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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]

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]

Near-global fertility decline began in the 1960s, and from the 1980s an increasing number of European countries and some Asian ones achieved very low fertility (total fertility below 1.5) with little likelihood of completed cohort fertility reaching replacement level. Earlier theory aiming at explaining this phenomenon stressed the incompatibility between post-industrial society and behaviour necessary for population replacement. Recent theory has been more specific, often concentrating on the current Italian or Spanish situations or on the contrast between them and the situation in either Scandinavia or the English-speaking countries, or both. Such an approach ignores important evidence, especially that from German-speaking populations. The models available concentrate on welfare systems and family expenses, omitting circumstances that may be unique to individual countries or longer-term factors that may be common to all. [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]

This article presents a comment on an article which discussed a model of European age-specific fertility patterns using Hadwiger functions. The authors fit the functions to an array of European populations and, in order to interpret the parameters, show the high correlation between a and total fertility, c and mean age of the mother, and ab/c and the modal age specific fertility rate. The authors reflect the analytical relationship between the parameters of the Hadwiger function and the properties of such a function which are developed. As the authors conjectured, c is needed in the analytical mean age of the Hadwiger function, and the analytical total fertility is proportional to a. The analytical total fertility of Hadwiger functions can be obtained by integration over an interval, which requires the c parameter to be positive. In exploring the relationship between the modal age at childbearing and the Hadwiger parameters, the modal age was obtained by differentiating f(x) with respect to x and equaling to zero. The a parameter is just an intensity parameter which should not affect the modal age. The c parameter reflects mean age at childbearing, and that there should be a direct relationship between mean and modal ages.

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.

This article attempts to explain cross-cultural variations in age at marriage and proportions never marrying. The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework in which the causes of current variations in the timing and quantity of nuptiality are explored. Although timing and quantity tend to be related, each is an analytically distinct component of the marriage pattern and each contributes independently to variations in birth rates. Sometimes treated as independent variables or as determinants of other processes, they are in this analysis treated as dependent variables, themselves in need of explanation. Five geographical regions are included in the analysis: Western Europe, Eastern Europe, the English-speaking nations overseas, the Middle East, and Asia. The original intention was to include all countries in the world with populations over 100,000 hut the countries included in the final analysis cover only half the population of the world in 1960. The U.S.S.R., China and other socialist Asian countries are excluded because of lack of data. The Caribbean, Central America and South America are excluded because of difficulties in interpreting available data due to the high incidence of consensual unions.

The article concentrates on demography of Europe. During the 1930's the crude birth rates and other period indices of fertility in most Western and North-Western countries of Europe reached their lowest points. The decline initiated in the 1870's and 1880's had proceeded without interruption except for the years immediately after First World War, and had gathered momentum in the 1920's. The Second World War brought with it in some countries civilian mortality on a scale not formerly seen as a result of devastating pandemics, and was followed by a major reshuffling of populations within Central and Eastern Europe, the trend of fertility as such showed less discontinuity than might have been expected. In the 1930's little regard was paid to marriage as an independent variable. There had been studies of the relationship between marriage rates and the trade cycle. But it was generally assumed - at least implicitly - that because the long-period decline in the birth rates was not in any major sense the consequence of changes in marriage habits, marriage as such could be discounted in looking at the present or the near future.

In Western society the process of fertility decline is often regarded as an innovation process. The assumptions behind this approach seem rather questionable, and the diffusion lags or gradients of limited importance. Both Swedish and other European data are used as illustrations. It is suggested that the decline be treated within the wider sociological perspective of a time-consuming adjustment or change process, not necessarily starting from a position of completely uncontrolled fertility within marriage. The situation in to-day's high fertility populations is briefly discussed against this background. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the life table of a hypothetical pre-industrial population in order to estimate the effects of changes in mortality upon fertility and the rate of growth. It has been widely assumed that in pre-industrial European populations postponement of marriage was a major check on fertility, and that marriage was contingent upon access to a livelihood in the form of a homestead or a craft. Death made room for new families, and the age at inheritance might therefore be an index of the age at marriage. High mortality should then mean early marriage and high fertility. When the effect of a uniform increase in the force of mortality on the natural rate of growth is estimated quantitatively, it is found that fertility response is of the same magnitude as the change in mortality so that within a wide range mortality differentials alone would not suffice to account for persistent differentials in growth rates. The assumption of a reasonably effective control through the prudential check is thus strengthened.

From the demographic point of view Africa remains the "dark" continent. The majority of the population in this vast area has never been enumerated in an adequate population census. Estimates of population for a large number of African territories are poor. Vital statistics and data on continental and inter-continental movement of population are almost entirely lacking. The totals for Africa and the various regions and political subdivisions presented here were derived from the available census figures and the best available official and unofficial estimates for individual countries. In view of the many reservations with regard to the estimates of the African population, it is evident that no great reliance can be placed on the figures, especially on those for earlier years, and, in particular, on the implied changes in population between the years specified in the tabular form. Africa has begun to experience the kind of population expansion which occurred earlier in Europe and some other parts of the world, with the death rate declining under the impact of social and economic changes, while the birth rate is still kept at a high level by the traditional culture, beliefs and mores.

Manpower developments should be examined against the population background. Population and manpower structure of post-war Europe is the haphazard result of various trends, war losses and tremendous shifts of population. Conditions have been changing rapidly, so that computations regarding the structural changes of populations prior to 1949 are in many cases not significant. The major pre-war trends in economic structure appear to have continued after the war with the exception of commerce, which has not maintained its previous upward trend. The present disturbed situation is not a convenient platform for projections of population or of manpower. Anyhow, any speculation as to future developments should be based on the knowledge of the specific conditions obtaining in the various countries. Differences in the economic and social structure, as well as in legislation between the various parts of Europe, no longer warrant a smooth and uniform development in accordance with the pre-war pattern. There are, on the other hand, some features of a prospective rapprochement in the economic and social field between Western and Eastern Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses social and economic consequences of the ageing of Western European populations. In Western Europe, the proportion of persons aged 60 years or over has increased from about 80 per 1000 in 1850 to 140 per 1000 at the present time. If fertility rates should continue to fall, even higher percentages of old persons would have to be expected after an interval of a further generation. Ageing happens, as it were, from both ends, that is to say by a decrease in natality and by the lengthening of human life. One should note that both these immediate causes are characteristics of a civilization which has gradually developed. There are two types of consequences of this fundamental phenomenon. First are direct consequences, almost mechanical, that is, those directly resulting from structural changes. It is assumed here, that man does not change, and that a person of a given age, when faced by a given situation, will react in the same way as in the past. Secondly, changes in man himself which, though more difficult to observe and still more difficult to foresee, are no less important. Economically, a change in the age structure may influence consumption and production.