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The dominance or influence of metropolitan centers in the developing country of Turkey, as measured by gradients of population characteristics (population density, percent urban, sex ratio, percent over five years of age, and percent literate) by distance from the nearest metropolitan center for 1960 and 1965, is found to decrease sharply from the central zone to the next zone (25-49 kilometers from the center), and then change very little with increasing distance from the center, for both urban and rural populations. None of several alternative mathematical models describes the form of the influence of metropolitan centers on the population characteristics of their hinterlands very well, but the best fitting models suggest that population density declines by distance according to an exponential function to the base e, percent urban declines according to a function to the one-fourth power, sex ratio declines for about 100 kilometers and then increases according to a quadratic function, and pere cent under six years increases and percent literate declines according to a linear function. These results suggest that dominance of a metropolis tan center over its hinterland beyond 25 or 50 kilometers in Turkey is not very strong, possibly because of the relatively poorly developed transportation and communication systems. Although metropolitan dominance in Turkey in 1960 and 1965 seems to diminish more sharply with distance and to extend less far from the metropolitan center than in developed countries or than it may as Turkey develops economically and technologically in the future, additional comparative data over time in Turkey and in developed countries at the same time are needed for a rigorous test of this apparent finding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data from the Ankara Family Study, in which 1138 married women living in Ankara city and four selected villages in Ankara Province were interviewed in 1965-65, are used to study the impact of the amount and timing of urban residential experience on six dimensions of modernism in attitudes and behavior. Scores on the modernism indexes consistently are higher for the women with urban residential experience. The proportions of variance in the study population accounted for by the urbanism factor are: nearly three-fifths on the mass media index; nearly two-fifths on the nuclear family role structure index; three-tenths on the home production or consumption index; two-tenths on the religiosity and extra-local orientation indexes; and a seventh on the extended family ties index. The place of residence prior to marriage, the period when decisions about schooling are made and socialization into adult roles occurs, appears to be of special importance. Women who migrated from villages to the city at any stage of the life-cycle, however, report attitudes and behavior more modern than those of women with no urban residential experience (though less modern than those of women who have always lived in a city). Such micro-social analyses may help to illuminate the relation between urbanization and modernization in developing nations and to account for the coexistence of modern and traditional patterns in transitional societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the results of some recent studies relating to fertility control carried out by different researchers on Turkey. The decline of the death rate helps to set the stage for a fertility decline, so mortality trends will be discussed first. Estimates of mortality above age five have been extracted from the quinquennial census statistics collected between 1935 and 1965. The prospect; for survival of young children is shown by the proportion of children who survive to age two. This index has risen rapidly in recent years, at a time when adult mortality gains have levelled off. The motivation to limit family size is probably connected most closely with the trend of early childhood mortality. Child mortality in Turkey is heavy relative to what one would expect from an inspection of nineteenth and early twentieth century European life tables having comparable adult mortality. Child care is now catching up. As the proportion surviving beyond early childhood grows, increased demographic pressure will be felt by families, and the motivation for family planning will be strengthened.