• Is Lowest-Low Fertility in Europe Explained by the Postponement of Childbearing?

Tomás Sobotka, doctoral candidate, Population Research Centre, Faculty of Spatial Sciences, University of Groningen, and Research Fellow, Vienna Institute of Demography

In 2001, more than half of Europe's population lived in countries with a total fertility rate (TFR) at or below 1.3. Use of the adjusted TFR proposed by Bongaarts and Feeney, which takes into account the effects of the ongoing fertility postponement, changes the European fertility map considerably. All 27 countries analyzed had adjusted TFRs in 1995­2000 above 1.4. Thus, the "lowest-low" fertility in Europe may be interpreted as a temporary consequence of the increasing age at motherhood. However, substantial regional differences in fertility level across Europe persist even when the differential pace of fertility postponement is taken into account. The estimated adjusted TFRs in Europe (1.63) and in the 25-member European Union (1.71) contrast with the TFR levels of 1.40 and 1.46, respectively. These seemingly small differences have vastly different implications in terms of the potential long-term pace of population decline. [30, no. 2 (Jun 04): 195–220]

• Contradictions in Nigeria's Fertility Transition: The Burdens and Benefits of Having People

Daniel Jordan Smith, Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Population Studies, Brown University

Nigeria appears to be experiencing a transition to lower fertility. Based on ethnographic research, this article shows how Nigerians navigate a paradoxical political-economic and cultural context, wherein they face powerful pressures both to limit their fertility and to have relatively large families. The main argument advanced here is that Nigerians' fertility behavior must be understood in the context of the ways that parenthood, children, family, and kinship are inextricably intertwined with how people survive in a political economy organized around patron­clientism. Despite the fact that fertility transition is widely associated with broad processes of modernization and development, ordinary Nigerians experience the pressures to limit fertility in terms of a failed economy, development disappointments, and personal hardship—even while they see relatively smaller families as essential if they are to educate their children properly and adapt to a changing society. [30, no. 2 (Jun 04): 221–238]

• The Determinants of Gender Equity in India: Examining Dyson and Moore's Thesis with New Data

Lupin Rahman, doctoral candidate, Department of Economics, London School of Economics
Vijayendra Rao, Senior Economist, Development Research Group, The World Bank

In revisiting the influential Dyson and Moore (1983) hypothesis as to why women in South India enjoy relatively more agency than in the North, we conducted an econometric analysis of the determinants of women's mobility and decisionmaking authority. Data for the study come from a household data survey carried out in the Northern state of Uttar Pradesh and in the Southern state of Karnataka in 1995. We find that cross-cousin and uncle­niece marriage is more prevalent in Karnataka as expected. Contrary to Dyson and Moore, however, by 1995 a majority of communities in both North and South practiced village exogamy, and dowries in the two regions were of similar size. Reduced-form, multivariate regressions show that cultural factors affect women's autonomy in ways not earlier predicted. The impact of village exogamy is mixed rather than negative, while that of consanguinity is strongly negative rather than positive as Dyson and Moore surmised. These authors correctly identified the negative effect purdah has on female mobility. Consistent with economic theory, our data show that higher wages for women consistently improve their mobility and authority, while higher male wages decrease them. Improvements in infrastructure—particularly the presence of street lights and schools in the village—are associated with increased women's agency. We conclude, therefore, that economic factors, state action, and restrictions on mobility seem more powerful than kinship structures as explanations of differences in female autonomy between North and South India. [30, no. 2 (Jun 04): 239–268]

• Sex Differentials in Childhood Feeding, Health Care, and Nutritional Status in India

Vinod Mishra, Fellow, Population and Health Studies, East-West Center, Honolulu
T. K. Roy, Director, International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai
Robert D. Retherford, Coordinator, Population and Health Studies, East-West Center, Honolulu

Strong preference for sons in South Asia is well documented, but evidence on female disadvantage in childhood feeding, health care, and nutritional status is inconclusive. This article examines sex differentials in indicators of childhood feeding, health care, and nutritional status of children under age 3 by birth order and sex composition of older living siblings. Data are from India's 1992­93 and 1998­99 National Family Health Surveys. The analysis finds three reasons for inconclusive evidence on female disadvantage in aggregate analyses. First, discrimination against girls is limited to the relatively small fraction of children of certain birth orders and sex compositions of older siblings. Second, discrimination against girls when boys are in short supply and discrimination against boys when girls are in short supply cancel each other to some extent. Third, some discrimination against girls (e.g., in exclusive breastfeeding at 6­9 months) is nutritionally beneficial to girls. Separate analyses for North and South India find that gender discrimination is as common in the South as in the North, where son preference is generally much stronger. [30, no. 2 (Jun 04): 269–296]

Notes and Commentary

• Demographic Theory: A Long View

John C. Caldwell, Emeritus Professor, Demography and Sociology Program, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra.

This essay argues that demographic theory over the last half-century has substituted short-term explanations, often focusing on single demographic events, for long-term theory. This means not only that the explanations cannot be employed to forecast the situation in the more distant future, but they are inadequate even for short-term analysis. A basis for a longer-term theory of fertility transition is proposed, employing the concept of social structure and demographic behavior adjusting, slowly and after a considerable lag, to each of three modes of production. The focus is on the transition from agricultural to industrial production, especially as this is occurring in the most advanced industrial societies. Three major conclusions are drawn. (1) Unanticipated fertility changes over the last 50 years can be incorporated within a single demographic transition theory. (2) Societal and demographic changes are still at an early stage of their transition to full adjustment to industrialization. (3) The trend, associated with women's participation in the work force, toward below-replacement fertility will continue, but at some stage most governments will probably attempt to raise fertility to replacement level even if the effort is extremely expensive and slows economic growth. [30, no. 2 (Jun 04): 297–316]

• The Media Marketplace for Garbled Demography

Michael S. Teitelbaum, Program Director, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, New York

Differences in cultural norms and incentives provide a powerful marketplace for garbled demography in the mass media. Journalists are attracted to expectation of dramatic shifts in politically and socially controversial domains that can result from long-term population projections. Demographers routinely caution against interpreting such projections as forecasts, and emphasize the complexities and uncertainties of demographic analyses. Yet such caveats are often lost in the sequence of translations from demographic study, to press release, to journalistic treatment. In addition, advocacy groups often interpret such stories to serve their own interests, while headlines and article titles designed for general readerships are another source of miscommunication about demographic studies. Two recent cases offer object lessons of how careful demographic analyses addressing politically controversial trends can suffer from such confusions: media coverage of the 1997 National Research Council report entitled The New Americans, and the 2000 report by the United Nations Population Division entitled Replacement Migration: Is It a Solution to Declining and Ageing Populations? The essay suggests procedural changes that might moderate the level of garbled reporting and commentary that commonly characterize coverage of such studies in the mass media.  [30, no. 2 (Jun 04): 317–328]

Archives

• Alvin Hansen on Economic Progress and Declining Population Growth

Book Reviews

• American Eugenicists on Trial: A Review Essay on Edwin Black, War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race, reviewed by Dennis Hodgson
   
• Dirk Hoerder, Cultures in Contact: World Migrations in the Second Millennium; Donna R. Gabaccia, Italy's Many Diasporas; and Adam McKeown, Chinese Migrant Networks and Cultural Change: Peru, Chicago, Hawaii, 1900­1936, reviewed by Patrick Manning
   
• Harriet B. Presser, Working in a 24/7 Economy: Challenges for American Families, reviewed by A. Aneesh
   
• Joseph Lee Rodgers and Hans-Peter Kohler (eds.), The Biodemography of Human Reproduction and Fertility, reviewed by Ulrich Mueller
   
• Nadeya Sayed Ali Mohammed, Population and Development of the Arab Gulf States: The Case of Bahrain, Oman and Kuwait, reviewed by Sharon Stanton Russell
   
• Howard Phillips and David Killingray (eds.), The Spanish Influenza Pandemic of 1918­19: New Perspectives, reviewed by Svenn-Erik Mamelund

Short Reviews

• Antoine Deparcieux, Essai sur les probabilités de la durée de la vie humaine (1746) ­ Addition à l'Essai (1760)
   
• Thierry Martin (ed.), Arithmétique politique dans la France du XVIII^e siècle
   
• John Farley, To Cast Out Disease: A History of the International Health Division of the Rockefeller Foundation (1913–1951)
   
• Kay Ann Johnson, Wanting a Daughter, Needing a Son: Abandonment, Adoption, and Orphanage Care in China
   
• Elizabeth L. Krause, A Crisis of Births: Population Politics and Family-Making in Italy
   
• Angus Maddison, The World Economy: Historical Statistics
   
• Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Trends in International Migration. Annual Report, 2003 Edition
   
• Heather Paxson, Making Modern Mothers: Ethics and Family Planning in Urban Greece
   
• Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi, The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke

Documents

• The World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization: On the Cross-Border Movement of People