Birth control and the fertility of the U. S. Black population, 1880 to 1980

Black fertility in the U. S. declined sharply in the latter part of the 19th century and continued declining up to 1940. Common expert opinion has held that this decline in fertility was not attributable to an increase in birth control practice. Instead, experts hypothesized that the fertility decline was due almost entirely to deleterious changes in health factors among blacks. The health hypothesis is faulty because those black groups with socioeconomic advantages most conducive to good health were the very groups with the lowest fertility rates. A number of recent fertility studies seem to show fairly widespread use of birth control among blacks during the 60 years up to 1940. This widespread use did not increase precipitously in the 1930s but grew gradually over the previous 1/2 century. Knowledge and acceptance levels of birth control were also high during those years among blacks. Similarly, the experts' beliefs that birth control, even if practiced among blacks, did not have much effect on black fertility because "infective" methods were used, birth control was not practiced "effectively," and blacks started birth control practice too late in their reproductive lives have been shown by studies to have no empirical bases.     

Six decades of ethnic minority population change in China

ABSTRACT

China’s 55 non-Han ethnic minority groups were at least in part politically and institutionally ‘invented’ by China’s ethnic classification project, and also through the effects of the system of continuous population census. This paper investigates population change of the non-Han ethnic minorities (NHEMs) over the past six decades. The number of NHEMs as a whole tripled from 1953 to 2010. However, growth has differed among individual groups and in different time periods. The population of some groups has fluctuated while that of others has grown steadily, regardless of the size of the groups. As a whole, since 2000 the growth rate of NHEMs has been lower than that of the Han Chinese, and the population of 13 NHEM groups has begun to decline. A growing number of people belonging to ethnic minorities have switched their ethnic identities to Han. This has especially been the case for NHEM youth. The change in ethnic minority populations has been influenced by dynamic interactions among demographic factors, ethnic identification as well as political, economic and policy changes.     

Social status, race, and the timing of marriage in Cuba's first constitutional era, 1902-1940

This article examines the practice of marriage among whites, "mestizos," blacks, Cubans, and Spaniards during the first constitutional era, focusing upon the reported ages of brides and grooms. The study consists of a quantitative examination of trends found in the records of 900 Catholic marriages celebrated in Havana during the opening decades of independence. The first major finding of the research is that according to most major indicators of status, age was negatively correlated with rank. Thus, contrary to the conclusions of studies conducted in many other contexts, those in the highest strata of society married young. Furthermore, very significant differences were detected in the marital patterns of those identified as mixed-race and those labeled as black. This finding offers empirical weight to the notion that the early-mid twentieth-century Cuban racial structure would best be characterized as tripartite, rather than binary in nature.     

The futures of ethnic groups in the Russian Federation

The changes, sometimes dramatic, in the size and structure of the ethnic groups of the Russian Federation (RF) raise questions about their possible futures. The paper presents simulations of how ethnic groups of the RF could develop in the future and discusses the demographic aspects of the predicted changes. The simulations cover a 25-year period, from 1 January 2011 to 1 January 2036 and were prepared for the 22 most numerous ethnic groups using a multistate cohort-component population dynamics model. To prepare the assumptions for the simulations, ethnicity-specific data (no longer collected) on fertility, mortality, and international migration were used. The results indicate that in the coming 20 years Russia will face numerous challenges related to the changes in the size, age structure, and ethnic composition of its population. The population of the RF will age and, except in the “Modernization” scenario, will shrink. Non-Slavic and Muslim populations will increase their share in the total population at the expense of Slavic and Orthodox ethnic groups and will age more slowly.     

A Note on the Use and Misuse of the Racial Diversity Index

This note concerns the use of the Blau index of racial and ethnic diversity in the social sciences and in policy analysis. The diversity index, by design, captures the heterogeneity of the population group being studied, typically according to the racial and ethnic categories of the U.S. Census but does not account for the relative size of specific racial groups. Thus, with the most commonly used diversity index, the implicit assumption is that for the purposes of the analysis a population that is 80 percent white and 20 percent Asian is identical to a population that is 80 percent black and 20 percent Hispanic. Examples are given from studies of voting behavior, organizational performance, and the provision of public goods and services to show that the diversity index is often used in ways that are inappropriate given the context of the study.     

The Tuskegee Syphilis Study and the scientific concept of racial nervous resistance

In 1932, the U.S. Public Health Service began a study of untreated syphilis among black men in Macon County, Alabama. This project, later known as the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, became one of the most notorious ventures of twentieth-century medicine. Much has been written on it. Historians have suggested that scientific racism strongly influenced the study. But specific links between earlier racial science and the scientific conduct of the study have remained unexplored. The examination in this paper of the concept of a racially determined resistance to syphilis in the nervous system establishes such a link. Discussion of nervous resistance to syphilis appeared in the medical literature in the early twentieth century as a conjecture about the natural inferiority of blacks. White physicians used the concept to interpret racial differences in neurosyphilis as evidence of the rudimentary development of the brain. A small community of African American physicians joined other national experts in syphilis who chose to explain apparent racial differences through alternate mechanisms. But the scientific advisors to the Tuskegee Syphilis Study favored the concept of a racial resistance to neurosyphilis and steered the early design of the study to help to elucidate it. The Tuskegee Syphilis Study was an examination of untreated syphilis, but it also became a demonstration of a putative racial characteristic of syphilis long considered evidence of the natural inferiority of blacks. An examination of the concept of racial nervous resistance and its influence on the research in Macon County helps to define the influence of scientific racism on this notorious medical study.     

Economic Transition and Demographic Change in Russia, 1989-1995

A World Bank demographer reviews recent population changes in Russia, relating trends in fertility, mortality, natural increase, and migration to the social and economic effects of the transition to a market economy. Significant trends (a precipitous drop in fertility, an extraordinary increase in mortality—especially among middle-aged males—and a consequent decline in natural increase) are identified and analyzed, with dislocations caused by the uncertainties of economic and political transition suggested as the principal causes. The effect of net in-migration to Russia (probably mainly ethnic Russians from the Near Abroad countries) in partially offsetting the natural population decrease is examined as well. 5 tables, 16 references.     

Changing Ethnic Segregation and Housing Disadvantage in Dundee

Abstract

Dundee has a small black and minority ethnic (BME) population, which has been neglected by previous research, as have BME populations in small towns and cities generally. As in other British cities, the residential locations of the main BME groups are distinct from that of the white population. After briefly reviewing the history of settlement in Dundee, this paper examines the extent to which patterns of ethnic segregation have changed between 1991 and 2001. Some moves towards dispersal and suburbanisation are identified but there are important contrasts between different BME groups. The implications of segregation for housing availability are assessed through Census of Population data. The hypothesis is posed that the consequences of segregation for housing disadvantage are greater in small cities such as Dundee.     

美国墨西哥移民的人口效应评析

作为一个移民国家,多样化的种族/民族构成一直是美国人口结构的一个显著特征,外来移民始终是改变美国人口结构和布局的一个重要因素。近几十年以来,墨西哥裔人成为美国人口增长最快的族群之一,这部分人口主要由两种成分组成:出生于美国的墨西哥裔人和来自墨西哥的移民。作为拉美裔群体中最大的组成部分,墨西哥裔占全部拉美裔人口2/3左右;目前,墨西哥移民在美国全部外来人口中所占份额最大,达到30%;墨裔人在美国总人口中的比重逐年上升。墨裔人口不断膨胀源于其较高的生育率和移民的持续增加。墨西哥移民增加了美国的外国出生人口的数量;改变了美国人口的种族/民族构成,给美国带来了空前的族群异质性;人口多元化还影响到种族/民族关系。     

Factors affecting female age at marriage in South Asia

In contrast to East and South-east Asia, changes in marriage patterns have played a small role in reducing fertility in South Asia. While age at marriage for women has risen, it remains early, with the exception of Sri Lanka, and change has been slow. Except in Sri Lanka, the region has shown few signs that there will be a sizable population that will never marry. South Asia's marriage patterns reflect its cultural context and lesser socio-economic change but their precise effect is not simple or always predictable. The paper examines these issues in Bangladesh, where age at marriage is very early, and Sri Lanka, where it is much later. The study areas, Dhaka city and south-western Sri Lanka, are ones of great economic and social change. A particular examination is made of the way in which changes in the arrangement of marriage affect age at marriage.     

‘Writing’ Black Womanhood in the Early Cuban Republic, 1904–16

This article explores the intersection of race, class and womanhood during the early years of the Cuban Republic. It focuses on the writings of elite women who published in the black press between 1904 and 1916. While legal reforms and the expansion of the educational system facilitated new gender expectations, racial ideologies positioned upper‐class white women as the standard of ideal womanhood. I argue that elite women of African descent employed modernising gender norms in order to counter anti‐black racism and to affirm their identification with upper‐class whites. In particular, they published articles that promoted the dominant values regarding marriage, education and public comportment. They disparaged unmarried unions and the practice of African cultural traditions among the labouring poor. Elite black women's writings drew from the model of the enlightened caretaker also to engage broader debates regarding feminism and black civic unity. Yet their emphasis on ideals that promoted white superiority helped reinforce the anti‐black tenets of Cuban citizenship they hoped to undermine. By analysing elite black women's articles, poetry and letters, the article demonstrates the importance of understanding how women of African descent forged an intellectual trajectory, and thus contributes to the historiography of gendered racial ideologies in Latin America and the Caribbean.     

Immigrant Inclusion in the Safety Net: A Framework for Analysis and Effects on Educational Attainment

Across states, there is substantial variation in the degree to which immigrants and their children are offered public assistance. We present a theoretical framework for analyzing the effects of policy decisions about immigrant inclusion. We apply the framework to investigate the effect of the state safety net on educational attainment. We focus on the years following welfare reform in 1996, when states gained considerable autonomy over welfare policy, including decisions about the eligibility of immigrant residents. Leveraging state‐level data from before and after reform, we estimate a difference‐in‐difference model to identify the effect of variation in immigrant inclusivity on educational attainment. We find that when states broaden the inclusivity of the social safety net to immigrants, young Latinos are more likely to graduate from high school. This effect is present beyond the group of Latino residents who receive additional benefits, suggesting that policy decisions about immigrants spill over to broader communities and communicate broader messages about social inclusion to racial and ethnic groups. We find similar patterns among Asian youth, but not among black and non‐Hispanic white youth. We conclude that immigrant inclusion has consequences for the life prospects of the growing population of youth in high‐immigrant ethnic groups.     

HOUSEHOLD LOCATION AND RACE: A 20‐YEAR RETROSPECTIVE*

ABSTRACT In research conducted some 20 years ago, we elucidated the starkly lower suburbanization propensities of black households in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. The paper showed that simulated closure of large socio‐economic gaps between blacks and whites did little to diminish prevailing high levels of residential segregation or otherwise enhance moves by black households to areas of educational, employment, and housing opportunity. Some two decades later and in the wake of significant urban evolution, this paper assesses anew racial variations in residential location choice. Results of the multinomial logit (MNL) analysis indicate large, persistent racial differentials in intrametropolitan residential location choice. While black location choice in 2000 was relatively more dispersed than in 1980, it remained remarkably concentrated in D.C. and Prince George's County. As in our prior analysis, results showed that large simulated gains in black economic and educational status had little effect on prevailing racial segregation. These findings underscore the ongoing, limited access of black households to schooling, employment, and homeownership opportunities available outside traditional areas of settlement. In marked contrast, the locational choices of Latino and immigrant households bore greater similarity to those of whites and were more sensitive to improvements in socio‐economic status.     

“少子化”与“老龄化”:马来西亚华人人口发展特点与趋势预测

论文基于历年马来西亚官方的统计数据,对当前"少子化"背景下马来西亚华人人口发展现状进行系统描述;在人口转变理论框架下对马来西亚华人人口比重下降这一现象进行归因分析;并利用人口队列预测方法预测分析马来西亚中长期人口发展状况。研究发现:由于较早开始人口转变进程,马来西亚华人具有低生育率、高老龄化程度等特征;人口转变进程中的族群"堕距",是当前华人人口比重下降的根本原因。伴随马来西亚各族群人口转变进程的推进,未来华人人口比例下降速度将逐步趋缓,但老龄化程度将快速提高。     

‘From motives of generosity,as well as self‐preservation’: Thomas Branagan,Colonization, and the Gradual Emancipation Movement

The idea of colonizing free blacks in areas distant from white settlement has had a long history in the American antislavery movement. A decade before the American Colonization Society formed in 1817, an Irish immigrant in Philadelphia, Thomas Branagan, argued that creating a black settlement in the newly‐acquired Louisiana Purchase territories would encourage slaveholders to emancipate their bondspersons while also saving white society from a number of ills he associated with a biracial society, most notably racial mixing, poverty and violence. Branagan’s plan never gained acceptance, but the idea of sending free blacks to the American West to encourage emancipation did catch the attention of gradual emancipationists associated with the American Convention of Abolitionists. This group considered a similar scheme as the lesser of two evils once the Colonization Society began its campaign to send America’s blacks “back” to Africa. Neither plan met with success, but their existence reveals an important link between colonization and the early antislavery movement.     

Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater: Estimating fertility from subadult skeletons

Recent research interest has focused on the bioarchaeology of children. Although paleodemography is essential for accurate reconstructions of lifestyle and health in past populations, currently there is no published technique for estimating fertility and life expectancy at birth for skeletal populations in which adults are under‐enumerated. This paper provides a formula to predict Gross Reproductive Rate (GRR) from the proportion of young infants to subadults in a skeletal population. The formula was developed from 98 of Coale and Demeny's Female Model West Life Tables, which represented diverse fertility and mortality rates. The formula's accuracy was examined using independent samples from historical and archaeological cemeteries. Estimates of GRR from the subadult fertility formula were compared with estimates from Bocquet‐Appel and Masset's juvenile:adult ratio. Results indicate that the subadult fertility formula predicts GRR with consistent accuracy (R² = 0.98) and precision (± 1 offspring) in the model life tables, across diverse subadult age structures and demographic characteristics. The formula is useful for subadult populations with a proportion of perinates:subadults between 0.12 and 0.45. The adult component of the sample is not included in the analysis and thus the formula is similarly useful in cases where adults are under‐enumerated, or not. When applied to historical and archaeological populations, estimates for GRR are similar to previous estimates from the juvenile:adult ratio. Because crude birth rate and life expectancy at birth can be calculated from GRR using established fertility centred approaches to demography, the subadult fertility formula allows skeletal populations of diverse composition to be included in demographic research, essential for understanding of how mortality and fertility are affecting the morbidity profiles of subadult samples and for comparative bioarchaeological analyses. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An elasticity analysis of the effectiveness of pronatalist measures in Taiwan

The total fertility rate (TFR) of Taiwan has remained below the replacement level 2.1 for past thirty years. Currently, 16 of its 22 counties and cities have TFRs below 1.3, with TFRs in middle and southern Taiwan even below 1. In the recent decade, various pronatalist policies have been adopted in Taiwan to cope with the low fertility issue. However, little is known about the effectiveness of these policies. In order to identify the group(s) of women that should be targeted to increase the TFR effectively, we have constructed a stochastic model to perform an elasticity analysis. The results show that changes in marriage rates among women aged 25–29 years would have the largest impact on the TFR, with an elasticity value of 0.32. This means that every 1 per cent increase in the marriage rate of women aged 25–29 may increase the TFR by about 0.32 per cent (i.e. an increase of about 2.6 children per 1000 women). The TFR is also very sensitive in responding to changes in the marriage rate and parity-1 fertility rate of 30–34-year-old women, with elasticities of 0.19 and 0.16 respectively. The divorce rate has a small but negative impact on the TFR. Also, the possible contribution of third- and higher-order births is insignificant. These findings suggest that policies aimed at increasing the marriage rate among women in their late twenties and early thirties, and supporting first births of women in their early thirties, are likely to raise Taiwan’s fertility rate effectively.     

Population geography

The status of population geography as a field of study in Australian universities is first discussed. The author then reviews studies on various aspects of Australian population geography, including fertility, mortality, international migration, internal migration, and the geography of aging populations.     

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.     

Intergenerational transmission of reproductive behavior during the demographic transition

New evidence from the Utah Population Database (UPDP) reveals that at the onset of the fertility transition, reproductive behavior was transmitted across generations - between women and their mothers, as well as between women and their husbands' family of origin. Age at marriage, age at last birth, and the number of children ever born are positively correlated in the data, most strongly among first-born daughters and among cohorts born later in the fertility transition. Intergenerational ties, including the presence of mothers and mothers-in-law, influenced the hazard of progressing to a next birth. The findings suggest that the practice of parity-dependent marital fertility control and inter-birth spacing behavior derived, in part, from the previous generation and that the potential for mothers and mothers-in-law to help in the rearing of children encouraged higher marital fertility.