Immigrant Environmental Behaviors in New York City

Objective. This article compares environmental behaviors of immigrants and the native-born to answer questions about potential impacts of immigration on the U.S. environment. Methods. We consider immigrant/native-born differences in the likelihood of engaging in environmentally friendly behavior. With data from a survey of New York City residents, we test two hypotheses regarding environmental behavior: (1) controlling for environmental orientation, environmental knowledge, acculturation, community attachment, and economic status will reduce immigrant/native-born differences, and (2) controlling for race will increase immigrant/native-born differences. Results. Our analysis provided no support for the second hypothesis, but there were varied results for the first hypothesis depending on the type of environmental behavior considered. Conclusions. Our findings for New York City show that fears of immigrants being less likely to engage in environmentally friendly behaviors are unfounded. Of greater significance to environmental organizations is the lower level of immigrant involvement in environmentally oriented political behaviors, suggesting that continued immigration will present challenges both in making the environmental movement more ethnically diverse and in maintaining its vitality.     

The second great wall of China: Evolution of a successful policy of population control

Since the 1949 revolution, Chinese population policy has undergone many shifts that have alternated with general political trends. However, in the past two decades the policy has grown increasingly antinatalist as a response to slower-than-desired economic development and rapid population growth. The remarkable declines of fertility during this period have been made possible by effective contraceptive technology, efficient administration, tight political organization down to grass-roots levels, and by linking national goals of population control to patriotism. Recent minor reverses in policy and in fertility suggests that there are practical limits to such policies, but other countries have much to learn from the Chinese experience.This is an updated version of a paper published in theNPG Forum, Negative Population Growth, Inc. October, 1989.     

Does demographic knowledge matter? Results of a poll in the New York City Watershed

A 1993 telephone survey of 1,150 households in 15 upstate towns in the New York City watershed asked a number of knowledge and attitude questions related to perceptions of national, local, and world population size. Considerable public ignorance of population size was revealed, with gender differences the most critical explanatory variable. Males were much more likely to respond to knowledge questions on population size, and to respond more accurately, even after several other characteristics were held constant. However, knowledge is at best unrelated to measures of concern about population, and even shows a slight tendency to be associated with lower concern.     

Female working roles and fertility

Using survey data gathered in Turkey in 1963, the relationship between female employment status and fertility is examined. Controlling for urban-rural residence, education, and exposure to conception within marriage, no differences in fertility by labor force status appear. Although there is a slightly greater tendency for employed than for non-employed women to hold attitudes more favorable to small families and family size limitation, the observed differences are slight and not significant statistically. A typology is constructed wherein the nature and causal direction of any existing relationship between female employment and fertility are predicted, based on the availability of birth control technology and the presence or absence of conflict between the roles of mother and worker.     

Population,projections, and policy: A cautionary perspective

Population projections depend on censuses, vital statistics and sample surveys, all of which have deficiencies that are most marked in the less developed countries (LDCs). Long-range projections by international agencies have recently undergone major revisions, while forecasts of the U.S. population have changed drastically over the past four years. The United Nations typically prepares “high,” “medium” and “low” projections. Even the high projection contains optimistic assumptions about fertility decline, while assumptions of constant or increasing fertility receive no serious attention. The paper suggests that high and constant fertility projections should receive more attention from policy makers, with medium estimates treated more as targets achievable only through considerable programmatic effort. At the same time, economic and social plans should be laid for dealing with the population sizes implied by the “high” variants.     

An evaluation of the population and development program in Egypt

Previous rural surveys analyzing the impact of the Egyptian Population and Development Program on KAP variables (knowledge, attitudes, and practices of contraception) have produced mixed results. In 1982 a survey specifically designed to measure program impact contained refinements in questionnaire measurement, sampling, and analysis. Each refinement intensified the apparent program impact. Fertility itself still appears unresponsive, and attitudes toward family size have changed little, but marked differences between program and nonprogram areas in contraceptive knowledge, attitudes, and practice suggest imminent fertility declines in program areas.     

The timing of Spanish marriages a socio-statistical study

Abstract A sample survey of 2,012 married and single women aged 18-59 in Madrid was in part focused on causes of late marriage, which has for a long time been characteristic of Spain. It was found that age at marriage was not related to a variety of socio-economic measures, to parental restrictions on courtship, nor to birth order or number of siblings. Direct economic motivations appear to have affected length of courtship but scarcely age at marriage. Ages at marriage differ in different areas of Madrid, even when key demographic and social variables are controlled; and evidence from a sub-sample of interviews suggests that it may be a characteristic of different families. Along with clear evidence of normative patterns supporting long courtships and late marriages, such data point to the potential importance of sociological variables, and to the need for similar research on determinants of men's ages at marriage.     

Population and the environment: Polls,policies, and public opinion

Although recent academic and popular attention has argued for a wedding between population and environmental problems and policies, the scientific knowledge base for these topics has grown separately and at differential rates. Environmental research has grown faster than population research, while the joint treatment of these topics remains in its infancy. International polls that have included many questions concerning environmental attitudes have included far fewer on population. The few surveys on population attitudes have ignored the environment. The World Fertility Survey and the Demographic and Health Survey are fertility, rather than population, surveys. They have been useful in precipitating national policies on family planning, but are poor models for needed attitudinal and cognitive research on population and the environment. Some contemporary polls, such as the UNDEP sponsored poll conducted by the Louis Harris Agency, have serious methodological defects. Others, such as the 1992 Gallup poll, contain valuable data from which future surveys could profit. The conclusion outlines the need for a new multinational survey of Population/Environment Knowledge, Attitude and Practice (PEKAP).An earlier version of this paper was published in Clarke, John and Leon Tabah (1995).Population—Environment—Development. Paris: CICRED.