Changing vital rates and age distributions

Abstract In a time of rapid change in birth and death rates demographers need to know the consequences of such changes for age distribution. Does the fall in death rates tend to make the age distribution older? It certainly enables individuals to grow older, but for population aggregates the effect depends on the ages at which mortality improves. Coale, Stolnitz, Schwarz, Lorimer, the United Nations and other writers have investigated trends in age-specific birth and death rates. In particular they have demonstrated that the falling mortality which is now nearly universal does not generally make the population older and sometimes makes it younger. The present article contributes a technique for further examination of this phenomenon.     

Population and social structure in a Bedfordshire parish: The Cardington listing of inhabitants, 1782

Abstract This paper describes some of the main social and demographic characteristics of a Bedfordshire parish in the second half of the eighteenth century. It is based on an analysis of the 'Listing of Inhabitants' of Cardington in 1782, and on the use of the parish registers. The listing does not allow an analysis of the entire population of the parish. Its most serious deficiency is the failure to give sufficient detail for the upper social strata of the parish population, viz. the residents of 'farm tenements' and a small number of other properties likewise poorly documented. In the main, the data given in the article refer only to the residents of 'cottage tenements'. They represent the majority of the parish population, but omit the small group at the top of village society. For the 'cottage tenement' population a number of conclusions are drawn. Within this population there was an overall excess of females over males, but the excess was slight, and the number and proportion of males and females in each age-group balanced quite closely. 43-44% of the population of known age were less than 15 years old, and almost half the population were aged between 16 and 60 years. An analysis of marital status tentatively suggests that adult celibacy was rare. The average number of residents per 'cottage' household was only a little higher than the average size of family, confirming that only a small proportion of households contained more than one family. Household and family size may have been larger among craftsmen than labourers, with the households and families of the former containing more resident offspring than those of the latter. About one in every three marriages was either a broken marriage or are-marriage. A reconstitution of certain 'cottage tenement' families tentatively suggests an average of over five baptisms per family. Yet there were only two resident offspring per family in 1782. The difference may be explained by the high level of infant and child mortality, with one-third of all baptised children failing to reach the age of 15 years, and by the high degree of population mobility, albeit over short distances.     

Harmful Algal Blooms in South Carolina Residential and Golf Course Ponds

The South Carolina coastal zone is among the fastest growing areas in the U.S., and population epicenters are marked by dense brackish water pond (lagoon) coverage associated with housing complexes and golf courses. Surveillance efforts in 2001–2002 documented the widespread occurrence of several types of potentially or measurably toxic harmful algal blooms (HABs) in these ponds. These man-made retention ponds were constructed in order to serve as a buffer between developed areas and open estuaries or for aesthetic reasons. However, the combination of restricted tidal flow and nutrient and/or contaminant deposition creates a stimulatory environment for potential HAB formation. These discoveries introduce the need to consider mitigation measures to existing ponds and HAB preventive strategies for future pond construction.     

Population growth, development and the environment

When Population Studies was founded in 1946 a main preoccupation of demographers and of the public was the prospective decline of the British population, and the falling off of its quality because on the average a poor family had more children than a better-off one. Over the course of the 50 years interests have shifted to the aging of populations as births decline and mortality improves; immigration, immigrants being welcomed for the decades after the war, and subsequently facing hostile political pressures; environmental degradation and the spread of new diseases. The fall in the birth rate, required both for development and for protection of the environment, is spreading from the original industrialized countries of Europe and America to Asia, somewhat more slowly to Latin America, slowest of all to Africa.     

Values and fertility change in Japan

This paper analyses how value change and economic and social change have jointly affected fertility in Japan since 1950, and especially since 1973 when fertility resumed declining after some 15 years at near-replacement level. The resumption of fertility decline since 1973 has been driven primarily by underlying economic and social changes. Value change has tended to lag behind fertility change, and this lag has tended to be larger in Japan than in other advanced nations, primarily because underlying economic and social conditions have evolved more rapidly in Japan, and because it takes time for values to adjust to changes in underlying conditions. Because of Japan's high degree of cultural homogeneity, values tend to be widely and quickly shared, so that under certain conditions value change tends to occur in spurts. In Japan, many of the more important value changes affecting fertility in recent decades are bound up with major educational and job gains by women, which have led to greater economic independence and more emphasis on values of individualism and equality between the sexes.     

Why people feel crowded: An examination of objective and subjective crowding

Prior studies have found only a modest relationship between objective and subjective crowding, defying logic and commonsensical notions of why people feel crowded. Using data from a representative sample of Bangkok, Thailand, where the level of household crowding is four times that in western societies, we explore several possibilities of why this is the case. Examining seven different indicators of objective crowding, our analyses suggest that the modest relationship is not an artifact of measurement. Contrary to the assumption of prior investigations, the findings indicate that the objective-subjective crowding relationship is nonlinear and that there is a ceiling effect muting the impact of increased objective crowding. The analyses further suggest that the strength of the relationship is mitigated somewhat, with part of the feeling of being crowded accounted for by household circumstances, such as the degree of control an individual has over the use of household space.     

Effects of the one-child family policy on second and third births in Hebei,Shaanxi and Shanghai

This paper uses the proportional hazards model to assess the effect of the Chinese one-child policy on second and third births. The differential effects of the policy between the urban and rural areas and by the sex of previous children are highlighted. First, the urban-rural differentials have increased much after the policy, suggesting a more rapid increase in the costs of children and stricter government controls in the urban areas. Second, the sex of children has become a more important factor after the policy. The considerably higher risks to a subsequent birth among sonless families indicate the persistent strong son preferences among Chinese parents, especially in less developed areas. Although son preferences seem suppressed in Shanghai, the higher risks to a second birth after the death of a son compared to a daughter are indicative of the son preferences even in Shanghai. Relaxation of the one-child policy may increase the Chinese fertility.     

Capital accumulation,inertia of consumption and norms of reproduction

A model of capital accumulation is built in relation with fertility and consumption. Avoiding to impose a direct analytical relationship between these three variables, the author studies the set of possible evolutions under the constraints imposed by the inertia of habit change.The conflict between the necessity to avoid impoverishment, the desire to increase consumption when possible and the reproduction intensity delineate the set of viable solutions and the set of attitudes leading to capital extinction. This qualitative view of change of behaviors provides an alternative explanation to historical fertility fluctuations outside the usual Easterlin framework.I am grateful to the three anonymous referees, who helped to improve this article.