Sociological Focus

Using a sociodemographic model of the determinants of illegitimacy rates, a multivariate regression analysis of annual change in age-specific Swedish illegitimacy rates is applied to the 1911-74 period. The proxy measure of change in sexual activity was significant for all age groups. Legitimation rates for out-of-wedlock conceived births were significant for all ages except teenagers, and the final predictor, women's status, was significant for all ages except women 35-44. Explained variance for annual change was highest among ages 20-24 (66%), 25-29 (66%), and 30-34 (63%) and lower among teens (34%) and women 35-44 (47%). These results support earlier research that used a sociodemographic model to explain post-World War II change in cross-national illegitimacy rates among 23 developed countries.

The relationship between unemployment and suicide in the United States is examined. Data for the period 1948 to 1978, primarily from the U.S. Public Health Service, are used to examine the effect of the duration of unemployment on suicide. "The results of a Cochrane-Orcutt iterative regression analysis indicate that the greater the duration of unemployment the greater the suicide rate. Using ex post forecasting techniques it is estimated that increases in unemployment during the Reagan administration have been associated with at least 929 additional deaths from suicide."

Using census tracts as the basic unit of analysis and multiple regression techniques this study examines the relationship between infant mortality and socioeconomic status in Toledo, Ohio for the years centering around 1950 and 1970. The analysis shows that socioeconomic status is inverse and more strongly related to infant mortality in 1970 than in 1950 as measured by education and income. These increases occurred for both neonatal and postneonatal mortality. Occupation did not yield any significant relationships. These findings differ from the expectations of several studies carried out in the 1960s and clearly demonstrate the need for continuous research on this vital topic.

This study is concerned with the debate over the supremacy of organizational versus environmental models for explaining population change within the context of metropolitan-nonmetropolitan turnaround migration. A sample of U.S. metropolitan areas is classified by a migration typology that considers sign changes or consistencies in rates of net migration between the 1960s and 1970s. "Four categories result and organizational, environmental and technological data are analyzed utilizing ridge regression with interaction terms to ascertain whether structural differences among migration categories exist." The study shows that organizational factors are more relevant for urban areas experiencing in-migration, and environmental factors are more relevant for those experiencing out-migration.

This paper presents the results of an ecological analysis of the relationship between infant mortality and economic status in a metropolitan aggregate comprised of six of the larger cities in Ohio covering the years 1979–81 and 1989–91. The primary analytical unit was the census tract of mother's usual residence. The independent variable was defined as the percentage of low-income families in each tract at the censuses of 1980 and 1990; the dependent variable data were counts of the number of deaths under age one in the three years centering on the censuses and counts of the number of live births during the census years. Results of the analysis revealed, first of all, that there continues to be a clear and pronounced inverse association between the aggregate economic status of an area and the probability that a newborn infant will not survive the first year of life. There are, however, some noteworthy race-cause differences. In general, the differential is much more marked for whites than for nonwhites; and there are a great many variations among the patterns of the relationship exhibited by the four leading causes of infant mortality. Only one cause, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, stood out as having a generally consistent and very strong inverse relationship with economic status. A conclusion discusses the implications of these findings in terms of some of the problems we face in trying to narrow the overall economic status differential.

"This study examines distance of 1975-80 interstate migration [in the United States] and several explanations for the relations between distance and characteristic of migrants and locations.... Observations are individual records from the 1980 one-in-ten-thousand PUMS files. The sample is restricted to nonblack, noninstitutionalized head of households, age 25 to 64 in 1980.... We find outmigration is shaped by characteristics of individuals; however, distance of migration is shaped by characteristics at locations. Findings lend support to an interpretation of distance reflecting psychic costs and information and are consistent with a cost/benefit view of factors contributing to distance of migration."

Kelly and Cutright (1983), using regression techniques, conclude that birth control is among the more important determinants of Swedish illegitimacy. To derive this conclusion, they use changes in the marital fertility of wives aged 35-39 as a proxy for birth control. They maintain that annual change in the marital fertility rate of wives aged 35-39 is not likely to be greatly influenced by annual change in factors other than birth control. The "argument" appears to derive from the "desired family size" model of childbearing--a basic assumption of social demography. In it simplest form it states that most couples do not practice birth control until they reach a preconceived goal, or desired family size. It thus implies that a change in family size preferences will most affect the birth control practices of the oldest reproductive age groups. The simple form of the model has been questioned by the failure of Western couples to reproductively compensate for a major proportion of their child deaths, by the proportions of Western couples who say they would have preferred larger families than they actually had, by the predictive inadequacy of family size preferences, and by suggestions that age may be the more important determinant of reproduction. As a result some demographers now concede its inadequacy. Others are trying to relax its assumptions, with as yet problematic success. Essentially every Western fertility decline to date has been characterized by an increasing concentration of childbearing in the youngest age groups. In discussing this pattern social demographers have maintained that it could only have come about by a decline in family size preferences. This then is the standard argument supporting Kelly and Cutright's proxy for birth control. The authorities who offer it generally ignore the difficulties with the desired family size model and simply assert without justification that couples do in fact conform to it. Data on the age patterns of chronic disease and on the reproductive effects of environmental stressors suggest that the modern age pattern of fertility could also be produced by a deteriorating environment. Kelly and Cutright are incorrect in asserting that factors other than voluntary birth control could not be responsible for changes in fertility at ages 35-39. At best they may argue that their proxy is uniquely definitive provided that the desired family size model can be saved and provided the health of Western populations has not been compromised by technological change. At issue is a debate between what Dunlap calls the human exemptionalist and the ecological world views.

PIP A number of factors have retarded the acceptance of birth control methods among peasant communities in Egypt: 1) the religious world-view of the peasant discourages him from interfering with the natural process of procreation; 2) the large family is important socially and economically in peasant society for strength and security and for the distribution of labor; 3) the status of a married woman depends to a great extent on the number of children, particularly the number of sons, she bears; and 4) in the Egyptian village, the midwife discourages the use of contraception. Acceptance and utilization of birth control methods in Egypt are directly proportionate to the level of education of the individual. The better the economic status of the family, the smaller the family is likely to be. Demographically, the closer a family lives to Cairo, the more likely it is that birth control techniques are being used. Egyptian family planning programs which take into consideration the difficulties of spreading the acceptance and use of contraceptives in traditional societies are discussed.

The effects of the changing spatial distribution of the population in the United States are examined. "Hypotheses concerning the changing relationship of sustenance organization components and nonmetropolitan net migration rates between the 1960s and 1970s are tested. Multiple regression analysis reveals the following changes in the demographic impact of five types of economic activity from the 1960s to the 1970s: manufacturing--positive to insignificant; agriculture and mining--negative to positive; service--positive effect increases; and retail--insignificant for both periods." The author notes that "the introduction of settlement pattern characteristics as control variables does not change these relationships. The [R squared] for all the sustenance activity variables taken as a whole is 21 percent for 1960 and six percent for 1970, suggesting that alternatives to the traditional explanations of nonmetropolitan demographic change should be more fully developed."

Most analyses of racial and ethnic disparities in healthcare focus on individuals rather than organizations. Healthcare organizations may be one mechanism that produces disparities if the representation of minorities within organizations' patient populations is associated with differential patterns of service delivery. This research considers whether the racial and ethnic composition of addiction treatment centers' caseloads is associated with the likelihood that organizations offer any prescription medications to treat addiction, psychiatric conditions, or pain. Data were collected from 288 publicly-funded substance abuse treatment centers in the US. Logistic regression was used to estimate models of medication availability. The percentage of racial and ethnic minority patients was negatively associated with the odds of medication availability, even after controlling for organizational characteristics and patients' diagnostic characteristics. Future research should continue to investigate how healthcare organizations may produce inequalities in access to high-quality care.

PIP The author argues that Vietnamese patriarchal views regarding gender roles have led to greater educational advancement among Vietnamese women as compared to men in the US. Data for this study were obtained from the 1990 census and from interviews in 1994 at two high schools located near a Vietnamese community and at a public high school for honor students. The survey sample included 402 Vietnamese students from the three schools. The sample was 90% of all Vietnamese students enrolled at these schools and 75% of high school students living in the neighborhood near the schools. Census data showed that Vietnamese women over age 25 were more likely than similarly aged men to have less than a high school education or a college education. The education gap between men and women declined among the population aged under 25 years. Among married men and women aged 16-24 years, there were few gender differences in the proportion of school drop outs. However, among the unmarried aged 16-24 years, young women were significantly more likely to be enrolled in college and were less likely to drop out of school. Among the sample student population, findings indicate that female students had significantly higher grades and spent more time on home work. Census reports reveal that women were more likely both to report the lack of plans for college and to report that college was very important to them. Fathers stressed the importance of obedience until marriage and achievement among daughters. Fathers expected daughters to advance educationally for a number of reasons. Mothers agreed with fathers that the education and employment of women was not a rejection of traditional Vietnamese values. Mothers believed that daughters would be increasing their potential resources by improving their educational status. Adolescent males held more traditional attitudes towards wives as mothers. Young women reported stricter social controls of behavior from parents.

This article examines key aspects of the school environment - its composition by ethnicity and acculturation - as important social contexts for understanding Mexican immigrant and Mexican American adolescents' drug use norms and behaviors. Results are presented based on surveys completed by Mexican-background students from 35 Phoenix. Arizona middle schools, whose enrollment ranged from a numerical minority to an overwhelming majority. Multivariate mixed models tested for the influence of school ethnic composition measures on substance use outcomes, while accounting for individual level predictors and for the nesting of data at the school level. The proportional representation of Latinos in the school was not a factor in an individual's drug use norms or drug use for the sample overall. Once students were broken down by acculturation status, however, ethnic composition had an effect. Less acculturated Mexican heritage students in schools with higher proportions of Latino students reported less substance use and less adherence to pro-drug norms. Further investigation using other measures of ethnic composition suggested that these effects were attributable to the larger presence of less acculturated Latinos in the school rather than more acculturated Latino students. These school-level effects support the individual-level results indicating that less acculturated Mexican American students face less daunting substance use risks. The results suggest that ethnic group size, but not necessarily numerical predominance, matters and that within-group differences influence the effect of a particular ethnic group's presence in the school. In other words, the majority does not always rule. These findings are interpreted using the concepts of segmented assimilation and school level social capital.

PIP Data from the 1988 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey were used to analyze the relationship between relative power of spouses and agreement or disagreement on future fertility desires. The data do not allow a comprehensive assessment of actual sources of power. Three types of status differentials that might influence fertility decisions were studied: age, occupation, and education. 864 husband-wife pairs, in which both stated their preference to have or not have another child, were studied. Most men were considerably older and better educated than their wives, and 8% of men vs. 2% of women had jobs in the highest status category. 69.2% of couples agreed they wanted another child and 13.5% agreed they did not. In 5.8% of couples disagreeing, the wife, but not the husband, wanted another child; in 11.5%, the husband, but not the wife, wanted another. The relative status variables were incorporated as regressors in a multinomial logistic regression to test the influence of status differences on agreement or disagreement. Limited evidence was found to back any hypothesis of a relationship between relative status of spouses and agreement or disagreement. Evidence was found, however, to support the claim that women having a higher occupational status than their husbands inclines couples toward agreeing not to have more children and away from agreement to have more. Further research is needed to clarify the meaning of disagreement and the dynamics of resolution of differences.

PIP The extent to which the traditional inverse relationship between infant mortality and socioeconomic status holds true in Kansas is examined for the years around 1950, 1960, and 1970. A social-ranking approach and correlation and regression analysis fail to confirm this inverse relationship. The authors suggest that the social organization characteristics of a rural U.S. state may provide a quality of life that transcends socioeconomic differentials.

"This study examines the relationship between black population concentration (% black), black population change and white population change for small American suburbs for the 1950-1980 period. Linear, tipping point (curvilinear) and interaction models of racial transition are evaluated for each decade by region (South and non-South), controlling for several other suburban characteristics (age, annexation and distance to the Central Business District) which may affect both black and white population change. The analyses show that racial transition in suburbs involves the parallel development of white and black populations with mainly weak and complex causal linkages which are sensitive to broader suburbanization patterns."

This study compares the fertility patterns of foreign-born and native-born women in Canada and examines whether same set of social characteristics accounts for differential fertility among both the groups. The study also assesses the importance of social characteristics and assimilation on immigrant fertility behavior. Two generations of currently married/cohabiting women with spouse present are analyzed using multiple regressions. The results reveal similar effects on fertility of social characteristics for foreign-born and native-born, while in the case of younger generations the effects are stronger. The younger generation appears to be a more adequate group for assessing the social characteristics than the older generation, although the influence of assimilation on the fertility of both the generations are minor.

Utilizing a probability sample of college students, the significance of gender as a social and demographic correlate of sex role attitudes is explored to determine: (1) its explanatory power relative to other variables and (2) its ability to condition or specify the effects of other variables. Among 13 social and demographic variables, gender explains more variance in sex role attitudes than any other predictor and also conditions the effects on sex role attitudes of social class, community size, and choice of college major. Contrary to expectations, the effects of religious affiliation are equally strong for males and females. Interpretations focus on the differential significance of family social class influences on the type of sex role conceptions endorsed by offspring.

Sloan (1984) argues that annual changes in marital fertility of Swedish wives aged 35-39 between 1911 and 1974 is not a result of annual changes in the use of birth control, but is due to changes in health conditions that increase or decrease marital fertility. As evidence of the lack of effect of contraceptive practice on fertility Sloan cites a study published in 1916 whose author concluded that contraceptive use or nonuse had no effect on family size. Sloan is unaware of the shroud of ignorance that blinded such research in the distant past. There was no accepted methodology to determine contraceptive effectiveness until the 1930s, and scientists did not know key elemental facts about human reproduction. For example, the relationship of ovulation to the risk of pregnancy was unknown in 1916, and was to remain a mystery for more than a decade thereafter. Sloan's "declining health" explanation of low fertility in the West is merely a variant of an older attempt to explain low fertility as a result of high protein intake. Sloan's view that modern couples do not contracept to reach a desired family size and that changes in family size preference will not affect birth control practice among older (or younger it appears as well) couples seems to us to be an idiosyncratic view at best and directly opposed by all survey research. Couples do contracept most effectively when they are trying to prevent an additional birth. The view that failure of some Western couples to reproductively compensate for their child deaths as explained by poor reproductive health seems to assume that couples in non-Western population do so compensate, but this is wrong. The idea that such bereaved couples should have another child is so insensitive to tragedy as to defy further reply. Sloan's acceptance and use of reports that some couples say they wanted more children than they had ignores massive research findings of unwanted fertility among couples in populations with long histories of birth control practice. Further, it is difficult to have much faith in such responses since about 1/2 the couples in the Whelpton el al. study cited by Sloan also said they were fecund. These responses mean that couples may say that they want more than they actually had, but they deliberately did not have such a large and "ideal" family size because of other factors not considered by Sloan. Since it appears that Sloan was unable to find another authority, he cites a 3 page comment of his own in support of the hypothesis of deteriorating environment. He does not actually empirically link age patterns of chronic disease with fecundity loss; his view also ignores research indicating improved health conditions, at least among US women, after the mid-1930s that increased fecundity and then fertility. Thus, his argument that factors other than voluntary birth control could explain annual change in Swedish marital fertility among older couples is unsupported by empirical evidence. His remarks are also irrelevant to the use made in the author's article concerning marital fertility rates as a proxy for the use of annual birth control change among younger unmarried women. The marital rate varies, as does the illegitimacy rate. Annual increases in marital fertility are related to annual increases in illegitimacy; annual declines in marital rates to annual declines in illegitimacy. Sloan's hypothetical trends in fecundity have no bearing on our empirical study of annual change in Swedish illegitimacy rates. Finally, Sloan's claim that social demographers do not view a changing environment as problematic is unsupported and unjustified. author's modified

Numerous authors have attempted to examine the timing of mortality in relation to socially significant events. Typically, previous findings have not adequately answered the question of why the hypothesis is often confirmed with small samples and not with large ones, what an appropriate time interval of study would be, and whether the pattern applies across year, gender, race, marital status, age and cause of death. The present study attempts to examine birthdate as the criterion date while using a large sample from official state mortality records. The total population for the present study were all deaths by natural causes in the State of Ohio for 1979, 1980, and 1981. Analyses were done by various time intervals (day, week, and year) and by examining possible patterns based on the aforementioned third variables. The findings show that there is a greater tendency for persons to die within thirty days after the date of birth than before. More specifically, there was a statistically significant pattern of increased mortality for those who were never married and for ill-defined causes of death. A theoretical foundation and a brief interpretation of these findings is offered.

PIP This study hypothesizes that "unsanctioned" births (beyond the limit authorized by the government) in China are more likely among couples who have strong traditional fertility norms and less likely among couples who adopt new family planning norms. The theoretical framework is based on cultural conflict theory as developed by Sellin. Data are obtained from 6654 ever married women aged under 49 years from the 1987 In-Depth Fertility Survey for Guangdong province. Over 30% of the sample were married before 20 years of age. 20% had 1 child, 26.7% had 2 children, about 23% had 3 children, 13.9% had 4 children, and under 10% had 5 or more children. The average number of living children was 2.5. Findings reveal that socioeconomic status was significantly related to unsanctioned births; they were more common in less developed areas and among women of lower socioeconomic status (SES). Persons living in areas with a high monetary contribution per person in family planning efforts at the county level were less likely to have unsanctioned births. Women who lived in urban areas, worked in state enterprises, and had parents with high educational status were less likely to have unsanctioned births. They were more likely among women who married at an early age, lived with parents after the marriage, had female living children, and had failed pregnancies. They were also more likely among women who had arranged marriages, a traditional desire for large family sizes, an early marriage ideal, and a preference for sons. Knowledge of family planning and greater use of abortion were related to a lower incidence of unsanctioned births. Women who talked with their husbands about their family size desires were less likely to have unsanctioned births. Parental educational attainment only had an influence among rural women. Variables impacted on fertility differently in urban and rural areas.

"The black communities of the United States have a disproportionate number of single-parent families: In point of fact, over one half of all black families with children are single-parent families; the great majority of these single-parent families are headed by females. The fastest growing segment of single parent families is young never-married females who...have incomes below the poverty line. Using a causal model analysis, this particular study undertook to compare subsamples of continuous two-parent and one-parent families to find out what intra-familial dynamics 'cause' early versus late teenage pregnancy. The results suggest that positive child-parent affect is generally associated with delayed teenage pregnancy, and negative child-parent affect is generally associated with early teenage pregnancy. Moreover, the father's influence is significant in both two-parent and one-parent families."

PIP Patterns in childlessness rates for blacks and whites in the U.S. from 1950-1972 were examined using 1940, 1950, and 1960 census data and data from Current Population Reports for 1969 and 1972. Among ever married women, aged 15-49, the proportion of childless black women declined from 29.1%-13.6% from 1940-1972, while the porportion of childless white women declined from 22.9%-14.3% from 1940-1969 and then increased slightly to 15.6% in 1972. The decline in childlessness observed for both blacks and whites during this period was attributable, at least in part, to improved medical care. When age specific rates were examined 2 diverse patterns emerged. For females, aged 15-24, childlessness rates for blacks were lower than for whites throughout 1940-1972, and the differences between blacks and whites increased over time. However, for females, aged 30-39, childlessness rates were higher for blacks than for whites throughout 1940-1972, and the gap between white and black rates decreased over time. In general the data demonstrated a convergence in childlessness patterns for blacks and whites. Childlessness rates were viewed as an indication of social integration. Childlessness is not a norm in American society. The general decline in childless rates among blacks and especially among blacks over 30 years of age indicated that the wider society was serving as a reference group for blacks. Among blacks under 25 years convergence was less apparent and indicated that younger black women were less integrated into the larger society than older black women. On the basis of recent trends it was predicted that convergence between black and white childlessness patterns would continue; however, in view of the upturn in the childlessness rate observed for whites since 1969, it was expected that the childlessness rates for both blacks and whites would increase somewhat in the coming years.

PIP Investigates the relationship among ethnicity, education, and fertility for selected Canadian ethnic groups, introducing several extensions of Johnson's recent elaboration of Goldsheider and Uhlenberg's minority group status hypothesis. The findings suggest that among Asiatics and Germans the prevailing reproductive pattern is an assimilative one relative to the British majority group. Native Indians and Dutch maintain high levels of reproduction, but at post secondary school attainment their mean family sizes converge with the British. Ukrainian, Italian, and Jewish minorities experience below average fertility, and at high levels of education it is the British group which converges with the low fertility pattern of Jews and Italians. Ukrainians differ, as their fertility is consistently below the majority group, regardless of education level.