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Socioeconomic background and war mortality during Vietnam's wars.
To understand the experience of North Vietnamese soldiers and civilians during the American war I explore the paths leading Vietnamese men into battle by considering the relationship between socioeconomic status and war mortality. I use data obtained from retrospective information on kin survival and other socioeconomic characteristics given by respondents in the 1995 Vietnam Longitudinal Survey conducted in Vietnam's Red River Delta. My findings are opposite to those often cited to describe the experience of young Americans who fought in the Vietnam war. In Vietnam, sons of better-educated fathers bore the burden of war disproportionately in relation to sons of fathers with less education, both in proportion serving in the military and in diminished survival chances in combat. The Vietnamese experience during the American war testifies to the ability of a nation to reorder society temporarily and to persuade higher-status groups to contribute fully to the war effort. An appreciation of the meaning of this social reshuffling during the American war is critical for understanding the war, Vietnam, and that country's political outlook.
(VIET NAM, WAR, DIFFERENTIAL MORTALITY, SOCIO-ECONOMIC DIFFERENTIALS).
English - pp. 1-15.
M. G. Merli, Center for Demography and Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, U.S.A.
gmerli@ssc.wisc.edu.
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The residency decision of elderly Indonesians: A nested logit analysis.
This paper is the first study of which the author is aware that examines elderly Indonesians' residency decisions. The 1993 Indonesian Family Life Survey provides detailed data on the living children of a sample of elderly individuals. This allows a nested logit to be estimated, which pays due respect to the role of children's characteristics in determining the residency outcome. The estimated earnings potentials of the parents and their children are included as explanatory variables but are not found to be important determinants of co-residency.
(INDONESIA, AGED, RESIDENCE, HOUSEHOLD COMPOSITION, COHABITATION, CHILDREN, PARENTS).
English - pp. 17-27.
L. Cameron, Department of Economics, University of Melbourne, Parkville, 3052, Vic., Australia.
l.cameron@ecomfac.unimelb.edu.au.
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LEWIS, Susan K.; OPPENHEIMER, Valerie K.
Educational assortative mating across marriage markets: Non-Hispanic whites in the United States.
Whether local marriage market conditions shape marriage behavior is a central social demographic question. Most work on this subject, however, focuses on one type of market condition -- sex ratios -- and on a single outcome -- marital timing or sorting. We examine the impact of local marriage markets' educational composition on educational assortative mating and on how sorting varies with age. We estimate a discrete-time competing-risks model of educational sorting outcomes, using individual data from the NLSY and community descriptors aggregated from census microdata. Results show that residents of educationally less favorable marriage markets are more likely to marry down on education, and that (for women) their chance of doing so increases with age more than for residents of more favorable markets.
(UNITED STATES, RACES, MARRIAGE, NUPTIALITY, MARRIAGEABLE POPULATION, LEVELS OF EDUCATION).
English - pp. 29-40.
S. K. Lewis, The Ohio State University; V. K. Oppenheimer, Department of Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles, U.S.A.
lewis@datalib.com.
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SAKAMOTO, Arthur; WU, Huei-Hsia; TZENG, Jessie M.
The declining significance of race among American men during the latter half of the twentieth century.
The extent to which racial minority groups face discrimination in the labor market is the subject of considerable debate. Using William J. Wilson's thesis of the declining significance of race as our theoretical context, we provide further empirical evidence about labor market discrimination by investigating wages among African American, American Indian, Chinese American, Hispanic white, Japanese American, and non-Hispanic white men. We find, during the period before the civil rights movement, that a substantively significant wage disadvantage is evident for these minority groups with controls for observed labor force characteristics. In recent data, these net disadvantages are reduced substantially for each of these groups except Hispanics. With the exception of Hispanics, the results support Wilson's thesis.
(UNITED STATES, RACES, MINORITY GROUPS, MEN, CULTURAL CHANGE, LABOUR MARKET, RACIAL DISCRIMINATION, WAGES).
English - pp. 41-51.
A. Sakamoto, Huei-Hsia Wu, Department of Sociology, University of Texas, Austin, TX 78712, U.S.A.; J. M. Tzeng, Department of Sociology, McGill University, Canada.
sakamoto@mail.1a.utexas.edu.
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Understanding the twentieth-century decline in chronic conditions among older men.
I argue that the shift from manual to white-collar jobs and reduced exposure to infectious disease were important determinants of declines in chronic disease rates among older men from the early 1900s to the 1970s and 1980s. The average decline in chronic respiratory problems, valvular heart disease, arteriosclerosis, and joint and back problems was about 66%. Occupational shifts accounted for 29% of the decline; the decreased prevalence of infectious disease accounted for 18%; the remainder are unexplained. The duration of chronic conditions has remained unchanged since the early 1900s, but when disability is measured by difficulty in walking, men with chronic conditions are less disabled now than they were in the past.
(CHRONIC DISEASES, TRENDS, AGED, MEN, OCCUPATIONS).
English - pp. 53-72.
D. L. Costa, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Economics, E52-274C, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA 02142, U.S.A.
costa@mit.edu.
***
Obesity, disease, and functional limitation in later life.
Little is known about the effects of obesity late in life. Using data from the Longitudinal Study of Aging and the Assets and Health Dynamics of the Oldest Old Survey, this study finds an increased prevalence of obesity, over time, among those 70 and older. Obesity is related most strongly to limitations in activities of daily living (ADLs) for women and to activities related to mobility. One ADL, eating, has a negative association to obesity. Obesity is associated with an increased prevalence of arthritis, diabetes, and hypertension. These results are cross-sectional and are based on self-reports of height and weight; they must be interpreted cautiously.
(AGED, OBESITY, DISABILITY, MORBIDITY).
English - pp. 73-82.
C. L. Himes, Center for Policy Research, Syracuse University, 426 Eggers Hall, Syracuse, NY 13244, U.S.A.
clhimes@maxwell.syr.edu.
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JOYCE, Theodore J.; KAESTNER, Robert; KORENMAN, Sanders.
The effect of pregnancy intention on child development.
In this paper we use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to investigate the empirical link between unintended pregnancy and child health and development. An important contribution of our study is the use of information on siblings to control for unmeasured factors that may confound estimates of the effect of pregnancy intentions on infant and child outcomes. Results from our study indicate that unwanted pregnancy is associated with prenatal and postpartum maternal behaviors that adversely affect infant and child health, but that unwanted pregnancy has little association with birth weight and child cognitive outcomes. Estimates of the association between unwanted pregnancy and maternal behaviors were greatly reduced after controls for unmeasured family background were included in the model. Our results also indicate that there are no significant differences in maternal behaviors or child outcomes between mistimed and wanted pregnancies.
(UNITED STATES, CHILD DEVELOPMENT, PLANNED PREGNANCY, UNPLANNED PREGNANCY, MATERNAL AND CHILD HEALTH).
English - pp. 83-94.
T. J. Joyce, R. Kaestner, and S. Korenman, Baruch College and NBER, 365 Fifth Avenue, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10016-4309, U.S.A.
robert_kaestner@baruch.cuny.edu.
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Son preference and sex composition of children: Evidence from India.
Although the effect of son preference on sex composition of children ever born is undetectable in national-level estimates that aggregate across all families, this article provides empirical evidence from India that son preference has two pronounced and predictable family-level effects on the sex composition of children ever born. First, data from India show that smaller families have a significantly higher proportion of sons than larger families. Second, socially and economically disadvantaged couples and couples from the northern region of India not only want but also attain a higher proportion of sons, if the effects of family size are controlled.
(INDIA, SEX PREFERENCE, SONS, SEX DISTRIBUTION, FAMILY SIZE).
English - pp. 95-108.
S. Clark, Population Council, One Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, New York, NY 10017, U.S.A.
sclark@popcouncil.org.
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MERLI, M. Giovanna; RAFTERY, Adrian E.
Are births underreported in rural China? Manipulation of statistical records in response to China's population policies.
Under the current family planning policy in China, the criterion for evaluating all parties involved in the birth planning system provides an incentive for everyone to see that the policy is met, either in reality through strict enforcement of family planning regulations, or statistically through manipulation of statistical records. We investigate underreporting of births in four rural counties of northern China, using data from a 1992 sample survey featuring a reproductive history. To clarify the mechanisms of underreporting, we focus on the ways in which reporting errors may affect the distribution of first births by time since marriage. The results of our investigation suggest that in three of the four counties, first-birth intervals are lengthened by underreporting of girl babies and by replacing them with second births reported as first births.
(CHINA, RURAL AREAS, BIRTH RECORDS, BIRTH REPORTING, UNDERREGISTRATION, ANTINATALIST POLICY, SEX PREFERENCE, QUALITY OF DATA).
English - pp. 109-126.
M. G. Merli, Center for Demography and Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1180 Observatory Drive, Madison, WI 53706, U.S.A.; A. E. Raftery, Department of Statistics and Department of Sociology, University of Washington, Washington, D.C., U.S.A.
gmerli@ssc.wisc.edu.
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JASSO, Guillermina; MASSEY, Douglas S.; ROSENZWEIG, Mark R.; SMITH, James P.
The New Immigrant Survey Pilot (NIS-P): Overview and new findings about U.S. legal immigrants at admission.
This paper provides an overview of the New Immigrant Survey Pilot (NIS-P), a panel survey of a nationally representative sample of new legal immigrants to the United States based on probability samples of administrative records of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). The NIS-P links survey information about immigrants' pre- and post-immigration labor market, schooling, and migratory experiences with data available from INS administrative records, including the visa type under which the immigrant was admitted. Results indicate that the procedures followed for locating, interviewing, and reinterviewing respondents yielded representative samples of new legal immigrants and high-quality data. On the basis of data obtained from the first round of the survey, we present new information never before available on the schooling and language skills of new immigrants and their earnings gains from immigration.
(UNITED STATES, PILOT SURVEYS, METHODOLOGY, IMMIGRANTS, SCHOOLING, LANGUAGES, SOCIO-ECONOMIC STATUS).
English - pp. 127-138.
G. Jasso, Department of Sociology, New York University, 269 Mercer Street, 4th floor, New York, NY 10003, U.S.A.; D. S. Massey, Department of Sociology and Population Studies Center, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, U.S.A.; M. R. Rosenzweig, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, U.S.A.; J. P. Smith, RAND, U.S.A.
jasso@is3.nyu.edu.
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