Back to home page

1994 - VOLUME 13, NUMBER 3

95.88.1 - English - Seamus GRIMES, Department of Geography, University College Galway (Ireland) The ideology of population control in the UN draft plan for Cairo (p. 209-224)

This paper examines the influence of population control ideology on the draft plan for the UN Cairo Conference on Population and Development. It is argued that this draft plan can only be fully understood in the context of the recent history of the population control movement and of the empirical reality of population control in particular countries. The paper focuses on the origins of the ideology of population control in the eugenics movement initially, and more recently in organisations such as International Planned Parenthood Federation. The role of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), in promoting an incremental approach towards the wider acceptance of population control since the first intergovernmental conference on population in Bucharest in 1974, is outlined. Despite the serious loss of credibility for the UN, through the association of the UNFPA with the Chinese population control programme the most coercive programme of its type in history - the UN in the draft plan for Cairo continues to promote the ideology of population control. This paper argues for the need to develop a more positive model of development, which acknowledges the complementarity between the lack of development of poorer countries and their potential for significant progress, and the overdevelopment of industrialised regions, whose future growth is increasingly based on intense competition for shrinking markets. (UN SYSTEM, IDEOLOGY, CONFERENCES)

95.88.2 - English - Thomas J. ESPENSHADE, Office of Population Research, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ (U.S.A.), and Vanessa E. KING, Trinity College, Cambridge University, Cambridge (United Kingdom) State and local fiscal impacts of US immigrants: Evidence from New Jersey (p. 225-256)

This paper uses a household-level estimation strategy to develop new evidence on the state and local fiscal impacts of US immigration. The methodology is applied to 1980 census microdata for New Jersey, a state that now ranks fifth in the nation in the size of its foreign-born population. All New Jersey households combined in 1980 imposed a net fiscal burden on state government of more than US$2.1 billion, and a net burden on the aggregate of all local governments totaling nearly $690 million. Both native- and immigrant-headed households received government benefits worth more than they paid in taxes. The typical immigrant-headed household imposed an average fiscal burden of $350 on local governments throughout New Jersey, versus roughly $225 for each native-headed household. At the state level, however, net fiscal impacts of immigrants and natives were similar: an average annual deficit of $841 for immigrants compared with $846 for native households. There are larger disparities among the foreign-born population than between native-headed and immigrant-headed households. Latin American households have the most unfavorable fiscal implications of any immigrant subgroup. Taken together, our findings illustrate the overriding importance of household income and number of school-age children as determinants of taxes paid, benefits received and, ultimately, of net fiscal impacts. (UNITED STATES, IMMIGRANTS, TAXATION, HOUSEHOLD)

95.88.3 - English - Mridul K. CHOWDHURY, Carolina Population Center, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (U.S.A.), and International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Dhaka (Bangladesh) Mother's education and effect of son preference on fertility in Matlab, Bangladesh (p. 257-273)

This analysis follows earlier research that hypothesized and substantiated that, in a society with strong son preference, its effect on fertility would be conditional on the level of contraceptive use. Present analysis of the prospective fertility experience of 22,819 women of reproductive age during 3.5 years in Matlab, Bangladesh, shows that this effect is higher among mothers with postprimary schooling versus those with primary or no education. The higher effect conforms with the known positive relationship of contraceptive use with maternal schooling. However, this increase when contrasted with the idea that education promotes modern values, including gender equality, suggests that education in Matlab, with its traditional slant, is not resistant to son preference. In a poor, traditional society with low status for women, schooling alone is not enough to motivate women to abandon low esteem for daughters though schooling promotes child survival. But if preference for smaller family size increases, promoted by education including such modern values as gender equality, then sex preference, although it cannot be completely removed, will have minimal effect on fertility as in most developed countries. (BANGLADESH, SEX PREFERENCE, EDUCATION OF WOMEN, FERTILITY)

95.88.4 - English - Robert L. BOYD, State University of New York at Buffalo, NY (U.S.A.) Educational mobility and the fertility of black and white women (p. 275-281)

In a test of the minority group status hypothesis, this study examines the effect of intergenerational educational mobility on the fertility of black and white women. Regression analysis of data from the National Survey of Family Growth provides only limited support for the hypothesis that upwardly mobile black women have lower fertility than their white counterparts. The main finding is that the parity of upwardly mobile black women is influenced more strongly by educational origins (parents' education) than is the parity of upwardly mobile white women. Thus, future studies should consider the effects of social origins on racial differences in fertility. (UNITED STATES, EDUCATION OF WOMEN, RACE, DIFFERENTIAL FERTILITY)

95.88.5 - English - Anne E. WINKLER, Department of Economics, University of Missouri-St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri (U.S.A.) The determinants of a mother's choice of family structure (p. 283-303)

This study attempts to clarify the effect of welfare generosity on family structure while controlling for community mores, local labor market conditions, and other sociodemographic characteristics. In the existing AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) literature, these latter factors have been largely ignored. The empirical analysis is conducted by linking individual-level data from the 1987 National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) with information on county-level unemployment rates, state AFDC benefits, and proxies of community mores. In particular, the detailed nature of the NSFH data set provides a unique opportunity to investigate the social and economic determinants of cohabitation, among other family structures. Local labor market conditions are found to significantly affect marriage and single-motherhood, while community conservatism is found to discourage the least conventional family structure - cohabitation. Finally, this study raises some question about the effect of AFDC policy on marriage and related events. Specifically, AFDC's statistical impact is found to be sensitive to the inclusion of an explicit measure of community conservatism in the empirical model specification. (UNITED STATES, FAMILY COMPOSITION, SOCIAL POLICY, TRADITION)

95.88.6 - English - Charles B. NAM, Center for the Study of Population, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL (U.S.A.), Robert A. HUMMER, Department of Sociology, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC (U.S.A.), and Richard G. ROGERS, Population Program and Department of Sociology, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado (U.S.A.) Underlying and multiple causes of death related to smoking (p. 305-325)

Although smoking has been linked to various causes of death, there is no systematic account of the underlying and multiple cause-of-death distributions associated with various smoking statuses. We analyze such patterns by age and gender for the USA in 1986. Our study is based on a one-percent random sample of decedents 25 and over in the USA for whom survey data from informants were linked to death certificate data. Smoking is related to several underlying causes of death, the most common being circulatory diseases. Lung cancer is less prevalent than circulatory diseases or other cancers among ever smokers. Multiple medical conditions are common for both smokers and nonsmokers, but particular combinations vary among persons with different smoking statuses. Former smokers who quit soon before death and were under frequent medical care are most likely to have had lung cancer. Amount of smoking is tied to variations in cause-of-death patterns. Differences by age and gender are not substantial, although other cancers appear frequently for both smokers and non-smokers among women. The distribution of medical causes of death for ever smokers is not radically different from that of never smokers. However, differences in cause patterns are seen when smoking statuses are detailed by amount of smoking and timing of quitting. These similarities and differences in cause patterns must be related to the fundamental fact that the average smoker will die earlier than the average nonsmoker. Such findings should especially influence programs for diseases whose links to smoking have been underestimated. (UNITED STATES, SMOKING, MULTIPLE CAUSES OF DEATH)

95.88.7 - English - Louie Albert WOOLBRIGHT, Alabama Department of Public Health (U.S.A.) The effects of maternal smoking on infant health (p. 327-339)

Maternal smoking has serious consequences for the developing fetus and infant, including a higher probability that the infant will be born prematurely and at low birth weight, will require admission to neonatal intensive care, and die during infancy. Data from Alabama birth certificates for births occurring between 1988 and 1991 were analyzed using log linear methods to calculate relative risks of adverse pregnancy outcomes and infant death. Smoking by mothers during pregnancy is associated with an elevated risk of infant death, low birth weight, and prematurity, controlling for mother's educational attainment, age, marital status, race, and trimester prenatal care was initiated. Smoking was also associated with a higher rate of admission to neonatal intensive care and to deaths from SIDS and respiratory causes. Reducing maternal smoking can contribute to a reduction of premature and low weight births and infant deaths. Because of the difficulty of stopping smoking, efforts need to be directed at preventing younger women from beginning to smoke. (UNITED STATES, SMOKING, MATERNAL AND CHILD HEALTH, INFANT MORTALITY, MORBIDITY)

Back to home page