Robert D. Retherford

Care of the elderly in Japan: changing norms and expectations

Analyse des normes liees au devoir filial envers les parents âges au Japon et des attentes des parents âges vis-a-vis des enfants : evolutions et tendances actuelles

Values and fertility change in Japan.

This paper analyses how value change and economic and social change have jointly affected fertility in Japan since 1950, and especially since 1973 when fertility resumed declining after some 15 years at near-replacement level. The resumption of fertility decline since 1973 has been driven primarily by underlying economic and social changes. Value change has tended to lag behind fertility change, and this lag has tended to be larger in Japan than in other advanced nations, primarily because underlying economic and social conditions have evolved more rapidly in Japan, and because it takes time for values to adjust to changes in underlying conditions. Because of Japans high degree of cultural homogeneity, values tend to be widely and quickly shared, so that under certain conditions value change tends to occur in spurts. In Japan, many of the more important value changes affecting fertility in recent decades are bound up with major educational and job gains by women, which have led to greater economic independence and more emphasis on values of individualism and equality between the sexes.

The resumption of fertility decline in Japan, 1973-92

This article analyzes the fertility decline in postwar Japan especially since 1973 and the demographic and socioeconomic factors contributing to it. The analysis based primarily on period parity progression ratios suggests that Japans fertility decline since 1973 has occurred mainly because of postponement of marriage and first birth and declines in ratios of progression to marriage and first birth. It is shown that womens rising educational attainment plays an important role in inducing the new marriage and fertility pattern. The effect of womens education is associated with a number of related socioeconomic changes including rising wages of women and higher opportunity costs of marriage and childbearing as well as changes in values. (SUMMARY IN FRE AND SPA) (EXCERPT)

To what extent does breastfeeding explain Birth-interval effects on early childhood mortality?

This article shows that in Nepal breastfeeding almost completely explains the effects of following birth interval on childhood mortality during the first 18 months of age and partially explains the effect of following birth interval on childhood mortality between 18 and 60 months of age. Breastfeeding does not explain the effect of preceding birth interval on childhood mortality. The analysis is based on an application of hazard models to data from the 1976 Nepal Fertility Survey.

Intelligence and family size reconsidered

Abstract The major purpose of this study is to examine the association between the measured intelligence and fertility of over 9,000 persons who graduated high school in Wisconsin in 1957. Various measures of association are considered, including the IQ selection differential, which provides an estimate of what the generational change in mean IQ would be if, hypothetically, each child in the birth histories had the same IQ as the mean of its parents’ IQs. This is calculated not only for graduates but also, more realistically, for the complete cohort, including dropouts. The IQ selection differential for the complete cohort is estimated to be eight‐tenths of an IQ point decline in a generation. The contribution of females to this decline is estimated to be almost five times greater than the contribution of males. The value of eight‐tenths may be viewed as an upper bound of the generational decline in mean genotypic IQ for this cohort and its offspring. An educated guess, based partly on genetic models and...

Tobacco smoking and the sex mortality differential

This paper examines the effects of tobacco smoking on the sex mortality differential in the United States. It is found that all forms of smoking combined account for about 47 percent of the female-male difference in 50e37 (life expectancy between ages 37 and 87) in 1962,and about 75 percent of the increase in the female-male difference in 50e37over the period 1910–62. When these percentage effects of smoking are decomposed each into a sum of contributions by age and immediate medical cause of death, the degenerative diseases acting at the older ages are found to be of primary importance. The above results appear in large part to explain why the degenerative diseases also account for most of the 1910–65 increase in the female-male difference in life expectancy at birth. The analysis assumes that spurious effects due to the correlation of tobacco consumption with other mortality-related factors are small compared to the causal effects of tobacco consumption itself.

Multivariate Analysis of Parity Progression–Based Measures of the Total Fertility Rate and Its Components

This article describes a methodology for applying a discrete-time survival model—the complementary log-log model—to estimate effects of socioeconomic variables on (1) the total fertility rate and its components and (2) trends in the total fertility rate and its components. For the methodology to be applicable, the total fertility rate (TFR) must be calculated from parity progression ratios (PPRs). The components of the TFR are PPRs, the total marital fertility rate (TMFR), and the TFR itself as measures of the quantum of fertility, and mean and median ages at first marriage and mean and median closed birth intervals by birth order as measures of the tempo or timing of fertility. The focus is on effects of predictor variables on these measures rather than on coefficients, which are often difficult to interpret in the complex models that are considered. The methodology is applicable to both period and cohort data. It is illustrated by application to data from the 1993, 1998, and 2003 Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) in the Philippines.

Decomposition of the change in the total fertility rate in the Republic of Korea, 1966-1970.

n The Korean Total Fertility Rate declined from approximately 4837 to 4257/1000 between 1966 and 1970. Changes in residence composition contributed 25.2% of the decrease. The urban educated classes benefitted from rapid economic growth in the late 1960s. Changes in educational composition contributed 21.8% of the TFR. Half the decline in the TFR stems from compositional changes in residence and education. Changes in education largely explained changes in residence, therefore education emerged as the strongest factor contributing to the fertility decline.n

Prospects for increased contraceptive pill use in Japan.

Although oral contraceptives are not commercially available in Japan, a low-dose contraceptive pill is expected to become available soon. The current rate of pill use is less than 1 percent, but recent survey data indicate that about 10 percent of currently married women of reproductive age intend to use the pill when it comes on the market. Those who favor the pill do so because it is highly effective in preventing unwanted pregnancies, and because it reduces the need for abortions. Many other women report uncertainty about the pill because of concern about side effects. Given that Japan has a contraceptive failure rate of about 25 percent, with 29 percent of women having had at least one abortion, many women who do not yet favor the pill may shift to it once the low-dose pill comes on the market and they are reassured about its safety. Thus, the rate of pill use is likely to rise well above 10 percent.

Census-derived estimates of fertility by duration since first marriage in the Republic of Korea.

This paper estimates ever-married birth rates by age and duration since first marriage and ever-married total fertility rates for the Republic of Korea, derived by applying an extension of the own-children method of fertility estimation to the 1975 and 1980 censuses. Since each census provides annual estimates for the 15-year period previous to enumeration, there is a ten-year period of overlapping estimates that facilitates checks for consistency and accuracy. Comparisons are also made with estimates derived from the 1974 Korea National Fertility Survey, which was part of the World Fertility Survey. The method works well, except in its application to the 1975 Census where the evidence suggests considerable misreporting of age at first marriage because of the way the question was asked and coded. Results confirm that ever-married fertility fell substantially in Korea between 1961 and 1980, with a temporary resurgence in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Ever-married fertility rose at younger ages and shorter durations and fell at older ages and longer durations. Ever-married fertility differentials by urban-rural residence and by education were usually in the expected direction, with urban fertility generally lower than rural fertility and the fertility of those with more education usually lower than the fertility of those with less education. Differential ever-married fertility by urban-rural residence and education declined over the estimation period.