Institutions and the transition to adulthood: Implications for fertility tempo in low-fertility settings

The number of countries experiencing very low fertility has been rising in recent years, garnering increasing academic, political and media attention. There is now widespread academic agreement that the postponement of fertility is a major contributing factor in the very low levels of fertility that have occurred, and yet most policy discussions have been devoted to increasing the numbers of children women have. We discuss factors in three institutions--the educational system, the labour market and the housing market--that may inadvertently have led to childbearing postponement. We highlight important components of the timing of childbearing, including its changing place within the transition to adulthood across countries and the significance of the demands of childbearing versus childrearing. Using illustrations from Europe, North America, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, we argue that the following all lead to younger childbearing: 1) an open education system whereby it is relatively easy to return to school after having dropped out for a while; 2) a shorter, smoother, easier school-to-work transition; 3) easier re-entry into the labour market after having taken time out for childrearing or any other reason; 4) greater capability of integrating childrearing into a career; 5) easier ability to obtain a mortgage with a moderately small down payment, moderately low interest rate and a long time period over which to repay the loan; and 6) easier ability to rent a dwelling unit at an affordable price. Conversely, reversing any or all of these factors would lead, other things being equal, to postponement of childbearing.

Do low survey response rates bias results? Evidence from Japan

BACKGROUND In developed countries, response rates have dropped to such low levels that many in the population field question whether the data can provide unbiased results. OBJECTIVE The paper uses three Japanese surveys conducted in the 2000s to ask whether low survey response rates bias results. A secondary objective is to bring results reported in the survey response literature to the attention of the demographic research community. METHODS Using a longitudinal survey as well as paradata from a cross-sectional survey, a variety of statistical techniques (chi square, analysis of variance (ANOVA), logistic regression, ordered probit or ordinary least squares regression (OLS), as appropriate) are used to examine response-rate bias. RESULTS Evidence of response-rate bias is found for the univariate distributions of some demographic characteristics, behaviors, and attitudinal items. But when examining relationships between variables in a multivariate analysis, controlling for a variety of background variables, for most dependent variables we do not find evidence of bias from low response rates. CONCLUSIONS Our results are consistent with results reported in the econometric and survey research literatures. Low response rates need not necessarily lead to biased results. Bias is more likely to be present when examining a simple univariate distribution than when examining the relationship between variables in a multivariate model. COMMENTS The results have two implications. First, demographers should not presume the presence or absence of low response-rate biasrather they should test for it in the context of a specific substantive analysis. Second, demographers should lobby data gatherers to collect as much paradata as possible so that rigorous tests for low response-rate bias are possible

Farming Systems and Rural Out-Migration in Nang Rong, Thailand, and Chitwan Valley, Nepal: Farming Systems and Rural Out-Migration

Using data from two post-frontier rural settings, Nang Rong, Thailand (N=2,538) and Chitwan Valley, Nepal (N=876), this paper examines agricultural push factors determining the outmigration of young people age 15 to 19. We focus on different dimensions of migration, including distance and duration. Our study examines a wide array of agricultural determinants, each with its own potential effect on migration. These determinants include land tenure, crop portfolios, animal husbandry activities, and use of farm inputs. We link these proximal causes to two underlying mechanisms: risk and amenities. We examine these determinants using separate models across settings. Our results indicate that agricultural factors are significant determinants of migration in both contexts. However, different factors operate in different settings, indicating the importance of contextual variation in explaining the manner in which risks and amenities influence agricultural determinants of migration

Universal versus economically polarized change in age at first birth : a French–British comparison

France and the United Kingdom in the 1980s and 1990s represented two contrasting institutional models for the integration of employment and motherhood: The ‘universalistic’ regime type offering subsidized child-care and maternity-leave benefits at all income levels; and the ‘means-testing’ regime type mainly offering income-tested benefits for single mothers. Using the two countries as comparative case studies, we develop and test the hypothesis that the socio-economic gradient of fertility timing has become increasingly mediated by family policy. We find increasing polarization in age at first birth by pre-childbearing occupation in the U.K. but not in France. Early first births persisted in the U.K. only among women in low-skill occupations, while shifts towards increasingly late first births occurred in clerical/secretarial occupations and above. Age at first birth increased across all occupations in France, but was still much earlier on average than for all but low-skill British mothers

Is small-scale agriculture really the main driver of deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon? Moving beyond the prevailing narrative

A key premise underlying discussion about deforestation in Amazonian Peru is that small-scale or so-called migratory agriculture is the main driver of deforestation. This premise has been expressed in government documents and public outreach events. How the Peruvian government understands drivers of deforestation in the Amazon has profound implications for how it will confront the problem. It is therefore important to critically revisit assumptions under-lying this narrative. We find that the narrative is based on remote sensing of deforestation patch sizes but not on field data, potentially conflating distinct drivers of deforestation under the umbrella of “migratory,” “small-scale,” or “subsistence” agriculture. In fact, small patches of deforested land may indicate any number of processes, including sustainable fallow management and agroforestry. Moreover, the data underlying the narrative tell us little about the actors driving these processes or their motivations. Different pro-cesses have distinct implications for environmental sustainability and require targeted policy responses. We unpack these diverse actors, geographies, and motivations of small-patch deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon and argue that differentiating among these drivers is necessary to develop appropriate policy responses. We call for researchers to revisit assumptions and critically assess the motivations of observed deforestation to appropriately target policy action

Health and the Political Agency of Women

We investigate whether women?s political representation in state legislatures improves public provision of antenatal and childhood health services in the districts from which they are elected, arguing that the costs of poor services in this domain fall disproportionately upon women. Using large representative data samples from India and accounting for potential endogeneity of politician gender and the sample composition of births, we find that a 10 percentage point increase in women?s representation results in a 2.1 percentage point reduction in neonatal mortality, and we elucidate mechanisms. Women?s political representation may be an under-utilised tool for addressing health in developing countries

Networks and Contexts: Variation in the Structure of Social Ties

A core axiom of sociology is that social structure affects and is affected by human behavior. The term "social structure" conveys two quite different meanings. One meaning is relational, involving networks of ties between individuals or groups of individuals. A second meaning refers to the contexts containing these individuals. Studies of neighborhood and community effects depend on variability in both types of social structure. Using data from multiple villages in Nang Rong, Thailand, this article documents substantial variability in network structure and shows that network structure covaries with context in meaningful ways, suggesting reciprocal effects of changes in both. Finally, it considers implications of variability in network structure, showing that social cohesion affects the likelihood of finding and interviewing former village residents

Social and spatial networks: Kinship distance and dwelling unit proximity in rural Thailand

We address a long hypothesized relationship between the proximity of individuals' dwelling units and their kinship association. Better understanding this relationship is important because of its implications for contact and association among members of a society. In this paper, we use a unique dataset from Nang Rong, Thailand which contains dwelling unit locations (GPS) and saturated kinship networks of all individuals living in 51 agricultural villages. After presenting arguments for a relationship between individuals’ dwelling unit locations and their kinship relations as well as the particulars of our case study, we introduce the data and describe our analytic approach. We analyze how kinship - considered as both a system linking collections of individuals in an extended kinship network and as dyadic links between pairs of individuals -patterns the proximity of dwelling units in rural villages. The results show that in general, extended kin live closer to one another than do unrelated individuals. Further, the degree of relatedness between kin correlates with the distance between their dwelling units. Close kin are more likely to co-reside, a fact which drives much of the relationship between kinship relatedness and dwelling unit proximity within villages. There is nevertheless suggestive evidence of a relationship between kinship association and dwelling unit proximity among kin who do not live together

Population growth and its spatial distribution as factors in the deforestation of Nang Rong, Thailand

Frontiers constitute a major source of global land cover change hot spots, with forests and grass lands being converted into agricultural uses. As such, frontiers provide an opportunity to see how people manipulate the land and their lives in the context of social, cultural and environmental constraints. This paper examines frontier settlement and land cover change in Nang Rong district, Northeast Thailand for the last half century. It uses a Cellular Automata (CA) model to explore the land cover consequences of alternative patterns of settlement in a setting where people establish dwelling units in nucleated villages and work agricultural plots that surround villages. Forested land around the center of a village is converted into agricultural uses in an inverse relationship to the distance from the village center, but frequently modified by biophysical conditions. Land at the center of the village may be reforested after the village is established as a source of shade as well as fruit and other products. Model variation in land cover change is more sensitive to the spatial reach of village households than their temporal reach, suggesting the important role that technology plays in how villagers travel to their fields (walking versus motorized transit)