POPULATION RESEARCH AND POLICY REVIEW

United States of America (Wilmington, Delaware) 88

DECEMBER 1997 - VOLUME 16, NUMBER 6

98.88.7 - English - Andrei ROGERS and Sameer RAJBHANDARY, Population Program, Institute of Behavioral Science, Campus Box 484, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309-0484 (U.S.A.)

Period and cohort age patterns of US migration, 1948–1993: Are American males migrating less? (p. 513-530)

Has the national intercounty migration level of American males been experiencing a decline over the past half-century? What differences in age patterns have period and cohort migration schedules exhibited during this period? These fundamental questions are addressed in this paper. We find that both period and cohort levels of migration have indeed been declining, with the principal consequence for age patterns being a parallel decline in the levels of young-adult migration. American males are moving less, and their peak migration rate in the young-adult years has steadily moved to a younger age over time. (UNITED STATES, INTERNAL MIGRATION, AGE DISTRIBUTION, MEN, MIGRATION TRENDS)

98.88.8 - English - Patrick HEUVELINE, Population Studies Center, University of Pennsylvania, 3718 Locust Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104 (U.S.A.)

E-mail : heuvel@ssc.sas.upenn.edu.

Aids and population growth in sub-Saharan Africa: Assessing the sensitivity of projections (p. 531-560)

Despite different models to project the course of the AIDS pandemic and a scarcity of data to provide standard input parameters for those models, a limited consensus emerges from distinct sets of population projections. In sub-Saharan Africa, population growth rates are projected to remain positive in spite of the pandemic over the next few decades. To investigate this conclusion, alternative projections of an HIV/AIDS epidemic and its related mortality are first produced from different sets of input parameters and assumptions. Their incorporation into the population projections of a fast-growing country illustrates the robustness of projected population growth rates under very different scenarios of the future epidemic but with the common assumption that it will not affect the mortality of the uninfected population, fertility nor migration. This paper then shows that the projected growth rates are much less robust when interactions between the epidemic and the demographic regime are allowed and identifies several potential mechanisms for such interactions. In particular, it suggests that improving our confidence in the medium-term projections of the demographic impact of AIDS in the region requires less a refinement of the projections of the epidemic than a better understanding of its impact on the timing of the postulated fertility decline. (AFRICA SOUTH OF SAHARA, AIDS, POPULATION PROJECTIONS, GROWTH RATE, METHODOLOGY)

98.88.9 - English - Jessica HOLMES, Yale University (U.S.A.), and Jill TIEFENTHALER, Department of Economics, Colgate University, 13 Oak Drive, Hamilton, NY 13346-1398 (U.S.A.)

E-mail : tiefenthaler@center.colgate.edu.

Cheaper by the dozen? The marginal time costs of children in the Philippines (p. 561-578)

The important relationship between fertility rates and economic development has prompted many researchers to try and better understand the determinants of family size. It has repeatedly been shown that the costs of children, both direct and indirect, are one of the most important determinants of fertility, exerting a significantly negative effect on birth rates in both developed and developing countries. Many studies which investigate the relationship between the costs of children and family size have assumed that these costs do not vary with parity. However, there is substantial evidence that the marginal costs of children are not constant but decrease with birth order in developed countries. In this paper, the hypothesis that there are diminishing marginal time costs of children is tested using household data from the developing country setting of the Philippines. By examining the determinants of additional time spent in childcare before and after the birth of a child, it is found that the marginal time costs are not the same across households of various sizes. Firstborn children cost significantly more in terms of additional mother's time than children of higher birth orders. In addition, the time costs of the second child are found to be significantly greater than those of the third child. However, these economies of scale in childcare are limited and do not extend beyond three children. The effect of birth spacing on the marginal time costs of children is also found to be significant. (PHILIPPINES, COST OF CHILDREN, FAMILY SIZE, BIRTH ORDER, TIME BUDGET)

98.88.10 - English - Shobana RAGHUPATHY, Box 1916, Department of Sociology, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912 (U.S.A.)

E-mail : st403514@brownvm.brown.edu.

Unwanted pregnancies and preventive health care use in Thailand (p. 579-595)

Research on the consequences of unwanted pregnancies can offer useful perspectives on the need to improve and expand the range of family planning options available to women in developing countries. This paper investigates the use of maternal and child health services by women who have unwanted or mistimed pregnancies. The results of our analysis indicate that wantedness of births exerts a significant influence on health care use in Thailand, after controlling for other determinants of utilization. Women with unwanted pregnancies are less likely to seek prenatal care or receive tetanus toxide inoculations. Further, women from disadvantaged socioeconomic groups, women with high parity and those with lower educational levels have the highest proportion of unintended pregnancies. The study concludes by making suitable policy recommendations. (THAILAND, UNWANTED PREGNANCY, PREVENTIVE MEDECINE, PRENATAL CARE, MATERNAL AND CHILD HEALTH)

98.88.11 - English - Marshall H. MEDOFF, Department of Economics, California State University, Long Beach, CA 90840-4607 (U.S.A.)

E-mail : mmedoff@csulb.edu.

A pooled time-series analysis of abortion demand (p. 597-605)

This study estimates the demand for abortion in the United States using state data pooled over years 1992 and 1982. The empirical results showed that the price elasticity of abortion demand ranged from -0.70 to -0.99 and an income elasticity between 0.27 and 0.35. The demand for abortion was found (1) not to be statistically related to a woman's educational level; (2) to be higher the greater a state's taste for abortion; (3) coincident with the business cycle; and (4) not to be related to the level of a state's welfare payment. (UNITED STATES, INDUCED ABORTION, DEMAND, ECONOMIC DEMOGRAPHY)

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