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46 POPULATION
March-April 1999, 54th Year, N° 2
Risks of mortality and excess mortality during the first ten years of widowhood [Risques de mortalité et de surmortalité au cours des dix premières années de veuvage].
This article breaks down the different factors responsible for the excess mortality of widowed persons compared with married persons: an immediate excess mortality due to the 'shock of widowhood', an excess mortality due to the living conditions of widowed persons, an excess mortality that predates widowhood. Using French civil registration data for the period from 1969 to 1991, the article describes the evolution in mortality risks after widowhood by sex, age at widowhood, and in particular by the duration of widowhood.
The first year of widowhood is found to be a critical year, with an excess mortality of +80% for men and +60% for women. The second year forms a turning point, being marked by a fall in the absolute level of mortality between the first and second anniversary of the partner's death, even though the individuals are a year older. Does this reflect the healing effect of time after the trauma of the first year, or a selection effect due to the death of the most fragile individuals early in widowhood? In relative terms, the excess mortality of widowed persons is lower the longer the time since the start of widowhood, the improvement being rapid in the first three years, and slower subsequently.
This study demonstrates the value of studying health and mortality in relation to the length of time elapsed since any event having a deep impact on an individual's life.
French - pp. 177-204.
Xavier Thierry, INED, 133 bd Davout, 75980 Paris Cedex 20 France.
thierry@ined.fr
(SPAIN, FRANCE, PROVINCES, HISTORICAL DEMOGRAPHY, WIDOWHOOD, EXCESS MORTALITY, MORTALITY DETERMINANTS)
99.46.25 - GAÜZÈRE, Franck; COMMENGES, Daniel; BARBERGER-GATEAU, Pascale; LETENNEUR, Luc; DARTIGUES, Jean-François.
Illness and dependency: description of changes using multistate models [Maladie et dépendance : description de l'évolution de la dépendance par des modèles multi-états].
The progression of an illness can be modelled with a three-state model: healthy, ill, dead. The model used in this article contains no reversible transitions: it is fully specified by the transition intensities between the different states. Such an approach is of value in epidemiology, because the transition intensities to the dead state represent the instantaneous death rates for the ill and healthy, while the transition intensity from the healthy state to the sick state corresponds to the instantaneous incidence of the illness. Smoothed estimates are given for the different transition intensities between the different states; the probability of occupying a given state at a given age can be inferred from the intensities, and the prevalence of the illness is calculated by the ratio between the probability of being ill and the probability of being alive.
This method is applied here to data from the PAQUID study to describe the evolution of serious dependency among elderly people over 65 living in south-west France. The prevalence of serious dependency varies little with age for men but increases quickly for women; however, it increases with age for both sexes if the calculation of prevalence is related to autonomy at age 65. The age-related increase in the intensities of the transition to dependency is faster for women than for men after age 75.
French - pp. 205-222.
Franck Gaüzère, Daniel Commenges, Pascale Barberger-Gateau, Luc Letenneur, and Jean-François Dartigues, Inserm, U330, Epidémiologie, santé publique et développement, Université de Bordeaux 2, 146 rue Léo Saignat, Bordeaux, France.
Frank.Gauzere@u-bordeaux2.fr
(FRANCE, AGED, DEPENDENCY, DISEASES, METHODOLOGY)
99.46.26 - ROGERS, Susan M.; GRIBBLE, James N.; TURNER, Charles F.; MILLER, Heather G.
Computerized self-interviewing and the measurement of sensitive behaviors [Entretiens auto-administrés sur ordinateur et mesure des comportements sensibles].
Surveys that rely on respondents to provide information on sensitive, stigmatized, or illicit behaviors may be subject to reporting bias. Audio computer-assisted self-interview (audio-CASI) technology has been developed by researchers at the Research Triangle Institute, USA to overcome the limitations of traditional paper and pencil self-administered questionnaires (SAQs) and in-person interviewer-administered questionnaires (IAQs). The development of audio-CASI technology has fundamentally altered the interview context for measuring sexual and other sensitive behaviors by providing privacy without requiring literacy. This paper reviews the scientific development of audio-CASI and describes the results of methodological experiments comparing audio-CASI with other survey interview modes. In 1995, RTI's audio-CASI technology was field tested in two major U.S. national surveys: The National Survey of Adolescent Males (NSAM) and the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG). These surveys found substantially higher levels of reporting of drug use, same gender sexual contact and induced abortion with audio-CASI than IAQs or SAQs.
French - pp. 231-250.
Susan M. Rogers, James N. Gribble, Charles F. Turner, and Heather G. Miller, Research Triangle Institute, 1615 M St. N.W., Suite 740, Washington, DC 20036, U.S.A.
smr@rti.org.
(UNITED STATES, METHODOLOGY, DATA COLLECTION, QUALITY OF DATA, INTERVIEWS, COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS)
99.46.27 - MUNOZ-PÉREZ, Francisco; PRIOUX, France.
A survey in the civil registration registers. Filial relations and changing status of children born outside marriage [Une enquête dans les registres d'état civil. Filiation et devenir des enfants nés hors mariage].
Cohabitation in France has developed to the point at which roughly four in ten children are now born outside marriage. A survey based on direct sampling of the civil registration registers was conducted by Ined to increase our understanding of the situation of these children at birth -- filiation, name -- and of the changes that occur as they get older. This is possible because birth records contain marginal notes of all the events, including their dates, which modify the child's filiation and name: recognition by the father (and its possible annulment), legitimation by marriage of the parents or through the courts, a change of name by a joint declaration of the parents or a legal judgement, a contested paternity, adoption, ... There is also information about the parents: date and place of birth, place of residence, occupation.
The survey covers seven generations of children born between 1965 and 1994, who were observed from birth up to the time of the survey which was completed in 1997. The sample is nationally representative and comprises a total of 35 000 children. Selection of the sample involved examining and classifying 650 000 individual civil registration entries. This article sets out the methods used in the survey and the difficulties that arose from the special character of the information collected.
French - pp. 251-270.
Francisco Munoz-Pérez, France Prioux, INED, 133 bd Davout, 75980 Paris Cedex 20 France.
munoz@ined.fr.
(FRANCE, ILLEGITIMATE BIRTHS, DESCENT, NAME, CIVIL REGISTRATION)
99.46.28 - GUÉRIN-PACE, France; BLUM, Alain.
The comparative illusion. The conception and application of an international survey of illiteracy [L'illusion comparative - Les logiques d'élaboration et d'utilisation d'une enquête internationale sur l'illettrisme].
This article analyses the comparability of a series of surveys conducted in several OECD countries with the aim of measuring individual reading ability in everyday situations (the International Adult Literacy Survey). The results for France proved highly controversial: nearly three-quarters of the French population were at a very low level on the 'literacy' scale, which is indicative of serious difficulties in performing simple tasks. These findings naturally raised questions about the reliability of the data and about the validity of the international comparisons they have produced.
Discussion focuses first on the scope for adapting to different national contexts questions intended to construct a measurement. Second, the variations in actual cultural practices in relation to such a survey are examined from the perspective of individual behaviour. The conclusion is that this survey was carried out in conditions which do not allow a comparability of the results and that consequently it is hard to determine what has in fact been measured.
French - pp. 271-302.
France Guérin-Pace, Alain Blum, INED, 133 bd Davout, 75980 Paris Cedex 20 France.
guerin@ined.fr.
(FRANCE, ILLITERACY, SURVEYS, METHODOLOGY, DATA COMPARABILITY, RELIABILITY)
Models of "neighborhood effects" in the United States: a review of recent surveys [La modélisation des " effets de quartier " aux Etats-Unis].
At a time when the media, politicians and researchers are exercised by the question of 'difficult areas', this article examines the way in which American social scientists have analyzed neighborhood effects on individual behaviour and situations, particularly among young people. Not all the features of what in the United States is a rapidly expanding research topic are suitable for application to the French context. But a knowledge of the mathematical models used - and of the difficulties experienced when using them - is of interest to French researchers and it is for this reason that we have chosen to provide a bibliography of neighborhood effects. The article begins by defining the field of study and reviewing the background to the development of the methods used and the problems that remain. Two articles and a work of synthesis dealing with this aspect of the scientific literature are then examined to highlight the relative consensus which exists among American researchers about the topics to be investigated and the range of interpretations considered. There follows a detailed examination of a number of studies, whose strong formal similarities enable the differences to be identified and a common comparative framework to be constructed.
French - pp. 303-330.
Maryse Marpsat, INED, 133 bd Davout, 75980 Paris Cedex 20 France.
marpsat@ined.fr.
(FRANCE, UNITED STATES, URBAN SOCIOLOGY, MATHEMATICAL MODELS, METHODOLOGY, COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS)
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46 POPULATION
May-June 1999, 54th Year, N° 3
99.46.30 -BAUDCHON, Gérard ; RALLU, Jean-Louis.
Demographic and social change in New Caledonia after the Matignon Agreements [Changement démographique et social en Nouvelle-Calédonie après les accords de Matignon].
The Matignon Agreements were intended to prepare New Caledonia for self-determination in 1998, by reducing the inequalities between the regions and between the communities. Major improvements have occurred in life expectancy and fertility. It is doubtless in educational attainment that the disparities have been reduced the least in ten years, including among young people. The aid which accompanied the Matignon Agreements has on the whole been beneficial to economic activity in the Territory, though the imbalances have tended to increase. Immigrants, mainly from mainland France and drawn in with the flow of financial aid, make up the second largest migratory wave after that of the nickel boom of 1969. They have settled mainly in the region of Noumea, which has experienced the strongest growth in employment in both relative and absolute terms, within a highly dualist labour market which is more favourable to immigrants than to locals.
French - pp. 391-426.
Gérard Baudchon, ITSEE, BP 823, 98845 Nouméa Cedex, New Caledonia.
(NEW CALEDONIA, POPULATION SITUATION, POPULATION DYNAMICS, ECONOMIC CONDITIONS)
99.46.31 -DESGRÉES DU LOÛ, Annabel; MSELLATI, Philippe; VIHO, Ida; WELFFENS-EKRA, Christiane.
The use of induced abortion in Abidjan: A possible cause of the fertility decline? [Le recours à l'avortement provoqué à Abidjan : une cause de la baisse de la fécondité ?].
Fertility in Côte d'Ivoire has declined rapidly over the last 15 years, with the average number of children per woman falling from 7.2 in 1980 to 5.7 in 1994, despite the fact that contraceptive use remains very low. Of the different possible mechanisms for birth spacing, induced abortion in this country, where it is illegal and often performed clandestinely, remains poorly understood. In this study the birth interval histories of 1201 pregnant women in the city of Abidjan are examined to determine the level and change in the use of abortion. This suggests that there is now a frequent use of induced abortion in Côte d'Ivoire (one third of women have aborted at least once) and that this has recently increased. The generalization of abortion seems to have occurred in the last ten years; all age groups are involved but especially the youngest, who begin to use abortion from the start of their fertile life, in contrast to older women who use it rather as a means of birth spacing and birth control after the first pregnancies. This rapid increase in the use of abortion is one of the explanatory factors for the fall in fertility in Côte d'Ivoire.
French - pp. 427-446.
Annabel Desgrées du Loû, IRD, 04 BP 293, Abidjan 04, Côte d'Ivoire.
annabel.desgrees@ird.ci.
(COTE D'IVOIRE, CAPITAL CITY, FERTILITY DECLINE, INDUCED ABORTION, TRENDS)
99.46.32 -MUNOZ-PÉREZ, Francisco ; PRIOUX, France.
Children born outside marriage, and their parents. Recognitions and legitimations since [Les enfants nés hors mariage et leurs parents. Reconnaissances et légitimations depuis 1965]
A survey in the civil registration registers is used to observe the establishment of the paternal filiation of children born outside marriage in France since 1965 and legitimation by marriage of the parents, and to explore the characteristics of unmarried parents. Three-quarters of children in the 1965 cohort were recognized by their father, whereas in recent cohorts the proportion is above 9 in 10, most of them at birth. Prenatal recognitions, formerly non existent, now concern more than a third of the children, and are almost always done with the involvement of the mother, for these children are usually born to stable couples. Conversely, legitimation is less frequent and occurs later: less than half of the children recognized are legitimized, compared with more than two-thirds in the past, often just after they had been recognized. Marriage has ceased to be attractive for couples and for children, whose legal status has become almost identical to that of children born in marriage. While unmarried parents differed greatly from married parents before the 1980s, they are now much more similar. But unmarried parents still tend to be younger - these are usually first births - and are still disproportionately from the lower socio-occupational categories. Furthermore, slight differences remain in the composition of the couples: the age difference between partners is more varied, and their socio-occupational position indicates a higher degree of homogamy.
French - pp. 481-508.
Munoz Pérez and France Prioux, INED, 133 bd Davout, 75980 Paris Cedex 20 France.
munoz@ined.fr.
(FRANCE, ILLEGITIMATE CHILDREN, CHILD RECOGNITION, LEGITIMATION)
99.46.33 - CALOT, Gérard; SARDON, Jean-Paul.
The factors of population ageing [Les facteurs du vieillissement démographique].
The current ageing of the population and the difficulties this implies over the next decades in paying for retirement pensions are often presented as consequences solely of greater longevity, thus overlooking the role played by fertility variations, although these are almost equally influential.
This article sets out to assess the contribution of each of the three factors in population dynamics (fertility, mortality and international migration) to the ageing of the French population since 1946. Two indicators of ageing are used: the equivalent age and the proportion of elderly people. The former represents, each year, the age a at which the proportion of people older than a is the same as that observed initially. This has the advantage of being expressed in terms of years of age, which is more evocative than percentages.
It is shown that although mortality was until recently the sole factor increasing for ageing, at present and until the middle of the next century, past changes in fertility (the baby-boom) will play a determinant role in the acceleration of the process and their contribution will begin to equal that of mortality.
Although the outcome is already more or less certain as regards ageing around 2020, beyond that point the possible courses are increasingly open. Fertility changes in the next decades will determine ageing in the middle of the 21st century.
French - pp. 509-552.
Gérard Calot, Observatoire démographique européen, 2bis rue du Prieuré, 78107 Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France.
(FRANCE, DEMOGRAPHIC AGEING, MORTALITY TRENDS, FERTILITY TRENDS, METHODOLOGY, PROJECTIONS)
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46 POPULATION
July-October 1999, 54th Year, N° 4-5
99.46.34 - CHESNAIS, Jean-Claude.
Immigration and the population of the United States [L'immigration et le peuplement des Etats-Unis].
The settling of the United States is a recent event. Unlike the colonization of South America, where a small minority of Europeans imposed its law upon several million Amerindian occupants, the colonization of North America was based on the early importation of African slaves (roughly 400 000, most of whom were introduced in the eighteenth century) and above all the massive arrival of Europeans (nearly 40 million), which reached its maximum between 1845 and 1915. At the time of the Mayflower (1620), the population was still less than one million inhabitants.
Following a period in which the frontiers were relatively closed (1915-1965), immigration resumed, with racial preference eliminated. In 1998, the population of the United States reached 270 million inhabitants. Its ethnic composition is undergoing far-reaching changes: in a few years, Hispanics will outnumber Blacks, a development that is causing concern over linguistic unity, previously based on English and now threatened by the spread of Spanish. In a state like California, the traditional 'White non-Hispanic' majority is about to be overtaken by the 'minorities' (Hispanics, Blacks, Asians Amerindians). Overall, the population of the United States is the third largest in the world, and its relative advantage compared with the other G5 countries will increase over the next decades.
French - 611-634.
Jean-Claude Chesnais, INED, 133 bd Davout, 75980 Paris Cedex 20 France.
chesnais@ined.fr.
(UNITED STATES, HISTORY, SETTLEMENT PROCESS, IMMIGRATION, ETHNIC COMPOSITION, LINGUISTIC GROUPS)
99.46.35 -AVDEEV, Alexandre; MONNIER, Alain.
Russian nuptiality: A little-understood and complex phenomenon [La nuptialité russe : une complexité méconnue].
The first part of this article takes the form of a presentation of the fundamental characteristics of Russian nuptiality over the last three decades. Russia was for long characterised by an early and high nuptiality, in contrast to what was observed in the West. Up to the end of the 1980s, getting married at the end of education or national service marked an essential step in the passage to adulthood. However, the rising level of divorce throughout the period under review suggests that marriage in Russia is also a fragile institution.
In the second part of the article survey data is used to re-interpret the less well-known aspects of union formation and the family in Russia. The high levels of prenuptial conceptions, extra-marital births and cohabitation indicate that Russian nuptiality is less monolithic than might be thought. Finally, attention focuses on the recent decline in nuptiality, in the context of the current political, social and economic changes. It is too early to say whether this decline of marriage is purely circumstantial or symptomatic of a far-reaching transformation, though whatever the reason it is not being compensated for by an increase in cohabitation.
French - pp. 635-676.
Alexandre Avdeev, University of Moscow, Population Studies Centre, Moscow, Russia.
avdeev@ns.econ.msu.ru; avdeev@ined.fr.
(RUSSIA, NUPTIALITY, MARRIAGE, DIVORCE, COHABITATION)
99.46.36 - Évelyne HEYER, Marie-Hélène CAZES.
The notion of "useful children": A demographic measure for population genetics [Les " enfants utiles " : une mesure démographique pour la génétique des populations].
In historical demography, an individual's contribution to the population of the following generation is defined by the number of their children. However, of these children only those which reproduce in their turn will be 'useful' for the population geneticist, in the sense that they will transmit genes to the next generation. This article sets out to review the different theoretical measures of the 'number of useful children' index from reconstituted genealogies, according to the type of cohort used for its calculation. It compares the theoretical measures with the possible empirical measures (dependent on the type of data available) and evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of each. The conclusion is that the best measure is that which calculates the number of children having already had at least one child, coming from a cohort of individuals who have themselves had at least one child. And it is the distribution of this number of children who have reproduced which is of interest to the geneticist.
French - pp. 677-692.
Évelyne Heyer, Laboratoire d'anthropologie biologique, Musée de l'Homme, 17 place de Trocadéro, 75116 Paris, France.
eheyer@mnhn.fr.
(HISTORICAL DEMOGRAPHY, POPULATION GENETICS, METHODOLOGY, POPULATION REPLACEMENT, FERTILITY)
99.46.37 - ROHRBASSER, Jean-Marc.
William Petty (1623-1687) and the calculation of the doubling of the population [William Petty (1623-1687) et le calcul du doublement de la population].
In his Other Essay of Political Arithmetic (1682), William Petty speculates about the doubling of the population. He estimates the speed of growth of London's population and, more generally, of the population of the entire planet. After having carried out some curious forecasting calculations based on biblical chronology, he demonstrates the variability of this speed of growth. This fundamental thesis was by no means self-evident to minds imbued with theology and intent on identifying consistency and linearity in demographic phenomena. The course followed by Petty, who was a physician, not a theologian, is certainly indicative of a fascination with numbers, but it also provides an illustration of how the history of sciences sometimes follows unlikely paths to discover elements of the truth.
French - pp. 693-706.
Jean-Marc Rohrbasser, INED, 133 bd Davout, 75980 Paris Cedex 20 France.
rohsbass@ined.fr.
(HISTORY, POPULATION THEORY, POPULATION DYNAMICS, POPULATION GROWTH, METHODOLOGY)
99.46.38 - LÉVY-VROELANT, Claire.
The diagnosis of insalubrity and its consequences for the city: Paris 1894-1960 [Le diagnostic d'insalubrité et ses conséquences sur la ville Paris 1894-1960].
The apparatus for identifying the causes of insalubrity, originally created to combat epidemics and later tuberculosis, has been employed in France - particularly in Paris and its region - as an instrument of policies which, though very different in their motivation, have ultimately helped to transform the urban environment.
The present article offers a survey of long-term changes in the forms of action against so-called insalubrious housing. Several measures, of varying effectiveness, were implemented at the same time. The complaints received by the 'Commission de logements insalubres' between 1851 and 1965, and the action that resulted, show the fairly limited impact of the struggle to force landlords to carry out necessary improvements until just after the Second World War. The struggle acquired a new scale with the delimitation of insalubrious blocks on the basis of the statistics for tuberculosis mortality. Once the 'nests of bacteria' had been identified, all that had to be done was to destroy them. Operations were indeed carried out in some blocks, though the result was more a reduction in the number of residents than in tuberculosis mortality rates. An analysis of the reports of the sanitary inspections drawn up building by building, dwelling by dwelling, in the years 1939 and 1940, shows that, even according to the official architects responsible for the inspection, the "insalubrities" concerned on average only one in two buildings and rarely all the dwellings in the same building. The exercises in urban renovation, usually conducted on a large scale, are thus seen to be an inappropriate response to an uncertain diagnosis.
French - pp. 707-744.
Claire Lévy-Vroelant, Centre de recherche sur l'habitat, Ecole d'architecture de Paris-la-Défense, 41 allée Le Corbusier, 92023 Nanterre, France.
crh@paris-ladefense.archi.fr.
(FRANCE, HISTORY, MORTALITY DETERMINANTS, HOUSING CONDITIONS, HEALTH POLICY, TUBERCULOSIS)
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