James A. Palmore

Women who obtain repeat abortions: a study based on record linkage.

The proportion of induced abortions in a year that are repeat procedures rises over time, but this rate is as low as can be expected given the shortcomings of currently available contraceptives. There is no evidence that women substitute abortion for contraception. Teenagers and poor women have greater difficulty avoiding unwanted pregnancies.

The transformation of Korean child-spacing practices

Abstract In this paper the trend in child-spacing in Korea from the 1950s to the 1970s is examined by using a life-table approach and statistics from three separate surveys. Marked increases occurred in the pace of fertility at the lower parities, at the same time there were rapid declines in the pace of fertility at higher parities. A variety of factors brought about this mixture of trends. For example, the shortening of the first birth interval is partly the result of increases in the number of pre-marital pregnancies; whereas, the use of contraception lengthened intervals between births of fourth and higher orders. These trends are examined for a variety of sub-groups within Korea, and additional explanations for the changes documented are explored.

Choosing a contraceptive: method choice in Asia and the United States.

This book presents evidence from recent investigations of contraceptive method choice in a variety of countries focusing on Asia and the US. Included are discussions of psychosocial and economic approaches to understanding method choice descriptive and analytical analyses of choices and an integrative summary that concludes the volume. The 1st chapter sketches a framework for investigating contraceptive method choice. The chapters in part I describe various perspectives for interpreting individual method choices--filters you perceive when you look upward through the funnel. The 1st perspective considered in chapter 2 is the psychological which interprets choices with reference to personal attitudes and values. Chapter 3 considers physicians perceptions as they modify contraceptive choice. Distinguishable from psychological factors though also at least partly matters of perception are access considerations which define the perspective of chapter 4. Chapter 5 adopts an economic perspective in interpreting variations in choice. The chapters that follow deal with individual countries most of them Asian. Several chapters of Part I also provide comparable analysis of non-Asian countries--Egypt Mauritius Peru Jamaica and the US. In Part II the authors consider contraceptive choices in 6 Asian countries--the Republic of Korea Malaysia Thailand Sri Lanka India and Bangladesh. Part II provides a contrast in setting looking at method choice in the US.

Analyzing birth intervals: Implications for demographic theory and data collection

In the last decade, the study of birth intervals has been greatly facilitated by a rapid expansion in data availability and by improvements in analytical techniques. Unfortunately, the results emerging from individual level, empirical studies of birth interval dynamics do not correspond with the predictions of standard demographic theory. This paper reviews a series of individual level studies that find substantial socioeconomic variation in childspacing after controlling statistically for the major intermediate or proximate variables. It then offers possible explanations for the lack of fit between theory and results at the micro level, concluding that the two most likely explanations are poor measurement of the four principal proximate determinants and the exclusion of additional proximate determinants.

Determinants of Korean Birth Intervals: The Confrontation of Theory and Data

In this analysis, data from the Korean National Fertility Survey of 1974 are used to seek to explain differences in the pace of fertility in terms of differences in contraception, breastfeeding and other intermediate variables. Strong effects are found for these variables, particularly contraception. Nonetheless, virtually none of the effects of the socio-economic variables can be explained in our full model. Overall, our first models, which included only the socio-economic variables, contained 44 significant coefficients. With the introduction of the intermediate variables, only eleven of these coefficients became non-significant (while six others became significant). Thus, though using excellent data, we cannot begin to reproduce what theory predicts. The analysis suggests that this is a consequence of both measurement error and omitted intermediate variables, such as coital frequency. There are strong theoretical reasons for attempting to elucidate the mediating role of proximate variables by using ind...

The potential reduction of medical complications from induced abortion.

Reducing medical complications resulting from induced abortion by identifying the safest and most appropriate procedure(s) for each gestational age is the purpose of this study. Data on all women who had induced abortions at all hospitals in the State of Hawaii where such procedures were performed between March 11, 1970, when the new abortion law went into effect, and June 30, 1974 were analyzed. Study findings show that if the abortion procedure with the least risk of complications at each length of gestation were selected a reduction in the complication rate of nearly 30% could result.

Class and Family in a Modernizing Society

Differential in participation in extended families are presented for a probability sample of West Malaysian currently married women from fifteen to forty-four years of age. Statistical adjustments are introduced to control for parental mortality and the migration of either parents or children away from a common locale of residence. In multivariate analyses, it is shown that Chinese wives were more likely to live with husbands parents and Malay wives were more likely to live with wifes parents. Indian and Pakistani women were intermediate. Net of other variables, the wifes education, her current place of residence, and her husbands income were found to have smaller effects on extended-family participation, but young wives were significantly more likely to have participated in extended family units both right after marriage and at the interview date.

Intermediate variables and educational differentials in fertility in Korea and the Philippines.

This analysis compares the effects of contraceptive use and infant and fetal mortality on the pace offertility in Korea and the Philippines and explores the mediating effects of these intermediate variables on educational differentials in childspacing. For birth intervals initiated in a recent period before a sample survey, second, third and higher-order intervals are examined. Transitions within successive segments of interval exposure (qxvalues) are examined rather than cumulative transitions (1 - lxvalues). This methodological choice is substantively important because breastfeeding should primarily affect early segments of exposure and because it allows empirical examination of the timing of the effects of other variables such as contraceptive use. Further, this choice allows multivariate analysis within the structure of the life-table perspective. The results show substantial differences in patterns between Korea and the Philippines, indicate clearly the effect of each intermediate variable, and illustrate how educational differentials in fertility are affected by contraception and infant and fetal mortality.

Interpersonal communication and the diffusion of family planning in West Malaysia

Using data from a 1966–1967 probability sample of West Malaysian married women 15–44 years of age, this paper analyzes the characteristics of women who were active in diffusing information about family planning. The woman’s age and her parity, her educational attainment, her race, her present residence (urban-rural), and whether or not she wanted more children were significantly related to opinion leadership in bivariate tables. However, these relationships appeared to be substantial mainly because these social and demographic characteristics were highly related to whether the woman participated in discussions about family planning with other women. Among women who did participate in such discussions, the social and demographic variables were not substantially related to opinion leadership. In fact, the critical variables for opinion leadership appeared to be participation in the discussions, greater knowledge of family planning, and a higher level of family planning use. An attempt is also made to assess the effect of interpersonal communication on the adoption of family planning among women in the sample.

The Effect of Induced Abortion on the Incidence of Down's Syndrome in Hawaii

There was a decrease in the recorded number of cases and in the incidence rate of Downs syndrome in Hawaii between 1963-1969 and 1971-1977. Independent of all other factors, induced abortion accounted for 43 percent of the decline in the number of cases, based on the assumption that a substantial number of clandestine abortions were being performed in Hawaii before the 1970 legalization of abortion. However, if we assume that very few illegal abortions were performed prior to 1970, there would have been an actual 3.5 percent increase in the number of cases of Downs syndrome in the absence of legal abortion. Declining pregnancy rates and decreasing age-specific incidence rates of Downs syndrome also contributed to the drop in the number of cases between 1963-1969 and 1971-1977.