A Network Approach to the Economic Models of Fertility

Since its first appearance in the late 1950s, Neoclassical economic theory of fertility, especially as exemplified by Gary Becker's model of household production function that assumed a unitary utility function of the household, has become one of the most popular paradigms to examine fertility changes. This paper intends to expand the economic model by incorporating the social network approach into the original paradigm. Social networks are crucial in determining the fertility rate of a society above and beyond parameters originally included in the neoclassical economic model in two ways. First, the extent that separate utilities of spouses could be treated in one function is, in part, dependent on the network embeddedness of spouses: intra-household network. If spouses are not embedded into each other's networks, it would be natural to drop the assumption of the unitary utility function and reformulate the decision process based on bargaining. Second, in addition to the intra-household network, inter-house networks also play a role in couple's decisions with regard to fertility. Couples need information about other couples' fertility decisions for their own and also normative pressures from other couples or friends are crucial in the dynamic process of fertility change. Social networks are a major conduit both for information and normative constraints. This paper focuses on the first kind of networks (intra-household networks) with illustrative empirical results by using the two waves of Korean Longitudinal Survey of Women and Families (KLOWF).

Consensus Making Process in the Korean Academy of Medical Sciences Guideline for Physical Impairment: Evaluation as a Social Process

The steering committee of the Korean Academy of Medical Sciences Guideline for Physical Impairment was fully aware of the social processes of disability evaluation from the beginning and thus, developed a series of strategies to examine and incorporate social property of the evaluation into the evaluation guide. Although those strategies could not be implemented to full extent because of lack of budget and time, we believe it worthwhile to share those in this paper as an example of general framework for developing disability evaluation. A series of strategies will be introduced and discussed that views the evaluation process as social per se, and propose a scheme that is designed to obtain growing legitimacy starting from core experts to expanded experts to general public. Also preliminary analyses on surveys of public attitude and experts' opinion with regard to the relative importance of each possible disability revealed the following three facts: 1) Public had difficulty weighing relative importance of many impairments. 2) Regarding some impairments including complex regional pain syndrome many doctors had varied opinions. 3) Public attitude did not always consistent with doctor's opinion. All these findings strongly suggest the need for developing strategies to draw consensus for legitimate and effective evaluation

The Korean urban rural elderly cohort study: study design and protocol

BACKGROUND: Korea is one of the fastest aging countries and is expected to become a super-aged society within 12 years. The Korean Urban Rural Elderly (KURE) study was developed to evaluate the epidemiological characteristics and establish the prevention and management of major disorders of the elderly in Korea. METHODS/DESIGN: The KURE study is a community-based prospective cohort study on health, aging, and common geriatric disorders of Korean elderly persons aged at least 65 years. To construct a cohort reflecting both urban and rural areas, we selected 2 representative communities in the country. To establish multidisciplinary approaches to geriatric health, this study was performed by researchers in the divisions of geriatrics, preventive medicine, endocrinology, and sociology. The baseline examinations began in 2012; the study will follow more than 4,000 elderly Koreans over 10 years. The first and second follow-up health examinations will be performed every 4 years. Every 2 years after each health examination, inter-assessment interview will be conducted to improve participant retention. DISCUSSION: The KURE study will provide longitudinal epidemiologic data on health, aging, and common geriatric disorders of the elderly in Korea. This is a comprehensive, multidisciplinary study of the elderly with respect to biological, physical, socio-economic, and environmental factors. The results of this study will contribute to improve public health and welfare policies for the aging society in Korea

Global injury morbidity and mortality from 1990 to 2017 : results from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017

Correction:Background Past research in population health trends has shown that injuries form a substantial burden of population health loss. Regular updates to injury burden assessments are critical. We report Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2017 Study estimates on morbidity and mortality for all injuries. Methods We reviewed results for injuries from the GBD 2017 study. GBD 2017 measured injury-specific mortality and years of life lost (YLLs) using the Cause of Death Ensemble model. To measure non-fatal injuries, GBD 2017 modelled injury-specific incidence and converted this to prevalence and years lived with disability (YLDs). YLLs and YLDs were summed to calculate disability-adjusted life years (DALYs). Findings In 1990, there were 4 260 493 (4 085 700 to 4 396 138) injury deaths, which increased to 4 484 722 (4 332 010 to 4 585 554) deaths in 2017, while age-standardised mortality decreased from 1079 (1073 to 1086) to 738 (730 to 745) per 100 000. In 1990, there were 354 064 302 (95% uncertainty interval: 338 174 876 to 371 610 802) new cases of injury globally, which increased to 520 710 288 (493 430 247 to 547 988 635) new cases in 2017. During this time, age-standardised incidence decreased non-significantly from 6824 (6534 to 7147) to 6763 (6412 to 7118) per 100 000. Between 1990 and 2017, age-standardised DALYs decreased from 4947 (4655 to 5233) per 100 000 to 3267 (3058 to 3505). Interpretation Injuries are an important cause of health loss globally, though mortality has declined between 1990 and 2017. Future research in injury burden should focus on prevention in high-burden populations, improving data collection and ensuring access to medical care.Peer reviewe

Estimating global injuries morbidity and mortality : methods and data used in the Global Burden of Disease 2017 study

Background While there is a long history of measuring death and disability from injuries, modern research methods must account for the wide spectrum of disability that can occur in an injury, and must provide estimates with sufficient demographic, geographical and temporal detail to be useful for policy makers. The Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2017 study used methods to provide highly detailed estimates of global injury burden that meet these criteria. Methods In this study, we report and discuss the methods used in GBD 2017 for injury morbidity and mortality burden estimation. In summary, these methods included estimating cause-specific mortality for every cause of injury, and then estimating incidence for every cause of injury. Non-fatal disability for each cause is then calculated based on the probabilities of suffering from different types of bodily injury experienced. Results GBD 2017 produced morbidity and mortality estimates for 38 causes of injury. Estimates were produced in terms of incidence, prevalence, years lived with disability, cause-specific mortality, years of life lost and disability-adjusted life-years for a 28-year period for 22 age groups, 195 countries and both sexes. Conclusions GBD 2017 demonstrated a complex and sophisticated series of analytical steps using the largest known database of morbidity and mortality data on injuries. GBD 2017 results should be used to help inform injury prevention policy making and resource allocation. We also identify important avenues for improving injury burden estimation in the future.Peer reviewe

Mapping local patterns of childhood overweight and wasting in low- and middle-income countries between 2000 and 2017

A double burden of malnutrition occurs when individuals, household members or communities experience both undernutrition and overweight. Here, we show geospatial estimates of overweight and wasting prevalence among children under 5 years of age in 105 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) from 2000 to 2017 and aggregate these to policy-relevant administrative units. Wasting decreased overall across LMICs between 2000 and 2017, from 8.4% (62.3 (55.1–70.8) million) to 6.4% (58.3 (47.6–70.7) million), but is predicted to remain above the World Health Organization’s Global Nutrition Target of <5% in over half of LMICs by 2025. Prevalence of overweight increased from 5.2% (30 (22.8–38.5) million) in 2000 to 6.0% (55.5 (44.8–67.9) million) children aged under 5 years in 2017. Areas most affected by double burden of malnutrition were located in Indonesia, Thailand, southeastern China, Botswana, Cameroon and central Nigeria. Our estimates provide a new perspective to researchers, policy makers and public health agencies in their efforts to address this global childhood syndemic

Replication Data for: A Network Approach to Economic Models of Fertility

Since its first appearance in the late 1950s, the neoclassical economic theory of fertility, particularly as exemplified by Gary Becker’s model of household production function that assumes a unitary utility function of the household, has become one of the most popular paradigms with which to examine fertility changes. Recently, the bargaining model that assumes separate utility functions has emerged as a strong opponent to the original paradigm. This article provides network foundation to reconcile two competing economic paradigms. Our formal model predicts that the way in which separate utilities of couples are treated in their joint childbearing decisions depends on the network embeddedness of spouses (i.e. the intra-household network). If spouses are not embedded into each other’s networks, the assumption of the unitary utility function is no longer warranted, and their decision process follows the bargaining model. However, strongly embedded couples behave as if they share the common utility function, predicted by the Becker model. Our model prediction is supported by analysis of three waves of panel data, Korean Longitudinal Survey of Women and Families, collected in South Korea where a dramatic drop in the fertility rate is reported. We find that wife’s bargaining power, measured by the income difference between couples, can exert its influence on having a new-born child only when couples’ intra-household networks are weakly embedded, whereas strongly embedded couples consistently maintain high fertility rates regardless of how much wife earns. We conclude that social networks play a significant role in shaping how neoclassical economic models of fertility work and discuss its implication to the efforts enhancing the fertility rate