Multiperiod migration patterns: the timing and frequency of household responses

"The structure of intertemporal patterns of household migration responses is empirically examined. The findings indicate that migration decisions are often related to changes in household conditions in both prior as well as following periods, are dependent on the duration of household status characteristics (e.g., marital status) and not just their presence at any point in time, and finally that migration response in any particular period very often differs among households as a result of differences in the underlying structure of migration frequency behavior. These findings suggest that inferences based on comparisons of household migration responses over only a single period of time are incomplete, possibly to the point of being misleading." The study is based on a calculation of "the distribution of migration patterns between 1976 and 1979 for a sample of 4,739 households in the [U.S.] Michigan Panel Survey on Income Dynamics (PSIC)."     

Marital Customs in Keja Village

ＭａｒｉｔａｌＣｕｓｔｏｍｓｉｎＫｅｊａＶｉｌｌａｇｅ￥／／ＩｎＫｅｊａＶｉｌｌａｇｅ,ｗｏｍｅｎｈａｖｅａｕｎｉｑｕｅｒｏｌｅｐｌａｙｉｎｆａｍｉｌｙＫｅｊａＶｉｌｌａｇｅ,ｃｏｍｐｏｓｅｄｏｆｓｏｍｅ８０ｈｏｕｓｅｈｏｌｄｓ．ｉｎｓｏｕｔｈＷｅｓ...     

文艺复兴时期佛罗伦萨的婚姻特点

佛罗伦萨是欧洲文艺复兴的发源地和文化中心,本文通过分析文艺复兴时期佛罗伦萨的婚姻与宗教及教会、阶级集团、财富、城乡地区、鼠疫和婚外性行为的关系。来揭示社会转型时期佛罗伦萨的婚姻状况。据此全面理解文艺复兴时期的社会变化及时代特征。     

Supporting women's empowerment in Djibouti

This article reports on the work carried out by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) in the small island of Djibouti, Africa. The republic's population has been plagued with problems of high levels of unemployment, poverty, malnutrition, an almost non-existent family reproductive health care service, 100% prevalence rate of female genital mutilation and low literacy rate, especially for women. In addition, refugees from Ethiopia and Eritrea have settled in the country increasing the risks of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), HIV/AIDS, prostitution, and other social ills. In 1983, UNFPA started funding family planning and later reproductive health projects aimed at assuring access to services for a majority of Djiboutan women. The first country population program of assistance was started in 1992. This would help the government with health care for its population and to conduct a population census. In addition, the Fund has paid for training of doctors, midwives, and traditional birth assistants in the country and for rehabilitating maternity clinics and information centers. Moreover, it has supported agencies concerned with educating people on STDs, HIV/AIDS, safe motherhood and reproductive health for men and women, and other important issues.     

Vietnamese Aging and Marital Sexual Behavior in Comparative Perspective

This study examines marital sexual activity in relation to age and its significance for marital relationships in Vietnam with particular attention to older persons. Results are compared with Thailand and the US. Two regional surveys provide the first quantitative assessment of marital sex in Vietnam. As elsewhere, marital sexual activity declines with age. At older ages, substantial proportions of married Vietnamese are sexually inactive. Levels of activity among older Vietnamese and Thais are remarkably similar and substantially lower than in the US. Contrary to US studies, the frequency of sexual activity shows little relationship to marital satisfaction and harmony in Vietnam. Possible explanations for these differences are discussed in terms of biases in the data, differences in health and living arrangements, and societal, cultural and normative contexts. We speculate that a main reason underlying the differences is a lesser societal emphasis on sex in general and on the importance of sexual and physical intimacy in marital relationships in Vietnam and Thailand than in the US.     

Modeling social interaction: Marital miscegenation in colonial Spanish America

Abstract

In this article, the author constructs new life tables for the white population of the United States in each decade between 1790 and 1900. Drawing from several recent studies, he suggests best estimates of life expectancy at age 20 for each decade. These estimates are fitted to new standards derived from the 1900–1902 rural and 1900–1902 overall death registration area life tables using a two-parameter logit model with fixed slope. The resulting decennial life tables more accurately represent sex- and age-specific mortality rates while capturing known mortality trends.     

Thousands gather in Beijing for fourth women's conference

The Fourth World Conference on Women, to be held in Beijing in September 1995, is expected to issue a Platform for Action to advance the status of women, identify priority actions to be taken by the international community, and mobilize those at both the policy making and grass-roots levels to implement these goals. The draft Platform for Action addresses the following critical areas: poverty, women's education, reproductive health and sexuality, violence and armed conflict, economic disparity, power-sharing, institutions, human rights, mass media, environmental degradation, and female children. Parallel to the UN conference, a Nongovernmental Forum on Women will meet, with an emphasis on the concept of sustainable human development.     

Toward an anthropology of women's liberation

Ruby Rohrlich‐Leavitt, ed. Women Cross‐Culturally: Change and Challenge. The Hague and London: Mouton Publishers. A volume in the World Anthropology Series, Sol Tax, general editor. Distributed in North America by Aldine Publishing Co., 1975. xiv + 669 pp. Tables, figures, biographical notes, and indexes. $27.50.     

Obstacles to women's progress to be addressed in Beijing

Speakers at the Third Social, Humanitarian, and Cultural Committee Assembly held in December 1994 maintained that power sharing between women and men is still intolerably low and that economic hardship, abuse, and discrimination remain. One speaker announced that society needs to do more to challenge obstacles to women's advancement: poverty, violence, access to resources, women's rights, education, and health. She asserted that, for this reason, the Fourth World Conference on Women scheduled for September 1995 in Beijing must succeed. Discussions and action at the December assembly will constitute a major part of the groundwork for the Beijing Conference. The Committee debate centered on the advancement of women as a cause and effect of development. The 1994 World Survey on the Role of Women in Development shows that economic development may be complexly connected with advancement of women. In societies where women have progressed, the economy tends to grow steadily, while, in societies where women cannot fully participate in development, the economy is stagnant. The Assembly called on the Commission on the Status of Women to ensure that the Platform for Action recognize and incorporate older women's concerns and contributions to development into its strategies, programs, and policies. It also called for countries to protect women migrant workers from violence and corrupt recruitment practices. It condemned the illegal trafficking of women and girls across borders for sexual or economic oppressive and exploitative purposes and for other illegal activities (forced domestic labor, false marriages, clandestine employment, and false adoption).     

Marital distance and its geographical orientation in England and Wales, 1979

"A representative sample of just over one thousand marriages solemnized in England and Wales in 1979 is used to analyse the distribution of the distances between the partners' addresses at marriage....according to various social and demographic variables also derived from the same source. Comparison with other surveys suggests that marriages in which both partners give the same address are likely to be those of couples who cohabit before marriage. Partners who work in unskilled manual occupations, or who marry with a civil ceremony, or who have been married before, appear more likely than the average to cohabit. Of the marriages where different addresses are given, about one-half bring together partners living within 5 km of each other." It is found that "there is a strong relationship between high social class and increased marital distance, and also between greater marital distance and older ages up to about age 40. Longer-range marriages show clear evidence of geographical orientation, the effect being more pronounced at longer distances. This is attributed to variations in population density over the country and geographical constraints on settlement patterns."     

Marital sexual relationships and birth spacing among two Yoruba sub-groups

Discussion focuses on the marital sexual relationships (MSR) and the timing of the next child among the Ekiti and Ikale subgroups of the Yoruba (Nigeria). Contrasts in postpartum sexual practices between the 2 groups allows for demonstration of the importance of parents' perception of their child's growth and their observance of prohibitions on sexual intercourse during the wife's lactation as factors shaping their decision to have another child. It is argued that the similarity in birth spacing among the 2 groups, derived from contrasting attitudes to postpartum abstinence, is evidence of an explicit decision on the timing of the next child. Such a decision considers the role of the child's growth and social development as it affects adults in the performance of their daily social and economic routines and goes beyond an unquestioned response to quasi-religious taboos. A questionnaire was administered in the local dialect to 535 Ekiti women and 460 Ikale women, currently married and aged 14-49 years. Appropriately modified male questionnaires were completed for 398 and 380 husbands of eligible women in the respective locations. Due in part to conservatism in sexual behavior and family formation, the main features of Yoruba postpartum practices such as extended and demand breastfeeding, the taboo on sexual intercourse during lactation, and the devotion to child welfare are believed to, and do, occur in Ekiti. Socioeconomic development has brought many changes, but the combination of these practices with the high infant mortality resulting from limited access to modern health care and the lack of basic amenities assures that children are born at substantial ages apart. The need for the surviving child to reach a consciously determined age and/or stage of growth and development assures the adequacy and rationality of child spacing in this age conscious society. The Ikale are an exception to the general rule concerning sexual abstinence during lactation. The theme of a mother's trials and concern over her children is also valid with the Ikale. The Ikale mother supplements the natural protection offered by postpartum amenorrhea with the use of traditional methods of contraception, most notably the rhythm method. The crude birthrates for the 2 groups were hardly different--54.7 in Ekiti and 54.4 in Ikale. There was only a negligible difference in fertility rates. In both groups only negligible proportions of women would breastfeed for less than 6 months. Only 7.4% of Ikale women would breastfeed beyond 2 years, but 12.9% of Ekiti women were breastfeeding that long. In Ikale there was a higher awareness of the association between extended breastfeeding and the delay in the onset of menstruation. The main implication of this discussion is to challenge the emphasis on lactational abstinence as the main determinant of changes in fertility behavior. The Ikale case shows that such an assumption is not valid.     

Women's rituals and women's prototypes review article *

In this short passage of the Libellus de virginitate servanda (epist. 22) Jerome incorporates a number of striking formulations from Tertullian's De oratione and De corona. The influence of Ambrose's De virginibus would also seem to be discernible. Jerome systematically enhances the stylistic finesse of the material he borrows. At the same time its inclusion also entails inconcinnities.     

战后法国第三产业的发展和妇女就业

自工业社会形成以来,发达国家的产业结构在本世纪,尤其是二战后经历了重大调整,第三产业异军突起,其产值在国民经济中所占比重以及就业人数大大超出第一和第二产业,并对经济发展和社会生活形成强大冲击力,也使劳动力市场发生结构性的变化。本文以发达国家之一的法国...