The Astonishing Population Averted by China’s Birth Restrictions: Estimates,Nightmares, and Reprogrammed Ambitions

China launched an unprecedented program to control its population in 1971. Experts have dismissed the official estimate of 400 million births averted by this program as greatly exaggerated yet neglect to provide their own estimates. Counterfactual projections based on fertility declines in other countries suggest that China’s program-averted population numbered 360–520 million as of 2015. The low end of this range is based on Vietnam—China’s best national comparator, with a two-child program of its own—and the high end is based on a 16-country comparator selected, ironically, by critics of the official estimate. The latter comparator further implies that China’s one-child program itself averted a population of 400 million by 2015, three-quarters of the total averted population. All such estimates are projected to double by 2060, due mostly to counterfactual population momentum. These and other findings presented herein affirm the astonishing impact of China’s draconian policy choices and challenge the current consensus that rapid socioeconomic progress drove China’s fertility well below two children per family. International comparisons of fertility and income suggest instead that China’s very low fertility arrived two or three decades too soon. If China had not harshly enforced a norm of 1.5-children during the last quarter century, most mothers would have had two children, one-half birth higher than observed.     

The claim that China's fertility restrictions contributed to the use of prenatal sex selection: A sceptical reappraisal

Most observers assume that China's fertility restrictions contribute to the use of prenatal sex selection. I question the logic and evidence underlying that assumption. Experts often stress that China's low fertility is largely voluntary, and that fertility restrictions are an unneeded safety valve. Others claim that China's ‘1.5-child’ loophole, common throughout rural areas, reinforces son preference or intensifies prenatal sex discrimination by hardening fertility constraints. These claims defy logic upon closer examination. Moreover, almost two-thirds of the exceptional distortion of the sex ratio in 1.5-child areas results from excess underreporting of daughters and enforced sex-specific stopping. Prenatal sex selection may explain the remaining third but probably reflects the stronger rural son preference that led to the 1.5-child loophole itself. The recent surge in sex selection of first births that has perpetuated the distortions also seems unrelated to policy. Some son-preferring parents who formerly wanted two children may now genuinely want only one.     

The North Korean famine and its demographic impact

The North Korean famine began in 1995 and its ill effects, while peaking in the late 1990s,undoubtedly linger. Recent conjectures on excess deaths caused by the famine range widely from about 200,000 to 3 million or more. This article assesses the demographic impact of the famine with greater rigor than has previously been attempted and describes the unique setting in which the famine occurred. The analysis begins with a pair of population projections based on mortality statistics from two sources. Given their contradictory implications, the analysis turns to less direct evidence of famine‐related mortality. That evidence includes China's demographic experience during the Great Leap Forward and recent measurements of child malnutrition in North Korea. Crosscountry comparisons translate this malnutrition into corresponding levels of infant mortality. The article concludes that famine‐related deaths in North Korea from 1995 to 2000 most likely numbered between 600,000 and 1 million.     

The Significance of Demographic Triviality: Minority Status and Zodiacal Fertility Timing Among Chinese Malaysians

The hypothesis that minority status creates social tensions that affect fertility behaviour attracted much attention during the late 1960s and 1970s, but then disappeared after 1980. This sudden exit was due to a combination of methodological difficulties in distilling the independent effects of minority status from other socio-economic factors, weaknesses or ambiguities in the empirical record, and other difficulties. This paper examines a natural experiment that serendipitously by-passes more of these problems than has been heretofore possible – the attempt by Chinese in Malaysia to time births into the auspicious Year of the Dragon. A multivariate model shows that this unique fertility behaviour was more common in Malaysian districts with smaller proportions of Chinese, which suggests that minority status can directly affect ethnic identity. The results also highlight a paradoxical solution to a grander problem facing socio-demographic theory. Before we can posit that culture or values play an independent role in transitions to lower fertility, we should first trace a baseline definition of these values from the study of demographically trivial events.     

Placement type matters: Placement experiences in relation to justice system involvement among child welfare-involved youth and young adults

Out-of-home placement in the child welfare system is related to justice system involvement. Yet, few studies address the similarities and differences of child welfare placement types in relation to justice system involvement within the same sample of youth, which can provide a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between the two. Utilizing a sample of child welfare youth with substantial out-of-home placements (N = 794), we investigate trajectory group experiences on each of three child welfare placement types, and cross-tabulate each with justice system trajectory groups to examine subgroups. The five-group model fits best for foster homes and group homes; four groups for residential facilities. Relationships between justice system groups and placement types were significant. Youth with chronic justice system involvement had more experiences in group homes and residential facilities; youth with less justice system contact tended to have foster home experiences. Implications for policy and practice are presented.     

Prevalence of sarcopenia and its association with functional and nutritional status among male residents in a nursing home in Turkey

Introduction The Aging Male Symptoms' (AMS) scale was designed as a health-related quality of life (QoL) scale and standardized as a self-administered scale, first, to assess symptoms of aging (independent from those which are disease-related) between groups of males under different conditions, second, to evaluate the severity of symptoms/QoL over time, and, third, to measure changes pre- and post-androgen replacement therapy. The scale is in widespread use (17 languages currently available) and a recent review of methodological data documented good psychometric characteristics and ability as a clinical utility. This paper describes test characteristics of the AMS (positive and negative predictive values), taking two internationally established and published screening scales for androgen deficiency as the available standard.

Method A sample of 150 German males aged 40–69 years completed the AMS scale and two screening scales for androgen deficiency: the ADAM scale of Morley and colleagues and the screener of Smith and colleagues. The technique of a computer-assisted telephone interview was applied.

Result The comparison of the AMS with the two screening instruments for androgen deficiency showed sufficiently good compatibility despite conceptual differences. The AMS scale sufficiently predicted the results of the two screening instruments. A positive predictive value of 92% and a negative predictive value of 50% were found regarding the ADAM scale. The respective figures regarding Smith's screener were 65% and 49% for positive and negative predictive values, respectively.

Conclusion The AMS scale obviously measures a similar phenomenon as the two established and widely used screeners for androgen deficiency, although it was not developed as a screening instrument.     

Using Photovoice to Identify Service Needs of Older African American Methadone Clients

ABSTRACT

This article presents findings from a photovoice project designed to identify service needs of older-adult African American methadone clients, as well as their current barriers to and supports for abstinence. The project involved 10 participants (aged 53 to 63 years old) recruited from a methadone maintenance program in a large Northeastern U.S. city. Thematic analysis techniques were used to analyze participants’ narratives of their pictures. Transportation emerged as a significant challenge to accessing services, and caregiving was a motivation for remaining abstinent. Future research should use similar participatory methods and engage a broader group of aging people struggling with substance abuse.     

New zodiacal influences on chinese family formation: Taiwan, 1976

Although Chinese folklore holds that the Dragon Year is an auspicious time to have a birth, notable increases in Chinese fertility in Dragon Years did not occur before 1976. Demographic explanations for the belated occurrence of this phenomenon rely on the notion of natural fertility: that is, couples’ lack of modem contraception had kept such decisions outside the realm of choice. The decomposition performed in this article, however, shows that the bulk of the 1976 Dragon Year baby boom on Taiwan was due to strategies that had always been available: marriage timing, abortion, and coital behavior. The natural fertility paradigm thus is insufficient in explaining the motivation for this behavior and should be complemented by institutional approaches.