The effects of family caps on the subsequent fertility decisions of never-married mothers

Family caps seek to reduce fertility among welfare recipients by denying additional cash assistance to recipients who have children while on welfare. A necessary condition for family caps to be an effective policy tool is that welfare recipients respond to financial incentives in making decisions that affect subsequent fertility outcomes. This paper uses data from the 2001 and 2004 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) to examine whether welfare mothers respond to the incentive provided by the Aid to Families with Dependent Children/Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (AFDC/TANF) system in determining whether or not to have a second child. The results show no evidence that family caps have an effect on the subsequent childbearing of never married women.

Are there crisis-led fertility declines? Evidence from central Cameroon

Past demographic transitions have beenobserved with and without economic progress, but thereis little empirical record of crisis-driven fertilitytransitions. In recent years, several authors haveargued that conditions for such transitions are met inAfrican countries under economic crisis and structuraladjustment. Using retrospective family histories,this study examines fertility responses to crisis inCameroon, a country with a particularly abrupteconomic reversal. The thesis of a crisis-led declineis tested on the basis of five criteria includingtiming of the decline, statistical and substantivesignificance, rural-urban response differentials andsocial salience. Findings are consistent with acrisis-led effect.     

Social change,population policies,and fertility decline in Colombia and Venezuela

This paper takes a comparative case-study approach to examine the social and policy correlates of fertility decline. The analysis compares fertility behavior across a mature and young cohort of women in Colombia and Venezuela, two countries that experienced rapid demographic change under dissimilar socioeconomic and population policy conditions. Based on the distinction between birth-spacing and birth-stopping behavior the analysis tests several propositions derived from the adaptation and innovation explanations of fertility decline. Results show that fertility regulation at low parities was largely absent among mature women in both countries, representing an innovative behavior among younger women. The introduction of fertility control, however, was highly dependent on women's socioeconomic position, particularly their educational and occupational characteristics. The strong family planning programs in Colombia resulted in a more rapid extension of contraceptive use, particularly female sterilization, and stopping behavior after two children relative to Venezuela. Results highlight the diversity of conditions under which fertility can decline in developing countries and the importance of family planning and other policy initiatives to understanding the different pathways towards lower fertility.     

Demographic pressure,economic development,and social engineering: An assessment of fertility declines in the second half of the twentieth century

Population Research and Policy Review - Concerns over the prospects of explosive demographic growth led to concerted efforts to engineer fertility reductions in the developing world, while skeptics...     

Bargaining over family size: The determinants of fertility in Brazil

Understanding how households make fertility decisions is important to implementing effective policy to slow population growth. Most empirical studies of this decision are based on household models in which men and women are assumed to act as if they have the same preferences for the number of children. However, if men and women have different preferences regarding fertility and are more likely to assert their own preferences as their bargaining power in the household increases, policies to lower fertility rates may be more effectively targeted toward one spouse or the other. In this paper, we test the relevance of the single preferences model by investigating whether men and women's nonwage incomes have the same effects on the number of children in the household. We find that while increases in both the man and woman's nonwage income lower the number of children in the household, an equivalent increase in the woman's income has a significantly stronger effect than the man's. In addition, we find that increases in women's nonwage transfer income have the strongest effects on the fertility decisions of women with low levels of education. The most important policy implication of our results is that policies aimed at increasing the incomes of the least-educated women will be the most effective in lowering fertility rates.     

文化力对中国生育率下降的重要影响

中国在经济不发达的情况下 ,仅用 30年的时间实现了人口再生产类型从高出生、低死亡、高增长到低出生、低死亡、低增长的历史性转变。中国生育率迅速下降是政策力、经济力、文化力综合作用的结果。其中文化力对生育率的下降起着推动力、导向力、凝聚力和鼓舞力的作用。在文化力日积月累、潜移默化的影响下 ,中国城乡育龄夫妇生育观念正在发生巨大变化 ,且这种变化还远没有完成。     

Order restricted Bayesian inference for exponential simple step-stress model

A step-stress model has received a considerable amount of attention in recent years. In the usual step-stress experiment, a stress level is allowed to increase at each step to get rapid failure of the experimental units. The expected lifetime of the experimental unit is shortened as the stress level increases. Although extensive amount of work has been done on step-stress models, not enough attention has been paid to analyze step-stress models incorporating this information. We consider a simple step-stress model and provide Bayesian inference of the unknown parameters under cumulative exposure model assumption. It is assumed that the lifetime of the experimental units are exponentially distributed with different scale parameters at different stress levels. It is further assumed that the stress level increases at each step, hence the expected lifetime decreases. We try to incorporate this restriction using the prior assumptions. It is observed that different censoring schemes can be incorporated very easily under a general setup. Monte Carlo simulations have been performed to see the effectiveness of the proposed method, and two datasets have been analyzed for illustrative purposes.     

安徽农村养老保险的分类动态递进模式选择

根据安徽省2009年统计年鉴数据,采用因子分析和聚类分析法,按照经济发展水平、农村人口的老龄化程度等,将安徽省17个市的农村分成四大类,分别提出了针对该四类地区的非均衡式养老保险动态递进模式,以满足不同农村老人的养老需求,保证农村各地区养老工作的协调发展。     

新疆生产建设兵团新型军垦生育文化的文化成因探析

新疆生产建设兵团在五十多年的时间里,形成了具有明显兵团特色的新型军垦生育文化。文章拟从移民文化、党政军企合一的军垦文化、兵团特色的妇女文化等视角来揭示兵团新型军垦生育文化的成因,为构建社会主义新型生育文化提供一个可资借鉴的个案。     

关于我国生育政策与生育水平的几点思考

通过回顾梳理现存文献和进行国际比较认为,中国的总和生育率已经大大低于更替水平,且现行生育政策仅能有效控制大约6%的育龄妇女。在低生育水平已持续了近20年、理想子女数大约仅为2个孩子、现行生育政策对个体生育行为的控制作用大大减弱的情势下,未来维持低生育水平主要取决于经济社会的发展。只要能够有效控制各类人群的第三胎生育,推行现行生育政策与＂放宽二孩、杜绝三孩＂的生育政策之间差别就不会大;而如果超生是某些人的特权,就既会大大降低生育政策的公信力,也不利于稳定适度的低生育水平。