Abstracts
March 1999, Vol. 25, No. 1

Articles

Family Demography, Social Theory, and Investment in Social Capital

Nan Marie Astone, Associate Professor, Department of Population and Family Health Sciences, Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, and an Associate of the Hopkins Population Center
Constance A. Nathanson, Professor, Department of Population and Family Health Sciences, Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, and an Associate and Former Director of the Hopkins Population Center
Robert Schoen, Professor, Department of Population and Family Health Sciences, Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, an Associate of the Hopkins Population Center, and Director of the Hopkins Center on the Demography of Aging
Young J. Kim, Professor, Department of Population and Family Health Sciences, Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, and an Associate of the Hopkins Population Center

The analytic models used by family demographers would be strengthened by the concept of social capital, placed in the context of social exchange theory. Using that concept to designate resources that emerge from social ties, the authors advance five propositions: 1) social capital is a multidimensional attribute of an individual; 2) the dimensions of social capital are the number of relationships a person has, their quality (strength), and the resources available through those relationships; 3) group membership and interaction facilitate the development of social capital; 4) the structural properties of groups influence the development of social capital; and 5) the acquisition and maintenance of social capital is a major motivator of human behavior. The formation of sexual partnerships, the birth and rearing of children, and both intragenerational and intergenerational transfers constitute major forms of investment in social capital in virtually all societies. [25, no. 1 (Mar 99) 1­31]
 

Malthusian Models and Chinese Realities: The Chinese Demographic System 1700­2000

James Lee, Associate Professor, Division of Humanities and Social Sciences, California Institute of Technology
Wang Feng, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, University of California, Irvine

This article summarizes major recent findings on Chinese demographic behavior and outlines their relevancy for the Malthusian model of comparative population dynamics and Chinese population in particular. Specifically, it considers four distinctive and persistent features of Chinese behavior during the last 300 years--high rates of female infanticide and abortion, high rates of bachelorhood, low marital fertility, and high rates of male and female adoption--and discusses the origins and implications of such a demographic regime for Chinese economic and social development. Contrasting Chinese demographic behavior with European demographic behavior, the article argues the existence of a demographic system and a demographic transition different from current Malthusian and neo-Malthusian models, and the existence of a system regulating collective demographic behavior in ways distinctly different from Western experience. [25, no. 1 (Mar 99) 33­65]
 

The Bangladesh Fertility Decline: An Interpretation

John C. Caldwell, Emeritus Professor of Demography, Australian National University, Canberra
Barkat-e-Khuda, Chief of Party, Operations Research Project, and Acting Division Director, Health and Population Extension Division, International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh, Dhaka
Bruce Caldwell, Research Fellow, National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, Australian National University, Canberra
Indrani Pieris, Research Officer, Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Canberra
Pat Caldwell, Visitor, Health Transition Centre, Australian National University, Canberra

The claim has been made, notably in a 1994 World Bank report, that the Bangladesh fertility decline shows that efficient national family planning programs can achieve major fertility declines even in countries that are very poor, and even if females have a low status and significant socioeconomic change has not occurred. This article challenges this claim on the grounds that Bangladesh did experience major social and economic change, real and perceived, over the last two decades. This proposition is supported by official data and by findings of the authors' 1997 field study in rural southeast Bangladesh. That study demonstrates that most Bangladeshis believe that conditions are very different from the situation a generation ago and that on balance there has been improvement. Most also believe that more decisions must now be made by individuals, and these include decisions to have fewer children. In helping to achieve these new fertility aims, however, the services provided by the family planning program constituted an important input. [25, no. 1 (Mar 99) 67­84]
 

The Effect of Household Wealth on Educational Attainment: Evidence from 35 Countries

Deon Filmer, researcher with the Development Research Group of the World Bank
Lant Pritchett, Principal Economist with the Indonesian resident unit of the World Bank

The authors use household survey data from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) from 44 surveys (in 35 countries) to document different patterns in the enrollment and attainment of children from rich and poor households. They overcome the lack of income or expenditure data in the DHS by constructing a proxy for long-run wealth of the household from the asset information in the surveys, using the statistical technique of principal components. There are three major findings. First, the enrollment profiles of the poor differ across countries but fall into distinctive regional patterns: in some regions the poor reach nearly universal enrollment in first grade, but then drop out in large numbers leading to low attainment (typical of South America), while in other regions the poor never enroll in school (typical of South Asia and Western/Central Africa). Second, there are enormous differences across countries in the "wealth gap," the difference in enrollment and educational attainment of the rich and poor. While in some countries the difference in the median years of school completed of the rich and poor is only a year or two, in other countries the wealth gap in attainment is 9 or 10 years. Third, the attainment profiles can be used as diagnostic tools to suggest issues in the educational system, such as the extent to which low attainment is attributable to physical unavailability of schools. [25, no. 1 (Mar 99) 85­120]
 

Corn and Crisis: Malthus on the High Price of Provisions

E. A. Wrigley, Master of Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge, and currently President of the British Academy

In 1799 Malthus spent six months in Scandinavia. There he witnessed the extreme deprivation, misery, and mortality that were once the common accompaniments of a bad harvest. On his return to England he found that the topic of the day was the exceptionally high price of bread, which threatened both political turmoil and human suffering. In the event, suffering even among the very poor was far less than in Sweden, though the increase in the price of the chief bread grain was greater. Malthus was intrigued by this apparent paradox. In An investigation of the cause of the present high price of provisions, published in 1800, he resolved it using arguments similar to those developed recently by Amartya Sen in his exposition of the concept of "entitlements." In spite of his principled opposition to the poor laws, Malthus conceded that their effectiveness in transferring purchasing power to those most in need was a major reason for the limited impact of the dearth. [25, no. 1 (Mar 99) 121­128]
 

Marital and Fertility Careers of Russian Women Born Between 1910 and 1934

Sergei Scherbov, Researcher and Lecturer, Population Research Centre, University of Groningen, the Netherlands
Harrie van Vianen, Lecturer, Population Research Centre, University of Groningen, the Netherlands

Women born in Russia in the early decades of this century grew up in a period characterized by profound societal changes. Their lives were affected by often devastating events, in particular World War II, that ravaged society when they were entering their childbearing years. This note presents a detailed demographic analysis of the marital and fertility careers of women born between 1910 and 1934 based on individual retrospective life histories, collected in the most recent (5 percent) 1994 microcensus of the Russian Federation. It assesses the influence of external events on age at first marriage, widowhood, divorce, childlessness, parity, and age at birth. A comparison with younger cohorts shows that the societal disturbances had strong temporary effects. However, the final outcomes were not influenced very much: completed fertility continued its slow, secular decline. [25, no. 1 (Mar 99) 129­143]
 

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