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Between 1920 and 1940, fertility dropped below replacement level in many Western countries. In today's scholarly literature, the drop is usually explained as a temporary reaction to the exceptional conditions of the inter-war period. This paper confronts that interpretation with the interpretations offered by scholars writing between the wars. According to leading demographers of the time, low fertility was due not to war or economic crisis, but rather to processes that now tend to be associated with the Second Demographic Transition, including secularization, individualization, rising consumerism, and women's emancipation. Since these were seen as structural features of modernization, most inter-war scholars argued that subreplacement fertility would remain an obstinate feature of modern society for an extended period of time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although Hungary is not alone in Eastern Europe in experiencing a rising death rate during recent years. this adverse development would seem to have progressed further there than in neighbouring socialist countries, with the possible exception of the Soviet Union. The Hungarian death rate has been rising since the mid-1960s in part because the population was ageing but, more significantly from the health point of view, because of a real increase in mortality among certain sections of the population. The age-specific death rates of males aged 15 and over were all higher in 1980 than in the mid-1960s, the increase being particularly marked for the age group 30-59: moreover, women aged 30-59 are also now beginning to display the same characteristic. In the paper the individual contributions of the various causes of death to these trends are examined and some of the factors that are thought to have enhanced the risk of dying are outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The years 1914-18 form what is, in some respects, the "dark ages" of British historical demography. Studies of European population movements in this century have either ignored the war or have dismissed it as unimportant in the long term. The reticence of historical demographers about the war is surely related to the statistical confusion which plagues studies of the 1914-18 conflict In the aftermath of the war, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace sponsored a series of books on the economic and social history of the war. Most military and naval reports are also afflicted with substantial inaccuracies. Every combatant nation published several sets of statistics relating to its own losses. Unfortunately, no two sets are identical. The only alternative to using these general estimates is to trace the war losses of each of the three armed forces. What we need are sources which distinguish between the military effort of Britain and that of other Allied countries. If they record the incidence of casualties over time, and if they distribute British casualties by theatre of operation, by branch of service, and by rank, the reliability of the total can be checked against other records.

Comparative research on the preferred sex of children in Western societies has generally focused on women only and ignored the role of gender equity and the need for children's economic support in old age. A multilevel analysis extends existing research by examining, for both men and women and across 24 European countries, the effect of the preferred sex-composition of offspring on whether parents have or intend to have a third child. Using the European Social Survey (2004/5), a multilevel (random coefficient) ordered logit regression of that intention (N=3,323) and a binary logistic multilevel model of the transition to a third child (N=6,502) demonstrate the presence of a mixed-sex preference. In countries with a high risk of poverty in old age, a preference for sons is found, particularly for men. In societies where there is lower gender equity, both men and women have a significant preference for boys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite its widespread use, the Coale-Demeny model life table system does not capture the extensive variation in age-specific mortality patterns observed in contemporary populations, particularly those of the countries of Eastern Europe and populations affected by HIV/AIDS. Although relational mortality models, such as the Brass logit system, can identify these variations, these models show systematic bias in their predictive ability as mortality levels depart from the standard. We propose a modification of the two-parameter Brass relational model. The modified model incorporates two additional age-specific correction factors (γx and θx based on mortality levels among children and adults, relative to the standard. Tests of predictive validity show deviations in age-specific mortality rates predicted by the proposed system to be 30-50 per cent lower than those predicted by the Coale-Demeny system and 15-40 per cent lower than those predicted using the original Brass system. The modified logit system is a two-parameter system, parameterized using values of l5 and l60. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]