Economic Growth, Disruption, Deprivation, Disease, and Death: On the Importance of the Politics of Public Health for Development
Simon Szreter, University Lecturer, Faculty of History, University of Cambridge, and Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge This essay argues that, contrary to current opinion in the social and policy sciences, the relationship between rapid economic growth and health is a fundamentally problematic one. Fast economic growth entails environmental, ideological, social, administrative, and, above all, political disruption. If there is no successful political and administrative response to these challenges, then the "four Ds" of disruption, deprivation, disease, and death may all ensue. The historical case of nineteenth-century Britain is examined in detail to demonstrate its consistency with this analysis and to show that the politics of public health in Britain's industrial cities was the vital factor transforming economic growth and the four Ds into health-enhancing economic and social development. The essay concludes that the new concepts related to "social capital" may provide a helpful perspective with which to understand the complexities of economic growth, the politics of public health, and "development."[23, no. 4 (Dec 97) 693-728]
Deliberate Birth Control Under a High-Fertility Regime: Reproductive Behavior in China Before 1970
Zhongwei Zhao, Research Fellow, Demography Program, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra Three interrelated beliefs concerning fertility patterns in historical China are widely held. The first suggests that fertility in Chinese history was very high; the second holds that Chinese couples did not control their fertility; and the third insists that the Chinese wanted to have as many children as possible. This study investigates whether deliberate fertility control was practiced in a selected Chinese population that was largely unaffected by China's nationwide family planning program, which began in the 1970s. The overall fertility of women in this population was rather high and fertility patterns were remarkably similar to those found in other historical Chinese populations. In the selected population, however, it is evident that a considerable number of people consciously adjusted their childbearing behavior according to what they had already achieved in reproduction. The evidence suggests that traditional Chinese culture might not be as thoroughly pronatalist as people commonly have supposed. Indeed, the fertility-regulating practice found in the selected population and China's recent fertility changes seem to indicate that some cultural beliefs might have played a facilitating role in lowering high fertility. While most Chinese people in the past did seek to have a son to continue their family line, a considerable number of them might not have wanted as many children as possible.[23, no. 4 (Dec 97) 729-767]
Implications of the 1996 Welfare and Immigration Reform Acts for US Immigration
Thomas J. Espenshade, Professor of Sociology and Faculty Associate, Office of Population Research, Princeton University
Jessica L. Baraka, doctoral candidate, Department of Economics, Princeton University
Gregory A. Huber, doctoral candidate, Politics Department, Princeton University Major changes in noncitizen eligibility for welfare and in US immigration policy are contained in two pieces of federal legislation signed into law in 1996. The first, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, reforms the entitlement policy for poor families and imposes new limits on alien access to welfare benefits and other social services. The second, the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, strengthens efforts to combat illegal immigration and creates higher standards of financial self-sufficiency for the admission of sponsored legal immigrants. The authors suggest that these reforms will produce unintended, and possibly undesirable, consequences. They argue in particular that the 1996 reform measures, instead of preserving legal immigration and discouraging illegal immigration, are more likely to reduce the former and expand incentives for the latter. In addition, the Personal Responsibility Act creates added pressures for eligible legal immigrants to apply for US citizenship. To the extent that higher rates of naturalization were unanticipated by reformers of welfare policy, the actual cost savings attributable to reduced benefits for noncitizens will be smaller than expected.[23, no. 4 (Dec 97) 769-801]
Notes and Commentary The Global Fertility Transition: The Need for a Unifying Theory
John C. Caldwell, Emeritus Professor of Demography, Australian National University, Canberra This address to the 1997 IUSSP General Conference urges the need to regard the global fertility transition as a single process explained by a unified fertility transition theory. The argument is that a global fertility transition was inevitable and that demographic pressure was intertwined with ideas, ideologies, and organized assistance both in nineteenth-century Europe and in the developing countries of the second half of the twentieth century. Once fertility change began, it was certain that it would be explained, championed, and assisted. These actions accelerated the change in both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.[23, no. 4 (Dec 97) 803-812]
Qualitative Methods in Population Studies: A Symposium- Qualitative Methods: A Key to Better Understanding of Demographic Behavior?
Carla Makhlouf Obermeyer, Associate Professor of Population and Anthropology, Harvard University
- Methods and Meanings: Reflections on Disciplinary Difference
Susan Greenhalgh, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of California at Irvine
- The Uses of Culture in Demographic Research: A Continuing Place for Community Studies
Tom Fricke, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Associate Research Scientist, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan
- Can Economics Mediate the Relationship Between Anthropology and Demography?
Vijayendra Rao, Assistant Professor of Economics, Williams College, and Visiting Mellon Fellow, Population Studies and Training Center, Brown University
- Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches to Historical Demography
David I. Kertzer, Paul Dupee University Professor of Social Science, Brown University
- A Case for Nonanthropological Qualitative Methods for Demographers
John Knodel, Professor of Sociology, University of Michigan The past several years have seen systematic attempts to assess the extent to which analytic approaches from anthropology and, to a lesser degree, from other social sciences, can provide insights into demographic behavior. These five commentaries, introduced by Carla Makhlouf Obermeyer, examine the potentials and limitations of qualitative methods for improving our understanding of population processes. Susan Greenhalgh argues that demography tends to be supportive of the existing institutions of society and their political and policy goals. An infusion of qualitative methods into demography would be a correction for this bias. Tom Fricke contends that the characteristics of a demographically viable theory of culture derive from its emphasis on understanding highly concrete and local situations. Another way of integrating demography and anthropology, writes Vijayendra Rao, is for ethnographic analysis to inform rational choice models, which generate hypotheses that are then analyzed with survey data using demographic methods. David Kertzer notes that demographic change can be understood only in terms of a web of relationships involving cultural norms, social structure, political power, and economic relations. Finally, John Knodel argues that focus groups and in-depth interviews make collection of qualitative data more practical for demographers, permit data to be collected in several communities in the same study, and facilitate comparative analysis of findings between different settings.[23, no. 4 (Dec 97) 813-853]
Data and Perspectives The Immigrant Subsidy in US Agriculture: Farm Employment, Poverty, and Welfare
J. Edward Taylor, Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of California, Davis, and member of the Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics
Philip L. Martin, Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of California, Davis, and member of the Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics This article examines relationships between immigration, farm employment, poverty, and welfare use in 65 towns and cities with populations ranging from 1,000 to 20,000 in 1990 in the major agricultural areas of California. It tests the hypothesis that expanding labor-intensive agriculture creates a negative externality by drawing large numbers of workers from Mexico, offering many of them poverty-level earnings, and increasing public assistance use in rural towns. Econometric findings reveal a circular relationship between farm employment and immigration. An additional 100 farm jobs are associated with 136 more immigrants, 139 more poor residents, and 79 more people receiving welfare benefits in rural towns. An additional 100 immigrants, in turn, are associated with 37 more farm jobs. Most of the impact of farm employment on poverty is indirect, through immigration. Each additional California farm job was associated with $1,103 in welfare payments in 1990. Since the average California farmworker in 1990 earned $7,320, the "welfare subsidy" associated with using immigrants to fill farm jobs was equivalent to 15 percent of farmworker earnings.[23, no. 4 (Dec 97) 855-874]
Archives - Polybius on Fertility Control in Ancient Greece
Book Reviews - Donald O. Mitchell, Merlinda D. Ingco, and Ronald C. Duncan, The World Food Outlook: A Review Essay by Nikos Alexandratos
- Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, reviewed by Garrett Hardin
- James Z. Lee and Cameron D. Campbell, Fate and Fortune in Rural China: Social Organization and Population Behavior in Liaoning, 1774-1873, reviewed by Stevan Harrell
- Yves Blayo, Des politiques démographiques en Chine, reviewed by Alphonse L. MacDonald
- Jane C. Schneider and Peter T. Schneider, Festival of the Poor: Fertility Decline and the Ideology of Class in Sicily, 1860-1980, reviewed by Massimo Livi-Bacci
- John Leslie, The End of the World: The Science and Ethics of Human Extinction, reviewed by Geoffrey McNicoll
Short Reviews - Lester R. Brown et al., State of the World 1997: A Worldwatch Institute Report on Progress Toward a Sustainable Society
- Wesley D. Chapin, Germany for the Germans? The Political Effects of International Migration
- David Clark, Urban World/Global City
- Doug Cocks, People Policy: Australia's Population Choices
- Nigel Crook, Principles of Population and Development: With Illustrations from Asia and Africa
- Gøsta Esping-Andersen (ed.), Welfare States in Transition: National Adaptations in Global Economies
- Alan Gilbert (ed.), The Mega-City in Latin America
- Ellen H. Moskowitz and Bruce Jennings (eds.), Coerced Contraception? Moral and Policy Challenges of Long-Acting Birth Control
- Alejandro Portes, Carlos Dore-Cabral, and Patricia Landolt (eds.), The Urban Caribbean: Transition to the New Global Economy
- Alejandro Portes and Rubén G. Rumbaut, Immigrant America: A Portrait (Second Edition)
- Elizabeth Bortolaia Silva (ed.), Good Enough Mothering? Feminist Perspectives on Lone Mothering
- Rosemarie Tong, Feminist Approaches to Bioethics: Theoretical Reflections and Practical Applications
Documents - Fidel Ramos on Globalization, Population Policy, and Demographic Development
- China's Population Policy
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