GENUS

1994 - VOLUME 50, NUMBER 3-4

95.48.1 - English - Duncan J. DORMOR The status of women and mortality

This article contains an empirical analysis of the link between the status of women and mortality, based on period data relating to a wide sample of developed and developing countries. Four measures of mortality have been used: the infant mortality rate; the youth mortality rate, life expectancy at birth and life expectancy at age five. Using a multiple regression analysis, the author demonstrates how, once the influence of various socioeconomic factors on mortality has been controlled for, the status of women has its own effect on this phenomenon. This would indicate that any policies aimed at improving the status of women in developing countries would no doubt contribute to a decline in their mortality. (WOMEN'S STATUS, MORTALITY DETERMINANTS)

95.48.2 - English - Giuseppe GESANO Nonsense and unfeasibility of demographically-based immigration policies

Even if the current European migration policy is not aimed at recovering population equilibrium, the demographic imbalance currently noted in Europe is preoccupying and some would even look to immigration in order to redress the balance. Furthermore, the stabilising effect of immigration on a population with very low fertility has already been demonstrated. Using the help of a projection model applied simultaneously to several populations while making various hypotheses as to their differential demographic behaviour patterns and on migrant integration, the author studies a series of possibilities in terms of volume and composition of the flows of immigrants which it would be necessary to accept in order to reach stability (the Italian population of 1991 is used as the base population). Detailing the intermediary calculations makes it possible to highlight the incoherency of certain scenarios and the major problems created by others. In conclusion, while recognising the fact that future demographic imbalances are going to have more and more of an impact on international migration, the author believes that it would be absurd to use them as the basis for migratory policies for that would lead to even more serious national and international problems than those that the policies are attempting to resolve. (EUROPE, BELOW REPLACEMENT FERTILITY, IMMIGRATION POLICY)

95.48.3 - English - M. MUJIBUR RAHMAN and M. NURUL ISLAM Role of service providers, programme managers and family planning field workers in the sterilization procedure of Bangladesh

The authors study the role of service providers, programme managers and family planning field workers in the various sectors of the "voluntary surgical contraception" services and attempt to identify the causes of any decline in the quality of these services. To this end, 95 service agents, 33 programme managers and 190 field workers were interviewed. The authors note that the quality of the services provided in clinics is reasonably good, given the lack of specialised staff, beds, sterilizers, instruments and operating blocks. But care during and after operations is sadly lacking. Most of the managers complained of the lack of medico-surgical equipment and medication. The family planning agents do comply well with the basic principles for directing their customers towards an operation, but the follow-up services are not up to scratch. (BANGLADESH, SEXUAL STERILIZATION, PROGRAMME EVALUATION)

95.48.4 - English - John F. ERMISCH and Robert E. WRIGHT Entry to lone parenthood: An analysis of marital dissolution in Great Britain

In Great Britain, the number of single-parent families has more than doubled in twenty years, increasing from 570,000 in 1971 to 1.4 million in 1992. The main determinant behind this significant increase is divorce. The authors use the biographical data supplied by the 1980 Survey on Women and Employment to analyse the socioeconomic factors of divorce among women with children in their care. (UNITED KINGDOM, ONE-PARENT FAMILY, DIVORCE)

95.48.5 - English - Ricardo F. NEUPERT An application of a probabilistic fertility model to estimate some female family life cycle stages in Paraguay

Using a stochastic fertility model linked to probability tables, this study examines the effect of fertility and mortality on certain aspects of the family life cycle of women in Paraguay: the average age at first and last birth, duration of the reproductive phase and the average life span following last birth. The author uses historical, recent and prospective data on fertility and mortality and proposes some reflections on the possible implications of current and future trends for these elements in the life cycle. (PARAGUAY, LIFE CYCLE, FERTILITY TRENDS, MORTALITY TRENDS, STOCHASTIC MODELS)

95.48.6 - English - Hallie J. KINTNER Infant mortality decline in Germany, 1871-1925: The roles of changes in variables and changes in the structure of relations

In this article, the author applies procedures of decomposition by regression to the analysis of the decline in infant mortality in Germany from 1871 to 1925. The infant mortality rate did, in fact, drop from 244 per 1000 to 120 per 1000 over this period. The data cover 59 administrative regions and were noted at seven different time periods. Contrary to the case in the developing countries of today, a small part of this historical decline in infant mortality can be explained by changes in the links between infant mortality and different variables, and a small part by exogeneous factors. It is, in fact, the actual trends in the variables under consideration which explain most of the decline. The reduction in family size and progress in infant hygiene have improved the living conditions of young children and have thus increased their chances of survival. (GERMANY, INFANT MORTALITY, MORTALITY DECLINE, MORTALITY DETERMINANTS)

95.48.7 - English - Robert E. WRIGHT Household structure and poverty

The author suggests a method of controlling for structural variables in order to measure poverty, this method being based on the technique of "direct standardisation", coherent with Sen's famous axiomatic approach for measuring poverty. It is related to an important category of poverty measurement methods proposed by Foster, Greer and Thorbecke. It is one of the rare synthetic measures of poverty which can be directly standardised while still satisfying Sen's criteria. This standardisation makes it possible to examine the basic differences in poverty while controlling for the structural variables which are correlated with the incidence and intensity of poverty. The author illustrates his method by applying it to the relationships between household structure and poverty in seven European countries. (METHODOLOGY, MEASUREMENT, POVERTY)

95.48.8 - English - Alejandro AGUIRRE Extension of the Preceding Birth Technique

The "preceding birth" technique consists in requesting a woman slightly before (or just after) giving birth if her previous child is still alive. The proportion of deceased children amongst the previous births provides an estimate of early child mortality. It is usually data which have been collected in hospitals and maternity clinics which are used, but the gaps in them tend to make the estimates biased. In order to increase the coverage rates, it has been suggested that the data should be collected at a more propitious time, e.g., during a medical consultation, but that again introduces a certain bias, for only the mothers whose last child is still alive are interviewed and it is known that there is a link between the risks of the successive children of the same mother dying, as the death of a child increases the risk of the next child dying. In this way, if the information is collected a certain amount of time after childbirth, the mothers whose last baby died are omitted and whose previous child had thus, on average, a high probability of also being dead. The author proposes an extension to the "preceding birth" technique in order to rectify these biases and applies it to the data collected by the Mexican Institute of Social Security. (METHODOLOGY, INFANT MORTALITY, MORTALITY MEASUREMENT, DATA COLLECTION

95.48.9 - English - Pritwish DAS GUPTA Standardization and decomposition of rates from cross-classified data

In the social sciences, the direct standardization technique is traditionally used to rid the gross rates of any structural effects. The technique of decomposition of rates is aimed at specifying the respective contributions of differences in the value of certain component factors to the difference between the gross rates of the two populations. Standardization and decomposition are closely linked together. The author establishes precise formulae for determining standardised rates and the effects of factors when the rates are calculated on the basis of multi-dimensional data. He demonstrates with some numerical examples and supplies a general calculation programme which can be applied when there are between two and six determinants. (MATHEMATICAL DEMOGRAPHY, METHODOLOGY, CRUDE RATE, STANDARDIZED RATE)

Back to home page