THE CAUSES OF THE ASIAN FERTILITY DECLINE

The Asian demographic transition is treated as one aspect of the global Industrial Revolution, which started in the West but now involves the whole world. In fact, the multiplication of per capita income in Asia in the second half of the twentieth century has been the world's fastest. With the rise in female education, urban living and non-agricultural employment, as well as the mortality decline that began early in the twentieth century and government family planning programmes, fertility fell nearly everywhere from the 1960s presaging below-replacement fertility levels. The continent's macro changes are outlined and micro studies of the causes of fertility decline and the delay or forgoing of marriage are drawn from India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Thailand and South Korea. It is concluded that marriages will be increasingly forgone or delayed and that most, perhaps all, ESCAP Asia will this century experience below-replacement fertility. The path followed is much more likely to resemble that of Mediterranean Europe than Northern Europe.     

Do Richer Media Mean Better Learning? A Framework for Evaluating Learning Experiences in Museum Web Site Design

Museums and other cultural and heritage institutions have important roles to play in both formal and informal education. This paper argues that, while museum Web sites tend to showcase increasingly sophisticated multimedia content, rich multimedia do not necessarily mean better learning design and that, in the absence of actual learner performance data, it is necessary to look beyond the types of media used and consider the kinds of learning outcomes implied or explicit in order to assess the learning effectiveness of the design. Using models and theories from education, the paper analyses two sites and discusses how these models can be applied to create learning experiences that go beyond simple comprehension and recall of information.     

The land of parrots

An increasingly important contributor to the low fertility characteristic of many western societies now experiencing ‘the second demographic transition’ has been the availability of legal pregnancy termination, so much so that national rates of one abortion for every four or five births are not uncommon. Prior to the passage of the 1967 Act legalising abortion in the UK, abortion in Scotland was not actually illegal, but its availability was extremely limited in most areas outside the northeast. Although uptake had increased dramatically in all regions by the mid 1990s, inter‐regional differences in abortion rates remained pronounced. This paper charts regional changes in uptake rates through the period 1974–96 then outlines and tests the effectiveness of ecological models involving socio‐demographic and health‐service related variables in accounting for variations in abortion rates across the thirteen Scottish Health Board regions in 1996. Although deprivation levels, marital and educational status are significantly involved, regional variations in consultant attitudes and professional practice seem also to be important. If the move to free up the availability of the ‘morning‐after pill’ is accepted throughout Scotland such differentials may soon disappear.     

Wie grün wünscht sich die Bevölkerung Deutschlands ihre Städte?

Green areas are of high importance for the population in Germany. This is demonstrated by the representative outcomes of the latest Awareness-of-Nature survey for 2015. Most interviewees do not only value urban greens as personally important but also state that they perceive them as crucial for society and environment. The article focuses especially on the perception by people from different age groups and levels of education. It highlights that the strong awareness of the population provides a good fundament for the objectives and strategies of social, environmental and nature conservation policies.     

Population Change and Regional Development in China: Insights Based on the 2000 Census

The People's Republic of China conducted its fifth population census in November 2000. This paper draws from that census and recent data to examine national and regional demographic changes in China over the past two decades. Nationally, the impact of fertility decline on rates of population growth, age composition, and household size is investigated. Regional population trends include the rising population share of the eastern region as a result of population growth due to migration and in response to the widening economic gap between coastal and interior China. Demographic differentials between the eastern region and the rest of China (i.e., in proportion of working-age population, household size, sex ratio, and levels of urbanization and educational attainment) suggest that migration is playing an increasingly important role in shaping regional population distribution and that the acceleration of uneven regional development poses a major challenge to policy makers. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: J11, J61, O15. 4 figures, 5 tables, 52 references.     

Migrant fertility differentials in Ecuador

The effects of migration on fertility in Ecuador were analyzed by subdividing migrant categories into permanent-, return-, circular-, and non-migrants, and context factors into 6 socioeconomic and agrarian variables. The study is introduced with a conceptual framework that explains personal intermediate variables and their influence on fertility in terms of demographic transition theory, and then defines the influences of selection for fertility, disruption of marital unions, and socialization into fertility norms at the origin vs. assimilation of norms at the destination. Migrants are usually better educated, younger and upwardly mobile, all selecting for lower fertility. Migration disrupts formation of marital unions, and causes separation of spouses, lowering fertility. Data for this study were from the 1974 and 1982 Ecuadorian Population Censuses. The contextual variables analyzed were urban/rural; manufacturing/agricultural; mineral extraction/economic recession; long/recent agricultural settlement; domestic/export crop; and large/medium sized farm. The analysis of personal attributes showed that fertility increased over the range on non-migrants through circular-, return- to permanent-migrants, a finding explained by degrees of disruption of unions. Higher fertility was associated with less education, lower economic participation, higher prevalence of marriage, longer residence and older ages. Regression analysis also showed that personal attributes outweighed contextual factors: thus age, marriage rates, residence time, education and economic activity were significant. Contextual factors were important only for non-migrants, except for destination variables which affected return-migrants and origin variables which affected circular-migrants. Low fertility was associated with urbanization, industrialization, mineral extraction, large farms, recent farm settlement and export crops. The results indicate cear influences of modernity and place influences on fertility of migrants.     

Realising Australia's international education as public diplomacy

Australia's international education serves as public diplomacy, essentially engaging and influencing public audiences in ways that progress Australian foreign policy priorities and national interests. The multidimensional and increasingly globalised nature of international education presents enormous opportunity for vital exchange and interactions between and with students, academics and communities via onshore and offshore modes of delivery. Positive experiences of student mobility and the development of intellectual, commercial and social relationships can build upon a nation's reputation, and enhance the ability of that nation to participate in and influence regional or global outcomes. This is ultimately the essence of soft power. While Australia has made significant commercial gains through international education, it has fallen short of realising the soft power potential inherent in the volume and depth of interactions, relationships and achievements resulting from it, particularly in the Asian region, where Australia's international education sector continues to be most active. This article argues that there is a soft power benefit in recognising international education as public diplomacy, though acknowledges that challenges exist in connecting the soft power aspirations to reality. Findings suggest that there is room for more coherent public diplomacy leadership and inter-agency coordination, improved evaluation and expanded dialogue both within the sector and the broader community.     

The unexpected rise of cohabitation in the Philippines: evidence of socioeconomic disadvantage or a second demographic transition?

Cohabitation has increased rapidly in the Philippines, quadrupling in prevalence from 6 per cent in 1993 to 24 per cent in 2013 among young adult women. This increase is dramatic and exceptional given the slow change in other family behaviours, such as low divorce rates and continued high fertility, and the persistent influence of the Catholic Church. While cohabitation is often framed as evidence of ideational change and liberalisation, its continued uptake over time may be associated with socio-economic conditions. Using the 2013 national demographic and health surveys, we apply a discrete-time competing risks model to examine the relationship between socio-economic status and cohabitation, using education as proxy for resources and opportunities available to women. Our findings demonstrate that lower levels of education are significantly associated with a higher risk of cohabitation, which suggests rising cohabitation in the Philippines is more linked to socio-economic disadvantage than the devaluing of marriage among educated elites.     

外语教育：考察晚清上海对外开放的一个视角

随着晚清上海国际化都市的日渐成型,孵育了一个不断成长的外语教育环境,上海社会学习外语的意识也不断加强.本文立足于晚清上海外语教育与晚清上海对外开放态势间的互动和俱进关系,透过对教会学校、本土学校和非正规化教育等途径的外语教育进行考察,提供了观察晚清上海对外开放的另一个重要视角.     

Ecological Functions and Functionings: Towards a Senian Analysis of Ecosystem Services

Ecosystem services are part of a growing trend within environment and development to analyse environmental change within the context of socially valued outcomes. Yet, ecosystem services‐based policies and analyses are increasingly criticized for failing to connect with, or even for restricting, development outcomes. This article seeks to connect environmental analysis with development outcomes better by applying the capability approach of Amartya Sen and others. It demonstrates how scientific analysis of ecosystem services sometimes conflates pathways of ecosystem management with development outcomes, but that it can be reconfigured to include more diverse values and objectives. The article argues that ecosystem services should be identified more as ‘functionings’ (in the Senian sense of valued development outcomes) rather than ‘functions’ (in the sense of biophysical, apolitical ecosystem properties) in order to indicate that ‘services’ always reflect social values, and that values and scientific explanations of underlying biophysical properties evolve together. Environmental science for socially valued outcomes such as ecosystem services is therefore an important site of political inclusion and exclusion. The article illustrates this analysis with examples of ecosystem‐based adaptation to climate change from the World Bank and government of Bangladesh, and in contrast to differing approaches from the field of sustainability science.     

The changing pattern of urban fertility in Eastern Australia 1966-1976

This paper uses unpublished data from official sources to analyze variations in urban marital and overall fertility in Eastern Australia between 1966-71 and between 1971-76. It further attempts to assess the relevance of the convergence thesis to changing fertility patterns and to evaluate the utility of an ecologic analysis of interurban fertility differences. The data indicate that urban fertility levels declined dramatically in 1966-76 and interurban differentials were substantially reduced. By 1976, the 2-child family norm had been widely adopted throughout Australia, regardless of region, community size, or sociocultural composition. Examination of marital fertility trends suggests that, although different areas had different elasticities of response to cyclical fertility movements in the 1960s, the magnitude of these differences was insufficient to do more than slow the pace of the decline while increasing the pace of interarea differential convergence. Declines in both proportions married and marital fertility after 1971 were reflected in declining overall fertility in all urban areas in Eastern Australia. During this period, however, divergence replaced the convergence evident in the 1960s. The present high level of uniformity in both marital and overall fertility rates throughout the study area about mean levels means that the regionally variable effects of future cyclical changes in fertility levels may be difficult to identify. As a result, detailed analyses at the individual/behavioral level that focus specifically on attitudes, values, and family size preferences may be more appropriate for understanding of post-transitional demographic change than studies based on spatial analyses at the local level.     

20世纪60年代以来美国女性单亲家庭变迁初探

20世纪60年代以来,美国女性单亲家庭数量骤增,引发大规模道德批判风潮,政治倾向日渐保守,政府福利政策随之紧缩。综观其发展历程可知,两性经济格局的变更,婚姻与性观念的嬗变,单身母亲自有的婚育价值观,政府公共政策的双重作用,合力推动了美国女性单亲家庭的群体扩张。就所占比重和贫困程度而言,黑人女性单亲家庭是尤其值得关注的群体。对以母子为基本关系单位的家庭模式的认可度,以及黑人社区中适婚男性数量上的匮乏,是美国黑人家庭中女性单亲家庭比重较大的特定因素。     

Women’s education,time use and marriage in Iran

In many parts of the world, higher education has increased female chances of paid work and reduced the economic benefits of marriage. In Iran, however, female labour force participation has remained in low rates despite considerable improvements in female education. In the absence of direct economic benefits of education for women, this paper uses data from the 2009 Time Use Survey, representing urban areas of Iran, to explore another pathway of the impact of education on transition to marriage. It is postulated that female education can lead to later marriage by changing women’s role priorities, at least in two ways. While enrolment in education is time-consuming and incompatible with requirements of marital life, higher education can increase the chances and desire for engagement in alternatives to the roles related to marriage. The findings provide partial support for both explanations. These findings not only deepen our understanding about differentials in the time use and the potential pathway of the impact of female education on marriage, but also provide important information for policy makers who are concerned with marital and fertility behaviours of the large cohort of young educated women in Iran.     

Intergenerational comparison of education attainment and implications for empowerment of women in rural Kenya

An intergenerational comparison of education attainment and empowerment across two generations of Kenyan rural women population was undertaken. The study employed a longitudinal analysis of quantitative data derived from the Demographic and Health Survey databases. The survey captures relevant demographic background on the two generations of women. The study undertakes to compare the education attainment and empowerment outcome measures of socioeconomic status, household size, and fertility rates between the two cohorts of women. It also contrasts the experience of the women who accessed education in the era characterized by the welfare state (1989 cohort) with those who came of age in the austerity years of neoliberalism (2008/2009 cohort). The research established that the majority of women in both cohorts had limited access to education. However, women who accessed more education were more likely to show characteristics of empowered individuals – they had smaller households, fewer children, and were relatively wealthier. The results demonstrate that meaningful empowerment through education can only be realized if more women access levels of education beyond the basic education focus that is dominant in international development discourse.     

Women Beneficiaries or Women Bearing the Cost? A Gendered Analysis of the Red de Protección Social in Nicaragua

Conditional Cash Transfer programmes aim to alleviate short‐term poverty through cash transfers to poor households, and to reduce longer‐term poverty through making these transfers conditional on household investment in the health and education of children. These programmes have become increasingly popular with institutions such as the World Bank. However, the need for conditionalities has been questioned on a number of levels, including its necessity: it has been suggested that the cash transfer in itself may be sufficient to secure most of the programme's wider aims. The example of Nicaragua supports this contention, demonstrating that only a small incentive is needed to bring the desired changes in the uptake of education, since this is something prized by the poor themselves. In health, the Nicaraguan case suggests that demand‐side initiatives might not be as important as supply‐side changes that improve the affordability and accessibility of services. The Nicaragua case also highlights the long‐term limitations of applying such programmes in countries with high levels of poverty and low economic growth. A gendered analysis of the programme highlights the fact that women ‘beneficiaries’ bear the economic and social cost of the programme without apparent benefit to themselves or even necessarily to the household in the short or longer term.     

Market mechanisms and migrant settlement intentions in urban China

This study examines the settlement intentions of migrants based on original survey data collected from four large Chinese cities. Despite the long-lasting institutional effects of the hukou (household registration) system, market mechanisms are becoming increasingly important in affecting migrant settlement intentions. Although rural hukou holders are more likely to return to their places of origin, migrants who have received higher education, who are self-employed or who own homes are more willing to permanently settle in cities. The influences of market mechanisms are also reflected in recent policy reforms related to education, housing and the hukou system.     

The Family and Demographic Behavior in Belgium,Germany, and Italy, 1700–1920: A Review Essay

Abstract

In the past decades, numeracy has taken an increasingly important place in the study of human capital formation, as well as in literacy studies and studies on formal education and book production. In order to understand levels of education, scholars have recently tried to develop new ways to measure the level of education, particularly because it has since become apparent that the measures of literacy historically have not always been very accurate. To measure numeracy, population surveys have been used to show that in the past respondents who were innumerate had a tendency to state their ages as round numbers, ending in 0 or 5. Finding suitable data in the pre-modern age to analyze numeracy via age heaping is a cumbersome task, however. In this article, the authors explore the possibilities of using art, especially individual portraits in which the age of the sitter is indicated on the portrait by means of the Aetatis suae formula, as a source to study human capital formation and numeracy. This article has two main objectives that contribute to different areas of economic history as well as art history. The authors first demonstrate which criteria should be taken into account when building a database, especially for artistic artifacts. Secondly, they use the dataset to contribute to the understanding of numeracy levels among the well-to-do in the Low Countries in the early modern period. The analysis will show that women's numeracy was often even higher than that of men. Notwithstanding the high overall level of women's numeracy compared to other countries in Europe, the authors will also test the recent hypothesis put forward by Peter Földvári, Bas Van Leeuwen, and Van Jieli Leeuwen-Li that when women's ages were mentioned, they were usually reported as part of a married couple and possibly adapted to the ages husbands reported.     

Is gender inequality a barrier to realizing fertility intentions? Fertility aspirations and realizations in South Korea

Research highlights the emergence of national low fertility regimes and the importance of understanding how institutional gender inequity supports low fertility. In South Korea, where gender inequality is high and a national low fertility regime exists, many women express a desire for two children but bear one child. Does gender equity, particularly within the household, influence the realization of fertility desires within the context of institutional inequality? Using the Korean Longitudinal Survey of Women &; Families, in this paper, I test the effect of gender equity within the family on second births. Evaluating a subsample of married women with one child who desire a second child, I find that women’s gender role attitudes, husbands’ housework and women’s responsibility for children’s education influence the likelihood of realizing a second birth. Results highlight the importance of men’s household contributions and women’s educational responsibilities on the realization of fertility intentions within low fertility regimes.     

LABOUR FORCE GROWTH IN SINGAPORE

Singapore's labour force participation rates are at high levels. Age-specific rates, especially of men, have approached those of developed countries. The current very low total fertility rate of 1.25 would have major implications for Singapore's labour supply and economy in a closed population. Multi-pronged approaches such as measures to increase fertility, increase labour force participation, and to augment the local workforce with migrants are discussed. In the context of Singapore's physical land constraint, continued growth in the labour force in the long term would be challenging. Future gross domestic product growth is likely to be more sustainable via labour productivity growth. Identifying new niche areas of growth and having a nimble and quality workforce would become more important than labour force growth.     

Women’s gender role attitudes and fertility intentions of having a second child: survey findings from Shaanxi Province of China

China is a country with a unique history of gender traditions and birth-control regulations. Traditional gender role attitudes, closely related to son preference, exert entrenched influence on the fertility intentions and behaviours of women in China. In recent years, despite the fact that employment characteristics and educational attainment of women have caught up with men, China has witnessed a resurgence of patriarchal Confucian tradition. Gender relations in the private sphere are increasingly regulated by traditional gender norms. Considering the declining fertility in China and recent fertility policy adjustments, this paper analyses the varying effects of gender role attitudes on fertility intentions of women under different birth control policies, utilising data from 1,422 questionnaires conducted in 2015 in the Shaanxi Province in northwestern China and using the Multinomial Logistic Model. Our findings imply that the relationship between women’s gender role attitudes and fertility intention differs between women affected by different birth control policies. We find that among married women with one child who are restricted to one child, the more egalitarian the gender role attitude, the more likely they intend to have a second child. Among married women who have had one child and are allowed to have two children, the more egalitarian the gender role attitude, the less likely they intend to have a second child. The results also indicate that traditional gender role attitudes and norms still play an important role in Chinese women’s fertility intentions.