Articles

• The North Korean Famine and Its Demographic Impact

Daniel Goodkind, demographer at the International Programs Center, U.S. Census Bureau
Loraine West, economist at the International Programs Center, U.S. Census Bureau

The North Korean famine began in 1995 and its ill effects, while peaking in the late 1990s, undoubtedly linger. Recent conjectures on excess deaths caused by the famine range widely from about 200,000 to 3 million or more. This article assesses the demographic impact of the famine with greater rigor than has previously been attempted and describes the unique setting in which the famine occurred. The analysis begins with a pair of population projections based on mortality statistics from two sources. Given their contradictory implications, the analysis turns to less direct evidence of famine-related mortality. That evidence includes China's demographic experience during the Great Leap Forward and recent measurements of child malnutrition in North Korea. Cross-country comparisons translate this malnutrition into corresponding levels of infant mortality. The article concludes that famine-related deaths in North Korea from 1995 to 2000 most likely numbered between 600,000 and 1 million. [27, no. 2 (Jun 01): 219-238]

• How Much Will Feeding More and Wealthier People Encroach on Forests?

Paul E. Waggoner, Distinguished Scientist, The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, New Haven
Jesse H. Ausubel, Director, Program for the Human Environment, Rockefeller University, New York

Forests have recently expanded in many countries. The success of the world, including both rich and poor, in following this trend depends on future changes in population, income per capita, appetite, and crop yields. Extended to the year 2050, the strengths of these forces, estimated from experience, project cropland shrinking by nearly 200 million hectares, more than three times the land area of France. Changes in some of the forces, with crop yield the most manageable, could double the shrinkage. Reasonable assumptions about the forces can also make the distribution of spared land between rich and poor countries roughly equal. Although the encroachment factor translating cropland change into forest land change varies greatly, one-third or more of the cropland spared could become forest. [27, no. 2 (Jun 01): 239-257]

• Prenatal Sex Determination and Sex-Selective Abortion in Rural Central China

Chu Junhong, Associate Professor, Institute of Population Research, Peking University, Beijing

This study analyzes the practice of prenatal sex selection in rural central China. It examines the prevalence and determinants of prenatal sex determination by ultrasound scanning and subsequent sex-selective abortion. The data are derived from a survey of 820 married women aged 20-44 and from in-depth interviews with rural women and men, village leaders, family planning managers, and health providers, conducted by the author in one county in central China in 2000. Prenatal sex determination was a widespread practice, especially for second and higher-order pregnancies. Sex-selective abortion was prevalent and order of pregnancy, sex of fetus, and sex of previous children were major determinants of the practice. A female fetus representing a high-order pregnancy in a family with one or more daughters was the most likely to be aborted. Awareness among rural families that in the population at large a future marriage squeeze was likely did not diminish the demand for sex-selective abortion. [27, no. 2 (Jun 01): 259-281]

• Health Interventions and Health Equity: The Example of Measles Vaccination in Bangladesh

Michael A. Koenig, Associate Professor, Department of Population and Family Health Sciences, School of Hygiene and Public Health, The Johns Hopkins University
David Bishai, Assistant Professor, Department of Population and Family Health Sciences, School of Hygiene and Public Health, The Johns Hopkins University Mehrab Ali Khan, Assistant Scientist, ICDDR,B: Centre for Health and Population Research, Bangladesh

Although the existence of socioeconomic differentials in infant and childhood mortality in developing countries is well established, little consensus exists as to the most effective approaches to reducing such differentials. This article utilizes longitudinal data from the Matlab study area in rural Bangladesh to investigate the impact of an efficacious child survival intervention--measles vaccination--on reductions in gender and socioeconomic differentials in childhood mortality. The article analyzes data from 16,270 vaccinated children and randomly matched controls, and evaluates their subsequent mortality risks. Proportional hazards analysis demonstrates that unvaccinated children from very poor families face more than a threefold higher risk of subsequent early child mortality, compared to vaccinated children from families of high economic status. While measles vaccination has little impact on mortality risks among children of higher economic status, the improvement in survival among children from poorer households is pronounced. The provision of measles vaccination markedly reduces mortality risks for poorer children--from over three times higher to just over 1.5 times higher relative to vaccinated children from wealthier families. The findings of this study are evaluated in terms of the potential of child survival interventions such as measles vaccination to promote greater health equity. [27, no. 2 (Jun 01): 283-302]

Notes and Commentary

• Measurement of Biomarkers in Surveys in Developing Countries: Opportunities and Problems

J. Ties Boerma, Fellow, Carolina Population Center and Department of Maternal and Child Health, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Elizabeth Holt, Assistant Scientist, Department of International Health, The Johns Hopkins University
Robert Black, Professor and Chairman, Department of International Health, The Johns Hopkins University

Reliable and comprehensive data on disease levels, patterns, and trends in populations are required to monitor global and local epidemics and to assess the effectiveness of public health approaches to disease and injury prevention and control. For most developing countries, little is reliably known about causes of mortality or about disease incidence, prevalence, and duration. Advances in technology offer the opportunity to collect biomarkers--biological and clinical data--in existing large-scale, national sample surveys. Such data on biomarkers could result in significantly better insight into public health problems and more rational and equitable policies leading to improved health. The combination of traditionally collected behavioral data with biological and clinical data affords many possibilities to better assess health problems and to develop the most cost-effective set of interventions. Careful assessment and discussion of the potential public health benefits, ethical issues, and logistical challenges should guide the application of technological advances in population-based surveys. [27, no. 2 (Jun 01): 303-314]

• Surnames in US Population Records

William Petersen, Robert Lazarus Professor of Social Demography Emeritus, Ohio State University, Columbus

Two federal agencies have used surnames to classify persons by ethnicity. As two important twentieth-century examples, names were used to set immigration quotas, and the Census Bureau used names as the defining characteristic of Hispanics. However, many names have been changed and, if unaltered, they are in any case an unreliable index of ethnic identity. [27, no. 2 (Jun 01): 315-322]

Data and Perspectives

• The World's Changing Human Capital Stock: Multi-State Population Projections by Educational Attainment

Wolfgang Lutz, Leader of the Population Project, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria
Anne Goujon, Research Scholar with the Population Project, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria

This research note presents the first global population projections by educational attainment using methods of multi-state population projection. The educational composition of the population by age and sex and educational fertility differentials are estimated for 13 world regions, and alternative scenarios are presented to the year 2030. One of these scenarios assumes constant educational transition rates and the other assumes that all regions reach Northern American levels of enrollment rates by 2030. The strong momentum or, as the case may be, inertia in the transformation of the educational composition of a population, seen in the results, arises because education is mostly acquired at a young age. The sex bias in the educational composition, especially evident in some developing countries, is unlikely to disappear soon. China has made remarkable progress in improving educational enrollment and as a consequence by 2030 is expected to have more educated people of working age than Europe and Northern America together. [27, no. 2 (Jun 01): 323-339]

• The Preliminary Demography of the 2001 Census of India

Tim Dyson, Professor of Population Studies, London School of Economics

This note presents and comments on the provisional results of the 2001 census of India. For the first time since Independence in 1947 there is clear evidence that the country's intercensal rate of population growth has fallen significantly--from an average annual rate of 2.14 percent between 1981 and 1991 to a rate of 1.93 percent between 1991 and 2001. At the state level there has been little change in the rates of population growth in Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, but there are signs of--often quite considerable--reductions in growth rates for most of the remaining states. The provisional census results suggest that there has been a decline in India's population masculinity compared to 1991. But the note contends that this decline is probably largely spurious because females were less fully enumerated in 1991 than they were in 2001. Indeed the sex ratios of the states of Punjab, Haryana, Maharashtra, and Gujarat have become noticeably more masculine, which may partly reflect the influence of sex-selective abortion. [27, no. 2 (Jun 01): 341-356]

Archives

• Bertil Ohlin on Population, Trade, and Territorial Expansion

Book Reviews

• Samuel H. Preston, Patrick Heuveline, and Michel Guillot, Demography: Measuring and Modeling Population Processes, reviewed by Henri Leridon
   
• Bobbi S. Low, Why Sex Matters: A Darwinian Look at Human Behavior and Linda Mealey, Sex Differences: Developmental and Evolutionary Strategies, reviewed by Ulrich Mueller
   
• Harriet B. Presser and Gita Sen (eds.), Women's Empowerment and Demographic Processes: Moving Beyond Cairo, reviewed by Nancy Folbre
   
• World Health Organization, The World Health Report 2000: Health Systems: Improving Performance, reviewed by Kenneth Hill
   
• John Bongaarts and Rodolfo A. Bulatao (eds.), Beyond Six Billion: Forecasting the World's Population, reviewed by Robert Schoen
   
• John D. Early and John F. Peters, The Xilixana Yanomami of the Amazon: History, Social Structure, and Population Dynamics, reviewed by Nancy Howell

Short Reviews

• Reginald Appleyard (ed.), Emigration Dynamics in Developing Countries. Volume IV: The Arab Region
   
• James R. Carey and Debra S. Judge, Longevity Records: Life Spans of Mammals, Birds, Amphibians, Reptiles, and Fish
   
• Bart J. de Bruijn, Foundations of Demographic Theory: Choice, Process, Context
   
• Laurie Garrett, Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health
   
• Ellen M. Gee and Gloria M. Gutman (eds.), The Overselling of Population Aging: Apocalyptic Demography, Intergenerational Challenges, and Social Policy
   
• International Organization for Migration, World Migration Report 2000
   
• National Intelligence Council, Global Trends 2015: A Dialogue about the Future with Nongovernment Experts
   
• Richard Parker, Regina Maria Barbosa, and Peter Aggleton (eds.), Framing the Sexual Subject: The Politics of Gender, Sexuality, and Power
   
• United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Demographic Yearbook 1998: Fiftieth Issue

Documents

• Demographic Prospects 2000­2050 According to the 2000 Revision of the United Nations Population Projections
   
• The European Commission on Factors Influencing Labor Migration
   
• WHO on Health and Sustainable Development