Population Council Research that makes a difference

Population and Development Review

March 2012, Vol. 38, No. 1

Articles

• Unintended Consequences of US Immigration Policy: Explaining the Post-1965 Surge from Latin America / Douglas S. Massey, Karen A. Prel
  
  Immigration reforms in the United States initiated in the 1960s are widely thought to have opened the door to mass immigration from Asia and Latin America by eliminating past discriminatory policies. While this may be true for Asians, it is not the case for Latin Americans, who faced more restrictions to legal migration after 1965 than before. The boom in Latin American migration occurred in spite of rather than because of changes in US immigration law. In this article we describe how restrictions placed on the legal entry of Latin Americans, and especially Mexicans, set off a chain of events that in the ensuing decades had the paradoxical effect of producing more rather than fewer Latino immigrants. We offer an explanation for how and why Latinos in the United States, in just 40 years, increased from 9.6 million people and 5 percent of the population to 51 million people and 16 percent of the population, and why so many are now present without authorization. [38, no. 1 (Mar 12): 1–29] (offsite link*)
  
  
• Son Preference, Sex Selection, and Kinship in Vietnam / Christophe Z. Guilmoto
  
  This article examines the recent rise in the sex ratio at birth in Vietnam and relates its emergence to kinship systems and ethnic composition using 2009 census micro-data. Presentation of the main socioeconomic and ethnic differentials in birth masculinity is followed by a review of the three intermediate factors leading to increases in the sex ratio at birth: prenatal technology, declining fertility, and gender bias. An indirect measurement of fertility behavior is used to demonstrate the close association between levels of the sex ratio at birth and the intensity of son preference. Data on household composition indicate that Vietnam is characterized by the co-existence of kinship patterns typical of East and Southeast Asia. Son preference in Vietnam is found to be related to the prevalence of more traditional patrilineal systems. The article concludes by considering the implications of the cultural dimensions of prenatal sex selection for policy responses and for the likely future change in the sex ratio at birth. [38, no. 1 (Mar 12): 31–54] (offsite link*)
  
  
• The Latin American Cohabitation Boom, 1970–2007 / Albert Esteve, Ron Lesthaeghe, Antonio López-Gay
  
  The article describes the rise of unmarried cohabitation in Latin American countries during the last 30 years of the twentieth century, both at the national and regional levels. It documents that this major increase occurred in regions with and without traditional forms of cohabitation alike. In addition, the striking degree of catching up of cohabitation among the better-educated population segments is illustrated. The connections between these trends and economic (periods of high inflation) and cultural (reduction of stigmas in ethical domains) factors are discussed. The conclusion is that the periods of inflation and hyperinflation may have been general catalysts, but no clear indications of correlation were found between such economic factors and the rise in cohabitation. The shift toward more tolerance for hitherto stigmatized forms of conduct (e.g., homosexuality, euthanasia, abortion, single-parent household) is in line with the rise of cohabitation in regions of Argentina, Chile, and Brazil where cohabitation used to be uncommon. Further rises in cohabitation during the first decade of the twenty-first century are expected in a number of countries (e.g., Mexico) despite conditions of much lower inflation. [38, no. 1 (Mar 12): 55–81] (offsite link*)
  
  
• A Demographic Explanation for the Recent Rise in European Fertility / John Bongaarts, Tomáš Sobotka
  
  Between 1998 and 2008 European countries experienced the first continent-wide increase in the period total fertility rate (TFR) since the 1960s. After discussing period and cohort influences on fertility trends, we examine the role of tempo distortions of period fertility and different methods for removing them. We highlight the usefulness of a new indicator: the tempo- and parity-adjusted total fertility rate (TFRp*). This variant of the adjusted total fertility rate proposed by Bongaarts and Feeney also controls for the parity composition of the female population and provides more stable values than the indicators proposed in the past. Finally, we estimate levels and trends in tempo and parity distribution distortions in selected countries in Europe. Our analysis of period and cohort fertility indicators in the Czech Republic, Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden shows that the new adjusted measure gives a remarkable fit with the completed fertility of women in prime childbearing years in a given period, which suggests that it provides an accurate adjustment for tempo and parity composition distortions. Using an expanded dataset for ten countries, we demonstrate that adjusted fertility as measured by TFRp* remained nearly stable since the late 1990s. This finding implies that the recent upturns in the period TFR in Europe are largely explained by a decline in the pace of fertility postponement. Other tempo-adjusted fertility indicators have not indicated such a large role for the diminishing tempo effect in these TFR upturns. As countries proceed through their postponement transitions, tempo effects will decline further and eventually disappear, thus putting continued upward pressure on period fertility. However, such an upward trend may be obscured for a few years by the effects of economic recession. [38, no. 1 (Mar 12): 83–120] (offsite link*)
  
  

Notes and Commentary

• On the Crafting of Population Knowledge / Susan Greenhalgh
  
  Focusing on the craft aspect of population research—the generally unremarked fact that behind our well-turned-out publications lie particular, historically situated humans using craft-type techniques—this essay traces the history of the making of population knowledge about China by the author over some twenty-five years. At least in this case, population research has taken the form not of a stable sub-discipline, but of a loose, flexible, opportunistic assemblage—of concerns, logics, techniques, methods, and ethics—that has been guided by some of the big questions posed by China’s post-Mao global rise. It suggests that, unlike disciplines and inter-disciplines, population studies is a post-disciplinary assemblage whose contents and boundaries are flexible, varying with the practitioner and the research question being explored. Recounting more individual histories of population knowledge-making would help us see the strong shaping role of historical contexts and personal values in the crafting of population thought. Such insights would help us recognize the diverse pathways by which population knowledge is formed and the different purposes for which it is pursued. [38, no. 1 (Mar 12): 121–131] (offsite link*)
  
  

Data and Perspectives

• Demographic Changes in North Korea: 1993–2008 / Thomas Spoorenberg, Daniel Schwekendiek
  
  Given the scarcity of population data, few demographic analyses have been conducted on population trends in North Korea. Using the 1993 and 2008 population and housing census data, we prospectively reconstruct population change in the country during the 15 intercensal years. Reconstruction of the population trends of North Korea enables us to assess the consistency of the available demographic evidence and to assess the demographic impact of the famine in the 1990s. According to the results of the population reconstruction and our counterfactual population projections, the famine caused between 240,000 and 420,000 total excess deaths—lower than the previous estimate of 600,000–1 million; and the human costs of the deteriorating living conditions between 1993 and 2008 may be estimated as 600,000 to 850,000 total excess deaths attributable to economic decline in the post–Cold War era. The reconstructed population trends mirror the continuing deterioration of the living conditions in North Korea since the early 1990s. [38, no. 1 (Mar 12): 133–158] (offsite link*)
  
  

Archives

• John Ramsay McCulloch on Population Growth as a Stimulus to Invention
  
  

  The view that population pressure in an agrarian economy can stimulate technological and organizational change so as to raise labor productivity is commonly associated with the writings of Ester Boserup, especially her best-known book, The Conditions of Agricultural Growth (1965). This relationship is contrasted with the Malthusian argument (in the version set out in the 1798 First Essay—later editions of the Essay were more qualified) that improvements in labor productivity will lead to offsetting population increase. In stylized modeling of population and development in the modern literature, the pairing of Malthus and Boserup is virtually automatic. On this topic, however, Boserup had many predecessors, some of them Malthus’s own near contemporaries. Thus the American diplomat Alexander H. Everett, in his New Ideas on Population (1823), wrote: “It is sufficiently notorious, that an increase in population on a given territory is followed immediately by a division of labor; which produces in its turn the invention of new machines, an improvement of methods in all the departments of industry, and a rapid progress in the various departments of art and science” (p. 26). In England, Nassau Senior expressed mildly critical views of Malthus along the same lines. And somewhat later, a parallel position was taken by John Ramsay McCulloch, in the third edition (1843) of his Principles of Political Economy. The relevant passage (pp. 231–235) is reproduced below.

  McCulloch (1789–1864) was a member of the small circle of economists surrounding Ricardo. His Principles is described by Schumpeter (not at all an admirer of him or it) as “the textbook that was the most successful general treatise [on political economy] England produced in the first four decades of the nineteenth century.” In its first and second editions (1825 and 1830) the treatment of population simply echoed Malthus. The much enlarged third edition, however, gave equal weight to the counterbalancing “Boserupian” view. Indeed, in the Preface (p. xiii), McCulloch explicitly noted this equivalence: “The recent history of the theory of population affords a striking instance of the abuse of general principles, or rather of the folly of building exclusively upon one set of principles, without attending to the influence of the antagonist principles by which they may be partly or wholly countervailed.”

  The chapter on population discusses that countervailing influence. “The principle of increase is perpetually urging individuals to new efforts of skill and economy,” writes McCulloch. Inherited wealth may allow a few to sink into indolence and torpor, but for the rest “the increase of population, though generally subordinate to the increase of food, is always sufficiently powerful to keep invention on the stretch, rendering the demand for fresh inventions and discoveries as great at one time as at another.” [38, no. 1 (Mar 12): 159–163] (offsite link*)

Book Reviews [38, no. 1 (Mar 12): 165–173]

• Population Aging and the Generational Economy: A Global Perspective / Ronald Lee and Andrew Mason
  Reviewed by Geoffrey McNicoll (offsite link*)
• The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined / Steven Pinker
  Reviewed by Carl Haub (offsite link*)
• Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men / Mara Hvistendahl
  Reviewed by Alaka Malwade Basu (offsite link*)
• Is Marriage for White People? How the African American Marriage Decline Affects Everyone / Ralph Richard Banks
  Reviewed by Tomas Frejka (offsite link*)
  
  

Short Reviews [38, no. 1 (Mar 12): 175–180]

• The Longevity Project: Surprising Discoveries for Health and Long Life from the Landmark Eight-Decade Study / Howard S. Friedman and Leslie R. Martin (offsite link*)
• The End of Growth: Adapting to Our New Economic Reality / Richard Heinberg (offsite link*)
• Sexuality in Europe: A Twentieth-Century History / Dagmar Herzog (offsite link*)
• The Demographic Transition and Development in Africa: The Unique Case of Ethiopia (offsite link*)
• World Bank, World Development Report 2012: Gender Equality and Development / Charles Teller and Assefa Hailemariam (eds.) (offsite link*)

Documents

• Swiss Re on Understanding and Predicting Longevity
  
  

  Measurement of levels and changes in mortality has been a major interest of demography throughout the discipline’s history. Despite highly variable data quality, the statistical record for the past century, and in a number of countries for a substantially longer period, is well established. It is, by and large, a record of spectacular improvement in rates of survival. In the aggregate, moreover, lower chances of death have brought about accelerating population growth and, typically with a time lag, a secular decline of fertility curtailing and eventually halting that growth. In combination, these mortality and fertility trends have been reshaping population age structures—in the contemporary world, making them much older. Population aging has far-reaching implications for intergenerational financial arrangements.
  

  But description of past mortality trends, even if highly accurate and even if their underlying determinants, too, are well documented, does not provide a secure base for extrapolation. Beyond an unsurprising consensus on the likelihood of continuing improvements in survival rates, quantitative assessments of future mortality trends differ significantly. Some analysts see ever-extending horizons for improvement, reflecting healthier life styles and medical advances. Others question the likely net benefit of lifestyle changes and expect medical and pharmacological advances to show diminishing returns. This more sober outlook would point to a ceiling in life expectancy not much above that of the currently lowest-mortality populations. And in a longer perspective, new diseases and adverse environmental changes eventually may even lower that ceiling.

Reproduced below is the first half of a report issued last year by Swiss Re (the giant Switzerland-based reinsurance company) under the title A Window into the Future: Understanding and Predicting Longevity. Drawing on high-quality data from Switzerland and the United Kingdom, the authors of the report, Daniel Ryan and Matt Singleton, lucidly illustrate the major recorded improvements in mortality in the two countries and indicate some of the factors explaining those advances. They also demonstrate, using the UK as the example, the strong tendency of past predictions of life expectancy to underestimate what eventually transpired. For life insurance contracts and more generally for the actuarial calculations underlying pension systems, such misjudgments of future developments are highly significant. The counterpart of welcome achievements in longevity may be unsustainability of financial promises made to present and future annuitants.

The report offers analytical insights on sources of misestimation of survival trends. A notable instance in which the past is a poor guide is the exhaustion of particular sources of improvement: for example, the quantum drop in the prevalence of smoking, a major factor in lowering mortality rates in recent decades, cannot re-occur. But the authors are understandably reluctant to engage in predictions proper by offering quantitative estimates of future longevity. Others—planners of pension systems in particular—are in no position to exercise such caution. And demographers too must commit themselves, given the insatiable demand for population projections. The much-cited current UN projections are set out, country by country, up to 2100. To keep complexity within bounds, alternative assumptions are allowed for fertility, considered as fairly volatile, but not for mortality, seen as relatively more set on its course. (Migration too is assigned a single trajectory.) The UN’s mortality predictions are labeled “medium”— presumably a mid-range judgment. For Switzerland, the current life expectancy at birth (for the sexes combined) is slightly above 84 years; by the end of the century, the UN assumes, that will rise to 93.5 years—a heartening but challenging prospect.

This excerpt is reprinted by permission. ©2011 Swiss Re. All rights reserved. The full report is available online at http://www.swissre.com. [38, no. 1 (Mar 12): 181–185] (offsite link*)

* Journal subscribers will be able to access a PDF of the article online; nonsubscribers will be given access after paying a fee.

To read abstracts or search contents of previous volumes, visit Wiley-Blackwell (volumes 1999–2010) or JSTOR (volumes 1975–2007).

Population and Development Review

Demographic Transition and Its Consequences
Lee and Reher (eds.), 2011
Explores aspects of the transitional and post-transition landscape from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, covering both modern industrial societies and emerging economies, and taking note of the circumstances of latecomers in the transition process. (contents)
vii + 275 pp., $13.50

Population Aging, Human Capital Accumulation, and Productivity Growth
Prskawetz, Bloom, and Lutz (eds.), 2008
Studies included cover the broad economic significance of the global aging of the work force. (more) (contents)
vii + 326 pp., $25.00

The Political Economy of Global Population Change, 1950–2050
Demeny and McNicoll (eds.), 2006
Explores the international political dimensions of the population explosion and its aftermath. (contents)
Available online from JSTOR (offsite link)
viii + 288 pp., $21.00

Aging, Health, and Public Policy: Demographic and Economic Perspectives
Waite (ed.), 2004
Explores the economic, demographic, and epidemiological aspects of population aging trends and consequences. (downloadable contents)
Available online from JSTOR (offsite link)
vii + 265 pp., $21.00

Life Span: Evolutionary, Ecological, and Demographic Perspectives
Carey and Tuljapurkar (eds.), 2003
Explores the subject of the life span, both human and animal, by bringing together research conducted by scholars from many disciplines. (downloadable contents)
Available online from JSTOR (offsite link)
xi + 293 pp., $18.00

Population and Environment: Methods of Analysis
Lutz, Prskawetz, and Sanderson (eds.), 2002
This book represents the first systematic collection of population–environment methodologies and includes eight essays by demographers, social scientists, and environmental scientists.
Available online from JSTOR (offsite link)
vii + 251 pp., $18.00

Global Fertility Transition
Bulatao and Casterline (eds.), 2001
Explores the factors underlying fertility transition, analyzes recent trends, and considers the implications for future projections.
Available online from JSTOR (offsite link)
xi + 340 pp., $18.00

Population and Economic Change in East Asia
Chu and Lee (eds.), 2000
This volume, which analyzes the interplay between economic and demographic trends in East Asia, is novel in treating population aging as an integral part of the region's demographic transition.
Available online from JSTOR (offsite link)
ix + 320 pp., $15.00

Frontiers of Population Forecasting
Lutz, Vaupel, and Ahlburg (eds.), 1998
Reexamination of the procedures of population forecasting in response to emerging demands. Addresses key issues: What population characteristics beyond the standard variables of age and sex should routinely enter population forecasts? When should forecasts take account of economic or environmental feedbacks? How is forecasting accuracy to be assessed and what is the past record? What is the state of the art of stochastic time series modeling of population change? How can users cope with probability distributions? What scope is there for application of methods to incorporate expert opinion into population forecasting?
Available online from JSTOR (offsite link)
vii + 199 pp., $15.00

Fertility in the United States: New Patterns, New Theories
Casterline, Lee, and Foote (eds.), 1996
Assessment of substantial and unappreciated changes in US fertility behavior during the past two decades, with new frameworks and theories for interpreting these changes.
Available online from JSTOR (offsite link)
vii + 340 pp., $20.00

The New Politics of Population: Conflict and Consensus in Family Planning
Finkle and McIntosh (eds.), 1994
An examination of the major issues and actors—political and religious leaders, feminists, and others—and the events that have shaped global trends in family planning policies and programs in recent decades.
Out of print; available online from JSTOR (offsite link)
vii + 276 pp.

Resources, Environment, and Population: Present Knowledge, Future Options
Davis and Bernstam (eds.), 1990
Explores impending problems and interrelations between population trends, resource use, and environmental consequences.
Out of print; available online from JSTOR (offsite link)
xii + 421 pp.

Rural Development and Population: Institutions and Policy
McNicoll and Cain (eds.), 1989
Investigation of the ways in which the institutional configurations of societies influence the relationships between population dynamics and rural social and economic change.
Out of print; available online from JSTOR (offsite link)
vii + 366 pp.

Population and Resources in Western Intellectual Traditions
Teitelbaum and Winter (eds.), 1988
An examination of the intersection of science and ideology in the development of Western thought on population, resources, and the environment since the industrial revolution.
Out of print; available online from JSTOR (offsite link)
vii + 310 pp.

Below-Replacement Fertility in Industrial Societies: Causes, Consequences, Policies
Davis, Bernstam, and Ricardo-Campbell (eds.), 1986
Systematic discussions of the demographic effects of below-replacement fertility with efforts to explain its social origins, to determine the likely societal consequences, and to assess potential policy responses.
Out of print; available online from JSTOR (offsite link)
x + 360 pp.

Child Survival: Strategies for Research
Mosley and Chen (eds.), 1984
In all poor countries, malnutrition and infectious diseases are the major biological processes leading to child deaths; but the social, economic, and environmental determinants of the variations in these conditions in different societies are poorly understood. This supplement contains papers by specialists within two separate disciplines—demography and epidemiology—primarily concerned with investigating such topics.
Out of print; available online from JSTOR (offsite link)
ix + 416 pp.

Income Distribution and the Family
Ben-Porath (ed.), 1982
Addresses the important question of how family composition and related demographic processes affect and are affected by the generation and distribution of income in developing countries, and examines the difficult technical and conceptual issues involved in analyzing these relationships.
Out of print; available online from JSTOR (offsite link)
vii + 248 pp.

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Population and Development Review

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