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We use data from three rounds of the Mexican Family Life Survey to examine whether migrants in the United States returning to Mexico in the period 2005-2012 have worse health than those remaining in the United States. Despite extensive interest by demographers in health-related selection, this has been a neglected area of study in the literature on U.S.-Mexico migration, and the few results to date have been contradictory and inconclusive. Using five self-reported health variables collected while migrants resided in the United States and subsequent migration history, we find direct evidence of higher probabilities of return migration for Mexican migrants in poor health as well as lower probabilities of return for migrants with improving health. These findings are robust to the inclusion of potential confounders reflecting the migrants' demographic characteristics, economic situation, family ties, and origin and destination characteristics. We anticipate that in the coming decade, health may become an even more salient issue in migrants' decisions about returning to Mexico, given the recent expansion in access to health insurance in Mexico. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although many studies have attempted to examine the consequences of Mexico-U.S. migration for Mexican immigrants' health, few have had adequate data to generate the appropriate comparisons. In this article, we use data from two waves of the Mexican Family Life Survey (MxFLS) to compare the health of current migrants from Mexico with those of earlier migrants and nonmigrants. Because the longitudinal data permit us to examine short-term changes in health status subsequent to the baseline survey for current migrants and for Mexican residents, as well as to control for the potential health selectivity of migrants, the results provide a clearer picture of the consequences of immigration for Mexican migrant health than have previous studies. Our findings demonstrate that current migrants are more likely to experience recent changes in health status-both improvements and declines-than either earlier migrants or nonmigrants. The net effect, however, is a decline in health for current migrants: compared with never migrants, the health of current migrants is much more likely to have declined in the year or two since migration and not significantly more likely to have improved. Thus, it appears that the migration process itself and/or the experiences of the immediate post-migration period detrimentally affect Mexican immigrants' health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite widespread use of measures of social status and increasing interest in the relationship between social status and health, the variables used to denote social status are often inappropriate for use with older populations. This article examines responses to a recently developed measure of subjective social position, known as the MacArthur Scale of Subjective Social Status. The instrument asks respondents to use ten rungs of a ladder to position themselves socioeconomically relative to other people in their country and, separately, in their community. These questions were incorporated into a recent national survey of middle-aged and older adults in Taiwan. The objectives of the analysis were to gain a better understanding of how such subjective assessments are formed (i.e., to explore the contribution of social, economic, and cultural factors in the determination of position within a social hierarchy) and to assess the potential utility of the ladder instrument in social science and health research. This article compares results from Taiwan with those derived from subjective measures of social status in Western populations. The findings support use of the MacArthur Scale of Subjective Social Status as a measure of subjective social status among the older population and suggest that using it may provide further insights into the social gradient in health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The allostatic load framework postulates that an important pathway connecting the social environment with health involves biological responses to stressful stimuli and the subsequent dysregulation of interrelated physiological systems. We formulate a new measure for cumulative physiological dysregulation using a grade of membership model estimated with biodemographic data from a national sample of older Taiwanese persons. We investigate associations between the measure and physical, psychological, and cognitive function. The results provide insights into the relationships between a set of biological profiles and various health outcomes, identify limitations of earlier approaches, and underscore next steps in the development of improved for mulations of physiological dysregulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on family choices about pregnancy-related care, and the use of childhood immunization in Guatemala. In Guatemala, as in many countries, the public and the private sectors developed alongside and generally in isolation from several other preexisting medical belief and treatment systems. Although the use of government health services and private formal practitioners appears to have grown over the past two decades, the use of formal medical services is still low relative to other Latin American countries, and traditional providers remain a common source of treatment. Guatemalan families typically are poor and have limited access to health services. Among the family's social and economic characteristics, the respondent's education is related most consistently to use of prenatal care, delivery assistance, and immunization. More highly educated women are both more likely to use any kind of care and more likely to use formal care and to have their children immunized completely. Mothers who have worked outside the household are also more likely to use formal delivery care and to have their children immunized fully. The effects of the husband's characteristics are mostly consistent with hypothesized relationships. In particular, women whose husbands completed at least some secondary school are much more likely than others to seek formal pre-natal and delivery care, and their children are more likely to have received at least some immunizations.

Researchers have long wondered whether marital-status differences in mortality arise largely from selection mechanisms or from causal processes typically known as marriage protection. Unfortunately, many investigators have relied on aggregate patterns of mortality differentials--such as age schedules of excess mortality in the single population or the relationship between the level of excess mortality and the relative size of the single population--to make inferences about the relative importance of selection and causal processes. In this paper, a simple mathematical simulation model is used to demonstrate that many inferences derived from observed patterns are simply not justified. This finding highlights the importance of prospective data for assessing the relative importance of selection and causal factors in accounting for the excess mortality of the unmarried. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the greater longevity of married people as compared with unmarried persons has been demonstrated repeatedly, there have been very few studies of a comparative nature. We use log-linear rate models to analyze marital-status-specific death rates for a large number of developed countries. The results indicate that divorced persons, especially divorced men, have the highest death rates among the unmarried groups of the respective genders; the excess mortality of unmarried persons relative to the married has been generally increasing over the past two to three decades; and divorced and widowed persons in their twenties and thirties have particularly high risks of dying, relative to married persons of the same age. In addition, the analysis suggests that a selection process is operating with regard to single and divorced persons: the smaller the proportion of persons who never marry or who are divorced, the higher the resulting death rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mathematical derivations described in this paper offer a new look at the entropy of the life table, denoted by H. Contrary to previous claims, it is theoretically possible, and has been observed empirically, for life tables to have entropy values greater than unity. A re-expression of H as a weighted average of life expectancy at different ages relative to life expectancy at birth demonstrates clearly the conditions under which reductions in mortality by a fixed amount at all ages can result in even greater gains in life expectancy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Life table calculations from survey data are frequently based on events for which exact dates are not available. When these dates are coded in monthly form (e.g., century months), estimates should take into account the fact that the first duration interval--the interval which captures events occurring in the first month of exposure--is half the length of all remaining intervals. Although failure to do so has a trivial effect on many demographic calculations, estimates which are based on events which occur with high frequency in the first few months of exposure can be substantially biased. Estimates of fecundability for four countries in the World Fertility Survey are used to illustrate this bias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new interpretation of mathematical formulas developed by Keyfitz illustrates how the concept of entropy (H) can be applied to the analysis of marriage dissolution. The quantities H(divorce) and H(widowhood) indicate the changes in marriage duration which would result from small, constant changes in duration-specific divorce and widowhood rates, respectively. An examination of values for the United States, Nepal and Colombia illustrates the utility of H(i) in assessing the impact of changes in widowhood and divorce and clarifies the relationship between H and changes in life expectancy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using formulas which measure life cycle characteristics of widowhood as a function of life table survivorship and age at marriage, we illustrate changes in patterns of widowhood and widowerhood since 1950, as well as differences by race, by age of bride and of groom, and by age differences between spouses. Although the current inequality in the risks of widowhood and widowerhood for the average couple is mostly due to sex differences in mortality, a one year age difference between spouses has about the same impact as does a one year difference in life expectancy. Calculations based on current distributions of age of groom by age of bride indicate that the older the age of groom, the greater the age difference between spouses and the higher the likelihood of a woman outliving her husband: the typical groom who marries in his fifties faces a 4 to 1 chance that he will be outlived by his spouse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An analysis of marital histories from World Fertility Survey data in Colombia, Panama, and Peru indicates a high level of union dissolution: the probabilities of a first union ending by separation within twenty years of the onset of union equal .27, .40, and .18 in the three countries respectively. Dissolution probabilities are especially high among women with young ages at first union and among women residing in urban areas. For all subgroups studied, consensual unions are characterized by several times the risk of separation of legal marriages. Consensual unions are especially frequent among women in rural areas, women with little education and women who enter unions at young ages. The different prevalence of consensual unions among the different subgroups affects the associations between union stability and various correlates so that it becomes essential to investigate the factors affecting union stability for both consensual unions and legal marriages. In spite of high dissolution rates, remarriage rates in all three countries are also high, as are the percentages of time spent in a union. Hence, the potential effects of voluntary disruption of unions on fertility appear to be modest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on stable population theory, a mathematical relationship is developed between the intrinsic rate of increase (r) of a population and the ratio (Z) of the average number of younger sisters ever born to the average number of older sisters ever born, for a random sample of women in the population. This mathematical formula is then converted into a technique for estimating r from data on numbers of sisters. The extent to which the technique may be generalizable to actual populations is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article the authors respond to the comments made by S. Mitra, a sociology professor, on their paper entitled "A New Look at Entropy and the Life Table." The concept of entropy as it has been adapted in population studies is a means of measuring the impact on vital rates of changes in demographic parameters. The tool was earlier used in discussing the Taeuber paradox, the alteration in life expectancy was quantified due to a sudden mortality change. The following year Mitra published a short note that focused on an approximation to life expectancy (H). Embedded in his derivations were some of authors' major findings, but unfortunately, their implications were never discussed and apparently went unnoticed. For example, Mitra gave the values of H for six levels of the Coale and Demeny West Model Life Tables but never commented on the fact that some of the values exceeded unity-in spite of the fact that previously published work stated that H was bounded by one. Several subsequent publications have continued to commit this error. One of the major objectives of this paper was to dispel the notion that H cannot exceed one.