Charles Hirschman, Boeing International Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs, University of Washington, Seattle Physical and cultural diversity have been salient features of human societies throughout history, but "race" as a scientific concept to account for human diversity is a modern phenomenon created in nineteenth-century Europe as Darwinian thought was (mis)applied to account for differences in human societies. Although modern science has discredited race as a meaningful biological concept, race has remained as an important social category because of historical patterns of interpersonal and institutional discrimination. However, the impossibility of consistent and reliable reporting of race, either as an identity or as an observed trait, means that the notion of race as a set of mutually exclusive categories is no longer tenable. As a social science term, race is being gradually abandoned. Physical differences in appearance among people remain a salient marker in everyday life, but this reality can be better framed within the concept of ethnicity. [30, no. 3 (Sep 04): 385–415]
Albert I. Hermalin, Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Research Scientist Emeritus, Population Studies Center, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan
Li-Shou Yang, Research Investigator, Survey Research Center, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan Both population aging and the socioeconomic changes that often accompany it have effects on intergenerational arrangements. As a result, assessing the evolving social contract among family members is a key part of the research agenda. Studies monitoring these effects and other consequences are relatively new. Another way to gain insight is through a historical analysis that (a) traces how expectations for old-age support have changed over recent decades for cohorts advancing through their life cycle, and (b) measures how well expectations accord with actual patterns. This article uses a series of fertility surveys in Taiwan from 1965 to the 1990s to trace expectations for coresidence among cohorts of young married women and to compare these expectations with the actual living arrangements observed in surveys of the elderly in the 1990s. The results indicate sharp shifts in expectations for each of the cohorts as they aged. These shifts reflect a response to respondents' own life course events and the changing socioeconomic environment and show large and persistent differentials by education throughout the period. These factors tend to bring expectations into fairly close concordance with the actual living arrangements observed some years later.[30, no. 3 (Sep 04): 417–448]
Ulrich Mueller, Professor of Medical Sociology and Social Medicine, Institute of Medical Sociology and Social Medicine, Medical School, University of Marburg, Germany Statistical associations between late reproduction and female longevity led to speculations that a late birth increases a mother's life span. The database used here includes all descendants of King George I of England (1660–1727) and his wife, Sophie Dorothea (1666–1726), born in the royal dynasties in Europe up to 1939 (n=1,672). In the era of British world supremacy, these descendants formed the uppermost layer of the European aristocracy, occupying all royal thrones from 1850 onward. Novel in this study is the use of pedigree information. In pairs of ever-married full sisters (brothers), both surviving to 45 (50) years, both having at least one child, the study examines whether the sibling with the first—or last—child born later in life also lived a longer life. This design controls for genetics, socioeconomic status, parity, social support, child mortality, birth cohort, and various environmental factors. In the 157 pairs of sisters and 191 pairs of brothers, later reproduction did not extend the life span.[30, no. 3 (Sep 04): 449–466]
Zai Liang, Associate Professor of Sociology, State University of New York at Albany
Zhongdong Ma, Associate Professor, Division of Social Science, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology This article uses tabulations from the 2000 Population Census of China along with a micro-level data sample from the census to provide a picture of China's floating population: migrants without local household registration (hukou), a status resulting in significant social and economic disadvantages. By 2000, the size of China's floating population had grown to nearly 79 million, if that category is defined as migrants who moved between provinces or counties and resided at their destinations for six months or more. Intracounty floating migration is similarly large, contributing another 66 million to the size of the floating population. The article also discusses the geographic pattern of the floating population and the reasons for moving as reported by migrants. Policy implications are noted.[30, no. 3 (Sep 04): 467–488]
Notes and Commentary Hendrik P. van Dalen, Senior Research Associate, Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute, The Hague; and Research Fellow, Tinbergen Institute, Department of Economics, Erasmus University, Rotterdam
Kène Henkens, Head, Social Demography Department, Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute, The Hague This research note examines the level of uncitedness and the impact of articles published in the years 1990–92 in 17 demography journals. After ten years 24 percent of the demography articles are still uncited and the average number of citations per article is seven. The ten-year citation history reveals two novel insights. First, the impact of demography journals does not slow down significantly over time. The average number of citations in the first five years hardly differs from the average in the second five years, which suggests that one should be patient in assessing the full effect of demography articles. Second, the chance of being cited for the first time does not depend on the length of time an article remains uncited. In other words, the stigma of uncitedness does not play a significant role in the allocation of citations.[30, no. 3 (Sep 04): 489–506]
Paul Demeny,
Distinguished Scholar, Population Council The long-range population projections of the United Nations issued in 2003 span three centuries and are elaborated for all countries of the world according to the present-day political map. This note discusses the merits and limitations of this ambitious enterprise. The numerical implications of various contrasting assumptions concerning fertility, in combination with single hypothetical future schedules of mortality and international migration, provide a valuable frame of reference for contemplating possible long-range demographic trajectories. The dominant suggestion of these projections of a surprise-free convergence to a stationary or slowly declining population is, however, questionable: with respect to global numbers, relative magnitudes of the constituting units of the global total, and the time pattern of change the demographic future is likely to be far less orderly.[30, no. 3 (Sep 04): 507–517] Data and Perspectives Barbara Boyle Torrey, Visiting Scholar, Population Reference Bureau
Conrad Taeuber, Scholar, Population Reference Bureau On average, Americans die earlier than Canadians. An estimate based on comparing the number of actual US deaths with the number that would have obtained had Canadian age- and sex-specific death rates applied to the US population shows an excess number of US deaths in 1998 amounting approximately to 253,000. Excess US deaths were especially numerous among older women, middle-aged men, and nonwhites. Circulatory diseases were the major cause of excess deaths. Prevalences of two of the major risk factors for circulatory deaths—smoking and hypertension—were higher in Canada than in the US. But obesity was higher in the US, suggesting a likely important role that obesity plays in higher mortality in the US relative to Canada. Comparisons of the level, age pattern, and causes of US and Canadian mortality, however, raise more questions than currently available data can answer.[30, no. 3 (Sep 04): 519–530]
Archives Book Reviews John M. Barry, The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History, reviewed by Andrew Noymer Jacqueline Scott, Judith Treas, and Martin Richards (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to the Sociology of Families, reviewed by S. Philip Morgan Brígida García, Richard Anker, and Antonella Pinnelli (eds.), Women in the Labour Market in Changing Economies: Demographic Issues, reviewed by Catherine Hakim Samuel P. Huntington, Who Are We? The Challenges to America's National Identity, reviewed by Douglas S. Massey Herbert S. Klein, A Population History of the United States, reviewed by Daniel Scott Smith Jean Elisabeth Pedersen, Legislating the French Family: Feminism, Theater, and Republican Politics, 1870–1920, reviewed by Etienne van de Walle Peter Singer, One World: The Ethics of Globalization, reviewed by Geoffrey McNicoll
Short Reviews Jagdish Bhagwati, In Defense of Globalization Vanessa L. Fong, Only Hope: Coming of Age Under China's One-Child Policy Arianne M. Gaetano and Tamara Jacka (eds.), On the Move: Women in Rural-to-Urban Migration in Contemporary China Peter S. Heller, Who Will Pay? Coping with Aging Societies, Climate Change, and Other Long-Term Fiscal Challenges Phillip Longman, The Empty Cradle: How Falling Birthrates Threaten World Prosperity and What to Do About It William Petersen, From Persons to People: Further Studies in the Politics of Population and Against the Stream: Reflections of an Unconventional Demographer Leo Suryadinata, Evi Nurvidya Arifin, and Aris Ananta, Indonesia's Population: Ethnicity and Religion in a Changing Political Landscape United Nations Human Settlements Programme, The Challenge of Slums: Global Report on Human Settlements
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