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Population and Development Review

December 2009, Vol. 35, No. 4

Articles

• The End of “Lowest-Low” Fertility? / Joshua R. Goldstein, Tomáš Sobotka, Aiva Jasilioniene
  
  Total fertility rates fell to previously unseen levels in a large number of countries beginning in the early 1990s. The persistence of TFRs below 1.3 raised the possibility of rapid population aging and decline. We discuss the recent widespread turnaround in so-called lowest-low-fertility countries in Europe and East Asia. The number of countries with TFRs below 1.3 fell from 21 in 2003 to five in 2008. Moreover, the upturn in the TFR was not confined to lowest-fertility countries, but affected the whole developed world. We explore the demographic explanations for the recent rise in TFRs stemming from fertility timing effects as well as economic, policy, and social factors. Although the current economic downturn may suppress TFRs in the short run, we conclude that formerly lowest-low-fertility countries will continue to see increases in fertility as the transitory effects of shifts to later childbearing become less important. [35, no. 4 (Dec 09): 663–699] (offsite link*)

• Welfare Regimes for Aging Populations: No Single Path for Reform / Mehmet F. Aysan, Roderic Beaujot
  
  We consider recent trends in pension policies in OECD countries in light of demographic aging associated with welfare regime type (Liberal, Social Democratic, Continental, and Southern European). These regime types represent different responsibilities assumed for social security on the part of the market, the state, and the family. While there are significant differences in labor market characteristics, the demographic similarities in aging bring similar pressures for pension reforms across OECD countries. These reforms address fiscal issues in state pensions, typically by increasing the length of the working life, placing more of the pension responsibility on individuals, or converting to defined-contribution approaches. Our study shows that there is no single path for pension reform. While there are some variations, welfare states tend to follow their traditional paths, which differ across welfare regime types. [35, no. 4 (Dec 09): 701–720] (offsite link*)

• Latin America and the Social Contract: Patterns of Social Spending and Taxation / Karla Breceda, Jamele Rigolini, Jaime Saavedra
  
  This article analyzes the incidence of social spending and taxation by income quintile for seven Latin American countries, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Absolute levels of social spending in Latin America are fairly flat across income quintiles, a pattern similar to that in the United States and differing from the more progressive pattern of spending in the United Kingdom. The structure of taxation in Latin America is also similar to that of the United States. Because of high income inequality in Latin America and the US, the rich bear of most the burden, whereas the United Kingdom taxes the middle class to a greater extent. The analysis suggests that many Latin American countries are trapped in a vicious cycle in which the rich resist the expansion of the welfare state (because they bear most of its tax burden without receiving commensurate benefits), and their opposition to its expansion in turn maintains long-term inequalities.  [35, no. 4 (Dec 09): 721–748] (offsite link*)

• Homicide Rates in a Cross-Section of Countries: Evidence and Interpretations / Julio H. Cole, Andrés Marroquín Gramajo
  
  This study uses a regression analysis to explore the cross-country variation in homicide rates for a large sample of countries. It starts by identifying seven significant regional variables, to which traditional socioeconomic, cultural, and institutional variables are added and tested. The importance of institutions, culture, and other factors affecting homicide rates is discussed. One unexpected finding is a curious relationship between the level of education and homicide rates: while an increase in male education tends to reduce homicide rates, an increase in female education tends to increase homicides. Several possible interpretations for this phenomenon are proposed. The study points to relatively unexplored areas of research in order to better understand homicide variation around the world. [35, no. 4 (Dec 09): 749–776] (offsite link*)

Notes and Commentary

• Legacy, Policy, and Circumstance in Fertility Transition / Geoffrey McNicoll
  
  Divergent fertility trends in the course of development are commonly ascribed to differences in state action—that is, to government policy, deliberate or inadvertent. However, fertility outcomes can also, often more persuasively, be traced to differences in cultural and institutional inheritance and in the supply and growth potential of human capital. These are materials that states and societies find themselves endowed with—in brief, their legacy. In reality, legacy and policy are interwoven: policy actions build on some legacy elements and attempt to combat others. And there is a third set of factors influencing fertility outcomes, covering distinctive features of the economic and geopolitical environment and essentially fortuitous events—together termed circumstance. Legacy and circumstance can shrink or shift the policy space, helping to explain past failures in policy achievement. These broad considerations are the basis for a sketch of East Asian/sub-Saharan African contrasts in fertility transition over the last 50 years. The sketch points to missing avenues of policy action in the African case in seeking to overcome legacy obstacles. [35, no. 4 (Dec 09): 777–795] (offsite link*)

Data and Perspectives

• The Gendered Double Standard of Aging in US Marriage Markets / Paula England, Elizabeth Aura McClintock
  
  Using data on marriages collected in most US states between 1970 and 1988, we show that the older men are when they marry, the more years senior to their brides they are, whether it is a first or higher-order marriage. While older men with more education marry down in age slightly more than less educated older men, the pattern of men marrying further down if they marry later holds strongly for all education groups. We consider several possible explanations for the tendency of men to marry further down in age if they are older at marriage. While we have no direct measure of physical attractiveness, we argue that the most compelling interpretation is that men, more than women, evaluate potential spouses on the basis of appearance. Because the prevailing standard of beauty favors young women, the older men are when they marry, the less they find women their own age attractive relative to younger women, leading them to marry further down in age if they are older at marriage. The consequence for women of men’s preference for youth is more often that they remain unmarried than that they end up married to much older or less educated men.[35, no. 4 (Dec 09): 797–816] (offsite link*)

Archives (offsite link*)

• Frank P. Sargent on Problems of Immigration in the Early Twentieth Century
  
  The immigration debate in the present-day United States is concerned largely with how best to limit illegal entry and with what to do about the substantial stock of undocumented migrants (some 12 million, by recent estimates) now living in the country. The larger issues of the magnitude of total net migration and its effect on population size and distribution receive much less attention—this despite the Census Bureau’s projection of a US population increase of 100 million by mid-century, principally through immigration. And in mainstream public discourse the ethnic composition and settlement patterns of legal entrants, while certainly of interest, are rarely seen as controversial.
  
  In the America of a century ago, matters were very different. In the first decade of the twentieth century, when US natural increase had fallen to 1.3 percent per year, the annual immigration rate averaged 1.0 percent—a rate that surpassed earlier peaks in the 1850s and 1880s. (It was also well above the average rate for any subsequent decade. Recent net immigration, including illegals, is difficult to gauge but has probably averaged around 0.4 percent annually over the last two decades.) More important politically, migrant composition had shifted: Russia, Austria-Hungary, and Italy were the new dominant sending regions, far outweighing Northern and Western Europe. In the popular racial attitudes of the time, reflected in the article from 1904 reprinted below, these “Mediterranean and Slavic” entrants were poorer stock than the “Teutonic and Celtic” migrants who came before.
  
  The article, entitled “Problems of immigration,” appeared in Volume 24 (July 1904) of the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Its author was Frank P. Sargent (1854–1908), at the time and until his death the US Commissioner General of Immigration. The views expressed parallel some of those extant today: framed in humane terms, but soon getting to selection desiderata (“able-bodied, law-abiding and thrifty” and, elsewhere, “intelligent, industrious and sturdy”) and to concern about effects on order and security. And on wages: the post of commissioner was seen as a union bailiwick (Sargent was formerly head of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen), with responsibilities that extended to enforcing measures such as the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, designed to protect workers from the threat of cheap labor from abroad.
  
  The social impact of immigration largely hinges on settlement patterns and the pace of assimilation. Sargent saw a role for the Bureau of Immigration in seeking to prevent migrants from forming “alien colonies in our great cities,” directing them instead to “open and sparsely settled country.” Needless to say, no instruments for accomplishing that end were at hand. Assimilation—and suburbanization, if not rustication—took place anyway, ethnic enclaves for the most part turning out to be temporary refuges. A similar process is foreseen by many observers of the large post-1965 legal inflows to the United States. (Whether the same will be true of current immigration to Western Europe is arguably less clear—see for instance the skepticism expressed by Christopher Caldwell in his Reflections on the Revolution in Europe, reviewed in this issue.)

Book Reviews (offsite link*)

• Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West / Christopher Caldwell
  Reviewed by Eric Kaufmann
• The Marriage-Go-Round: The State of Marriage and the Family in America Today / Andrew J. Cherlin
  Reviewed by Edward Shorter
• Mortal Coil: A Short History of Living Longer / David Boyd Haycock
  Reviewed by James R. Carey

Short Reviews (offsite link*)

• Portfolios of the Poor: How the World’s Poor Live on $2 a day / Daryl Collins, Jonathan Morduch, Stuart Rutherford, and Orlanda Ruthven
• Anthropology and Climate Change: From Encounters to Actions / Susan A. Crate and Mark Nuttall (eds.)
• Gender Equality: Transforming Family Divisions of Labor / Janet C. Gornick and Marcia K. Meyers (eds.)
• The New Global Frontier: Urbanization, Poverty and Environment in the 21st Century / George Martine, Gordon McGranahan, Mark Montgomery, and Rogelio Fernández-Castilla (eds.)
• Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa / Dambisa Moyo
• Oil: A Beginner’s Guide / Vaclav Smil
• International Handbook of Population Aging / Peter Uhlenberg (ed.)
• 2009 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction: Risk and Poverty in a Changing Climate / United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction Secretariat

Documents (offsite link*)

• FAO’s Director-General on How to Feed the World in 2050
  
  According to the most recent estimate of the Food and Agriculture Organization, the worldwide number of undernourished persons in 2009 is 1.02 billion; this figure is greater than at any time since 1970, the earliest year for which comparable statistics are available. Reducing that number and coping with the added demand for food that continuing population growth will generate (expected to bring the global total to 9.1 billion by 2050) represent a major challenge for agriculture. A number of additional factors—rising incomes per capita, rapid urbanization, increasing use of food crops for the production of biofuels, and uncertainties associated with climate change—amplify that challenge. A statement by FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf, addressing a high-level expert forum titled How to Feed the World in 2050, held 12–13 October in preparation for the World Summit on Food Security convened in Rome on 16–18 November 2009, provides a concise summary of the main issues confronting world agriculture («http://www.fao.org/wsfs/forum2050/wsfs-forum/en»). The experience of the most recent years, marked by steeply increased food prices, Diouf argues, demonstrates the fragility of the world food system and the need for more effective policies to promote food production, including international action. With the omission of short opening and closing paragraphs, the statement is reproduced below.

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To read abstracts or search contents of previous volumes, visit Wiley-Blackwell (volumes 1999-2009) or JSTOR (volumes 1975-2006).

Population and Development Review Supplements

Population Aging, Human Capital Accumulation, and Productivity Growth
Prskawetz, Bloom, and Lutz, eds., 2008
Studies included cover the broad economic significance of the global aging of the work force. (more) (contents)
vii + 326 pp., $25.00

The Political Economy of Global Population Change, 1950–2050
Demeny and McNicoll, eds., 2006
Explores the international political dimensions of the population explosion and its aftermath. (contents)
viii + 288 pp., $21.00

Aging, Health, and Public Policy: Demographic and Economic Perspectives
Waite, ed., 2004
Explores the economic, demographic, and epidemiological aspects of population aging trends and consequences. (downloadable contents)
vii + 265 pp., $21.00

Life Span: Evolutionary, Ecological, and Demographic Perspectives
Carey and Tuljapurkar, eds., 2003
Explores the subject of the life span, both human and animal, by bringing together research conducted by scholars from many disciplines. (downloadable contents)
Available online from JSTOR (offsite link)
xi + 293 pp., $18.00

Population and Environment: Methods of Analysis
Lutz, Prskawetz, and Sanderson, eds., 2002
This book represents the first systematic collection of population–environment methodologies and includes eight essays by demographers, social scientists, and environmental scientists.
Available online from JSTOR (offsite link)
vii + 251 pp., $18.00

Global Fertility Transition
Bulatao and Casterline, eds., 2001
Explores the factors underlying fertility transition, analyzes recent trends, and considers the implications for future projections.
Available online from JSTOR (offsite link)
xi + 340 pp., $18.00

Population and Economic Change in East Asia
Chu and Lee, eds., 2000
This volume, which analyzes the interplay between economic and demographic trends in East Asia, is novel in treating population aging as an integral part of the region's demographic transition.
Available online from JSTOR (offsite link)
ix + 320 pp., $15.00

Frontiers of Population Forecasting
Lutz, Vaupel, and Ahlburg, eds., 1998
Reexamination of the procedures of population forecasting in response to emerging demands. Addresses key issues: What population characteristics beyond the standard variables of age and sex should routinely enter population forecasts? When should forecasts take account of economic or environmental feedbacks? How is forecasting accuracy to be assessed and what is the past record? What is the state of the art of stochastic time series modeling of population change? How can users cope with probability distributions? What scope is there for application of methods to incorporate expert opinion into population forecasting?
Available online from JSTOR (offsite link)
vii + 199 pp., $15.00

Fertility in the United States: New Patterns, New Theories
Casterline, Lee, and Foote, eds., 1996
Assessment of substantial and unappreciated changes in US fertility behavior during the past two decades, with new frameworks and theories for interpreting these changes.  (more)
Available online from JSTOR (offsite link)
vii + 340 pp., $20.00

The New Politics of Population: Conflict and Consensus in Family Planning
Finkle and McIntosh, eds., 1994
An examination of the major issues and actors—political and religious leaders, feminists, and others—and the events that have shaped global trends in family planning policies and programs in recent decades.
Out of print; available online from JSTOR (offsite link)
vii + 276 pp.

Resources, Environment, and Population: Present Knowledge, Future Options
Davis and Bernstam, eds., 1990
Explores impending problems and interrelations between population trends, resource use, and environmental consequences.
Out of print; available online from JSTOR (offsite link)
xii + 421 pp.

Rural Development and Population
McNicoll and Cain, eds., 1990
Investigation of the ways in which the institutional configurations of societies influence the relationships between population dynamics and rural social and economic change.
Out of print; available online from JSTOR (offsite link)
vii + 366 pp.

Population and Resources in Western Intellectual Traditions
Teitelbaum and Winter, eds., 1988
An examination of the intersection of science and ideology in the development of Western thought on population, resources, and the environment since the industrial revolution.
Out of print; available online from JSTOR (offsite link)
vii + 310 pp.

Below-Replacement Fertility in Industrial Societies: Causes, Consequences, Policies
Davis, Bernstam, and Ricardo-Campbell, eds., 1986
Systematic discussions of the demographic effects of below-replacement fertility with efforts to explain its social origins, to determine the likely societal consequences, and to assess potential policy responses.
Out of print; available online from JSTOR (offsite link)
x + 360 pp.

Child Survival: Strategies for Research
Mosley and Chen, eds., 1984
In all poor countries, malnutrition and infectious diseases are the major biological processes leading to child deaths; but the social, economic, and environmental determinants of the variations in these conditions in different societies are poorly understood. This supplement contains papers by specialists within two separate disciplines—demography and epidemiology—primarily concerned with investigating such topics.
Out of print; available online from JSTOR (offsite link)
ix + 416 pp.

Income Distribution and the Family
Ben-Porath, ed., 1982
Addresses the important question of how family composition and related demographic processes affect and are affected by the generation and distribution of income in developing countries, and examines the difficult technical and conceptual issues involved in analyzing these relationships.
Out of print; available online from JSTOR (offsite link)
vii + 248 pp.

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