Kevin McQuillan

Economic Structure, Religion, and Age At Marriage: Some Evidence From Alsace

This study examines the effects of economic and cultural factors on age at first marriage, using marriage records for a sample of twenty-five communities located in the French region of Alsace. The findings indicate that in both agricultural and industrial settings, young people in predominantly Protestant communities married earlier than did those in predominantly Catholic villages. Significant differences also existed by occupation of the groom, though the effect of occupation varied by gender and religious affiliation.

Family Composition and Remarriage in Alsace, 1750-1850

Data from a family reconstitution study of five villages in Alsace, France, point to the importance of family composition as a determinant of remarriage. For widows and widowers, the likelihood of remarriage increased with the number of children fourteen years of age or younger in their household, though the result was statistically significant only for men. Moreover, having an older daughter (fifteen to twenty-one years of age) was associated with a much lower likelihood of remarriage for widowers, and, surprisingly, for widows as well.

The Changing Timing of Births in Iran: An Explanation of the Rise and Fall in Fertility After the 1979 Islamic Revolution

Studies exploring the course of period fertility in Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution have not examined systematically the role played by changes in the timing of births. Using retrospective data from the 2000 Iran Demographic and Health Survey and frailty hazard models, this study finds that the rise in fertility in the early 1980s was due to faster transitions to the first birth among all social groups of women and to the fourth birth largely among illiterate and less educated women. In contrast, the rapid fertility decline after 1985 is attributed to slower transition to successive births, especially to the second, third, and fourth births. These findings point to the importance of education and contraceptive use (measured by length of previous birth interval) as key determinants of birth timing in Iran. Interaction between age at marriage and education positively influenced the timing of births, with stronger effects among highly educated women, suggesting that the onset of rapid fertility decline was likely driven by these highly educated women. Another interaction between the gender of prior children and education shows that birth timing, even among highly educated women, appears to have been influenced by son preference in Iran.

A Case study approach to Ontario mortality history: the example of Ingersoll, 1881-1972

Using the town of Ingersoll and its contiguous townships as a model this paper demonstrates the feasibility potential and limitations of the case study approach to Ontarios mortality history. It describes the available documentary sources and how to assemble data from them evaluates the quality of the data and uses the data to calculate Ingersoll mortality trends for the period 1881-1972. The work presented here enables the authors to study other aspects of mortality in Ingersoll and more generally shows how empirical case studies can advance knowledge of Ontario mortality history beyond what standard estimation techniques have show. (authors)

Lone-Father Families in Canada, 1971-1996

Demographers and sociologists have paid considerable attention to the situation of lone-parent families. However, until recently, almost all of this work has focused on families headed by a lone mother. This paper seeks to fill an important gap in our knowledge of family change by examining the growth and characteristics of lone-father families in Canada. Using data from the public-use microfiles (PUMFs) of the census, the paper shows that the number of lonefather families has increased significantly in recent years, and that lone fathers are now younger and more likely to have become lone fathers through marital breakdown. The results also suggest that while lone-father families are not as economically disadvantaged as lone-mother families, income levels lag well behind those of two-parent families and have, in relative terms, declined in recent years.

On the development of Marxist theories in population

This paper traces the development of Marxist theories of population and compares the approaches of policy makers in the socialist countries and neo-Marxist scholars outside the socialist countries to this issue. As a consequence of a different demographic situation and increasingly complex social and economic structures contemporary socialist views on population often differ considerably from earlier Marxist formulations. Although Soviet population policy is aimed at increasing the rate of growth and Chinese policy stringently regulates such growth both countries have moved in the direction of increased state intervention. It is argued that a planned socialist economy requires planned control of population. However arguments for intervention are not supported by a theoretical analysis of the sources of demographic growth and change in socialist societies. Scholars of underdevelopment outside the socialist bloc have remained more faithful to the original Marxist approach. Although they have shifted the focus from the relations between classes in capitalist society to the relations between developed and underdeveloped countries they retain the central Marxist idea that demographic processes are shaped by the economic structure of society. These theorists oppose population control measures arguing that the problems of developing countries can be resolved only through radical changes in the social and economic structure of society.