Articles
- On Causation in Demography: Issues and
Illustrations / Máire Ní Bhrolcháin, Tim Dyson
This essay addresses the issue of causation in demography. The focus is
on change in aggregate demographic phenomena through time. Causal
linkage is considered in relation both to mechanical demographic
processes and to more substantive causes of population change, such as
social, economic, political, and historical influences. The intervention
framework is too rarely applicable to be useful as a general solution to
causal inference in demography. Examples of demographic change are
examined, ranging from relatively straightforward instances of causation
to more complex cases. Ten criteria are proposed that are intended to
assist in the evaluation of causation in the context of demographic
change. [33, no. 1 (Mar 07): 1–36] (offsite
link*)
-
Longing for the Good Life: Understanding Emigration from a High-Income
Country
/ Hendrik P. van Dalen, Kène Henkens
Why do people leave high-income countries with extensive welfare states?
This article examines the driving forces of emigration intentions of
native-born inhabitants of the Netherlands. To understand modern-day
emigration we focus not only on factors that refer to individual
characteristics, but also on perceptions of the quality of the public
domain, which involves institutions as well as the ”public goods” these
institutions produce: social protection, safety, environmental quality,
education, and so on. Our survey data, collected during 2004–05, suggest
that emigrants are motivated not so much by private circumstances but by
a longing for the good life, which relates largely to the public domain.
A better quality of life is approximated by the presence of nature and
space, absence of noise, and a less densely populated country. To gauge
the effect of the quality of the public domain, a counterfactual
scenario is offered, which suggests that severe neglect of the public
domain appreciably increases the pressure to emigrate by a factor of 4
to 5. [33, no. 1 (Mar 07): 37–65] (offsite
link*)
- The Concentration of Reproduction in Cohorts of
Women in Europe and the United States / Vladimir M. Shkolnikov,
Evgueni M. Andreev, René Houle, James W. Vaupel
What proportion of women bear what proportion of children? Is
reproduction concentrated among relatively few women or is it more
equally spread among most women? We address these questions by examining
concentration curves and summary statistics for female cohorts with
completed fertility in the United States and 18 European countries.
Concentration of reproduction designates the amount of inter-individual
diversity among women in respect to the number of children they have and
is measured by the concentration ratio and by the Havehalf and
Halfhave statistics. The decline in the concentration of
reproduction described by prior studies has more recently reversed—first
in the United States and then in western and eastern Europe. At present,
the concentration of reproduction tends to be increasing. This trend is
predominantly determined by growing childlessness. Increases in the
share of women with one child and decreases in the share of women with
two children produce additional effects in some countries. The
concentration of reproduction is especially high in West Germany and
English-speaking countries, and low in most eastern European countries.
It is only for the United States that our data confirm the strong
negative correlation between the level of average fertility and
concentration found by earlier studies. It appears that the relationship
varies across countries and time. In western countries lower average
fertility and a higher concentration of reproduction are found among
highly educated women; the least educated groups experience higher
average fertility and lower concentration of reproduction. This is not
the case in countries of eastern Europe. Even in populations with
significant fertility differences between racial and social groups, the
total amount of diversity is mainly determined by within-group rather
than inter-group variation. Monitoring of concentration of reproduction
provides important information for making decisions concerning social
and family policies. [33, no. 1 (Mar 07): 67–99] (offsite
link*)
- Theories of Fertility Decline and the Evidence
from Development Indicators
/ John Bryant
Most social scientists agree that socioeconomic change and the diffusion
of new ideas have both contributed to fertility declines in developing
countries. Disagreement remains, however, over the relative importance
of the two sets of causes. Assessments of the relative importance
typically use data on the relationship between fertility and development
indicators such as GDP per capita and literacy. The prevailing
interpretation of this evidence is that it demonstrates major weaknesses
in socioeconomic explanations. Three propositions have become widely
accepted: (1) fertility declines in countries with low scores on
development indicators cannot be explained by socioeconomic theories;
(2) the relationship between fertility and development is weaker than
would be predicted by socioeconomic theories; and (3) the relationship
between development and fertility has shifted over time. This article
questions the accuracy and substantive significance of all three
propositions. It argues that fertility declines in at least some
countries with low development scores can be reconciled with some
socioeconomic theories. It shows that a handful of development
indicators can predict most of the important characteristics of
fertility declines in a sample of 87 developing countries. It then shows
that previous analyses have overestimated the size of shifts in the
relationship between fertility and development. The conclusion is that
socioeconomic theories of fertility decline fit the evidence better than
is generally thought. [33, no. 1 (Mar 07): 101–127] (offsite
link*)
Notes and
Commentary
- China’s Local and National Fertility Policies
at the End of the Twentieth Century / Gu Baochang, Wang Feng,
Guo Zhigang, Zhang Erli
China’s fertility policy, a national priority for over two decades,
has evolved to contain highly localized features, yet variation in
fertility policy implementation by locality has not been well
documented. Using data collected at China’s 420 prefecture-level
administrative units, this study provides a quantitative summary of
fertility policy implementation and examines the localized nature of
fertility policymaking in China during the late 1990s. The findings
indicate that China’s fertility policy encompasses much geographic
and demographic variation. Nevertheless, the one-child policy
remains a core element and exerts a substantial impact on China’s
demographic processes. The average total fertility rate targeted by
current fertility policies for China as a whole (the “policy
fertility”) is estimated at 1.47 at the end of the 1990s, a rate far
below the replacement level. [33, no. 1 (Mar 07): 129–147] (offsite
link*)
Data and Perspectives
-
Approaching the Limit: Long-Term Trends in Late and Very Late
Fertility / Francesco C. Billari, Hans-Peter Kohler, Gunnar
Andersson, Hans Lundström
This article describes trends in the limits to late childbearing,
their determinants, and their potential implications from an
empirical long-term perspective. Although in contemporary
low-fertility populations the levels of late fertility remain far
below those observed in natural fertility populations, fertility in
Europe and the United States at ages 40+ and 45+ has increased
substantially in recent years. This trend has received considerable
attention in the media, especially in combination with the emergence
of new assisted reproductive technologies and levels of general
fertility. Nevertheless, physiological studies agree that age limits
to giving birth have not shifted to later ages. Analysis of
high-quality long-term data from Sweden documents an increase in the
absolute and relative number of births at ages 40+ and 45+, together
with an increase in first-birth occurrence-exposure rates at ages
close to 40 years. [33, no. 1 (Mar 07): 149–170] (offsite
link*)
Archives
(offsite
link*)
- Adam Ferguson on Population and Wealth
Book Reviews
(offsite
link*)
- The Struggle for International Consensus on Population and
Development / John F. Kantner and Andrew Kantner
Reviewed by John C. Caldwell
- World Development Report 2007: Development and the Next
Generation / World Bank
Reviewed by Cynthia B. Lloyd
- Genes, Behavior, and the Social Environment: Moving Beyond
the Nature/Nurture Debate / Lyla M. Hernandez and Dan G. Blazer
(eds.)
Reviewed by John G. Haaga
- Global Economic Prospects 2007: Managing the Next Wave of
Globalization / World Bank
Reviewed by Geoffrey McNicoll
- A Culture of Corruption: Everyday Deception and Popular
Discontent in Nigeria / Daniel Jordan Smith
Reviewed by Susan Cotts Watkins
Short
Reviews (offsite
link*)
- The Other Half of Gender: Men’s Issues in Development /
Ian Bannon and Maria C. Correia (eds.)
- Weighing Lives / John Broome
- The State of Food and Agriculture: Agricultural Trade and
Poverty: Can Trade Work for the Poor? / Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations
- Future Human Evolution: Eugenics in the Twenty-First Century
/ John Glad
- Human Development Report 2006. Beyond Scarcity: Power,
Poverty and the Global Water Crisis / United Nations Development
Programme
Documents
(offsite
link*)
- Ben S. Bernanke on Long-Term Fiscal Challenges Facing the United
States
- Report of Nigeria’s National Population Commission on the 2006
Census
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