations of empirical investigations presented should be stressed: they were performed mainly on an aggregate level, they mainly refer to Austrian manufacturing, they rely heavily on questionnaires. Above all empirical investigation will never be able to decide normative questions or to explain the behavior in the general equilibrium. Nevertheless in the short run, given all the rigidities and disequilibria which exist, uncertainty tends to lower optimal production even in absence of risk aversion. Risk aversion becomes important for large, for once-for-all decisions, but it is not the only channel through which uncertainty changes decisions.Technological concavity created by concave marginal revenues or by convex marginal costs, marginal costs of uncertainty in disequilibria model or asymmetric costs of revisions of the preliminary decision are able to bias the decision downward in a real world economy without invokingPaper presented to the 2nd Conference on the Foundations of Risk and Utility (FUR), Venezia, 1984.