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Research addressing “environmental equity” and “environmental racism” claims that facilities for treatment, storage, and disposal of hazardous wastes (TSDFs) are located disproportionately in minority areas. In the first comprehensive study of TSDFs to use census tract-level data, we find no nationally consistent and statistically significant differences between the racial or ethnic composition of tracts which contain commercial TSDFs and those which do not. TSDFs are more likely to be found in tracts with Hispanic groups, primarily in regions with the greatest percentage of Hispanics. Different geographic units of analysis elaborate on, but are consistent with, these results.

Nearly all developed countries have experienced dramatic declines in the seasonality of demographic behavior over the last century. This article examines seasonal behavior in the population of Taiwan between 1906 and 1942, during Japanese colonial rule. First, we analyze seasonal demographic cycles and their ties to the cultural calendar and agriculture. Second, we compare seasonality in two regions (Xinzhu and Tainan) that experienced different agricultural development under the colonial regime. Findings demonstrate that demographic seasonality was less pronounced when urban development and colonial agricultural intensification produced more heterogeneous seasonal patterns of labor. We find that changes in agricultural organization, rather than purely a shift to nonagricultural production, may significantly reduce established seasonal timing of demographic behavior.

Existing methods for estimating population parameters in settings of data deficiency do not provide techniques for analysis of commonly available longitudinal data. In settings where complete population data is unavailable, longitudinal data recorded for only a subset of the total population are often available (e.g., event registers, genealogies). In this article we present and evaluate models which derive population parameters for the population subgroup underlying such longitudinal data. Using the distribution of individual times until first recorded event within a measurement interval, population parameters are estimated which provide basic denominator data for analyzing event occurrence. The models which we derive are especially suited to records which may include migration and population growth trends. The use of the models is demonstrated and evaluated through an application to genealogical records for a nineteenth-century population. Possible extensions of these models and their major limitations are also discussed.

This paper utilizes data from computerized Utah genealogies on changes in the intervals between births to argue that changes associated with the western fertility transition represent an adaptation of the population to changing socioeconomic circumstances utilizing extant modes of behavior rather than an "innovation" or adoption of new behavior. 24144 women born between 1840-95 married only once and remaining in an intact marriage through age 49 and living in Utah throughout their childbearing years formed the sample. Comparison of the Utah data with less detailed European data assembled by Henry and by Knodel shows the levels and lengths of intervals in each to be quite similar. The analysis of all birth intervals across the fertility transition for a series of cohorts controlling for children ever born revealed that indices previously used to measure the extent of fertility truncation over the course of various European transitions may be inadequate to detect enclaves of birth spacing. Spacing behavior appears to have existed in some groups even during periods of natural fertility. Over the course of the transition as increasing numbers of women modify their behavior to terminate childbearing at lower levels of children ever born they appear to adopt the spacing pattern already evident among a small group of women in earlier birth cohorts. The Utah increase was distributed over a wide segment of the population with differing completed fertility and differing life course patterns as reflected in age of marriage and age at last birth. The shift in contraceptive behavior was accompanied by increased age at marriage. Consistently increasing mean birth intervals with increasing parity are possible evidence of attempts to truncate childbearing. Further analysis of the role of interbirth intervals and the spread of fertility limitation might be relevant to the fertility transitions of contemporary developing countries.

the behavioral changes that accompanied historical fertility declines. One of the central questions in this discussion has been the relative importance of two alternative, and perhaps complimentary, fertility-limiting behaviors. The first of these behaviors, "stopping," refers to the attempted truncation or termination of childbearing after some desired family size has been achieved. Until recent times both theories and methods of historical demographic analysis have implicitly assumed that the only significant behavioral change resulting in early fertility declines was the widespread onset of stopping behavior. A second behavior that may be used to limit achieved fertility is the intentional lengthening of interbirth intervals or delay during marital childbearing, that is, "spacing." In at least some fertility declines (e.g., American), lengthened interbirth intervals appear to have been significant. The possible significance of historical birth spacing poses both theoretical and methodological problems. Theoretically, spacing challenges the model of discontinuous decision making in which a couple's fertility is unaffected by the surrounding circumstances and context until a desired limit is reached. Addressing the possible lengthening of interbirth intervals presents a more complicated, and perhaps more realistic, portrayal of decision making that is responsive to both the immediate circumstances and speculations concerning future circumstances. The challenge that spacing behavior poses to traditional methods of historical fertility analysis is of equal import. It is perhaps natural that spacing should receive greater attention in studies influenced by the more recent focus on life-course patterns, the increasing availability of historical life-course data, and contemporary methods of event-history analysis. The larger body of historical fertility research, however, has relied heavily on indices and measurements that implicitly assume that only stopping behavior contributes to fertility "limitation" [e.g., Coale and Trussell's M and m (1974, 1978)]. Knodel, presumably seeking to avoid the inherent limitation of such indices relies largely on age at last birth and McDonald's (1984) supposed decomposition of spacing and stopping effects. Although there are broad theoretical and methodological issues surrounding spacing behavior, this comment is confined to an illustration that neither age at last birth nor McDonald's decomposition adequately assesses the presence of birth spacing. Knodel employed age at last birth as an indicator of stopping behavior, but he also noted that increases in interconfinement intervals may be anticipated to increase open intervals and thereby lower the age at last birth. The effect is demonstrated in Figure 1. The parity-specific mean birth intervals for women with both 6 and 8 children ever born from the 1860 birth cohort of once-married women in Utah (Anderton and Bean, 1985) is used for illustration. The plot presents the observed mean birth intervals by parity (labeled CEB 6 and CEB 8) and predictions of the following birth intervals at the next higher parity should

This paper is part of a long-term investigation known as the Mormon Historical Demography Project. It examines the capability of a simulation model, originally proposed by John Bongaarts (1976), to fit the natural fertility pattern which characterized the mid-nineteenth century Mormon population. Application of this model permits estimates to be made of the historical timing and age-incidence of fertility limitation. A sensitivity analysis of the model’s parameters demonstrates that simple changes in the model’s proximate determinants of fertility, excluding contraceptive practices, would be insufficientto account for later transition effects. Thus the results successfully capture the dynamics underlying the Mormon natural fertility pattern as well as offer a framework for future modeling of the transition away from natural fertility.

We analyze a 140-year series of smallpox deaths in the Åland Islands, Finland. Vaccination, introduced in 1805, dramatically reduced the annual number of smallpox deaths. It also influenced the age distribution of smallpox deaths, changing smallpox from a childhood disease before 1805 to one which affected both adults and children after 1805. This appears to be due to the fact that Ålanders were usually vaccinated only once during childhood and often lost their immunity during adulthood. Spectral analysis of the prevaccination time series of smallpox deaths demonstrates a strong seven-year periodicity, reflecting the amount of time necessary to build up a cohort of nonimmune individuals. After the introduction of vaccination, the periodicity changes to eight years. The probability that a parish in Åland was affected by a smallpox epidemic is shown to be highly correlated with migration patterns and parish population sizes.

The direct relationship between fertility and fertility behavior of mothers and daughters was examined. It was hypothesized that the relative propensity to control family sizes in 1 generation is transmitted to the following generation and that transmission of fertility levels across generations is in part a result of the transmission of specific fertility-determining life-course behaviors across generations. The data were derived from the Mormon Historical Demography projects set of computerized family geneologies. To assess the importance of cohort effects the completed fertility of 1st daughters and last daughters was compared by mothers completed family size and mothers birth cohort. Daughters who were the last born tended to have lower fertility than 1st born daughters. For 1st born daughters a positive association between mothers and daughters family size was confirmed. The distribution of mothers and daughters relative to the median births for their respective cohorts was examined. Each woman was allocated to 1 of 3 groups: low -- completed fertility was 2 or more children less than the median for all women in the birth cohort; medium -- completed fertility was equal to + or - 1 child from the median for other women in the same birth cohort; and high -- completed fertility was 2 or more children greater than the median for all women in the birth cohort. It was expected that a greater proportion of daughters than mothers would have relatively low fertility. For the 1830-39 cohort only 15% of the mothers had relatively low fertility but 25% of their daughters did; for other mother cohorts the comparisons were 15:26 18:26 and 15:23. It also was expected that the daughters of low fertility mothers would be more likely to have relatively low fertility. For low fertility mothers in the 1830-39 cohort 33% of daughters had relatively low fertility; 24% fell in the relatively high fertility group. The expected difference was found for the 1840-49 cohort of mothers and for the 1860-69 cohort but not for the 1850-59 cohort. It also was expected that the daughters of relatively high fertility mothers would have relatively high fertility. 33% of daughters with high fertility mothers in the 1st cohort had relatively high fertility; only 23% had low fertility. This pattern was consistent for each of the other cohorts of mothers. Tabular and multivariate analyses supported the strong possibility that both fertility behavior and indirect associations regarding timing of fertility-related life course events were transmitted intergenerationally. Cohort-specific influences were substantial. The analyses confirmed both the hypothesized intergenerational fertility association and the hypothesized cohort-specific effects.