Abstracts
June 1998, Vol. 24, No. 2

Articles

• Family Ties in Western Europe: Persistent Contrasts

David Sven Reher, Professor of Population History, Facultad de Ciencias Políticas y Sociología, Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

In the Western world it is not difficult to identify areas where families and family ties are relatively "strong" and others where they are relatively "weak." There are regions where traditionally the family group has had priority over the individual, and others where the opposite has tended to happen, with the individual and individual values having priority over everything else. The geography of these family systems suggests that the center and northern part of Europe, together with North American society, has been characterized by relatively weak family links, and the Mediterranean region by strong family ties. There are indications that these differences have deep historical roots and may well have characterized the European family for centuries. There is little to suggest that they are diminishing today in any fundamental manner. The way in which the relationship between the family group and its members manifests itself has implications for the way society itself functions. Politicians and public planners would do well to consider the nature of existing family systems when designing certain social policies. [24, no.2 (Jun 98): 203–234]

• Communism, Poverty, and Demographic Change in North Vietnam

John Bryant, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Khon Kaen University, Thailand.

North Vietnam has for several decades had moderate mortality and moderate fertility at a very low level of income. This pattern emerged during the communist period of the 1950s to 1970s. The communist-era institutions were the fundamental cause of the economic stagnation, but they were well suited to delivering primary health care, and they encouraged better-off families to limit their childbearing. During the 1980s and 1990s the communist economic institutions disintegrated, and Vietnam's political and economic systems came increasingly to resemble those of its authoritarian capitalist neighbors. Incomes have risen quickly, from a low base, and mortality and fertility have continued to decline. The new institutions have delivered rapid economic growth but are not so well suited to providing primary health care; declining efficiency in the health sector appears, however, to have been offset by increases in available resources. The new institutions, like the old, encourage limited childbearing, and the government has developed an extensive birth control program. [24, no.2 (Jun 98): 235–269]

• On the Quantum and Tempo of Fertility (PDF)

John Bongaarts, Vice President, Policy Research Division, Population Council.
Griffith Feeney, Senior Fellow, Program on Population, East-West Center, Honolulu.

Demographers have known since the 1940s that standard measures of period fertility, such as the widely used total fertility rate, are distorted by changes in the timing of childbearing. Period fertility rates are depressed during years in which women delay childbearing and inflated in years when childbearing is accelerated. This distortion is usually ignored because there has been no generally accepted method correcting for it. This study proposes a method for removing the distortions caused by tempo changes from the total fertility rate. The key assumption of the method is that period effects, rather than cohort effects, are the primary force in fertility change, an assumption supported by past research. An application of the adjustment procedure to fertility trends in the United States shows that concern over below-replacement fertility in the past 25 years has been largely misplaced. Without the distortion induced by the rising age at childbearing, the underlying level of fertility was essentially constant at close to two children per woman throughout this period. That conventionally measured fertility in Taiwan was below replacement since the mid-1980s is also largely attributable to tempo effects. [24, no.2 (Jun 98): 271–291]

• An Old-Age Security Motive for Fertility in the United States?

Michael S. Rendall, Associate Professor of Sociology, Pennsylvania State University.
Raisa A. Bahchieva, postdoctoral researcher, New York City Housing Authority.

The old-age security motive for fertility is conventionally associated with developing countries, where the mechanisms of public and private-market provision for the well-being of the elderly are inadequate or uncertain. The present study argues for its continued relevance for developed countries. Examination of the poverty rates among the unmarried elderly in the United States uncovers substantial poverty alleviation through the financial and functional assistance of coresident family members. The period examined is the mid-1980s, immediately after the decline of official elderly poverty rates following successive expansions of the Social Security program. An alternative set of poverty measures assuming no financial or functional assistance by coresident family members, and adjusting for additional household labor resources required by functionally impaired elderly persons, is estimated for the unmarried US elderly population. These measures are then compared to poverty measures based on observed household structure and functional assistance to assess the contribution to poverty alleviation of coresident family members. Almost twice as many unmarried elderly, and three times as many disabled unmarried elderly, would be classified as poor without coresident family economic and functional assistance. The old-age security motive is discussed as a potential explanation for differential fertility according to socioeconomic status, and as a factor to consider with regard to the effects of future changes in social support programs for the elderly. [24, no.2 (Jun 98): 293–307]

Notes and Commentary

• Malthus for the Twenty-First Century (PDF)

Geoffrey McNicoll, Senior Associate, Policy Research Division, Population Council, and Professor, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra.

Should Malthus be retired, the alarms set out in his Essay on Population (first published 200 years ago) having been noted and acted upon, even though belatedly and by "vice" rather than prudence? Arguably no: much of his thinking retains current relevance, both where it seems on target and where it is blinkered. Examples are Malthus on the state and society, on distribution, and on nature. Civil and political liberty and a fairly minimalist state (public education favored, social security not) was his recipe for prosperity--still relevant for today's impoverished states and predatory regimes. The notorious 1803 passage on "nature's feast" might find echoes in the present international system. And Malthus's treatment of the exploitation of nature as an economic not an aesthetic or ethical matter has many modern parallels. In an Essay transposed to the present, just as Malthus paid little attention to the stirrings of industrial revolution in his time, we may ourselves be blind to the social, technological, and environmental forces that will shape the economic and demographic course of the next century. [24, no.2 (Jun 98): 309–316]

• Julian Simon and the Population Growth Debate

Dennis A. Ahlburg, Professor of Human Resources and Industrial Relations, Industrial Relations Center, and Director, Center for Population Analysis and Policy, University of Minnesota. Currently Visiting Professor, Centre for Population Studies, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

This note discusses Julian Simon's contribution to the population debate. While Simon, who died on 8 February 1998, is best known for his arguments supporting the thesis that the net impact of population growth is positive, his lasting contribution is most likely to be methodological: his championing of revisionism in the study of the economic consequences of population change by distinguishing direct and indirect effects and short-run and long-run impacts. The author also argues that Simon does not convincingly identify the mechanisms by which the main long-run benefits of population growth occur and notes that the weight of current empirical evidence suggests that a slowing of rapid population growth is likely to be advantageous for development, especially in poor, agrarian societies. [24, no.2 (Jun 98): 317–327]

Data and Perspectives

• Divergence of Marriage Patterns in Quebec and Elsewhere in Canada

Michael S. Pollard, graduate student, Department of Sociology, University of Victoria, Victoria, Canada.
Zheng Wu, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Victoria, Victoria, Canada.

Within the last 20 years the declines in marriage rates and prevalence have been significantly greater for Quebec than for the rest of Canada. This analysis examines the divergence of Canadian marriage patterns using ideational theory, which suggests that region itself, as a proxy for cultural setting and normative code, is a significant determinant of the marriage process. The effects of economic factors, in addition to region and other cultural markers, are examined using discrete-time event history methods. The findings suggest that factors identified by standard economic models are insufficient but nonredundant in explaining the regional differentials. There was little decline in the effect of region after controlling for a wide range of background and other characteristics. Further analysis indicates that unmarried Quebec women place less importance on marriage, but greater importance on lasting relationships, than do other unmarried Canadian women, highlighting the role of cohabitation in Canadian union formation. [24, no.2 (Jun 98): 329–356]

• Diffusion of Education in Six World Regions, 1960­90

Annababette Wils, Visiting Scholar, Center for International Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.
Anne Goujon, Research Scholar, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria.

Education has been found to be related to fertility and hence population growth; to the status of women; and to labor force skills. Therefore, education is a central issue for development, and it is important to understand the dynamics of education diffusion throughout populations during development. This note analyzes trends in school enrollment and adult education achievement for six world regions, 1960–90. There has been an enormous global increase in both measures of education. Gaps between male and female enrollment remain, and the gap is larger at lower levels of education. As enrollment rates increase and the average level of adult education rises, the gender gap narrows considerably.[24, no.2 (Jun 98): 357–368]

Archives

• Mancur Olson on the Key to Economic Development

Book Reviews

• On the Biodemography of Aging: A Review Essay of Between Zeus and the Salmon, eds. Kenneth W. Wachter and Caleb E. Finch, reviewed by S. Jay Olshansky
   
• Gordon Conway, The Doubly Green Revolution: Food for All in the Twenty-first Century, reviewed by Vernon W. Ruttan
   
• John Pullen and Trevor Hughes Parry (eds.), T. R. Malthus: The Unpublished Papers in the Collection of Kanto Gakuen University, Vol. I, reviewed by William Petersen
   
• Pál Péter Tóth and Emil Valkovics (eds.), Demography of Contemporary Hungarian Society, reviewed by Elwood Carlson
   
• William Petersen, Ethnicity Counts, reviewed by Michael S. Teitelbaum

Short Reviews

• Paul Demeny and Geoffrey McNicoll (eds.), The Earthscan Reader in Population and Development (US edition title: The Reader in Population and Development)
   
• Roger Jeffery and Patricia Jeffery, Population, Gender and Politics: Demographic Change in Rural North India
   
• Elizabeth Liagin with Information Project For Africa, Excessive Force: Power, Politics, and Population Control
   
• Peter Lloyd-Sherlock, Old Age and Urban Poverty in the Developing World: The Shanty Towns of Buenos Aires
   
• Margaret Lock and Patricia A. Kaufert (eds.), Pragmatic Women and Body Politics
   
• Gwendolyn Mikell (ed.), African Feminism: The Politics of Survival in Sub-Saharan Africa
   
• T. Paul Schultz (ed.), Economic Demography
   
• Julian L. Simon (ed.), The Economics of Population: Classic Writings
   
• Julian L. Simon (ed.), The Economics of Population: Key Modern Writings
   
• United Nations Environment Programme, Global Environment Outlook
   
• UNICEF, The State of the World's Children 1998
   
• Stephen A. Vosti and Thomas Reardon (eds.), Sustainability, Growth, and Poverty Alleviation: A Policy and Agroecological Perspective
   
• The World Bank, Confronting AIDS: Public Priorities in a Global Epidemic

Documents

• Kofi Anan on Africa's Development Problems