Shiva Halli

Demography of brideprice and dowry: Causes and consequences of the Indian marriage squeeze

The paper investigates whether past declines in mortality could have created a huge deficit of eligible men in the marriage market, and whether the ensuing competition for mates could be responsible for the coercive character the dowry system of marriage has assumed in India. New indices have been developed to measure the trends in bridegroom availability that aid in the inquiry into the demographic origins of marriage squeeze. It is contended that the marriage squeeze against women was particularly intense in India because mortality decline, in addition to age structural changes, drastically reduced the number of widowers in the population who once accounted for about one-fifth of the annual supply of bridegrooms. Our projections indicate that, as a result of recent declines in fertility, the marriage squeeze against females will ease substantially by the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, and that marriages of men will begin to be delayed more than those of women.

Factors influencing continuation of IUD use in South India : Evidence from a multivariate analysis

This paper studies the correlates of IUD continuation, particularly in relation to quality of service provided in Karnataka, South India, by using a discrete-time logit model. Provision of follow-up services had a moderate influence on continuation, and medical check-up at insertion influenced the experience of side effects. But these effects were trivial in comparison with the overriding influence of motivational variables and of reported side effects. The IUD is retained for a limited duration in rural India where it is used mainly as a spacing device by lowly motivated young women who discontinue the method at the slightest feeling of discomfort or abnormality. If the IUD were recommended to older women for limiting childbearing by emphasizing its reversibility, it would enhance the methods popularity and improve the levels of contraceptive use among younger women.

Pro Life or Pro Choice: Politics of Career and Homemaking

The United Nations Conference held in Cairo in September 1994 was dominated by the debate on abortion. The strong opposition to abortion, and attacks on feminist attitudes by the Vatican could not be ignored, even though many Catholics in Catholic countries did not share the Vaticans views (Keyfitz 1995, pp. 81-89). Support for the Vatican from Muslims also made abortion a significant issue in the debate and resulted in the 1994 Conference having a stronger impact on the public than previous UN population conferences. In this paper we examine attitudes to abortion in a North American ethno-religious group with its own ethics the Mennonites who provide an ideal setting for testing the impact of a number of variables on attitudes to abortion, including religious commitment, pacifism, socio-economic status, and individualism. Mennonites were chosen because they were a branch of the Anabaptists who were radical pacifists and refused to take part in wars. They moved into cities after the end of World War II, and by 1989 half of them (48 per cent) were town dwellers and more than four times as many worked as professionals (teaching, health, welfare, legal, social services), rather than farmers (28 per cent and seven per cent respectively). The theoretical perspective which we found useful in our study is that put forward by Kristin Luker who claims that the abortion controversy was less concerned with the welfare of the fetus than with the social status of women and mothers. Abortion represents

Ethnic Demography: Canadian Immigrant, Racial and Cultural Variations.@@@Canadian Society: A Macro Analysis.

Canada is a country of immigrants of different ethnic origins. This is the first volume that provides the demographic profile vital to an understanding of this country. Twenty-five of the top demographers in Canada draw upon 1986 and 1981 census figures and social surveys.