‘I couldn't hold the whole thing’: the role of gender,individualisation and risk in shaping fertility preferences in Taiwan

Taiwan has one of the lowest fertility rates in Asia. High direct and indirect costs of childbearing have been identified as key drivers behind this at the macro-level, but little is known about the mechanism of these influences at the individual-level. In 32 qualitative interviews with parents in Taipei, we sought to explore the salient factors for couples in their decisions about having further children. We identified a tension between gendered expectations of childcare responsibilities and women's desire to ‘build a life of one's own’ – a life with options and the freedom to pursue career and social aspirations. Based on our grounded analysis, we reflect on the high relevance of individualisation, risk society and incomplete gender revolution theories for understanding why many couples – and women in particular – choose to cease childbearing at parity one.     

INTERGENERATIONAL PROXIMITY AND THE FERTILITY INTENTIONS OF MARRIED WOMEN

Explanations for very low fertility in ‘strong family’ countries emphasise the relatively high costs of childrearing but pay little attention to the potentially offsetting influences of distinctive living arrangements. In this paper, we use data from nationally representative surveys of married women of reproductive age in Japan and Italy to demonstrate that intergenerational co-residence and residential proximity to parents(-in-law) are positively associated with fertility intentions. We also examine ways in which relationships between living arrangements and fertility intentions may depend on family circumstances associated with the opportunity costs, psychological costs and economic costs of childrearing. Contrary to expectations, we find no evidence that intergenerational residential proximity is associated with higher fertility intentions among women for whom the opportunity costs of childrearing are thought to be the greatest. However, there is some relatively limited support for hypothesised moderating influences of the psychological and economic costs of childrearing.     

FERTILITY-REDUCING DYNAMICS OF WOMEN'S SOCIAL STATUS AND EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT

Education, unlike most other determinants of social status, causes a significant delay in fertility timing and depresses fertility outcomes. It also operates as a self-reinforcing status-seeking spiral mechanism, with important consequences for aggregate fertility over time. Later-born cohorts of women, in order to maintain a given position in the education distribution compared to their same-age peers, must attain increasingly higher levels of education. This implies that the process of status-seeking is having increasingly strong effects in terms of reducing global fertility levels. This can be particularly important for Asian nations where schooling levels have risen rapidly in recent decades and there has been an increase in the ages at childbearing and a depression of fertility outcomes.     

From floating brothels to surburban semirespectability: two centuries of nonmarital pregnancy in Australia

The sexual revolution that through the 1950s and 1960s saw nonmarital fertility and marital childbearing following premarital conception rise rapidly in Australia, especially among women in their teens and early twenties, received considerable research attention. Now, in the mid-1990s, childbearing following nonmarital pregnancy has assumed a very different character. The pregnant teenaged bride is almost a thing of the past, and nonmarital births occur mainly at normative reproductive ages within consensual unions. Similar trends have occurred in other developed countries, but Australia boasts an unusual precedent for this new phase, in that during its early years of colonial settlement, convictism also gave rise to widespread childbearing within consensual unions. This precedent and the distinctive circumstances that produced it are explored in the context of tracing the full and varied history of fertility associated with nonmarital coitus in Australia.     

Unpacking Land Grabs: Subjects,Performances and the State in Ghana's ‘Small‐scale’ Gold Mining Sector

During the 2008 global financial crisis, gold‐backed reserves became a ‘safe haven’ for capital investment, causing gold prices to hit historic highs. Globally, small‐scale gold mining activities proliferated as prices climbed. Along the banks of Ghana's Offin River, abandoned, waterlogged mining pits now stretch for kilometres where agricultural and other land uses recently existed. While small‐scale mining is a right reserved for Ghanaian citizens, many mining sites are foreign‐operated and almost all go unremediated. There is thus a stark tension between Ghanaian minerals laws and environmental regulations and the ongoing transformation of rural landscapes. Based on 112 interviews and long‐term observation in Ghana since 2010, this article untangles the relationships and practices mediating ‘illegal’ foreign mining operations. Shifting subjectivities, performances and practices bring land grabbing into being as state actors weave together legal and extra‐legal domains to facilitate, and profit from, foreign mining. Other officials experience fear and frustration in the face of powerful mining interests, demonstrating the complex workings and conflicts between government actors and agencies. Detailing co‐productions between ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ domains in official licensing procedures complicates understandings of the state and its role in foreign land grabbing, breaking down the ontological binaries — rational/irrational, official/unofficial — used to uphold an image of state legitimacy and cohesion. Finally, given the spatial extent of small‐scale mining deals and ensuing social and environmental transformations, the authors urge land‐grab scholars not to dismiss the importance of small‐scale deals alongside larger transactions.     

Second demographic transition or aspirations in transition: an exploratory analysis of lowest-low fertility in Kolkata,India

Fertility transition occurred during the 1970s in Kolkata (erstwhile Calcutta), capital of the state of West Bengal, India, and has remained persistently at the low fertility level. Fertility rate in Kolkata attained its lowest-low level in the beginning of the present century. It currently has the lowest fertility rate (TFR 1.2) in India. This could be a case of second demographic transition (SDT) or pertains to changing dynamics in childbearing, childrearing, and/or aspirations for children. Using primary data of 600 couples (1200 individuals) and employing quantitative and qualitative methods, this study found that constraints in childbearing and childrearing; and aspirations for children have a strong negative and significant effect on second and higher order childbearing among couples, particularly among women. In our study there was no strong evidence of voluntary childlessness as well as decline in the importance of marriage, family and children as posited by SDT. Thus we argue that SDT might have to be redefined for a developing country context.     

基于社会学视野的黄山市汤口镇旅游城市化特征和机制研究

改革开放以来,旅游城市化成为汤口镇城市化发展的主要路径之一。基于社会学视野考察黄山市汤口镇旅游城市化发展特征并探讨其机制。发现伴随旅游业发展,汤口镇产业结构由第一产业为主向以旅游业占主导的第三产业为主的产业结构转变,居民收入主要来自于旅游业,居民就业主要向旅游业及其相关产业集中;居民的居住条件、生活习惯和邻里关系呈现城市社区特点,居民的经营理念、教育观念和生活态度等思想观念发生很大转变,显现出城市居民的特点;居民的社会角色向现代企业家转变;汤口镇城镇性质和职能也由农业社区向旅游社区演变。而优越的区位条件、良好的资源禀赋、政府的推动以及居民的积极参与等是汤口镇旅游城市化发展的主要因素。     

‘Together apart’ or ‘apart together’? – middle-class parents’ choice of playgrounds and playground interactions in socially diverse neighbourhoods

Taking an everyday life setting, namely playgrounds, as a starting point, the paper foregrounds a nuanced analysis of the internal differentiations of the middle class’s positioning in regard to social diversity. In so doing, the paper contributes to debates on contemporary segregation research, (dis-)affiliation of the middle classes in inner-city diverse neighbourhoods and geographies of encounter. Empirical findings are based on an analysis of the narratives and daily spatial routines of middle-class parents in three inner-city neighbourhoods in a major German town. The findings contradict the conventional wisdom that middle-class parents would always seek a socially homogeneous environment in which to raise their children and show the presence of a middle-class fraction with a collective orientation. The analysis highlights the need for a closer look at playgrounds as a setting for cross-social interaction and, in terms of micro-level politics, a setting to promote diverse and inclusive neighbourhoods.     

SOCIAL COST MINIMIZATION: A NATIONAL POLICY APPROACH TO THE PROBLEMS OF DISTRESSED ECONOMIC REGIONS*

This paper makes a distinction between output maximizing and cost minimizing approaches to national economic policy. The paper argues that because the benefits of economic activity and its cost are frequently conferred upon distinct groups in society, it is not automatically true that output maximization is the best strategy, as is presently assumed. This result is especially true when the problems of distressed economic regions are the focus of our concern. The national and multi-national firms which make decisions pertaining to the economic life of local communities make those decisions not on the basis of the costs and benefits to the community, but with regard to their private balance sheet. As a result, it frequently happens that communities of individuals must bear social costs far in excess of the private gains to the firms in question. From a policy standpoint, this is not an efficient use of our social and economic resources. In the absence of any type of comprehensive economic planning a rational market-oriented economic strategy would be one which seeks to minimize social costs.     

新时期小城镇建设的回顾与思考

改革开放以来,我国小城镇的建设问题从作为“大问题”提出,到形成经济社会发展的“大战略”,其间经历了艰苦的探索、创新过程,最终实现了一个发展思路上的飞跃,积累了极为宝贵的经验。在中国城镇化的进程中,小城镇的恢复和发展占有十分重要的地位。建设小城镇的主要目的并不仅仅在于建设一批现代化的城镇,而且在于通过城镇发展过程中资本的聚集和人口的集中逐步解决“三农”问题。     

Reproductive behaviour and determinants in a low-fertility era in China

ABSTRACT

This commentary reviews low fertility in China and suggests a macro-micro approach to analyse reproductive behaviour and determinants. As there are more discouraging factors to childbirth in concurrent Chinese society then encouraging ones, the low fertility is more likely to stay, unless there are more specific and effective strategies to support couples fulfilling their childbearing desire.     

Ultra-low fertility in East Asia: policy responses and challenges*

ABSTRACT

In the countries of East and Southeast Asia where fertility has reached ultra-low levels, there has been a flurry of developments in pro-natalist policy over the past five years or so, but its impact appears to be limited. This paper addresses the strong obstacles hindering the success of pro-natalist policies in the region, suggests key interventions that are needed, and stresses that the policies in these countries should also be considering other ways of addressing the issues. Social policy has certainly moved ahead in positive ways in South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, as evidenced by parental leave policy and childcare reform, but workplace cultures have yet to follow suit. The slow changes in gender norms, along with the pressures of educating children and finding housing in the big cities where most people in the region live, are the continuing realities facing couples considering marriage and childbearing.     

Fertility trends, marriage patterns, and savant typologies in Albanian context

In this article, the author focuses on the speculative literalism and typologism in current scholarship to construct a taken-for-granted view, taking issue especially with many points raised in the literature on the subject that have associated fertility rates in Albania more closely with the existence of patriarchal cultural traits. This leads the author to argue that the specific rationale for the myth of many children, high fertility rates, and complex family structures in Albanian context, as elsewhere in patrilineal societies, is an ideological elaboration of patriarchy. Methodologically, the analysis of the standard view of childbearing, based on standard ethnographic methods, traditional historical sources and aggregate demographic data, is aimed to illustrate the inadequacy of the historical-ethnographic paradigm against the available empirical evidence. In turn, understanding how ideological elements are emphasized in cultural activism should lead, against current scholarship claims, to an understanding of the way in which the urgent need for male children must have been to hide away other more troubling reasons.     

Kirkenes: An Industrial Site Reinvented as a Border Town

Abstract

1 1. This is a significantly revised version of an article published in Nyseth and Granås 2007 “Place-reinvention – Dynamics and Governance Perspectives”, Stockholm: Nordregio. This article analyses the transformation of Kirkenes, a small town on the Russian–Norwegian border, from an industrial town to a border town. Kirkenes was established as a harbour for an iron-ore mining venture in what today is the municipality of Sør-Varanger. This industry closed down during the 1990s. The article describes how Kirkenes has been transformed within “bordered” relationships of civic society, business and a combination of high-level and local political activities. Being a border town and a centre in the Barents Region is the hegemonic narrative of today. The manifold transformations have led to a situation where Kirkenes has become “Russianized”, though local actors struggle with how to handle this aspect of local development and the meaning of the place. The article also investigates to what degree the transformations have changed local identity. The focus is on how identities are dealt with, whether they are seen as immanent and essential cultural traits, or as something that tends to be changed and adapted to the situation. Based on the concept of narrative identities, there are reasons to believe that there are strong identities based on both public narratives relating to local history and nature and metanarratives about globalization and cross-border communities.     

租地还是卖地:土地流转中农民有限理性行为分析——对中山市崖口村旅游开发用地的个案调研

土地流转过程中,农民租地或卖地的行为选择带来不同的收益,将直接影响到现在及未来农民的生活水平。由于受到自身条件和环境约束,农民只能追求安全保障基础上的利益最大化。本文通过对中山市崖口村村民在旅游开发用地中的决策行为进行深度调研,发现当地农民在土地流转中表现出因可得性偏向导致的差异化认知与态度、伦理行动下的集体选择、规避风险下的非最优选择的有限理性行为特征,最终的"卖地"决策对崖口村的未来发展带来了一定的风险。     

The changing value of children among the Kikuyu of Central Province,Kenya

"This article describes and analyses recent changes in the social institutions and cultural practices which have traditionally supported high fertility among the Kikuyu of Central Province, Kenya, and assesses the extent to which such institutions and practices retain their significance in the context of the changing value of children. The material and symbolic value of children to the Kikuyu is analysed, using methods and concepts derived from social anthropology.... After briefly profiling each of the communities of study, the article is organised around three themes which correspond to the key social institutions that shape fertility motives: marriage, kinship and religion. A fourth theme which runs throughout the article is the changing strategic role played by these same institutions in regulating or enhancing fertility." (SUMMARY IN FRE)     

商汤伐桀路线新探

郑州商城就是商汤所都的亳邑,成乃成皋,戎山就是文献所称的陑山,也即后世的雷首山和中条山。今陕西省合阳县东南一带,是夏桀逃亡的“莘之墟”。鸣条位于今夏县西北和安邑镇以北地带。今河南省陕州市是夏王桀所逃的“南巢氏”,又称“焦门”。今山西夏县为中心的晋南地区古称“夏虚”,是夏王朝统治集团的最后归宿。     

宁波市域城镇体系中重点镇发展的若干问题研究

宁波地处长江三角洲南翼,是长江三角洲城市带的重要组成部分,目前已形成了以宁波中心城市为核心,包括副中心城市、重点镇和一般镇的市域四级城镇体系。但该城镇体系存在空间分布不均,功能分化不明显,规模结构不合理等问题,制约城市化的进一步发展。文章从研究宁波市域城镇体系中重点镇发展的区域背景着手,分析了重点镇发展的动力因素和制约条件,在此基础上探讨了重点镇发展在宁波市域城市化进程中的作用与发展目标。最后,文章探讨了如何建立有利于重点镇发展的集聚动力和约束机制问题。     

Men’s participation in childcare and housework and parity progression: a Japanese population-based study

ABSTRACT

Although Japan has entered a phase of population decline due to decades of low fertility, studies on the determinants of fertility choices among Japanese couples remain sparse. Previous studies, mostly conducted in Europe, suggest that men’s active involvement in household labour may promote childbearing. We tested whether men’s participation in childcare and housework has an influence on parity progression in Japan. Our results show a positive relationship between men’s participation in childcare and parity progression but no consistent relationship between men’s participation in housework and parity progression. We also observed that other factors such as the sex composition of existing children influences couples’ decision to have another child. Our findings add to the scarce literature on Japanese people’s fertility behaviour.     

泉州市城市化发展战略的新思考

面对新时期泉州市城市化发展环境的改变,制定切实可行的城市化发展战略显得尤为迫切。本文首先通过对泉州市人均GDP、人均国民收入与城市化相互关系的分析,初步判断泉州的城市化发展目前正处于迅速集聚阶段。进而提出,泉州应构筑以城市为中心,以中心城为核心的现代化城镇体系。在具体建设模式上,把中心城建成富有竞争力的特大城市,从而培育地区增长极、提升区域综合竞争力以及优化中心城功能结构;以"新城"模式建设各县城,使其成为城市化过程中人口和产业集聚的重要基地;按小城市模式建设中心镇,以构筑地区增长极和建设现代企业载体。