Michael S. Rendall

The foreign-born population

At the 2001 Census, there were 4.9 million people living in the UK who had been born overseas. They represented a snapshot of an ongoing migration process. Both the timing of immigration and the prevalence of emigration (return or onward) will affect the profile of the foreign-born population and, in particular, the balance between those foreign-born people who are very recent immigrants and those who have been in the country for many years.

Incomplete reporting of men’s fertility in the united states and britain: A research note

We evaluate men;s retrospective fertility histories from the British Household Panel Survey and the U.S. Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). Further, we analyze the PSID men’s panel-updated fertility histories for their possible superiority over retrospective collection. One third to one half of men’s nonmarital births and births within previous marriages are missed in estimates from retrospective histories. Differential survey underrepresentation of previously married men compared with previously married women accounts for a substantial proportion of the deficits in previous-marriage fertility. More recent retrospective histories and panel-updated fertility histories improve reporting completeness, primarily by reducing the proportion of marital births from unions that are no longer intact at the survey date.

Fertility, Timing of Births and Socio-economic Status in France and Britain: Social Policies and Occupational Polarization

Abstract Comparison of family growth and the timing of births in France and Britain calls for consideration of the role of family policy and women’s economic conditions in determining their demographic behaviour. The study relies on data from the Longitudinal Study of England and Wales and the Permanent Demographic Sample in France, that link birth registrations to 1971-1991 and 1968-1990 census data, respectively. Over the period studied, the 1970s through the 1990s, in Britain state intervention has been minimal, while France practised a generous family policy. In parallel, social polarization in fertility behaviour was larger in Britain, and differences in fertility between those women who leave the labour force and those who do not were larger still. In France, differences by socio-occupational group are observed only at third births, although by the second birth there is already an association between parity progression and having left the labour force as of the census observation. In France, almost all married women in managerial occupations become mothers, while in Britain one quarter of such women do not. Fertility in Britain is higher at all birth orders among those not in the labour force and in less-skilled occupations, while in France family policy tends to increase third births in those categories too.Comparing women born in the 1950s to those born in the 1960s reveals that the postponement of marriage and fertility, appreciable in both countries, is more marked in France. Among married women, however, changes in fertility have been negligible. All other things being equal, the differences in fertility by socio-occupational group decrease in France, but not in Britain.

THE QUALITY OF MALE FERTILITY DATA IN MAJOR U.S. SURVEYS

Researchers continue to question fathers’ willingness to report their biological children in surveys and the ability of surveys to adequately represent fathers. To address these concerns, this study evaluates the quality of men’s fertility data in the 1979 and 1997 cohorts of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79 and NLSY97) and in the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG). Comparing fertility rates in each survey with population rates based on data from Vital Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau, we document how the incomplete reporting of births in different surveys varies according to men’s characteristics, including their age, race, marital status, and birth cohort. In addition, we use Monte Carlo simulations based on the NSFG data to demonstrate how birth underreporting biases associations between early parenthood and its antecedents. We find that in the NSFG, roughly four out of five early births were reported; but in the NLSY79 and NLSY97, almost nine-tenths of early births were reported. In all three surveys, incomplete reporting was especially pronounced for nonmarital births. Our results suggest that the quality of male fertility data is strongly linked to survey design and that it has implications for models of early male fertility.

Declining Return Migration From the United States to Mexico in the Late-2000s Recession: A Research Note

Researchers in the United States and Mexico have variously asserted that return migration from the United States to Mexico increased substantially, remained unchanged, or declined slightly in response to the 2008–2009 U.S. recession and fall 2008 global financial crisis. The present study addresses this debate using microdata from 2005 through 2009 from a large-scale, quarterly Mexican household survey, the National Survey of Occupation and Employment (ENOE), after first validating the ENOE against return-migration estimates from a specialist demographic survey, the National Survey of Demographic Dynamics (ENADID). Declines in annual return-migration flows of up to a third between 2007 and 2009 were seen among the predominantly labor-migrant groups of male migrants and all 18- to 40-year-old migrants with less than a college education; and a decline in total return migration was seen in the fourth quarter of 2008 (immediately after the triggering of the global financial crisis) compared with the fourth quarter of 2007.

Parent-Reported Height and Weight as Sources of Bias in Survey Estimates of Childhood Obesity

Parental reporting of height and weight was evaluated for US children aged 2-13 years. The prevalence of obesity (defined as a body mass index value (calculated as weight (kg)/height (m)(2)) in the 95th percentile or higher) and its height and weight components were compared in child supplements of 2 nationally representative surveys: the 1996-2008 Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 Cohort (NLSY79-Child) and the 1997 Child Development Supplement of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID-CDS). Sociodemographic differences in parent reporting error were analyzed. Error was largest for children aged 2-5 years. Underreporting of height, not overreporting of weight, generated a strong upward bias in obesity prevalence at those ages. Frequencies of parent-reported heights below the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions (Atlanta, Georgia) first percentile were implausibly high at 16.5% (95% confidence interval (CI): 14.3, 19.0) in the NLSY79-Child and 20.6% (95% CI: 16.0, 26.3) in the PSID-CDS. They were highest among low-income children at 33.2% (95% CI: 22.4, 46.1) in the PSID-CDS and 26.2% (95% CI: 20.2, 33.2) in the NLSY79-Child. Bias in the reporting of obesity decreased with childrens age and reversed direction at ages 12-13 years. Underreporting of weight increased with age, and underreporting of height decreased with age. We recommend caution to researchers who use parent-reported heights, especially for very young children, and offer practical solutions for survey data collection and research on child obesity.

An old-age security motive for fertility in the United States?

This study reviewed the literature on the old age security motive for childbearing and estimates the poverty alleviating contributions of a coresident family to the elderly in the US. Data were obtained from the 1984 Panel of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPPS) of the US Census Bureau the National Survey of Informal Caregivers and the 1982 National Long-Term Care Survey. In 1984 poverty among the elderly dropped below the overall US rate. The sample included 2383 unmarried elderly aged over 65 years in 1984. Financial resources include more options than that provided in official poverty measures. Analysis reveals that the combined financial and functional care provided by coresident relatives kept about 1.3 million elderly (11.0% of all unmarried elderly) from falling into poverty. 50% of the poverty would be due to functional assistance alone. Without this family support the unmarried elderly poverty rate would have doubled to 24.3%. Without coresidence financial and functional assistance almost 50% (44.7%) of disabled unmarried elderly would be poor. Only 14.3% were observed to be poor in 1984. 1 in 3 were kept out of poverty by family members. 59.7% of severely disabled would be poor. 21.2% of Black elderly 9.7% of White elderly and 15% of elderly with under 12 years of schooling would be poor without family assistance. Findings highlight the inadequacies in public support programs for old age security and the cogency of persons choosing childbearing as the best insurance against lower lifetime earnings and security.

The Fertility Contribution of Mexican Immigration to the United States

Crucial to the long-term contribution of immigration to a receiving country’s population is the extent to which the immigrants reproduce themselves in subsequent, native-born generations. Using conventional projection methodologies, this fertility contribution may be poorly estimated primarily because of problems in projecting the number of immigrants who are at risk of childbearing. We propose an alternative method that obviates the need to project the number of immigrants by using the full sending-country birth cohort as the risk group to project their receiving-country childbearing. This “sending-country birth cohort” method is found to perform dramatically better than conventional methods when projecting to 1999 from base years both before and after the large increase in inflows of Mexican immigrants to the United States in the late 1980s. Projecting forward from 1999, we estimate a cumulative contribution of Mexican immigrant fertility from the 1980s to 2040 of 36 million births, including 25% to 50% more births after 1995 than are projected using conventional methods.

Hispanic and black US children’s paths to high adolescent obesity prevalence

What is already known about this subject The prevalence of child obesity in the U.S. is higher among Hispanic and black than white children. Racial/ethnic disparities have widened with the development of the child‐obesity epidemic. Obese minority children are at greater risk of being obese also as adults.

Increasingly heterogeneous ages at first birth by education in Southern European and Anglo-American family-policy regimes: A seven-country comparison by birth cohort.

According to the ‘reproductive polarization’ hypothesis, family-policy regimes unfavourable to the combination of employment with motherhood generate greater socio-economic differentials in fertility than other regimes. This hypothesis has been tested mainly for ‘liberal’ Anglo-American regimes. To investigate the effects elsewhere, we compared education differentials in age at first birth among native-born women of 1950s and 1960s birth cohorts in seven countries representing three regime types. Women with low educational attainment have continued to have first births early, not only in Britain and the USA but also in Greece, Italy, and Spain. Women at all other levels of education have experienced a shift towards later first births, a shift that has been largest in Southern Europe. Unlike the educationally heterogeneous changes in age pattern at first birth seen under the Southern European and Anglo-American family-policy regimes, the changes across birth cohorts in the studys two ‘universalistic’ countries, Norway and France, have been educationally homogeneous.