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The concept of the family life-cycle has been central to a substantial body of literature in both demography and family history.1 Because the information necessary for a full description of the family life-cycle is often difficult to obtain in most of the studies made, twentieth-century perioddata have been used. Glick has provided a somewhat longer time series with his description of the life-cycle of the American family beginning with cohorts born during the latter part of the nineteenth century, although he was forced to use a combination of data sets and various estimation techniques.2 Even with the longer time series generated by Glick, it is fair to say that the portrait of the American family life-cycle which begins with cohorts of women born during the 1880s reflects a 'modern' pattern. This modern pattern emerges from an analysis of a population in which the life-cycle was strongly influenced by declining and controlled fertility, improving levels of infant survival and increasing parental life expectancy. Evidence of the nature of the family life-cycle in the United States under earlier and very different, demographic conditions is not in general available.' It is difficult to estimate patterns of change in the family life-cycle for the entire American population during the nineteenth century, but it is feasible to secure estimates for segments of the American population. In this paper, for example, we shall deal largely with a frontier population. It is also a population which is unique in its high level of fertility, consequently providing us with an opportunity to examine the nature of the life-cycle under conditions of natural fertility. This paper is intended to achieve the following specific purposes: to extend the study of the family lifecycle to selected birth cohorts born in the United States during the nineteenth century (1800-69), arid to examine the features of the family life-cycle under conditions of high natural fertility.

The object of the paper is to provide a satisfactory intellectual context to discuss the effects of unemployment both on morbidity and on mortality. The paper consists of three main sections and an introduction and conclusion. In the first section the methodological problems involved in establishing a causal relationship between unemployment and ill-health are discussed given the incidence of poverty, ill-health and unemployment and their interrelationships. In the second section evidence from social surveys including both surveys from the 1930s and the 1978 DHSS Cohort Study of the Unemployed is presented. The last section is concerned with evidence from cross-sectional and longitudinal regression models. It is argued that by far the most promising avenue for establishing the existence and extent of any causal relationship between unemployment an either morbidity or mortality is through the analysis of longitudinal survey in which members who do not experience unemployment are included.

Summary The theory of the low-level equilibrium trap asserts that an increase in income stimulates population growth sufficiently so that the additional people 'eat up' the 'surplus' over subsistence, and hence drive the level of income back to subsistence. Originally the theory referred primarily to mortality, but nowadays its application is to fertility. In the long-run equilibrium context in which the theory is ordinarily presented, the fact that the long-run elasticity of fertility with respect to income is negative in less developed countries fatally contradicts the accepted version of the trap. But to give every chance for trap theory to be meaningful, the paper presents a period-by-period analysis, embodying larger-than-observed positive elasticities during the early years and the logically necessary counterbalancing negative elasticities during the later years. These elasticities are combined with consumption and production figures for various age groups to estimate the effect in each year after the windfall, and altogether. The results show that even under assumptions not charitable to the conclusion of this paper, additional children do not even come close to 'eating up' the increase in income which induced their births, so that the trap theory is falsified.

This volume includes papers presented at a conference dealing with population policy perspectives in developing countries and held during December 1981. The conference theme was to incorporate the important aspects of population related matters from the aspect of governmental policy and community participation and to suggest a course of action for the future. The conference focused on population policy perspectives relating to socioeconomic systems and population policy; fertility influencing policies; mortality influencing policies; and migration influencing policies. The papers in the 1st section discuss some of the problems arising from disparities in population trends social structure and policy implications. The common issue is the need for a policy for integrated development with population policy forming a part of such an integrated development policy. The following were among the issues emerging from the social economic and ecological systems analysis: the causal mechanism relating development efforts with motivation to regulate fertility as percevied at the individual level is viewed as a necessary link in the interrelations between development and population policy makers must recognize that in a heterogeneous society this level of motivation is concomitantly and synergistically raised in response to a variety of development policies and it is no longer considered adequate or useful to say that general development reduces fertility. The 2nd group of papers point out that there has been a desire on the part of most governments of the developing countries to reduce the present levels of population growth. Family planning programs are implemented more vigorously and monitored more closely. The 3rd group of papers covered 2 studies based on sample surveys. The paper "Fertility Differentials Among Migrants and Nonmigrants in Bombay" found that the migrants wives had significantly higher fertility than nonmigrant wives. The other paper examined the impact of social structure on fertility of a small fishing community. The following were among the common issues arising from the papers on mortality influencing policies: there has been a spectacular reduction in general mortality levels in this region but the levels are still high as reflected in the expectation of life; and progress in the reduction of mortality has slowed down in some populous countries like India in the past few years. The control of human reproduction has become accepted as legitimate for public and private agency policy and programming national and international assistance in controlling fertility has increased. There is comparable awareness of the problems generated by the population explosion urbanization and its attendant growth but there are no comparable policies and programs to deal with the problems stemming from rapid urbanization migration and maldistribution of population.

This publication contains three separate papers on aspects of the demographic transition in metropolitan Sudan. The first paper by J. Richard Mohamed el-Awad and Galal el-Din focuses on the beginnings of family limitation in the three contiguous towns of Khartoum Khartoum North and Omdurman. The data concern 2673 women from various social groups and were collected in 1975. A relationship between lower fertility and more egalitarian marriages is noted. The second paper by Abdul-Aziz Farah and Samuel H. Preston is concerned with child mortality differentials. Data are from the 1973 census and the 1975 survey mentioned previously. Factors considered include education cousin marriage and husbands income. The final paper by Abdul-Aziz Farah deals with the relationship between infant mortality and the socioeconomic determinants of fertility attitudes and behavior in Greater Khartoum and also uses data from the 1975 survey of three towns. The effects of infant mortality on child replacement and contraceptive practice are considered.

This book contains a selection of papers presented at a conference on sex differentials in mortality jointly organized by the Australian National University the United Nations and the World Health Organization and held in Canberra Australia December 1-7 1981. The papers are grouped under the following general topics: patterns and trends determinants social and demographic implications economic consequences public health aspects methodological issues and conclusions and prospects. The geographical focus is worldwide. (ANNOTATION)

The present volume is derived from the second in a series of symposia organized by the Commission on Population Geography on changing patterns of population distribution in developed countries which was held in Oulu Finland in 1978. It consists of a selection of the papers presented which have been revised and amended on policy aspects of migration. Papers are included on theoretical aspects of policies and on population policies in Europe Australia Great Britain Poland Norway Sweden Canada Israel and Italy. (ANNOTATION)

For many years family planning programmes were seen by a large body of demographers as virtually itrelevant to fertility. Birth control was termed an intermediate variable by convention rather than from conviction. Fertility declines, particularly those occurring during demographic transitions, were held to be the proximate effects of changes in motivation generated by social and economic developments. This view was in part based on the belief that traditional methods of birth control like coitus interruptus and abortion had always been known and, therefore, available in almost every society and age, and that they were not used unless other circumstances changed so as to make family limitation worth while. In this context the potential contribution of family planning programmes to declines in fertility prescribed by governments, and hence to the benefits expected to follow such declines, was seen as negligible. The view was early but cautiously expressed by Kingsley Davis before the advent of oral contraceptives in his assessment in 1951 of the demographic situation of India and Pakistan. It culminated in the 1974 Bucharest World Population Conference, which for political as much as demographic reasons, stressed the role of development in combating excessive population growth and evidently regarded family planning programmes as a contribution only to human rights rather than to population policies. The respective roles of development and organized family planning effort present, in fact, an unresolved question, but it is now reasonable to say, as Johnson-Acsadi and Weinberger do in this book, that national policy measures to control fertility appear to have altered the natural course of the demographic transition. It is, therefore, fortunate that those working in the field were not deterred by the Bucharest judgement and have since been joined by others. Since 1974 the existing stream of studies on the impact of family planning programmes for example by Potter, Wolfers, Sheps and Ridley has become a flood. The main effect of the Bucharest Conference on the work was probably to broaden interest to encompass the relative influence of development and programme factors in promoting fertility declines, and in the health sequelae of such declines. In this domain, the survey has become a dominant method of enquiry for four reasons. First, surveys are the only way of collecting the basic demographic facts where no reliable vital statistics are available; secondly, they can be used to obtain information, for example about contraceptive use or family intentions, which is not covered by routine statistics, and which can be linked within surveys with demographic data; and thirdly, unlike the statistics generated by family planning programmes, they can indicate what is happening in the whole target population, and thus provide appropriate numerators and denominators. Lastly, surveys are much more flexible than regular statistics since they can be designed to answer the specific questions which arise at a particular time. Some of the early surveys used in the field threatened to bring the method into disrepute, because of their lack of scientific rigour. But increasing experience and the involvement of a number of first-rate scientists, together with the extraordinary achievements of the World Fertility Survey, have brought increasing sophistication and ingenuity to both the design and analysis of the surveys. As a result the methodology is now amongst the most advanced in the social sciences. One of the fruits of these developments is the present volume, which presents the proceedings of a seminar convened by the I.U.S.S.P. in 1980. The papers it contains are almost without exception of both high quality and interest, and are likely to be found equally stimulating by newcomers and experienced practitioners in the field. They deal with most of the problems which face the researcher, like the selection of appropriate numerators and denominators, the concepts of demand and of unmet need for services or contraception, the measurement of service availability, and how to begin disentangling the active constituents of a programme. They describe a variety of ways in which surveys have been used to reveal patterns and trends in contraceptive use and their determinants, to measure the effects of contraceptive use on fertility and health, and to monitor and guide family planning programmes intended to achieve specific demographic targets. Four papers bring out the point that service statistics, compared with surveys, usually provide incomplete estimates of the prevalence of contraceptive use in the catchment area population. Although methodological issues are dealt with to a greater or lesser extent in every paper included, this is not the primary purpose of the volume and, indeed, the specific methodology appropriate to measuring the fertility effects of family planning programmes has been the responsibility of a joint I.U.S.S.P./U.N. expert body. A number of contributions are, however

The main purpose of this paper is to examine the hypothesis that egalitarian redistributions of income will reduce fertility in underdeveloped countries. At the outset the proposition that fertility is an increasing function of inequality is examined on a priori grounds. It is concluded that in general a positive correlation may be expected between these 2 variables. The problem of choosing appropriate measure of inequality is then considered. This is followed by a discussion of earlier empirical research which concluded that fertility varied directly with inequality. Yet a reexamination of earlier data reveals that the evidence does not support this hypothesis as a result of an inappropriate sample exclusion of relevant explanatory variables and disregard for the inherent simultaneity of the determination of fertility. A 2 equation model of the determination of fertility is formulated in which the crude birth rate and the percentage of women in employment appear as "endogenous" variables directly related to inequality. This model is estimated for a combined sample of 60 developed and underdeveloped countries as well as separately for 47 underdeveloped countries. Although it is forecast that a reduction in inequality will lead directly to a considerable fall in fertility it is found that such a reduction in inequality is also likely to reduce the percentage of women in employment which will tend to raise fertility. Nevertheless the results suggest that the net effect of a decrease in inequality will still be a marked reduction in fertility. Moreover the fall in fertility estimated to follow a reduction in inequality is found to compare favorably with the predicted effects of decreases in illiteracy and infant mortality. Finally although it is predicted that economic development per se will have a substantial depressive effect on fertility in underdeveloped countries the clear implication of the results is that the "demographic transition" of these countries dited considerably if accompanied by egalitarian redistribution of income. (Authors modified)

Summary The demographic consequences of the First World War in Britain have never been fully assessed partly on account of the lack of reliable mortality data on soldiers and civilians in the years 1914–18. In this paper, the extent of British military losses is determined and estimates of their age structure are given on the basis of the mortality experience in 1913–17 of the approximately five million men whose lives were insured by the Prudential Assurance Company. An examination of male mortality at ages 16–49 of this primarily working-class population shows both the age-incidence of war-related deaths and an improvement in life expectation for men too old for active service or combat. This latter phenomenon is related to a rising standard of living for the working class during the 1914–18 war.

This paper evaluates the evidence for the existence of a social custom believed to be important in influencing the fertility of older women in traditional societies. In such a system it is improper for a woman to continue sexual relations once she attains (potential) grandmotherhood. Thus, the hypothesis is that such a change in familial status leads to reduction in marital fertility. The hypothesis is tested with World Fertility Survey data using bivariate and logit regression analysis. The results support the custom's existence in Nepal and Bangladesh, but probably not in Sri Lanka. Its demographic impact, in terms of reduction in total fertility rate, amounts to about one-third of a child in Nepal and Bangladesh, but is insignificant in Sri Lanka. Its effect on the age pattern of natural fertility, estimated by using Nepalese data, is also large, thus indicating its importance as an explanation for deviations from Coale and Trussell's standard of natural fertility.

Summary Techniques based on proportions of maternal orphans have been widely used to estimate women's mortality at adult ages. Such techniques are based on relatively few but significantly strong assumptions. As real conditions may depart to different degrees from the latter, the results obtained from the application of the technique can be biased. In this paper we assess the magnitude and direction of the bias introduced when: (a) mortality has changed during the past, (b) the practice of adoption permits the continuity of the relation offspring-mother upon the death of the biological mother, and (c) different processes of selection involving fertility, mortality of mothers and mortality of offspring operate. In addition, we suggest other methods to correct such biases or procedures to detect them and the actual range of errors involved.

Summary In October 1966, concerned over a birth rate regarded as too low, the government of Romania suddenly withdrew permission for legal abortions, then the main method of fertility control in that country. At the same time the government discouraged the use of other modern contraceptive means and took other social measures in order to increase the birth rate to specified levels. That sudden change in the availability of induced abortion virtually doubled the birth rate from 1966 to 1967, but thereafter the rate began to fall. This paper examines the pro-natalist effect of this family planning programme, defined as a change in access to modern services of fertility control. Was it a transitory and insignificant matter, or was it more lasting and substantial? Actually, the 1966 Decree had a large effect in increasing fertility within its first decade, of the order of one-third and on the designated target. It doubled the rate of natural increase and accounted for half of Romania's population increase dur...

Summary Given the fact that almost all members of the Indian civil service in the nineteenth century were trained in Britain and consequently liable to be influenced by views prevailing there, this paper examines the role of Malthusian population theory in forming the principles behind British famine policy in India. The conclusion is that not only did Malthusian population theory provide the intellectual basis for the Indian administration’s long-run perspective about Indian famines, but also buttressed its largely negative approach to famine relief in the short run.

1 have suggested that at a given birth order the probability of having a further pregnancy is greater when the last pregnancy had been spontaneously aborted than when it resulted in a birth.2 Leridon,3 in the course of a valuable paper on foetal wastage, presents data which, according to him, impugn my suggestion. I would like to question his claim. His data relate to women who were selected from attenders at an ante-natal clinic. Their obstetric histories were taken, but the current pregnancy was omitted. Let us denote a live birth by L, a spontaneous abortion by S and a pregnancy with either outcome by X. Let the numbers of the various sorts of obstetric history be as follows

Two aspects of the family in relation to fertility in developing countries are discussed: set stratification within the family and extended family networks. As both these are central to J. C. Caldwell's theory of fertility transition, the paper is structured as a critique of his position. Drawing on examples and data from Asia, it is argued that the causal significance of sex stratification for fertility lies in the economic risks it imposes on women, deriving from their dependence on men, rather than, as Caldwell suggests, in the disproportionate gain that men derive from their dominant position within families. While Caldwell and others associate strong extended family networks of mutual obligation and support with persistent high fertility, it is argued here that such systems should, instead, facilitate fertility decline. Close-knit and strong kin networks can be viewed as alternatives to children as sources of insurance, and may facilitate fertility decline by preventing children from becoming the focal point of parental concerns for security.

Summary The paper deals with the non-European marital pattern and its determinants in an agrarian society before the onset of deliberate fertility decline. A wide range of patterns, from very early and almost universal to late marriage, existed among the populations of European Russia at the end of the nineteenth century. The analysis confirmed a close association, particularly between marital behaviour and socio-economic institutions. Scarcity of labour relative to land, the principle of landholding and land usage according to the amount of labour in the extensive type of family, and an equal-heir inheritance system were found to be conducive to early and common marriage. The spatial differentiation of marital patterns was found to be due to regional modifications in the above institutions, the degree of literacy, size of rural settlements, industrial and urban development, and the sex composition.

Summary In this paper a method for decomposing rural-urban fertility differences into separate differences in nuptiality and marital fertility is developed. This technique is applied to national and provincial statistics for two countries, Japan and Sweden. It is shown that there are some features of rural-urban differences which hold for both countries, but it is also demonstrated that because the Japanese and Swedish fertility transitions were markedly dissimilar, there are salient contrasts in the relation between the magnitude and composition of the rural-urban differences and the stage reached in each country during its fertility transition.

In the new economic approach to fertility behavior it is argued that as children become more expensive fewer will be born. The theory identifies the value of human time as the most important component of the price of children. Since the bearing and rearing of children is a time-intensive activity for the mother her calculation of time is believed to be a crucial determinant of household fertility. In this paper the proposition is tested by using survey data from Sierra Leone. 3 alternative models are used to measure the value of womens time. In the 1st value of the mothers time is measured by her educational attainment. In the 2nd the womans current monthly income is assumed to indicate the value of her time. In the 3rd value of time is treated as an endogenous variable determined by the households socioeconomic characteristics. The households anticipated child mortality rate and its extended family characteristics are introduced as other important determinants of fertility in Sierra Leone. It is believed that with the inclusion of these latter variables the husehold model becomes better suited to explain fertility behavior in a developing society. The salient statistical results indicate that the number of children born in a family is negatively influenced by the housewifes current income and positively related to the incidence of anticipated child mortality and the size of the extended family. (Authors)

In this paper the authors attempt to analyse the correlates of differences in infant and child mortality in Costa Rica for the period 1968–73. One approach uses small geographical units (cantons) as the unit for multivariate analysis, employing both single and simultaneous equation models. A second multivariate approach uses individual level statistics along with a specially constructed dependent variable. Costa Rica is studied because of an interest in differential child mortality during rapid fertility decline. The period is related to the use of the Census of 1973 as a primary source of data. Among the major findings are a strong favourable effect of provision of medical services on child mortality for small geographical areas and a strong effect of ambient infant mortality (influenced by medical and public health factors) on childhood mortality in the micro-analysis. Education of women remains important at both levels of analysis. Sanitation and level of socio-economic well-being have a weake...

Summary Until recently, very little information has been available about the levels and patterns of adult mortality in tropical Africa, but during the past decade several countries have included questions in censuses and surveys as to whether a person's father and mother are still alive. From the data so obtained, estimates of adult mortality have been prepared. This paper compares the results of three such exercises with alternative estimates of adult mortality derived from other sources. In the case of Chad, the orphanhood data obtained in the demographic sample survey of 1964 yielded estimates of mortality which agreed reasonably closely with those obtained from questions on deaths of household members occurring during the twelve months preceding the survey. The latter data however were themselves subject to substantial errors and had to be corrected using techniques based on stable population theory. For Kenya, the orphanhood questions were included in the 1969 census and the results were compared with the mortality estimates derived from inter-censal survival from 1962 to 1969. Once again, the data obtained from the latter were subject to error but in general appeared to be consistent with the orphanhood estimates. The third comparison was made from Malawi, where alternative mortality figures were available from the Malawi Population Change survey which was a 'dual record' type of operation, conducted in 1971/2. The agreement in this case was remarkably close, once the number of deaths had been corrected for omissions by both systems with allowance for positive correlation. It is concluded that as a simple and inexpensive technique of estimating adult mortality, the orphanhood approach has much to recommend it.

Summary For those who experience marital disruption because of discord, the re-marriage process consists of a series of steps including divorce and re-marriage. This paper analyses the overall differentials in re-marriage, decomposing them into two distinct parts: differentials in propensity to divorce following separation and re-marriage given that a divorce has occurred. The results indicate that differentials in re-marriage depend in important ways on both steps in the process.

Summary The paper shows how stable population methods, based on the age structure and the rate of increase, may be used to estimate the demographic measures of a quasi-stable population. After a discussion of known methods for adjusting the stable estimates to allow for the effects of mortality decline two new methods are presented, the application of which requires less information. The first method does not need any supplementary information, and the second method requires an estimate of the difference between the last two five-year intercensal rates of increase, i.e. five times the annual change of the rate of increase during the last ten years. For these new methods we do not need to know the onset year of mortality decline as in the Coale-Demeny method, or a long series of rates of increase as in Zachariah's method.

Summary A computerized nuptiality system, called GENMAR, has been developed to investigate trends in cohort nuptiality in England and Wales. This system has five main programmes dealing with first marriage, the effects of changes in mortality on nuptiality measures, divorce, re-marriage, and marital status distribution. This paper summarizes the results of the application of the first programme to England and Wales data on first marriages of persons who were born in every single year since 1900. GENMAR-1 generated for each of these cohorts a 'complete' gross nuptiality table. The analysis shows that there have been substantial increases in the intensity of first marriage at young ages, a downward shift in the modal age at marriage, and a significant rise in the proportion ever married among women. The cohort nuptiality tables also show that the change in the nuptiality of women was due to changes in both the tempo and level of nuptiality, whereas the change for men was mainly the effect of shifts in the temporal pattern of nuptiality. There are, however, signs of a slow down of marriage among the cohorts born since the early 1950's.

Summary The inconsistency in Lotka's stable population model (two different intrinsic growth rates for the two sexes) arises from the fact that he considers two equations (for male and female births), and not because his equation for one sex does not involve the other. Many authors in the past have erroneously put emphasis on the latter point and modified Lotka's equations for male and female births. Since sex ratio at birth is constant, two independent equations for male and female births cannot exist. The correct approach is to attempt to form an equation for all births. The author followed this approach in his earlier works on the problem, but his birth functions were formulated from axiomatic considerations. The present paper provides a new birth function which has an intuitively appealing physical interpretation, and for which the interaction between the sexes is empirically determined from the data.

Summary In this paper some findings of a family reconstitution study of a group of high-upper-class American families are reported. The study extends over almost 200 years, from the early colonial period to the Civil War. A substantive analysis of fertility patterns of a group of socially significant Philadelphia families provides interesting comparisons with the demographic experience of European social elites and raises additional questions regarding certain assumptions of classical demographic transition theory. The focus of the analysis is on fertility trends and evidence concerning the initiation of family limitation. If this group took a vanguard position by initiating the practice of family limitation in society as did other social elite groups, one might anticipate some evidence of this by the late eighteenth century.

Summary The paper examines hypotheses that certain aspects of status of married women such as (i) decision-making power; (ii) employment status and (iii) educational status, are positively associated with use of contraception and inversely related to fertility performance. The study is based on 1,130 women of reproductive age (15-49) who are currently married and living with their husbands and reported to be fecund. The data are drawn from a cross-section of working and non-working women of Dacca City. The hypothesis that each of the above status variables is related to fertility behaviour (measured as current use of contraception and number of children ever-born) is confirmed, with the sole exception of the relationship between female employment status and fertility behaviour. Female participation in the labour force has little or no effect on use of contraception, particularly among those who belong to higher education and income groups. However, in the lower education and income groups, fertility and u...

In this paper the trend in child-spacing in Korea from the 1950s to the 1970s is examined by using a life-table approach and statistics from three separate surveys. Marked increases occurred in the pace of fertility at the lower parities, at the same time there were rapid declines in the pace of fertility at higher parities. A variety of factors brought about this mixture of trends. For example, the shortening of the first birth interval is partly the result of increases in the number of pre-marital pregnancies; whereas, the use of contraception lengthened intervals between births of fourth and higher orders. These trends are examined for a variety of sub-groups within Korea, and additional explanations for the changes documented are explored.

This paper is concerned with the economic value of children to parents focusing on labor contributions in an agriculturally based village in western India. In order to evaluate the possible link between economic utility and fertility demand for labor both within the village and between individual households is examined. The results show low levels of participation by children in family enterprises up to age 17 and underemployment beyond that age accompanied by an impetus toward out-migration of sons. Contrary to results reported elsewhere families with greater demand for labor including poorer households receive less help from children than do other groups. It is argued that low productivity of labor in the survey area underlies this phenomenon and leads to strong preference for educating sons. Concomitantly sensitivity to costs of children is more prevalent among villagers than the belief that children are economically beneficial. (Authors)

Summary In this paper an inventory of the population statistics of China that have been available since 1953 is presented, including the results of the 1953 Census of Population, population data and vital rates in the 1950s reported by official Chinese sources, and recent demographic information obtained by scholars who visited China. Major studies of the population made in recent years by members of various research institutions are summarized. A new estimate of the current demographic situation of China, on the basis of available information is made, presenting the population estimates and vital rates for the period 1953-1978 derived from a series of assumed trends in fertility and mortality during the past 25 years.

Summary Stable population theory has recently been used to analyse the effects of changes in fertility and mortality on economic variables such as income per head. In this paper more general results are derived to describe the effects of changing vital rates on the variance and higher moments of the distribution of some age-dependent variable. Simple analytical expressions are derived which decompose the effects of changes in age structure into the effects on inter-cohort and intra-cohort variance. The results are easily applied to standard measures of the distribution of income. By combining the analytical results with actual age profiles of income and income variance from the United States and Brazil it is observed that both the magnitude and direction of the effects of population growth on measured inequality are sensitive to the specific age profiles used. The most surprising result is that the Brazilian age profiles suggest that higher growth rates may actually reduce measured inequality, although the effect is relatively small.

Summary Substantial resources are currently being devoted in attempts to reduce fertility in developing countries. Can their allocation be made more efficient, i.e. more effective per unit of investment? This is an exploratory attempt to apply benefit-cost analysis to various realistic interventions, as judged by knowledgeable experts in the absence of sound empirical information on such impacts. (Such judgements appear to represent essentially the same sort of judgements as are made by policy-makers in the field). The paper concentrates on the methods by which several such analyses are made and illustrates the difficulties and problems encountered, but it also presents certain findings and conclusions of substance that show what results can be derived.

In Haiti, as in many developing countries, reliable statistical information on the structure and the vital processes of the population has been scarce. Ten years ago it was correct to state that 'the activities of the public and private Haitian sectors in the field of demography have been quite limited. This situation is in no way different from the state of affairs that prevailed before the 1950s', when the first national census, considered a poor one by UN standards, was conducted.' However, since 1970, substantial effort has been devoted to the collection of demographic data, primarily by the Haitian Institute of Statistics with technical assistance from the UN Population Division and the Latin American Demographic Centre (CELADE), and with financial support from the UNFPA. The most important results of recent efforts are the 1971 Census and the Multi-Round Demographic Survey, conducted between 1971 and 1975. The preliminary results of these studies are available and allow the specification of Haitian demographic parameters. In this paper we shall discuss population dynamics (fertility, mortality and migration) in Haiti on the basis of results of the above studies. In addition, we will review findings from recent small-scale micro-surveys which give further insights into factors affecting fertility and mortality. In concluding we will consider recent developments in Haitian family planning programmes and their potential impact on future population trends.

I found De Jong and Sell's recent paper! to be a study in contrasts. On the one hand, the authors have done a good job of scouring the literature for information pertinent to their work. It is evident from the breadth of sources cited that they were both persistent and thorough in this task. I also found their discussions of possible explanations for changing patterns of childlessness to be very good.

Summary This paper attempts to remove some sources of misunderstanding of the interpretation of the growth of population outlined in The Modern Rise of Population, particularly the lack of attention given to increased fertility and the emphasis on the importance of nutrition. On the first point, it is shown that whatever assumptions are made about fertility and mortality in the pre-registration period, the reduction of the death rate was undoubtedly the predominant influence during the past three centuries. On the second point, it is noted that there is no direct evidence of improvement in nutrition during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The case for its significance, which is circumstantial, is threefold: this explanation is consistent with present-day experience of infectious diseases; it accounts for the growth of population in many countries at about the same time and, when extended to include improved hygiene and limitation of numbers, it attributes the decline of infections to modific...

The objection of W. H. James to my computation on p. 330, for the sample of Créteil, is valid. For reasons that are developed elsewhere in my paper, the current pregnancy of any woman was omitted in the elaboration of Table 6. Therefore, in order to derive continuation rates, we must re-include this pregnancy in each individual pregnancy history. Since women whose previous pregnancies ended in induced abortions had been excluded, we must do the same for women whose current pregnancy was interrupted by an induced abortion.

In this paper the co-variates of child mortality in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Pakistan are compared using data from the World Fertility Survey. Hazard models are used to estimate the effects of demographic and socio-economic variables on the risk of death in childhood. The importance of multivariate analysis is substantiated by the finding that the effect of most factors on mortality is changed considerably when other influences are simultaneously controlled. For example, the apparent beneficial aspects of urban residence for survival are reduced. Education of parents is shown to be the most important correlate of child mortality. When other proxies for socio-economic status, such as type of sanitary facilities, were added to the analysis of the Philippines, the only country for which such data were available, the effects of education were reduced, but mother's education remained the most important co-variate of mortality.

In the aftermath of World War II the United States found itself in a position of unexpected economic strength and confronting a resurgence in births quite beyond what demographers had come to consider reasonable for a developed country. It has taken nearly 30 years for fertility to become ‘reasonable’ again, and its interim course had seemed to call for exceptional efforts at interpretation. The best known and most respected of these efforts is Richard Easterlin's, which sees cohort fertility as directly related to cohort incomes in early adult life, indexed on parental incomes, and cohort incomes as inversely related to cohort sizes. Under some circumstances the mechanism is said to generate long swings in annual numbers of births. This paper takes issue with the Easterlin model, both as regards the actual course of fertility and the ability of Easterlin's concept of ‘relative incomes’ to explain the observed patterns. We find that cohort fertility behaviour has tended not to be stable throughou...

Because of its geographical location on the shores of the Mediterranean, Lebanon, a small country of three million inhabitants, has enjoyed a long mercantile and service tradition, forming a link between the western world and the east. Moreover, long before it became independent in 1943, Lebanon has served as an educational and cultural centre for the Middle East region. Consequently, the country has been open to outside influences throughout its history which have hastened its process of modernization, particularly its social development, relative to the other countries of the region. The recent civil war, starting in 1975, has caused a severe setback to its achievements. Social development in Lebanon has affected the demographic transition in the country. In a study of the demographic situation, Courbage and Farguest estimated the crude death rate in 1970 to be 9.1 per thousand. They demonstrated a downward trend in fertility, the crude birth rate being estimated at 40.9 for the period 1952-62, 40.7 for 1964-67 and 34.6 in 1970. The latest estimates of the Population Division of the UN Economic Commission for Western Asia show Lebanon to have the lowest fertility among the countries of the region.2 Fertility levels, however, are not uniform throughout Lebanon, but reflect the differentials in development within the country. The south of Lebanon is a region where fertility levels relative to the other regions of the country have been consistently high.3 It is a rural agricultural area which has been relatively undeveloped because of its predominantly feudal political and social structure and the political instability resulting from its proximity to Israel. Most recently, in March 1978, the south was the battlefield of a full-scale war. Since the beginning of this decade, social workers in the south have been impressed by a growing desire among the population to control its fertility. Such a change in desired fertility has probably been brought about by several factors, the most important being: (1) the impact of contact with the city through an internal migration towards the capital, Beirut, in search of jobs, (2) improved educational facilities, (3) a reduction in infant mortality rates and (4) political and economic instability in the area generating a continuous state of insecurity. In this paper we aim to study fertility trends and determinants in the south of Lebanon in the face of these changes. A useful framework for fertility analysis is to divide factors determining fertility into: (1) biological and behavioural factors which influence fertility levels directly the intermediate fertility variables, and (2) the socio-economic variables that operate on these factors. Davis and Blake4 were the first investigators to develop a framework outlining the inter

Summary In this paper we present a new ‘home economics’ model of the timing of the first birth. The child-timing decision is treated as a multi-period planning problem in which the date of first birth influences both the mean and the dispersion of the household's intertemporal income distribution. Couples are assumed to use capital markets and the timing of childbirth to smooth life-cycle consumption. Optimal timing is shown to depend upon the rate at which job skills depreciate during unemployment, the wife's pre-marital work experience, the opportunity costs of completing a family, and the mean and dispersion of the husband's intertemporal earnings profile. The theory is tested with statistics drawn from the National Longitudinal Surveys. The results strongly support those theoretical hypotheses that can be tested and offer insights into timing patterns. If the upsurge in women's labour force participation and educational involvement continue, our work implies that there will be a marked economic incent...

Summary The paper reports the results of demographic research in a rural village of about 1500 Hausaspeaking farmers in southern Niger, during the winter of 1973-74. The research site lies at the heart of the Sahel-sudanic zone just to the south of the Sahara, where drought, and in some areas, famine have exacted a heavy human, animal, and economic toll since 1968. The study was designed to measure and explain the change in the size and structure of the population during the years 1969-73. Social anthropological field techniques were used to ensure full and accurate reporting by community residents on all census topics. Data on rainfall and crop yields, on health and sanitary conditions, and on the political economy, social organization, and culture of the village were gathered in order to interpret the demographic situation The analysis of this data yields the following conclusions: 1. The population of the village appears younger (mean age: 15 years) and growing faster (mean doubling time: 23 years) than reported for Niger as a whole in 1972. 2. Contrary to what the researchers expected, the crude death rate, while relatively high to begin with, actually declined during the drought period (mean: 14.81); the crude birth rate remained very high (mean: 46.01), and the crude rate of increase rose from 1969 to 1973. 3. There was virtually no family out-migration from the target village during the drought, although the number of adult males participating in seasonal migrations to large West African towns rose from 35 per cent in 1969-70 to 75 per cent in 1973-74. 4. Problems of food production and distribution were acute, but thanks to the availability of donated foods, these were sufficiently short-lived during this drought cycle to make no discernible impact on population, although prolonged protein/calorie malnutrition among the very young may affect future fecundity.

Summary The effects of breast-feeding on infant health have been a topic of considerable discussion in recent years. In this paper multivariate techniques are used to examine the relationship between the failure to breast-feed and mortality among infants in four states of north east Brazil. It was found that breast-fed children were significantly more likely to survive infancy than children who were never breast-fed, even when other socio-economic, demographic and health variables were taken into account. This relationship was much more marked in rural than in urban settings. Other variables significantly associated with mortality were parity, mother's age at child's birth, mother's employment status and use of maternal/child health services. These findings are important for the particular population studied as well as for much of Latin America where incidence and duration of breast-feeding tend to be low but infant mortality is quite high

Summary The aim of this paper is to give a summary account of eleven centuries of Icelandic population development. Iceland represents the most extreme inhospitable environment in which a European people has been able to survive and maintain its culture; none has been so persistently ravaged by natural calamities. The first modern national census in the world was taken in Iceland in 1703, and is a relatively untapped source of data on a population of almost three centuries ago. Of particular note in the demographic history of Iceland is the high incidence of cohabitation and de jure illegitimacy. Iceland is now demographically similar to the other Scandinavian countries except in her relatively high fertility and very high rate of illegitimacy.