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Social isolation/marginalization in sub-Saharan Africa is under-researched, despite increasing evidence of weakening traditional community-based social support. This paper aims to develop a typology of social networks capable of accounting for social marginalization in a rural community in Western Senegal and to describe the socio-demographic characteristics of network profiles. Building on prior qualitative work, we carry out a latent profile analysis using a unique and extensive social network data set, identifying four different network profiles: Locally integrated, Constrained relationships, Locally marginalized, and Local elites. This paper provides the first empirically supported classification of social integration and marginalization in social networks in rural sub-Saharan Africa. In doing so, it can serve as a reference for future research seeking to understand both the broader scope of social integration and marginalization and the consequences of differential access to social capital through social networks on access to health resources and well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to analyse the social selectivity of internal movers in six European countries, by examining the influence of education and social origin on the likelihood of moving. The study, using ShareLife data, reveals country-specific variations in social selectivity. France and Poland show a skilled selection of internal movers, where education is the primary factor affecting the likelihood of moving, with no additional effect of social origin. In Germany and Sweden, internal movers are selected based on their social origin as well as education, but this double selection differs between the two countries, with a boosting scenario in Germany and a systematic effect of social origin in Sweden, regardless of educational level. Finally, in Spain and Italy, the social selectivity of movers is less evident. Overall, the study highlights the importance of considering the interplay of education and social origin in understanding the social selectivity of internal movers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discrete-time multistate life tables are attractive because they are easier to understand and apply in comparison with their continuous-time counterparts. While such models are based on a discrete time grid, it is often useful to calculate derived magnitudes (e.g. state occupation times), under assumptions which posit that transitions take place at other times, such as mid-period. Unfortunately, currently available models allow very few choices about transition timing. We propose the use of Markov chains with rewards as a general way of incorporating information on the timing of transitions into the model. We illustrate the usefulness of rewards-based multistate life tables by estimating working life expectancies using different retirement transition timings. We also demonstrate that for the single-state case, the rewards approach matches traditional life-table methods exactly. Finally, we provide code to replicate all results from the paper plus R and Stata packages for general use of the method proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While there is strong evidence that maternal smallpox infection can cause foetal loss, it is not clear whether smallpox infections were a demographically important cause of stillbirths historically. In this paper, we use parish-level data from the Swedish Tabellverket data set for 1780–1839 to test the effect of smallpox on stillbirths quantitatively, analysing periods before and after the introduction of vaccination in 1802. We find that smallpox infection was not a major cause of stillbirths before 1820, because most women contracted smallpox as children and were therefore not susceptible during pregnancy. We do find a small, statistically significant effect of smallpox on stillbirths from 1820 to 1839, when waning immunity from vaccination put a greater share of pregnant women at risk of contracting smallpox. However, the reduced prevalence of smallpox in this period limited its impact on stillbirths. Thus, smallpox was not an important driver of historical stillbirth trends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Turbulent socio-economic development, recent political challenges, and remarkable regional diversity with deep historical roots make Ukraine an important case study for understanding mortality trends in Eastern Europe. In this paper, we provide the first comprehensive, spatially detailed analysis of cause-specific mortality trends and patterns in Ukraine, focusing on the period 2006–19. We rely on official mortality data and use various demographic and spatial analysis techniques. Our results suggest a notable attenuation of the long-standing West–East and West–South–East mortality gradients. Cardiovascular mortality at older ages largely explains the gap between the vanguard (lowest mortality) and laggard (highest mortality) areas, especially for females and in the most recent period. By contrast, the impact of mortality from external causes has greatly diminished over time. Hotspot analyses reveal strong and persistent clustering of mortality from suicide, HIV, and lung cancer. Further research should focus on in-depth assessment of the mechanisms causing the observed patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates birthdate patterns in a context of well-established civil registers and intensive migration inflows. Leveraging extensive Spanish microdata on residential variation flows and the Spanish Municipality Register, this research reveals new facets of the distributions of immigrants’ birthdates across days of the month that differ significantly from those of non-migrants. The registered days of the month for birthdates are categorized into six distinct types based on the assumption that the anomalous distributions of birthdates will display rounding or simplifying patterns (digit preferences). The investigation reveals important anomalies in the distribution of birthdates that are much more pronounced for immigrants. A notable concentration of recorded birthdates is confirmed within all the designated types, contrasted by an under-recording of births on the remaining days of the month. These anomalies depend primarily on migrants’ country of origin and age group. The paper ends by proposing some recommendations for mitigating the anomalies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we combine administrative data for Spain from 2010 to 2018 with meteorological data, to identify the effect of daily mean temperature on fertility. We demonstrate for Spain that hot days (≥25°C) decrease the total fertility rate nine months after exposure. Moreover, we do not observe any substantial heterogeneities in the effect of heat by mother’s age, mother’s educational attainment, sex of the newborn, climatic area, or air conditioning penetration. Our results suggest that climate change may be altering the seasonal distribution of births and affect fertility rates in a context with low fertility and rapid population ageing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing body of research documents the relevance of parental education as a marker of family socio-economic status for children's later-life health outcomes. A strand of this literature evaluates how the early-life environment shapes mortality outcomes during infancy and childhood. However, the evidence on mortality during the life course and old age is limited. This paper contributes to the literature by analysing the association between paternal education and children's old-age mortality. We use data from Social Security Administration death records over the years 1988–2005 linked to the United States 1940 Census. Applying a family(cousin)- fixed-effects model to account for shared environment, childhood exposures, and common endowments that may confound the long-term links, we find that having a father with a college or high-school education, compared with elementary/no education, is associated with a 4.6- or 2.6-month-higher age at death, respectively, for the child, conditional on them surviving to age 47. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During 2010–20, period fertility in England and Wales fell to its lowest recorded level. The aim of this paper is to improve our understanding of the decline in period fertility in two dimensions: differentials by the education of a woman's parents (family background) and by a woman's education in relation to that of her parents (intergenerational educational mobility). The analysis finds a substantial decline in fertility in each education group, whether defined by a woman's parents' education alone or by a woman's own education relative to her parents' education. Considering parents' and women's own education together helps differentiate fertility further than analysing either generation's education in isolation. Using these educational mobility groups more clearly shows a narrowing of TFR differentials over the decade, but timing differences persist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article lists the reviewers of articles submitted to the journal for the period 2013-204, including Kenneth Aarskaug Wiik of Statistics Norway, Guy Abel of Vienna Institute of Demography, Austria, and Alicia Adsera of Princeton University, New Jersey.

A list of scholars who reviewed papers submitted to the journal in 2011 and 2012, including Lonnie Aarssen, Alicia Adsera, and Martin Bell, is presented.

The article presents the authors' views in response to a comment on their paper "Patterns of Low and Lowest-Low Fertility in Europe," published in a 2004 issue of the journal "Population Studies." In their comment, the critics have argued that the cohort-fertility analysis in the aforesaid paper is weak on theoretical grounds and the empirical analysis is incomplete. The authors affirm that they agree with the comment that, as a society, the Netherlands differs from Southern Europe and even more from Central and Eastern Europe. Nevertheless, from a contemporary global perspective, these differences should not be overemphasized. They say that in their analyses, they used the Netherlands as a reference case of a country with an extraordinary pattern of late childbearing that is not associated with lowest-low fertility levels. However, the critics believe that these unusual characteristics invalidate the use of the Dutch example in the paper. So, this criticism is misconceived. It is precisely the unusualness of the fertility pattern in the Netherlands that makes it a useful reference point in the study of low and lowest-low fertility.

The contributors to this discussion were invited to submit comments, each from a different standpoint, on the paper by John Caldwell and Thomas Schindlmayr that appeared in the preceding issue of the journal. The invitation was issued with the approval of these authors, and the journal is grateful to them for allowing their paper to be used to generate debate on the issues they had raised. The discussion is followed by the authors' response to it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article lists the editors that passed their reviewing papers to the journal including Mary Abbott, Linda Adair and Juha Alho.

A list of the referees for papers submitted to "Population Studies" in 2005 and 2006 is presented.

The article presents the authors' comments on the paper entitled, "Patterns of Low and Lowest-Low Fertility in Europe," by Francesco C. Billari and Hans-Peter Kohler, published in a 2004 issue of the journal "Population Studies." In their comment, the authors argue that the original authors' comparison of cohort-fertility patterns in the lowest-low fertility countries of Southern, Central, and Eastern Europe with Dutch cohort patterns is weak on theoretical grounds and that the empirical analysis is incomplete. The empirical analysis demonstrates that in the young cohorts of Southern, Central, and Eastern Europe, childbearing may very well decline below the levels observed in the Netherlands and in other West European countries. This is already happening in Southern Europe. Moreover, the childbearing surplus in early adulthood is evaporating, and the recuperation that would be needed for completed cohort fertility in these countries to remain above that of many West European countries is of such magnitude that it is doubtful whether it could occur.

The article lists researchers who have refereed papers related to population studies submitted to the journal. Some of these researchers are Omar Ahmad from University of Ghana, George Alter from Indiana University, Barbara Anderson from University of Michigan, Alaka Basu from Cornell University, David Bishai from John Hopkins University, Lisa Cameron of University of Melbourne, Sam Clark from University of Pennsylvania, Donald Cox from Boston College, Benjamin Davis from Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, David Dunson from Duke University, Sumit Guha from Brown University, Hugh Gravelle from University of York, Roger Jeffery from University of Edinburgh, James Lee from University of Michigan, Nancy Luke from Brown University, Orly Manor from Tel Aviv University, Cynthia Osborne from Princeton University, Kelly Raley from University of Texas, Ann Stevens from University of California at Berkeley, John Stillwell from University of Leeds, Susan Watkins of University of Pennsylvania, and Thomas Vartanian from Bryn Mawr College.

The article lists reviewers for the periodical "Population Studies" from 2009 to 2010. People mentioned include Stan Becker, Eva Bernhardt, and Ann Biddlecom.

The disappearance of the social gradient in fertility represents a paradigm shift that has called into question the validity of theories that predicted a decline in fertility with increased access to education and resources. Emerging theories have tried to explain this trend by highlighting a potential change in the fertility preferences of more educated couples. In this paper we add additional elements to this explanation. Using a computational modelling approach, we show that it is still possible to simulate the weakening social gradient in fertility, in the context of steady declines in family size preferences. Our results show that one of the key drivers of the change in the education–fertility relationship can be found in the transition to an increasingly regulated fertility regime. As the share of unplanned births decreases over time, the negative association between education and fertility weakens and the mechanisms that positively connect educational attainment with desired fertility become dominant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies have shown that there are some advantages to forecasting mortality with indicators other than age-specific death rates. The mean, median, and modal ages at death can be directly estimated from the age-at-death distribution, as can information on lifespan variation. The modal age at death has been increasing linearly since the second half of the twentieth century, providing a strong basis from which to extrapolate past trends. The aim of this paper is to develop a forecasting model that is based on the regularity of the modal age at death and that can also account for changes in lifespan variation. We forecast mortality at ages 40 and above in 10 West European countries. The model we introduce increases forecast accuracy compared with other forecasting models and provides consistent trends in life expectancy and lifespan variation at age 40 over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the biological, socio-economic, and institutional factors shaping the individual risk of death during a major pre-industrial epidemic. We use a micro-demographic database for an Italian city (Carmagnola) during the 1630 plague to explore in detail the survival dynamics of the population admitted to the isolation hospital (lazzaretto). We develop a theoretical model of admissions to the lazzaretto, for better interpretation of the observational data. We explore how age and sex shaped the individual risk of death, and we provide a one-of-a-kind study of the impact of socio-economic status. We report an inversion of the normal mortality gradient by status for those interned at the lazzaretto. The rich enjoyed a greater ability to make decisions about their hospitalization, but this backfired. Instead, the poor sent to the lazzaretto faced a relatively low risk of death because they enjoyed better conditions than they would have experienced outside the hospital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cognitively impaired adults without a partner are highly disadvantaged, as partners constitute an important source of caregiving and emotional support. With the application of innovative multistate models to the Health and Retirement Study, this paper is the first to estimate joint expectancies of cognitive and partnership status at age 50 by sex, race/ethnicity, and education in the United States. We find that women live a decade longer unpartnered than men. Women are also disadvantaged as they experience three more years as both cognitively impaired and unpartnered than men. Black women live over twice as long as cognitively impaired and unpartnered compared with White women. Lower-educated men and women live around three and five years longer, respectively, as cognitively impaired and unpartnered than more highly educated men and women. This study addresses a novel facet of partnership and cognitive status dynamics and examines their variations by key socio-demographic factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate whether fertility and newborn health changed during the Covid-19 pandemic in Mexico. We use national administrative data and an event-study design to examine the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on fertility and newborn health characteristics. Our findings suggest that Mexico's fertility declined temporarily as measured by conceptions that likely occurred during the stay-at-home order. Initially, the general fertility rate fell by 11–12 per cent but quickly rebounded and returned close to its original levels by the end of 2021. Newborn health also deteriorated during the pandemic. Instances of low birthweight and prematurity substantially increased, with both remaining elevated over the entire pandemic period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of childbearing across partnerships—having children with more than one partner—have generally focused on countries with relatively high separation rates. We complement this previous research with analyses for Italy using nationally representative, retrospective data and event-history techniques. This study offers three key findings. First, we detected a non-negligible share of childbearing across partnerships, although at substantially lower levels relative to other wealthy countries (5 per cent of parents aged 25–54 with at least two children). Second, multivariate analyses revealed an impressive similarity to the demographic correlates found elsewhere. Finally, we showed that childbearing across partnerships was initiated by the 'social vanguard' of new family behaviours but then diffused among the least well-off. Overall, this paper adds to the growing literature on childbearing across partnerships by showing the phenomenon to be demographically and sociologically relevant, even in countries with strong family ties and a limited diffusion of union dissolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because internal and international migration are typically conceptualized and measured separately, empirical evidence on the links between these two forms of population movement remains partial. This paper takes a step towards integration by establishing how internal and international migration precede one another in various sequenced relationships from birth to age 50 in 20 European countries. We apply sequence and cluster analysis to full retrospective migration histories collected as part of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe in 2008–09 and 2017, for individuals born between 1950 and 1965. The results show that nearly all international migrants engage in internal mobility at some point in their lives. However, individual migration trajectories are delineated by the order of internal and international moves, the duration and timing of stays abroad, and the extent to which individuals engage in return international migration. Institutional and economic conditions shape the diversity of migration experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Death of a parent during childhood has become rare in developed countries but remains an important life course event that may have consequences for family formation. This paper describes the link between parental death before age 18 and fertility outcomes in adulthood. Using the large national 2011 French Family Survey (INSEE–INED), we focus on the 1946–66 birth cohorts, for whom we observe entire fertility histories. The sample includes 11,854 respondents who have lost at least one parent before age 18. We find a strong polarization of fertility behaviours among orphaned males, more pronounced for those coming from a disadvantaged background. More often childless, particularly when parental death occurred in adolescence, some seem to retreat from parenthood. But orphaned men and women who do become parents seem to embrace family life, by beginning childbearing earlier and having more children, especially when the deceased parent is of the same sex. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While there is a large literature investigating migrant marriage or fertility, little research has examined how childbearing and partnerships are interrelated. In this paper, we investigate how childbearing and partnership trajectories evolve and interact over the life course for immigrants and their descendants and how the relationship varies by migrant origin. We apply multichannel sequence analysis to rich longitudinal survey data from France and find significant differences in family-related behaviour between immigrants, their descendants, and the native French. Immigrants' family behaviour is characterized by stronger association between marriage and childbearing than in the native population. However, there are significant differences across migrant groups. Turkish immigrants exhibit the most conservative family pathways. By contrast, the family behaviour of European immigrants is similar to that of the native population. The study also demonstrates that the family behaviour of some descendant groups has gradually become indistinguishable from that of the native French, whereas for other groups significant differences in family behaviour persist. Supplementary material for this article is available at: [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Demography was heavily involved in the eugenics movement of the early twentieth century but, along with most other social science disciplines, largely rejected eugenic thinking in the decades after the Second World War. Eugenic ideology never entirely deserted academia, however, and in the twenty-first century, it is re-emerging into mainstream academic discussion. This paper aims, first, to provide a reminder of demography's early links with eugenics and, second, to raise awareness of this academic resurgence of eugenic ideology. The final aim of the paper is to recommend ways to counter this resurgence: these include more active discussion of demography's eugenic past, especially when training students; greater emphasis on critical approaches in demography; and greater engagement of demographers (and other social scientists) with biologists and geneticists, in order to ensure that research which combines the biological and social sciences is rigorous. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Population Studies advances research on fertility, mortality, family, migration, methods, policy, and beyond, yet it lacks a recent, rigorous review. We examine all papers published between 1947 and 2020 (N = 1,901) and their authors, using natural language processing, social network analysis, and mixed methods that combine unsupervised machine learning with qualitative coding. After providing a brief history, we map the evolution in authorship and papers towards shorter, multi-authored papers, also finding that females comprise 33.5 per cent of authorship across the period under study, with varied sex ratios across topics. Most papers examine fertility, mortality, and family, studying groups and change, but topics vary over time. Children are rarely studied, and research on women focuses on family planning, fertility decline, and unions, whereas key domains for research on men are migration, historical demography (war, famine), and employment. Research on Africa and Asia focuses on family planning, with work on fertility decline concentrated on North America and Europe, consistent with theories of demographic transition. Our resulting discussion identifies future directions for demographic research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although many contemporary demographers pay attention to historical demography, there is often a surprising lack of appreciation of the demographic circumstances and systems of the past, suggesting an implicit assumption that they are not relevant to the present or that the methods, data, and questions addressed by historical and contemporary demographers are different. This paper provides an overview of historical demography as published in Population Studies and how this has developed over time. Drawing on this, I demonstrate that historical and contemporary demography use similar data sources and identical methods, and they often address comparable questions. I argue that an appreciation of demographic patterns and processes is beneficial for all demographers, even those who work on the most recent time periods, and that better integration of historical and contemporary demography would be beneficial to both. The paper also considers three challenges for historical demography as it moves forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the position of migration in population studies, focusing on the period 1996–2021. It considers the reasons why migration remains problematic for demographers, but also how approaches to migration have changed over the last 25 years. While it has arguably become more important to both demography and population studies because of the transition to low fertility and mortality, migration has metamorphosed into a complex field in its own right, almost independently from changes in demography. Both internal and international migration form the subject of this examination and four main themes are pursued: data and measurement; theories and approaches; migration and development; and migration and political demography. The papers published in the journal Population Studies are used to provide a mirror through which to view these changes over the last 25 years. This paper concludes by looking at likely future directions in migration studies, demography, and population studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although many contemporary demographers pay attention to historical demography, there is often a surprising lack of appreciation of the demographic circumstances and systems of the past, suggesting an implicit assumption that they are not relevant to the present or that the methods, data, and questions addressed by historical and contemporary demographers are different. This paper provides an overview of historical demography as published in Population Studies and how this has developed over time. Drawing on this, I demonstrate that historical and contemporary demography use similar data sources and identical methods, and they often address comparable questions. I argue that an appreciation of demographic patterns and processes is beneficial for all demographers, even those who work on the most recent time periods, and that better integration of historical and contemporary demography would be beneficial to both. The paper also considers three challenges for historical demography as it moves forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the position of migration in population studies, focusing on the period 1996-2021. It considers the reasons why migration remains problematic for demographers, but also how approaches to migration have changed over the last 25 years. While it has arguably become more important to both demography and population studies because of the transition to low fertility and mortality, migration has metamorphosed into a complex field in its own right, almost independently from changes in demography. Both internal and international migration form the subject of this examination and four main themes are pursued: data and measurement; theories and approaches; migration and development; and migration and political demography. The papers published in the journal Population Studies are used to provide a mirror through which to view these changes over the last 25 years. This paper concludes by looking at likely future directions in migration studies, demography, and population studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Demography was heavily involved in the eugenics movement of the early twentieth century but, along with most other social science disciplines, largely rejected eugenic thinking in the decades after the Second World War. Eugenic ideology never entirely deserted academia, however, and in the twenty-first century, it is reemerging into mainstream academic discussion. This paper aims, first, to provide a reminder of demography's early links with eugenics and, second, to raise awareness of this academic resurgence of eugenic ideology. The final aim of the paper is to recommend ways to counter this resurgence: these include more active discussion of demography's eugenic past, especially when training students; greater emphasis on critical approaches in demography; and greater engagement of demographers (and other social scientists) with biologists and geneticists, in order to ensure that research which combines the biological and social sciences is rigorous. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Population Studies advances research on fertility, mortality, family, migration, methods, policy, and beyond, yet it lacks a recent, rigorous review. We examine all papers published between 1947 and 2020 (N = 1,901) and their authors, using natural language processing, social network analysis, and mixed methods that combine unsupervised machine learning with qualitative coding. After providing a brief history, we map the evolution in authorship and papers towards shorter, multi-authored papers, also finding that females comprise 33.5 per cent of authorship across the period under study, with varied sex ratios across topics. Most papers examine fertility, mortality, and family, studying groups and change, but topics vary over time. Children are rarely studied, and research on women focuses on family planning, fertility decline, and unions, whereas key domains for research on men are migration, historical demography (war, famine), and employment. Research on Africa and Asia focuses on family planning, with work on fertility decline concentrated on North America and Europe, consistent with theories of demographic transition. Our resulting discussion identifies future directions for demographic research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Testing theories about human senescence and longevity demands accurate information on older-adult mortality; this is rare in low- to middle-income countries where raw data may be distorted by defective completeness and systematic age misreporting. For this reason, such populations are frequently excluded from empirical tests of mortality and longevity theories, thus limiting their reach, as they reflect only a small and selected human mortality experience. In this paper we formulate an integrated method to compute estimates of older-adult mortality when vital registration and population counts are defective due to inaccurate coverage and/or systematic age misreporting. The procedure is validated with a simulation study that identifies a strategy to compute adjustments, which, under some assumptions, performs quite well. While the paper focuses on Latin American and Caribbean countries, the method is quite general and, with additional information and some model reformulation, could be applied to other populations with similar problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of maternal nutrition in affecting offspring fertility, through alteration of foetal programming, has been demonstrated in animal-based experiments. However, results from human populations appear inconsistent and sometimes contradictory, likely because they have been based on single famine events. In this paper, we adopt a different approach. We combine official annual time series of daily nutrient availability with a sample of women's reproductive histories from the 1961 Italian Census to investigate the role of maternal nutritional status in pregnancy on offspring childlessness. The analysis therefore covers cohorts of females born between 1861 and 1939. Our results show a negative association between calorie availability in pregnancy and the odds of offspring childlessness, whereas no association is found between protein availability and offspring childlessness. The consequences of poor calorie intake were aggravated during the summer, likely due to the participation of pregnant women in physically demanding work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After 30 years of active development, mechanistic models of the reproductive process nearly stopped attracting scholarly interest in the early 1980s. In the following decades, fertility research continued to thrive, relying on solid descriptive work and detailed analysis of micro-level data. The absence of systematic modelling efforts, however, has also made the field more fragmented, with empirical research, theory building, and forecasting advancing along largely disconnected channels. In this paper we outline some of the drivers of this process, from the popularization of user-friendly statistical software to the limitations of early family building models. We then describe a series of developments in computational modelling and statistical computing that can contribute to the emergence of a new generation of mechanistic models. Finally, we introduce a concrete example of this new kind of model, and show how they can be used to formulate and test theories coherently and make informed projections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rising numbers of young unmarried men in India reflect a marriage squeeze that goes beyond the shortage of brides created by sex-selective abortion. We describe a decline in men's marriageability caused by their falling economic prospects at the same time as families of brides are increasingly seeking grooms with stable employment. We group young men into those without jobs or much education, those with education but no work, and the privileged few with education as well as employment. This classification resolves some of the seeming contradictions in the qualitative literature on marriage in India. Some of this literature talks about the rising prevalence of bride price and some about the persistence of dowry, while some papers reflect in general on the costs of being young, male, and aimless. Our commentary includes a review of the growing literature on the physiological and (perhaps) consequently behavioural and health outcomes of men's anomie. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article comments on a previous article related to fertility crisis in modern societies that appeared in the March 2004 issue of the journal Population Studies. Social researchers Francesco Billari, Tomas Frejka, John Hobcraft, Miloslav Macura and Dirk J. van de Kaa broadly endorse authors' paper, while adding valuable supplementary and complementary material. Authors concur with most of the regional and technical elaborations they propose. However, authors take issue with some of the points raised by van de Kaa and Hobcraft, most of which refer to authors' article. Authors assume that no one regards the Western demographic transition over the last century or two as being independent of the Industrial Revolution, as being something that would have happened if incomes had stayed at eighteenth-century levels. If the world passes, in little more than two centuries, from being one of high fertility with a potential for rapid growth as mortality falls, to one where global population is declining then researchers who do not seek overarching explanations may be little heeded.

This paper argues that son preference resulted in gender-based discriminatory practices that unduly increased mortality rates for females at birth and throughout infancy and childhood in nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Greece. The relative numbers of boys and girls at birth was extremely high and under-registration of females cannot on its own explain this result. The infanticide and/or mortal neglect of infant girls was therefore more common than previously acknowledged. Likewise, sex ratios increased as children grew older, thus suggesting that parents continued to treat boys and girls differently throughout childhood. A large body of qualitative evidence (contemporary accounts, folklore traditions, feminist newspapers, and anthropological studies) further supports the conclusion that girls were neglected due to their inferior status in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research note is prompted by a paper by Kashyap (Is prenatal sex selection associated with lower female child mortality? Population Studies 73(1): 57–78). Kashyap's paper, which provides 40 original estimates of missing female births, relies on an alternative definition of missing female births, leading to estimates of about half the magnitude of other estimates. There appears, therefore, a real need to take stock of the concept of missing female births widely used by statisticians around the world for assessing the demographic consequences of prenatal sex selection. This research note starts with a brief review of the history of the concept and the difference between Amartya Sen's original method and the alternative method found elsewhere to compute missing female births. We then put forward three different arguments (deterministic and probabilistic approaches, and consistency analysis) in support of the original computation procedure based on the number of observed male births and the expected sex ratio at birth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the influence of individual and household factors on an individual's propensity to emigrate from Halland, a region in south-west Sweden, to the United States during the era of mass migration in the late nineteenth century. The study has a case-control design, using individual-level longitudinal data for a group of emigrants (cases) and a group of non-emigrants (controls). Results indicate the importance of a family's emigration history; individuals whose relatives had previously moved to the United States were more likely to emigrate themselves. In addition, the results also show how this impact varied between groups and how other factors relating to the individual's life situation affected the migration decision. Thus, this paper shows how chain migration and migration networks play important roles during times of mass migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to explore the phenomenon of birthdate misregistration, using birth data from 45,226,875 Polish citizens, that is, all those born 1900–2000 and registered in Poland's Universal Electronic System for Registration of the Population (PESEL). I transformed the data into a daily series of births, detrended by dividing each value by the daily average for the relevant year. Next, I selected the dates with the highest deviations based on the coefficients of the linear regression model with dummy variables. Finally, I estimated the size of the phenomenon in subsequent years by comparing the numbers of births on selected dates to their expected values. This paper is the first to document the specificity, scale, duration, and probable causes of birthdate misregistration in Poland in the twentieth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evidence from theories of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) suggests that experiencing adverse early life conditions subsequently leads to detrimental adult health outcomes. The bulk of empirical DOHaD literature does not consider the nature and magnitude of the impact of adverse early life conditions at the population level. In particular, it ignores the distortion of age and cohort patterns of adult health and mortality and the increased load of chronic illness and disability that ensues. In this paper, we use a microsimulation model combined with empirical estimates of incidence and prevalence of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and associated disability in low- and middle-income countries to assess the magnitude of delayed effects on adult healthy life expectancy and on compression (or expansion) of morbidity at older ages. The main goal is to determine if, in what ways, and to what extent delayed effects due to early conditions can influence cohorts' chronic illness and disability profiles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this issue, Ronald (Ron) Skeldon's rich and thoughtful review outlines the developments in migration research within demography and population studies. In his contribution to the 50th anniversary issue of I Population Studies i , John Hobcraft suggested that demographers spend too little time trying to explain the phenomena they measure and describe (Hobcraft [5]). The authors of the papers in this special issue are certainly more diverse in terms of their disciplinary background, career stage, ethnicity, and sex than those of the 1996 special issue. He discusses the development of a separate field of migration studies in recent decades and identifies the ways in which greater communication between scholars working in migration studies and population scientists who study migration would be beneficial. [Extracted from the article]

Voluntary family planning is a key mainstay of demographic work and population policies. The 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) signalled a decisive shift away from fertility reduction and target-setting to an emphasis on voluntary family planning as intrinsic to reproductive health and women's empowerment. Yet, criticisms of voluntary family planning programmes persist, interrogating how 'voluntariness' is understood and wielded or questioning the instrumentalization of women's fertilities in the service of economic and developmental goals. In this paper, I reflect on these debates with the aim of troubling the notion of voluntary family planning as an unambiguous good that enables equitable empowerment and development for all. Drawing on literature from cognate disciplines, I highlight how voluntariness is linked to social and structural conditions, and I challenge the instrumentalization of voluntary family planning as a 'common agenda' to solve 'development' problems. Engaging with this work can contribute to key concepts (e.g. 'voluntary') and measurements (e.g. autonomy), strengthening the collective commitment to achieving the ICPD and contributing to reproductive empowerment and autonomy. Through this intervention, I aim to help demographers see why some critics call for a reconsideration of voluntary family planning and encourage a decoupling of interventions from fertility reduction aims, instead centring human rights, autonomy, and reproductive empowerment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 50th anniversary edition of Population Studies, John Hobcraft commented that demographers spend too little time trying to explain the phenomena they measure and describe. A quarter of a century on, this paper looks at the state of theory and explanation in contemporary demography. I ask how demographers have approached the task of explanation since Hobcraft's comment, grounding the discussion in the mainstream literature on low fertility in Europe. Using selected examples, I critically review macro- and micro-level approaches to explanation, highlighting some of the philosophical problems that each encounters. I argue that different conceptions of what demography is, and the explanatory language fertility researchers use, lead to differences in explanatory strategies that are rarely explicitly recognized. I also consider how critical theories challenge demographers to think in new ways. Despite the increasing attention paid to theory and explanation, I conclude that more engagement with the philosophy of social sciences is needed before fertility researchers can legitimately claim their studies do as much to explain and understand as to quantify and describe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I examine progress in the field of mortality over the past 25 years. I argue that we have been most successful in taking advantage of an increasingly data-rich environment to improve aggregate mortality models and test pre-existing theories. Less progress has been made in relating our estimates of mortality risk at the individual level to broader mortality patterns at the population level while appropriately accounting for contextual differences and compositional change. Overall, I find that the field of mortality continues to be highly visible in demographic journals, including Population Studies. However much of what is published today in field journals could just as easily appear in neighbouring disciplinary journals, as disciplinary boundaries are shrinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]