Homogamy by education and migration status in Monterrey,Mexico: changes and continuities over time

This paper reviews changes in homogamy by migration status and educational level in Monterrey, Mexico, through the analysis of marriage patterns for two cohorts of men born in 1905–1934 and 1940–1969. Results show a significant increase in educational homogamy, as well as in homogamy by rural origins. The changes suggest that education has played an increasingly important role in the process of mate selection, although certain particularistic characteristics, such as being a rural immigrant, are still important in marriage formation. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of these findings for the relationship between homogamy and social stratification.

Birth outcome, not pregnancy process: Reply to van der Veen

In a recent article (Frisbie. Forbes. and Pullum 1996) we documented racial/ethnic differences in birth outcomes according to a more fine-grained classification than has typically been employed in the demographic literature. In his commentary, van der Veen focuses on the measurement of one of the dimensions of that classification, maturity of the infant. as proxied by the fetal growth ratio. The crux of the critique is easily seen in van der Veen's statement that “all of my disagreements with Frisbie et al. 's method arise from their particular use of a postnatal standard for the assessment of intrauterine growth.” Our critic misunderstands our objective: He fails to realize our interest in birth outcome, not pregnancy process, and does not perceive that our intent was to extend the research extant in both the demographic and public-health literatures in which patently postnatal (i.e., ex utero) measures are taken as outcomes interesting in their own right and/or as risk factors for infant mortality and infant and childhood morbidity. Specifically, he does recognize that we purposefully expanded our focus to include moderately compromised births to determine if they were at higher risk than the normal births with whom they are conventionally categorized. Our discussion draws on research cited in the original article, on studies cited by our critic, and on a few more recent investigations. Although we have never argued that ours is the only, or even the best, approach in all cases, we try to clarify the rationale for, and adduce additional empirical evidence of, the utility of the method we used.     

Quality circle failures in UK manufacturing companies—A study. Part II

This paper presents five case studies of quality circle failures which provide a detailed picture of some of the reasons behind quality circle failures as identified in Part 1 of this study. The results also indicate that it will be easier to implement quality circles if a business is in a stable phase and the probability of success and survival will be higher. However, there is no absolutely right time to introduce quality circles and a company facing severe economic difficulties may be able to achieve a successful programme, but in such cases survival will ultimately depend on maintaining trade union support. It is pointed out that quality circle programmes are able to withstand a high failure rate of individual circles yet still be very successful.     

Demographic models of birth outcomes and infant mortality: An alternative measurement approach

Most demographic studies use 2,500 grams of birth weight and 37 weeks of gestation as cutpoints for evaluating the effects of adverse birth outcomes on infant mortality. We propose an alternative strategy, which relies on continuous measures of birth outcomes, identifies an optimal combination of birth weight and gestational age for infant survival, and estimates the effects of adverse birth outcomes in terms of their departure from this "optimal point." We illustrate the advantages of this approach by estimating a logistic model using data from the 1989-1991 NCHS linked birth/infant death files. Finally, we discuss future applications and methodological issues to be resolved in subsequent research.     

The Eventual Frequencies of Kin in a Stable Population

Associated with every real birth cohort of women is a set of probabilities {f _k} of eventually having _k daughters. With a variant of stable population theory, these probabilities are used to generate the entire probability distributions, as well as all moments, for all categories of kin who are female and female-related. With additional assumptions, a full two-sex model for all kin also is given. The two-sex model is applied to a cohort of U.S. women born in the mid-twentieth century, suggesting plausible frequencies of kin in a stationary population.     

Compromised birth outcomes and infant mortality among racial and ethnic groups

Demography - Research based on hospital records demonstrates that many births classified as normal according to conventional demographic measurement are intrauterine growth-retarded (IUGR) when...     

A vital statistics-based procedure for estimating conception rates

A method for estimating conception rates, using vital statistics data, is developed and applied to data on five-year age groups of California women for 1971. The approach is deterministic and allocates total exposure time to the known pregnancy outcomes of live birth, spontaneous abortion, and induced abortion. The population at risk is defined to exclude women who are known to be sterile or sexually inactive. Early fetal loss, premarital conception, and contraceptive use are taken into account. Estimates are made of the fecundability which would obtain ifno contraception were used.     

Procurement process: Decision by exclusion and pairwise comparisons

Two case studies illustrate multicriteria decision making techniques frequently used in procurement practice: least-cost sufficient performance and weighted utility optimization. Both techniques have defects and are rarely robust. Decision by exclusion and pairwise comparisons is proposed as a third approach which eliminates inferior alternatives by generalized forms of minimum performance requirements established under multicriteria framework. It is more robust and maintains high level of accountability.     

Correlations between frequencies of kin

Recent years have seen the development of formal and microsimulation models of the structure and dynamics of kin networks. These models generally assume uncorrelated fertility within and across generations. Several sets of real data, however, show positive correlations between the frequencies of various categories of kin. This paper uses formal models to calculate the correlations that will exist between certain categories of kin even if mothers and daughters have independent fertility. Mechanisms by which fertility might be transmitted from mothers to their daughters are considered and the implications for kin correlations are evaluated.