Home About us Contact
|
Home About us Contact | ||
|
|
||
Family Size (family + size)
Selected AbstractsStages of the Demographic Transition from a Child's Perspective: Family Size, Cohort Size, and Children's ResourcesPOPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT REVIEW, Issue 2 2008David Lam This article provides a new characterization of stages of the demographic transition from the perspective of children competing for resources within families and cohorts. In Stage 1 falling mortality increases the size of both families and birth cohorts. In Stage 2 falling fertility overtakes falling mortality to reduce family size, but population momentum causes continued growth in cohort size. In Stage 3 falling fertility overtakes population momentum to produce declining cohort size. We apply our framework to census microdata for eight countries and to United Nations population projections for a larger set of countries. The results suggest that most countries spend two to three decades in Stage 2, with declining family size offset by increasing cohort size. From the perspective of children aged 9,11, many countries enter Stage 3 between 2000 and 2010. Other countries, especially in Africa, will continue to experience increasing cohort size for several more decades. [source] Farms and families in ninth-century ProvenceEARLY MEDIEVAL EUROPE, Issue 2 2010Rosamond Faith Information about the people recorded in 813,14 on the estate of St Victor de Marseilles shows that although considered to belong to the monastery they were an independent peasant class. Family size and structure varied: some farms were run by the labour of the family which included unmarried sons and ,married-in' sons-in-law; other farmers employed living-in servants in husbandry. The mountain sheep farms had large groups of unmarried young people. Inheritance systems ensured that the peasant family property remained intact over the generations and provided support for unmarried sons who remained to work there. [source] Risk factors for adult male criminality in ColombiaCRIMINAL BEHAVIOUR AND MENTAL HEALTH, Issue 2 2001Joanne Klevens Objectives This study sought to establish, in Colombia, the importance of factors alleged to be causes or correlates of adult criminality according to the published literature from other countries. Methods A comparison was made of arrested male offenders from ages 18 to 30 (n = 223) and similar community controls (n = 222) selected from five cities in Colombia as to their family background, exposure to abuse, family stressors, perceived care and history of childhood disruptive behaviour problems. Results Compared with neighbourhood controls from similar social classes, offenders were significantly more likely to report having had parents with less education, a mother under the age of 18 or over the age of 35 at time of birth, family members involved in crime, experiencing extreme economic deprivation, parental absence, family conflict, severe punishments, physical abuse, and maternal unavailability, rejection and lack of supervision. Prevalence of childhood disruptive behaviour problems was similar among offenders and controls. These findings appear to be independent of economic status, family size or type, birth order, or primary caregiver. Although the independent contribution of most of these factors is small, once all others have been controlled for, their cumulative effect is strong. Conclusions The findings obtained in this Latin American setting do not support the generalized view that adult antisocial behaviour is necessarily preceded by a history of childhood behaviour problems. However, they do add evidence for the importance of family factors in the risk for adult criminality. Copyright © 2001 Whurr Publishers Ltd. [source] Individuals receiving addiction treatment: are medical costs of their family members reduced?ADDICTION, Issue 7 2010Constance Weisner ABSTRACT Aims To examine whether alcohol and other drug (AOD) treatment is related to reduced medical costs of family members. Design Using the administrative databases of a private, integrated health plan, we matched AOD treatment patients with health plan members without AOD disorders on age, gender and utilization, identifying family members of each group. Setting Kaiser Permanente Northern California. Participants Family members of abstinent and non-abstinent AOD treatment patients and control family members. Measurements We measured abstinence at 1 year post-intake and examined health care costs per member-month of family members of AOD patients and of controls through 5 years. We used generalized estimating equation methods to examine differences in average medical cost per member-month for each year, between family members of abstinent and non-abstinent AOD patients and controls. We used multilevel models to examine 4-year cost trajectories, controlling for pre-intake cost, age, gender and family size. Results AOD patients' family members had significantly higher costs and more psychiatric and medical conditions than controls in the pre-treatment year. At 2,5 years, each year family members of AOD patients abstinent at 1 year had similar average per member-month medical costs to controls (e.g. difference at year 5 = $2.63; P > 0.82), whereas costs for family members of non-abstinent patients were higher (e.g. difference at year 5 = $35.59; P = 0.06). Family members of AOD patients not abstinent at 1 year, had a trajectory of increasing medical cost (slope = $10.32; P = 0.03) relative to controls. Conclusions Successful AOD treatment is related to medical cost reductions for family members, which may be considered a proxy for their improved health. [source] BEQUEST RECEIPT AND FAMILY SIZE EFFECTSECONOMIC INQUIRY, Issue 1 2010NATHAN D. GRAWE This article tests the connection between credit constraints and negative family size effects on child earnings using bequest receipt to signal access to credit markets. The dominant economic model of fertility predicts a negative relationship between family size and child achievement. In the model, limits on borrowing create this "quality-quantity trade-off." This article tests for the relevance of credit constraints using Panel Study of Income Dynamics data to compare family size effects across groups defined by bequest receipt. Contrary to the credit constraints explanation, those receiving large bequests exhibit large family size effects, while those not receiving bequests show little to no effect. (JEL J13, D1, I2) [source] Limits of fine-mapping a quantitative traitGENETIC EPIDEMIOLOGY, Issue 2 2003Larry D. Atwood Abstract Once a significant linkage is found, an important goal is reducing the error in the estimated location of the linked locus. A common approach to reducing location error, called fine-mapping, is the genotyping of additional markers in the linked region to increase the genetic information. The utility of fine-mapping for quantitative trait linkage analysis is largely unknown. To explore this issue, we performed a fine-mapping simulation in which the region containing a significant linkage at a 10-centiMorgan (cM) resolution was fine-mapped at 2, 1, and 0.5 cM. We simulated six quantitative trait models in which the proportion of variation due to the quantitative trait locus (QTL) ranged from 0.20,0.90. We used four sampling designs that were all combinations of 100 and 200 families of sizes 5 and 7. Variance components linkage analysis (Genehunter) was performed until 1,000 replicates were found with a maximum lodscore greater than 3.0. For each of these 1,000 replications, we repeated the linkage analysis three times: once for each of the fine-map resolutions. For the most realistic model, reduction in the average location error ranged from 3,15% for 2-cM fine-mapping and from 3,18% for 1-cM fine-mapping, depending on the number of families and family size. Fine-mapping at 0.5 cM did not differ from the 1-cM results. Thus, if the QTL accounts for a small proportion of the variation, as is the case for realistic traits, fine-mapping has little value. Genet Epidemiol 24:99,106, 2003. © 2003 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Stoppage: An issue for segregation analysisGENETIC EPIDEMIOLOGY, Issue 3 2001S.L. Slager Abstract Segregation analysis assumes that the observed family-size distribution (FSD), i.e., distribution of number of offspring among nuclear families, is independent of the segregation ratio p. However, for certain serious diseases with early onset and diagnosis (e.g., autism), parents may change their original desired family size, based on having one or more affected children, thus violating that assumption. Here we investigate "stoppage," the situation in which such parents have fewer children than originally planned. Following Brookfield et al. [J Med Genet 25:181,185, 1988], we define a stoppage probability d that after the birth of an affected child, parents will stop having children and thus not reach their original desired family size. We first derive the full correct likelihood for a simple segregation analysis as a function of p, d, and the ascertainment probability ,. We show that p can be estimated from this likelihood if the FSD is known. Then, we show that under "random" ascertainment, the presence of stoppage does not bias estimates of p. However, for other ascertanment schemes, we show that is not the case. We use a simulation study to assess the magnitude of bias, and we demonstrate that ignoring the effect of stoppage can seroiusly bias the estimates of p when the FSD is ignored. In conclusion, stoppage, a realistic scenario for some complex diseases, can represent a serious and potentially intractable problem for segregation analysis. Genet. Epidemiol. 20:328,339, 2001. © 2001 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Time budgets of Snow Geese Chen caerulescens and Ross's Geese Chen rossii in mixed flocks: implications of body size, ambient temperature and family associationsIBIS, Issue 1 2009JÓN EINAR JÓNSSON Body size affects foraging and forage intake rates directly via energetic processes and indirectly through interactions with social status and social behaviour. Ambient temperature has a relatively greater effect on the energetics of smaller species, which also generally are more vulnerable to predator attacks than are larger species. We examined variability in an index of intake rates and an index of alertness in Lesser Snow Geese Chen caerulescens caerulescens and Ross's Geese Chen rossii wintering in southwest Louisiana. Specifically we examined variation in these response variables that could be attributed to species, age, family size and ambient temperature. We hypothesized that the smaller Ross's Geese would spend relatively more time feeding, exhibit relatively higher peck rates, spend more time alert or raise their heads up from feeding more frequently, and would respond to declining temperatures by increasing their proportion of time spent feeding. As predicted, we found that Ross's Geese spent more time feeding than did Snow Geese and had slightly higher peck rates than Snow Geese in one of two winters. Ross's Geese spent more time alert than did Snow Geese in one winter, but alert rates differed by family size, independent of species, in contrast to our prediction. In one winter, time spent foraging and walking was inversely related to average daily temperature, but both varied independently of species. Effects of age and family size on time budgets were generally independent of species and in accordance with previous studies. We conclude that body size is a key variable influencing time spent feeding in Ross's Geese, which may require a high time spent feeding at the expense of other activities. [source] How work-place conditions, environmental toxicants and lifestyle affect male reproductive function,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ANDROLOGY, Issue 5 2002Jens Peter Bonde Summary Major temporal and geographical shifts in male reproductive function is presently an issue worldwide. The hormonal disruption hypothesis has achieved considerable attention but epidemiological evidence in support of the theory is lacking. Several occupational hazards to male reproductive function are known but exposure prevalences are hardly sufficient to play a role for reduced sperm count in the general male population. Sedentary work may be an exception. Perhaps prolonged time in the sedentary position exhausts the testicular heat regulation. But so far studies addressing implications of the heat hypothesis in the general population are few. Neither change of sexual behaviour nor reduced period of sexual continence seems to be a likely explanation. Tobacco smoking and consumption of caffeine and alcoholic beverages in adulthood have a rather marginal impact on spermatogenesis and can hardly explain major shifts or regional differences in male reproductive health. However, prenatal effects following smoking during pregnancy might play a role because we have witnessed a smoking epidemic among fertile women in some countries during the second half of the twentieth century. Moreover, if genetic factors play more than a marginal role for testicular function and sperm count, pregnancy planning resulting in reduced family size during the past 100 years could possibly explain a decline in semen quality because the most fertile part of the population reproduce less while the subfertile probably continue to get a limited number of children. [source] Healthcare for Older Persons, A Country Profile: NigeriaJOURNAL OF AMERICAN GERIATRICS SOCIETY, Issue 7 2002Bola O. Akanji PhD The Nigerian population is undergoing demographic transition, with an increasing population of older people. Nuclear and extended family members traditionally care for older persons at home. We have observed changes in home living conditions due to reduced family size, and urban migration for economic reasons are likely to affect the care of older people. The inadequately funded healthcare system has placed little emphasis on the care of older people because there are more-pressing health problems and funding for older people is limited. This paper advocates improved attention to the health needs of older people through improved budgetary allocation, revision of the training curriculum of all cadres of health staff to include geriatrics, and utilization of primary healthcare facilities. [source] Food consumption and demographics in Japan: Implications for an aging populationAGRIBUSINESS : AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, Issue 4 2007Mauricio V.L. Bittencourt This study estimates a cross-sectional model based on the Almost Ideal Demand System (AIDS) to examine the determinants of food consumption patterns in Japan over life-cycle periods. The test of structural changes, the analysis of the effects of demographic characteristics, and the estimation of expenditure and price elasticities are conducted from a random sample of 1,281 households from a Japanese household survey in 1997. Results show that each economic or noneconomic factor has a different impact on food consumption over a lifetime. Changes in consumption of some food groups can be explained by price and income effects where others can be explained by demographic characteristics. Financial constraint is not binding and residential location is likely to have little or no impact on predicting consumers' food choices at different periods of their lives. Other key factors that affect consumption pattern include family size, number of children, lifestyle, and health concern. [EconLit citations: C310, D120, D910.] © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Agribusiness 23: 529,551, 2007. [source] Assessing poverty, risk and vulnerability: a study on flooded households in rural BangladeshJOURNAL OF FLOOD RISK MANAGEMENT, Issue 1 2010M.I. Rayhan Abstract Flood is a common catastrophe in Bangladesh. This study aimed to examine the poverty, risk and vulnerability for flood hazards. A cross-sectional household survey was carried out after 2 weeks of the flood in four districts in the year 2005. In total, 600 rural households were interviewed through a three-stage stratified random sampling. A utilitarian approach was used to assess flood vulnerability and its components. A set of households' characteristics and shock (flood) variables were used as explanatory variables. The results showed that poverty and idiosyncratic flood risks are positively correlated and highly significant. Households with higher educated members, headed by a male and owners of a dwelling place have been found to be less vulnerable to idiosyncratic flood risk. Possession of arable land and a small family size can reduce poverty and the aggregate flood risk. [source] Solidarity and Conflict Between Adult Children and Parents: A Latent Class AnalysisJOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND FAMILY, Issue 4 2006Ruben I. Van Gaalen Using multiple dimensions of solidarity and conflict in a latent class analysis, we develop a typology of adult child,parent relationships. The data (N= 4,990) are from the first wave of the Netherlands Kinship Panel Study. In descending order of relationship quality, the 5 types are harmonious (akin to relationships with friends), ambivalent (intensive exchange of material support accompanied by strain), obligatory (just keeping in touch), affective (emotionally supportive with few other meaningful exchanges), and discordant (predominantly negative engagement). The types are differentiated by gender, age, family size, geographic distance, and parental marital history, indicating that they are not fixed but are shaped by social-structural conditions. [source] How American Children Spend Their TimeJOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND FAMILY, Issue 2 2001Sandra L. Hofferth The purpose of this article is to examine how American children under age 13 spend their time, sources of variation in time use, and associations with achievement and behavior. Data come from the 1997 Child Development Supplement to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. The results suggest that parents' characteristics and decisions regarding marriage, family size, and employment affect the time children spend in educational, structured, and family activities, which may affect their school achievement. Learning activities such as reading for pleasure are associated with higher achievement, as is structured time spent playing sports and in social activities. Family time spent at meals and time spent sleeping are linked to fewer behavior problems, as measured by the child's score on the Behavior Problems Index. The results support common language and myth about the optimal use of time for child development. [source] Mother,Child Conflict and Sibling Relatedness: A Test of Hypotheses From Parent,Offspring Conflict TheoryJOURNAL OF RESEARCH ON ADOLESCENCE, Issue 2 2010Gabriel L. Schlomer Parent,offspring conflict theory (POCT) has been underutilized in studies of human family dynamics. An implication of POCT is that the presence of siblings will increase conflict in biological parent,child dyads, and that half siblings will increase that conflict more than full siblings. Evidence consistent with this prediction was found in a longitudinal study of 236 early adolescent children and their mothers. Following parental disruption, the entry of younger maternal half siblings into the home was uniquely associated with elevated conflict between mothers and their biological children, independent of the effects of family size, socioeconomic status, and maternal depression. As predicted by the model, the effect of parental disruption on mother,child conflict was partially mediated by the entry of half siblings (but not stepfathers) into the home. [source] Sibling Sex Composition and Educational Outcomes: A Review of Theory and Evidence for the UKLABOUR, Issue 1 2009Vikesh Amin Studies from US data have found mixed results regarding sibling sex composition effects and educational outcomes. Some researchers have found that sisters hurt women's education, others have found the opposite, and some have found no effects. This paper reviews the theoretical foundations for sibling sex composition effects and tests the theories using British data, on a sample of children born between 3 and 9 March 1958, from the National Child Development Survey. Methods from previous studies are replicated and extensions considered for ability, credit constraints, and family size. No sibling sex composition effects are found, but estimation results support the quantity,quality model. [source] Maternal experiences of peanut avoidance during pregnancy/lactation: An in-depth qualitative studyPEDIATRIC ALLERGY AND IMMUNOLOGY, Issue 6 2005Joanna Turke In 1998 the Department of Health Committee on Toxicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment issued a report to British general practitioners, which advised that pregnant mothers with a family history of atopy may wish to avoid peanuts during pregnancy/lactation. To explore the lived-in experience of mothers who avoided/did not avoid peanuts during pregnancy/lactation in the light of the information issued. A qualitative approach, using unstructured in-depth interviews to explore what it was like for mothers to have a particular experience. A purposive sample frame was designed to ensure a maximum variation of participants. Forty-two interviews were conducted: 25 participants avoided peanuts; 15 with a family history of atopy and 10 with no such history. Seventeen participants did not avoid peanuts; 10 with a family history of atopy and seven with no such history. Emergent themes included: variations in information provision, a lack of clarity in relation to information and advice about peanut avoidance, the risks entailed and the introduction of peanuts to the developing child's diet; the importance of atopy in influencing participants' decisions to avoid peanuts and the importance of individual's choice in the decision making process. There was a significant difference in family size with respect to avoidance behaviour with ,avoider' families being smaller (p = 0.007). Avoidance was more likely in single child families (71% vs. 53%) although this difference was not significant. Improvements to the experience of avoidance and/or non-avoidance were primarily focused around provision of information and advice. In particular, a need for clear, consistent factual information and advice about the real risks associated with peanut consumption during pregnancy/lactation, and to whom these risks apply. [source] Socioeconomic status, education, and reproduction in modern women: An evolutionary perspectiveAMERICAN JOURNAL OF HUMAN BIOLOGY, Issue 5 2010Susanne Huber Although associations between status or resources and reproduction are positive in premodern societies and also in men in modern societies, in modern women the associations are typically negative. We investigated how the association between socioeconomic status and reproductive output varies with the source of status and resources, the woman's education, and her age at reproductive onset (proxied by age at marriage). By using a large sample of US women, we examined the association between a woman's reproductive output and her own and her husband's income and education. Education, income, and age at marriage are negatively associated with a woman's number of children and increase her chances of childlessness. Among the most highly educated two-thirds of the sample of women, husband's income predicts the number of children. The association between a woman's number of children and her husband's income turns from positive to negative when her education and age at marriage is low (even though her mean offspring number rises at the same time). The association between a woman's own income and her number of children is negative, regardless of education. Rather than maximizing the offspring number, these modern women seem to adjust investment in children based on their family size and resource availability. Striving for resources seems to be part of a modern female reproductive strategy,but, owing to costs of resource acquisition, especially higher education, it may lead to lower birthrates: a possible evolutionary explanation of the demographic transition, and a complement to the human capital theory of net reproductive output. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 22:578,587, 2010. © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Grandparental investment: The influence of reproductive timing and family sizeAMERICAN JOURNAL OF HUMAN BIOLOGY, Issue 4 2009David A. Coall The influence that grandparents have on the life history traits of their descendants has been studied extensively. However, no attention has been paid to the potential influence a grandparent's own reproductive history has on the investment they make in their grandchildren. We use data from 658 Swiss grandchildren and 591 of their grandparents to investigate whether grandparents' reproductive scheduling and family size influence the amount of investment grandparents make in a focal grandchild (shared contacts, occasions to meet, activities, discussions, interests, and important roles the grandparent plays). Grandparents who were younger when they had their first child had more children and grandchildren; this relationship strengthened after controlling for grandparental age, sex, lineage, and education (all P < 0.001). Generally, having more children or grandchildren was associated with reduced levels of grandparental investment. After adjustment for a wide range of factors known to influence investment, having more children or grandchildren and having a first child or grandchild at a younger age were associated with reduced investment in 14 of 24 analyses (all P < 0.09). The association between reproductive scheduling and investment was partially mediated by the grandparent's family size. Interestingly, these relationships were only present in data reported from the grandchild's point of view, not the grandparent's. This analysis provides preliminary evidence that grandparents' reproductive strategies have consequences for the amount of investment they make in their grandchildren. These results are examined in terms of the trade-offs between current and future reproduction and offspring quality and quantity. Am. J. Hum. Biol., 2009. © 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Tradeoffs and sexual conflict over women's fertility preferences in MpimbweAMERICAN JOURNAL OF HUMAN BIOLOGY, Issue 4 2009Monique Borgerhoff Mulder There are two principle evolutionary models for why women reduce their fertility, which can be used to explain the modern demographic transition. The first derives from optimality theory (specifically the "quantity-quality" tradeoff hypothesis), and the second from models of biased cultural transmission ("prestige bias" and "kin influence" hypotheses). Data on family planning preferences collected in 1996 and 1998 in a rural African village (in Mpimbwe, Tanzania) are used to test predictions derived from each hypothesis and show that both "quantity-quality" tradeoffs and biased cultural transmission underlie Pimbwe women's decisions. Reproductive decisions, however, are not made in a vacuum. Men and women's ideal family sizes often differ, and sexual conflict is particularly likely to affect a woman's success in limiting her family size. Pimbwe women's reproductive output between the initial family planning survey in 1996 and the most recent demographic survey (2006) is analyzed in relation to both the woman's preferences to limit her family and her exposure to husbands and husbands' kin. Despite wide differences in desired family sizes between men and women the extent of sexual conflict in this population is restricted to husbands and wives, and affects not a woman's use or planned use of modern contraception but her success in employing such methods effectively. There is also some evidence that a woman's mother and her kin assist in the use and effective use of modern methods, offering a prevailing force to the high-fertility objectives of the husband. Am. J. Hum. Biol., 2009. © 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Demographic consequences of unpredictability in fertility outcomesAMERICAN JOURNAL OF HUMAN BIOLOGY, Issue 2 2002Paul Leslie Child survival is probabilistic, but the unpredictability in family formation and completed family size has been neglected in the fertility literature. In many societies, ending the family cycle with too few or too many surviving offspring entails serious social, economic, or fitness consequences. A model of risk- (or variance-) sensitive adaptive behavior that addresses long-term fertility outcomes is presented. The model shows that under conditions likely to be common, optimal, risk-sensitive reproductive strategies deviate systematically from the completed family size that would be expected if reproductive outcome is were predictable. This is termed the "variance compensation hypothesis." Variance compensation may be either positive or negative, resulting in augmented or diminished fertility. Which outcome obtained is a function of identifiable social, economic, and environmental factors. Through its effect on fertility behavior, variance compensation has a direct bearing on birth spacing and completed fertility, and thereby on problems in demography and human population biology ranging from demographic transitions to maternal depletion and child health. Risk-sensitive models will be a necessary component of a general theory of fertility. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 14:168,183, 2002. © 2002 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Relationship of work injury severity to family member hospitalizationAMERICAN JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL MEDICINE, Issue 5 2010Abay G. Asfaw PhD Abstract Background Working while under stress due to a family health event may result in injuries of greater severity. Work leave might mitigate such consequences. Data and Methods Workers' compensation data for 33,817 injured workers and inpatient medical data for 76,077 members of their families were extracted from the 2002,2005 Thomson Reuters Medstat MarketScan Health and Productivity Management (HPM) and Commercial Claims and Encounter (CCE) datasets. Using a probit model, the impact of family hospitalization on the probability that a subsequent injury would be severe (above average indemnity costs) was estimated, adjusting for age, sex, hourly versus salaried status, industry sector, state, and family size. Results Family hospitalization within 15 days before injury increased the likelihood that the injury would be severe (from 12.5% to 21.5%) and was associated with 40% higher indemnity costs and 50% higher medical costs. Hospitalizations over 30 days before injury had no impact. Conclusion The observed higher severity of work injuries following family hospitalizations suggests additional analyses may find higher injury rates as well, and that timely family leaves might help prevent severe workplace injuries. Am. J. Ind. Med. 53:506,513, 2010. © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Work-related non-fatal injuries among foreign-born and US-born workers: Findings from the U.S. National Health Interview Survey, 1997,2005AMERICAN JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL MEDICINE, Issue 1 2009Xiaofei Zhang MD Abstract Background Millions of foreign-born workers are employed in the US. Population-based surveys have value in describing the non-fatal work-related injuries that these workers suffer. Methods Using data from the 1997,2005 National Health Interview Survey, we compared the rates of non-fatal work-related injuries among foreign-born and US-born adult workers. Logistic regression was used to produce work-related injury odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) by nativity and years of residence while controlling for sex, age, race/ethnicity, education, poverty, family size, insurance status, delayed medical care, and alcohol use. Industry-specific rates were also compared. Results Foreign-born workers reported a lower rate of work-related injuries than US-born workers, 50 per 10,000 foreign-born workers versus 89 per 10,000 US-born workers (P,<,0.01). After controlling for confounding variables, the OR of work-related injuries for foreign-born workers as compared to US-born workers was 0.50 (95% CI,=,0.38,0.66). The construction, agriculture/forestry and fisheries, and manufacturing industries had the highest work-related injury rates for both groups of workers. Conclusions Foreign-born workers had a lower overall rate of work-related injury when compared to US-born workers. Both US-born and foreign-born workers face significant injury risks, especially in certain industries. Interventions tailored with ethnic and cultural differences in mind are still warranted. Am. J. Ind. Med. 52:25,36, 2009. © 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Birth Order Effects and Rebelliousness: Political Activism and Involvement with MarijuanaPOLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 2 2002Richard L. Zweigenhaft Frank Sulloway (1996) has claimed that later-borns are more likely to rebel against the status quo than are firstborns. The two studies reported here attempt to examine more fully Sulloway's claims about rebelliousness. The studies draw on archival data from studies of high school and college students in a midwestern state between 1969 and 1982. The current studies compare the effects of birth order, gender, family size, and father's education on two self-report measures: participation in protests and demonstrations, and involvement with marijuana. The data on involvement with marijuana provided support for Sulloway's thesis that later-borns are more rebellious than firstborns, but the data on participation in protests and demonstrations did not. These mixed findings, which contribute to the ongoing debate about Sulloway's theory, are discussed. [source] On Postponement and Birth IntervalsPOPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT REVIEW, Issue 3 2008Ian M. Timćus Much of the literature on fertility transition presumes that birth control is practiced either to limit family size or to space births. This article argues that women also use birth control to postpone pregnancy. Postponement is not synonymous with spacing. It arises when women delay their next birth for indefinite periods for reasons unrelated to the age of their youngest child, but without deciding not to have any more children. Postponement has a distinctive impact on the shape of birth-interval distributions that differs from the impacts of family size limitation, birth spacing, or a mixture of the two behaviors. Some populations, such as that in South Africa, have developed fertility regimes characterized by birth intervals far longer than can be accounted for by birth spacing. Postponement of further childbearing that eventually becomes permanent may be an important driver of the transition to lower fertility in sub-Saharan Africa. [source] Stages of the Demographic Transition from a Child's Perspective: Family Size, Cohort Size, and Children's ResourcesPOPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT REVIEW, Issue 2 2008David Lam This article provides a new characterization of stages of the demographic transition from the perspective of children competing for resources within families and cohorts. In Stage 1 falling mortality increases the size of both families and birth cohorts. In Stage 2 falling fertility overtakes falling mortality to reduce family size, but population momentum causes continued growth in cohort size. In Stage 3 falling fertility overtakes population momentum to produce declining cohort size. We apply our framework to census microdata for eight countries and to United Nations population projections for a larger set of countries. The results suggest that most countries spend two to three decades in Stage 2, with declining family size offset by increasing cohort size. From the perspective of children aged 9,11, many countries enter Stage 3 between 2000 and 2010. Other countries, especially in Africa, will continue to experience increasing cohort size for several more decades. [source] Rethinking Historical Reproductive Change: Insights from Longitudinal Data for a Spanish TownPOPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT REVIEW, Issue 4 2007David Sven Reher A set of linked reproductive histories taken from the Spanish town of Aranjuez between 1871 and 1950 is used to address key issues regarding reproductive change during the demographic transition. These include the role of child survival as a stimulus for reproductive change, the use of stopping and/or spacing strategies to achieve reproductive goals, and the timing of change. Straightforward demographic measures are used and robust results are achieved. Initial strategies of fertility limitation are shown to exist but are inefficient, are mostly visible during the latter part of the reproductive period, are designed mostly to protect families from the effects of increases in child survival, and are based almost entirely on stopping behavior. As mortality decline accelerates, strategies become much more efficient, are visible at the outset of married life, include spacing behavior, and eventually lead to important declines in completed family size. The results of this study have implications for our understanding of the demographic transition both in historical Europe and in other regions of the world. [source] Conflicting Preferences: A Reason Fertility Tends to Be Too High or Too LowPOPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT REVIEW, Issue 4 2003David Voas Fertility has often seemed to be too high or too low, relative not only to social and economic goals, but also to reproductive preferences. In developing countries actual fertility has often been higher than desired family size, while in developed societies fertility tends to be below replacement level even though people generally say that they want at least two children. In explanations of fertility extremes, or of the discrepancies between desired and actual fertility, the effect of partners' holding different preferences has tended to be overlooked. Individual preferences expected to lead to replacement-level reproduction may in combination generate substantially higher or lower fertility. In explaining such outcomes, a crucial question is what happens when spousal preferences diverge. Given that personal practices or social norms may systematically favor high or low preferences in the event of disagreement, chance alone will ensure that desired and actual fertility do not coincide. [source] Reassessing the Insurance Effect: A Qualitative Analysis of Fertility Behavior in Senegal and ZimbabwePOPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT REVIEW, Issue 3 2003Thomas LeGrand A number of prominent demographers have recently reiterated the argument that a lasting mortality decline is a key determinant of the fertility transition. Of the main hypothesized pathways linking fertility to mortality, the one least studied is the insurance hypothesis: the notion that, in high-mortality contexts, people decide to have more children in order to anticipate possible future child deaths and lessen the risks of having too few surviving offspring. In-depth interviews and focus groups from Zimbabwe and Senegal are used to examine this hypothesis and to extend it into a broader theory of reproductive decision making under uncertainty. Whereas insurance strategies are frequent in Zimbabwe and occur in urban Senegal, in the higher-mortality settings,the rural Senegalese site and the recent past described by respondents in Zimbabwe and urban Senegal,deliberate fertility-limitation strategies are rare. The data depict fundamental changes in attitudes, strategies, and behaviors concerning family size over time and, in Senegal, over space. Important reproductive goals and risks extend far beyond numbers of children and mortality. Parents seek to have healthy, successful children for many reasons including companionship, descendants, and old-age support. Diverse investments in child quality (their education, health, etc.) and quantity (numbers of births) are the main means to attain these goals and, less recognized by demographers, are also important ways for parents to manage uncertainty in family-building outcomes; the "classic" insurance mechanism is only one, often minor, aspect of the quantity option. [source] Relative Cohort Size: Source of a Unifying Theory of Global Fertility Transition?POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT REVIEW, Issue 2 2000Diane J. Macunovich Using United Nations estimates of age structure and vital rates for 184 countries at five-year intervals from 1950 through 1995, this article demonstrates how changes in relative cohort size appear to have affected patterns of fertility across countries since 1950,not just in developed countries, but perhaps even more importantly in developing countries as they pass through the demographic transition. The increase in relative cohort size (defined as the proportion of males aged 15,24 relative to males aged 25,59), which occurs as a result of declining mortality rates among infants, children, and young adults during the demographic transition, appears to act as the mechanism that determines when the fertility portion of the transition begins. As hypothesized by Richard Easterlin, the increasing proportion of young adults generates a downward pressure on young men's relative wages (or on the size of landhold-ings passed on from parent to child), which in turn causes young adults to accept a tradeoff between family size and material wellbeing, setting in motion a "cascade" or "snowball" effect in which total fertility rates tumble as social norms regarding acceptable family sizes begin to change. [source] | ||||||||||||||||||||||