Philip M. Hauser

Family planning and population programs a book review article.

ResumenEl volumen Planeamiento Familiar y Programas de Poblacion es un libro indispensable tanto para demógrafos como para otras personas interesadas en el control de población. Tiene sus limitaciones dodo su caracter heterogéneo, su falta de autocrítica, el no tratar sobre la validez y confiabilidad de las encuestas de conocimientos, attitudes y prácticas (KAP), su injustificado tono optimista, y su fracaso al no explorar y considerar alternativas para las presunciones y premisas sobre las cuales se basan los actuates programas de planeamiento familiar. Es sin embargo un importante hito que resume las contribuciones de las ciencias sociales y biomédicas al campo de la demografía.AbstractSummaryThe volume Family Planning and Population Programs is an indispensable book to demographers as well as to others concerned with population control. It is not without limitations because of its heterogeneous character, its lack of self-criticism, its failure to deal with the reliability and validity of KAP surveys, its unwarranted optimistic aura, and its failure to explore and consider alternatives to the basic assumptions and premises on which present family planning programs are based. It is, nevertheless, a landmark in its summarization of the contribution of the social and biomedical sciences to demographic engineering.

The Changing Population of the United States

a small, primarily agricultural nation, relatively isolated from the affairs of the rest of the world, to a large, primarily urban, industrialized world power. The population changes which have occurred during the course of this development necessarily have been closely associated with the economic, political, and social history of the country. Certainly the outstanding trends that are discernible

Education differentials in mortality by cause of death: United States, 1960

ResumenUn anáalisis de diferencias educaciones en la mortalidad por causa de muerte fue hecho posible por la comparacion de 340.000 certifiauios de defunción, sobre un total de 535.000 mueries ocurridas en Estados Unidos durante cuatro meses, (desde Mayo a Agosto de 1960), con las cifras del Censo de 1960. Desde que solamente alrededor un 80% de los fallecimientos pudieron ser comparadas con datos de las Cedulas Censales, se tomaron precauciones para controlar los errores obteniendo informacion de tipo censal para las defunciones no controladas. Una fuerie relacion. inversa entre mortalidad y nivel de educación. qué obtenida ente poblacion blanca de USA en 1960, para varones y mujeres con consistente declinación. en la mortalidad al aumentar los años de escolaridad. Tambien las causas específicas de muerte fueron principalmente inversamente relacionadas con la educación, La más importante excepción fué encontrada en la relación positiva entre muerte por cancer de próstata para hombres y cancer de mamas para mujeres.Se obtuvieron medidas de los “excesos de mueri” por causa, esto es la proporción. de mueries que ee hubieran evitado si la mortalidad de los 3 grupos de menor educación hubiera sido igual a la de los más educados. Para hombres mayores de 25 años “exceso de mortalidad” por causa de muerte constituyo e1 9.4 por ciento de las muertes en 1960 y para mujeres el 29.2 por ciento de las muertes. “Ezceso de mortalidad” entre hombres excedía el 40 por ciento de las muertes causadas por accidentee, cancer de estomago y tuberculosis. “Exceso de mortalidad” entre mujeres excedia el 40% de las muertes causadas por cancer de esiomaqo, diabetis mellitus, hipertension y arteriosclorosis y enfermedades degenerativas del corazon. El estudio señala la importante contribución que la epidemiología socioeconómica contrastada con la epidemiología bio-médica, puede hacer en el sentido de reducir la mortalidad. Articulos adicionales basados en este estudio continuaran apareciendo.SummaryAnalysis of educational differentials in mortality by cause of death was made possible by matching some 340,000 death certificates, of a total of 535,000 deaths which occurred in the United States during the months May-August, 1960, to the 1960 Census records. Since only about 80 percent of the deaths could be matched to census schedules, provision was made for the control of bias by obtaining census-type information for the unmatched deaths.A strong inverse relation of mortality to level of education obtained among the white population of the United States in 1960 for both males and females, with consistent declines in mortality as years of schooling increased. Specific causes of death were, in the main, also inversely related to education, the most important exceptions being found in the positive relationship between death by reason of prostatic cancer for males and death by reason of mammary cancer for females.Measurement was obtained of “excess deaths” by cause, that is, the proportion of deaths which would have been saved if the mortality of the three less-educated groups had been equal to that of the best-educated. For males aged 25 years and over, “excess mortality” from all causes of death constituted 9.4 percent of all deaths in 1960 and for females 29.3 percent of all deaths. Excess deaths among males exceeded 40 percent of all deaths from accidents, stomach cancer, and tuberculosis. Excess deaths among females exceeded 40 percent of all deaths caused by stomach cancer, diabetes mellitus, hypertensive disease, and arteriosclerotic and degenerative heart disease.The study points to the important contribution that socioeconomic epidemiology, as contrasted with bio-medical epidemiology, can make toward the reduction of mortality. Additional papers will flow from this study.

Fertility among Urban Blacks

Descriptions of the demographic transition frequently mention that urbanization played a role in bringing about the switch from high fertility rates to low fertility rates. It is difficult to be certain how far along in the process of demographic transition is the black population of the United States, but it is clear that fertility rates have changed rapidly. Black women who were born around the middle of the last century completed their childbearing with an average of seven children.1 Women born during the first decade of this century-that is, women who attained childbearing ages during the Depressionaveraged about two and one-half children.2 This downward trend was reversed and the black women born during the 1930s will average about four children.3 For a decade now fertility rates among blacks have fallen and women born during the 1940s have gotten off to a slower start in forming their families than women born during the previous decade, suggesting a downward trend in family size.4 It is not possible, in one paper, to completely specify the consequences of urbanization upon fertility. This paper has two aims. First, trends in the fertility rates of blacks in urban and rural areas are described and, second, factors influencing fertility are examined to account for the observed changes.

Demographic dimensions of world politics.

Politics in general, as well as world politics, is a branch of engineering — social engineering — not of science. Yet the consideration of the demographic aspects of world politics is not an inappropriate subject to be treated in this book. It is the purpose of this chapter to point to ways in which the findings of the science of demography illuminate various aspects of the world political scene.

Notes on fertility measurement.

In this survey of the field of fertility measurement the author begins by distinguishing 2 polar types of analysis used in fertility measurement. The first he mentions is causal analysis which consists of attempts to provide explanation for fertility behavior as the dependent variable. The second type of analysis discussed is consequential analysis in which the demographic inputs play the role of independent variables in the models of economists and others concerned with the impact of population change on the variables that define their disciplines. Causal analysis based on official statistics and causal analysis based on reproductive histories are described. In discussing measures for consequential analysis the author states that the developments in these measures have been much less impressive than those for causal analysis. For 40 years the dominant indices have been the net reproduction rate the length of generation the intrinsic rate of natural increase and the stable age distribution. The author observes that the causal sector has been too microanalytic and the consequential sector too macroanalytic. He believes that efforts should be made now to develop new models and methods to enlarge the scope of demography sufficiently to turn it into a genuinely rigorous branch of social science.

Demography in Relation to Sociology

Demography may be conceived as consisting of two facets, demographic analysis and population studies. The former is concerned only with the study of population size and composition and components of variation and change; the latter, with the interrelationships of population and other systems of variables of which the sociological constitute but one set. Population study affords the sociologist the opportunity to work with quantified variables which provide some bechmark against which to work with other sets of variables. Demography, although a multiscience discipline, can contribute to the central interests of sociology and, in return, gain from study of the interrelations of demographic and sociological variables.

Demography and Ecology

Philip M. Hauser, Ph.D., Chicago, Illinois, is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Population Research and Training Center at the University of Chicago. He was formerly Deputy Director and Acting Director of the United States Bureau of the Census and is Past President of the American Statistical Association, the Population Association of America, and the Sociological Research Association. His publications as author or editor, sometimes with others, include Urbanization in Asia and the Far East (1957 ), The Study of Population: An Inventory and Appraisal (1959 ), Urbanization in Latin America (1961 ), The Study of Urbanization (1965 ). DEMOGRAPHY and ecology are appropriately regarded as interrelated subfields of sociology. But each is also a multidisciplinary field in its

The Determination of Vital Rates in the Absence of Registration Data

9 procedures for estimating birth and death rates in the absence of accurate registration are enumerated. One method is to obtain statistics by an intensive effort which covers a representative sample of the population. The better-designed projects include 2 separate sets of records--a continuous record supplemented by periodic surveys. Fertility can be estimated from census and survey data by analyzing age-specific fertility rates from high quality retrospective data from tabulations of the mothers own children by their age and the age of the mother from parity data and from inferences drawn from age distributions. Mortality can be estimated from data obtained in censuses and surveys and by foward projection. Mortality in infancy and childhood can be estimated from data on the number of children ever born and the number of surviving children.

Overview of Demographic Trends and Characteristics by Color

The current social revolution in the United States may be related in a more significant sense than is generally recognized to demographic trends and characteristics of black Americans. These trends and characteristics-which include population growth, mobility and geographic distribution, and other social or economic characteristicshave important implications for the educational, economic and political development of the Negro population. An attempt will be made in this paper to sketch the highlights of these trends and characteristics, paying special attention to those not covered by other presentations at this conference.