Population Studies and Demography - Abstracts

Connections: Demography and Sociology in Twentieth Century Canada
Sylvia T. Wargon
Abstract: Specific areas are highlighted in which demography can be shown to have benefited the conduct of sociological research, and the sociology departments in Canadian universities housing demography programs and courses from the 1960s. These specific areas include: demography’s empirical, statistical and methodological features, its international reach, its interdisciplinary dimension, its planning and policy-making realms, and lastly, the initiatives taken to enhance demography’s role as a national discipline in Canada. Despite the effects of the 1990s economic recession and what appeared to be a drop in student interest, it is to be hoped that demography will continue to inform Canada’s social sciences in general and sociology in particular as the twenty first century unfolds.

Implications of economic reform and spatial mobility for fertility in Vietnam
MICHAEL J. WHITE, YANYI K. DJAMBA & DANG NGUYEN ANH
Abstract. Vietnam has registered a dramatic decline in fertility during the last decades. While the causes of such a sustained decline are still not well documented, many observers believe that government policies adopted in the 1980s have contributed to lower fertility. This article focuses on the implications of the Doi Moi program of market reforms on fertility, taking into account the influences of migration and population policy. The analysis is based on a sequential logit model of birth histories of ever married women interviewed in Vietnam in 1997. The results show a substantial decline in fertility since the Doi Moi program was introduced. The disruptive effects of migration are less pronounced, although migrants generally exhibit lower childbearing rates, and a somewhat different pattern of parity progression. We argue that the economic reforms of 1986, and the two-child policy initiated two years later, have reinforced Vietnamese women’s desire for smaller families.

"Europe, Africa, and International Migration: An Uncomfortable Triangle of Interests" - Kimberly A. Hamilton - (Issued May 1997) - Arguing that research on migration and the state has focused primarily on receiving states, this paper places sending and receiving states in a dynamic historical context within which states strive to protect political, economic, and socio-cultural interests. This framework is applied to the Euro-African migration system and leads to three primary findings. First, migration flows from Africa have diversified in terms of origins and destinations and no longer necessarily follow patterns of colonial relations. Such a trend calls into question the efficacy of bilateral responses. Second, African states have clearly demonstrated interests in managing emigration and return migration and need to be considered as partners in policy responses. Third, African migrant communities are exerting greater independence vis-à-vis sending and receiving states. This diversification and growing independence poses interesting challenges for sending and receiving state policy in the Euro-African migration system. - pstc.brown.edu/papers/wp-1997/97-02ab.html

War, Famine, and Female Migration in Ethiopia, 1960 - 1989
Betemariam Berhanu and Michael White - Brown University.
Introduction: Few other events disrupt the social order as much as do civil war and famine. Their catastrophic nature compromises social scientists’ ability to measure and understand them as the investigator often must work with piecemeal archival, journalistic, or eyewitness accounts. Direct and indirect measures of mortality and fertility give some sense of the scale of the conflict and disruption but offer only an incomplete view of the pattern of social dislocation.1 Combat and related
social strife produce many secondary behavioral responses, which often result in long-term consequences.

In this article we draw on ex post demographic data (material collected for an unrelated purpose) in an effort to
elucidate the social response to civil strife in Ethiopia, a country severely affected in recent decades by war, civil strife,
and famine. We test our ability to make such indirect inferences, knowing that direct surveys and data will never be
assembled. Our concentration is on demographic data and the demographic outcome (population redistribution) in order to
identify the social processes linked to the observed demographic behavior. In our attempt to reveal underlying patterns in
the face of a number of confounding factors, we employ a series of techniques that lead to discrete-time hazard models for
retrospective data.

We find that these indirect efforts can reveal much about ordinary residents’ behavioral responses to civil strife and
the disruption in food security, and we can quantitatively link increases and decreases in urban migration to policies of
political regimes. There is evidence that urban in-migration usually increases during periods of armed conflict, when
people seek safety, but in Ethiopia it declined measurably during a period of an authoritarian crackdown called the “Red
Terror.” Moreover, although famine might be expected to generate a net permanent relocation to well-supplied urban
areas, we find that in Ethiopia this is not the case. In fact, Ethiopia’s capital city, Addis Ababa, became a less attractive
destination over time, contrary to many theories of urban development. In sum, our efforts provide a way to understand
some of the behavioral responses to cataclysmic events.

Judging Not Only by Color: Ethnicity, Nativity, and Neighborhood Attainment
Michael J. White, Brown University
Sharon Sassier, Ohio State University
Objective. We examine hypotheses derived from theories of structural assimilation and spatial mobility to study the residential attainment of white ethnics, blacks, Asians, and Hispanics in the United States. We examine how immigrant status, ethnicity, and individual and family characteristics predict socioeconomic neighborhood outcome.
Methods. We extend previous studies in several ways. First, we develop the concept and measurement of residential attainment as a neighborhood or tract-based outcome, and we examine this in a regression-based framework. Second, we expand ethnicity to twentyeight distinct groups. Third, we measure directly the impact of intermarriage on
residential outcomes. Results. Our empirical findings show that immigrant status and ethnicity, often implicated but not always kept conceptually distinct in discussions of assimilation, exert different effects across ethnic groups. We find that intermarriage does matter, as minority group householders with Anglo spouses gain access to higher-status neighborhoods, net of their personal socioeconomic status. Finally and notably, ethnic groups differ in the returns to personal socioeconomic traits in this process of neighborhood attainment. Conclusions. Ethnic background dominates immigrant status in predicting residential outcomes. Furthermore, the process of assimilation varies noticeably within ethnic groups. Direct all correspondence to Michael J. White, Population Studies and Training Center, Box 1916, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912 (e-mail: MichaeL_White@brown.edu).