Effects of societal intergration, period, region, and culture of suicide on male age-specific suicide rates: 20 developed countries, 1955-1989.

Multiple indicators of societal integration and proxies for the culture of suicide form the model used to explain variation in male age-specific suicide rates from 1955 to 1989 in 20 developed countries. The hypothesis that certain determinants of suicide rates have changed over the period between 1955 and 1989 was rejected, as was the hypothesis that there are effects of period, net of measured predictors. The determinants of suicide rates do vary by age, with the culture of suicide playing an especially important role in the 35-64 age group.

Firearms and suicide: the American experience, 1926-1996.

The hypothesis that American male suicide rates are higher than the rates of women because men select more highly lethal methods than do women is tested by adjusting male rates so that the distribution of male and female suicides to highly lethal methods is equal. However, the adjusted male rate is still higher than the total female rate in all eight periods from 1926-1929 through 1996. Also, increases in the percentage of female suicides using firearms over this period are unrelated to increases in female rates, and similar increases in firearms use by males are positively related to increases in male suicide rates only in recent decades. The impact of change in the male firearms suicide rate on change in their total suicide rate was weak or nonexistent in three of seven change periods; its impact on the female total rate was trivial in five of the seven change periods.

Societal integration and age-standardized suicide rates in 21 developed countries, 1955-1989.

Gender-specific age-standardized suicide rates for 21 developed countries over seven 5-year periods (1955-59...1985-89) form the two dependent variables. Durkheim's theory of societal integration is the framework used to generate the independent variables, although several recent theories are also examined. The results from a MGLS multiple regression analysis of both male and female rates provide overwhelming support for a multidimensional theory of societal integration and suicide, as first suggested by Durkheim.

Structural and cultural determinants of child homicide: a cross-national analysis.

Models of structural characteristics that may influence national infant and child homicide victim rates are derived from prior research. Expected effects of structural characteristics from a "social control" perspective are compared with expected effects from a "guardians, suitable target" perspective. Gartner's (1991) claim that structural factors influence victim rates only in nations with low social insurance expenditures is also evaluated. Statistical analysis of three infant and child age groups with homicide rates from 1965-1969, 1970-1974...1985-1988 fails to support the claim that high and low social insurance expenditure strata differ. Further, no independent effects of Gartner's (1991) three measures of family structure are found. Indicators of family stress/resources, female status, the culture of violence, and a proxy for unmeasured variables and measurement error all contribute to produce high levels of explained variance in each age group.

Thinking about change in illegitimacy ratios: United States, 1963-1983.

What has been the recent trend in illegitimacy in the United States? The answer depends on what is being measured. If the focus is on illegitimacy rates, then the trend is mixed. Illegitimacy ratios, however, have been skyrocketing. We show that this is primarily the result of declining nuptiality (and rising marital dissolution) and secondarily the result of decreases in marital fertility. We argue that the illegitimacy ratio is the better index of the social consequences of out-of-wedlock childbearing and that the high ratios of recent decades are unlikely to abate in the foreseeable future.

Intermediate determinants of racial differences in 1980 U.S. nonmarital fertility rates.

There are four major determinants of racial differences in nonmarital fertility rates in the U.S.: differential sexual activity (exposure to risk); differential in spontaneous and induced abortion; differential contraceptive use (including method efficacy); and differential legitimation, through marriage, of births conceived out of wedlock. Racial differences in all four indicators encourage higher black than white nonmarital fertility rates in every age-group examined; however, the relative contribution of each determinant to differences in nonmarital fertility varies according to age. The gap between whites and blacks in contraceptive use is of greatest concern to policy-makers, because family planning effectiveness can, at least theoretically, be changed by program effort. However, even if black women and white women had equivalent levels of contraceptive use, sexual activity and recourse to abortion, there would still be substantial racial differences in nonmarital fertility rates because of the greater propensity among whites to legitimate premaritally conceived births.

PIP: There are 4 major determinants of racial differences in nonmarital fertility rates in the US: differential sexual activity (exposure to risk); differential in spontaneous and induced abortion; differential contraceptive use (including method efficacy); and differential legitimation, through marriage, of births conceived out of wedlock. Racial differences in all 4 indicators encourage higher black than white nonmarital fertility rates in every age group examined; however, the relative contribution of each determinant to differences in nonmarital fertility varies according to age. Among whites, the estimated proportion of sexually active women increases from 30% of the 15-19 age group to 52% of the 20-24 age group and then remains stable through ages 25-29. Among blacks, sexual activity increases modestly with each successive age group, from 53% of women aged 15-19 to 60% of those aged 20-24 to 66% of 25-29 year-olds. Nonuse of contraceptives declines with age among both white and black never-married women. Legal induced abortion ratios among unmarried women increase with age for both whites and blacks. Whereas the proportion of women who legitimate births conceived out of wedlock declines sharply with increasing age among whites, the proportion stays very low for blacks in all 3 age-groups. The gap between whites and blacks in contraceptive use is of greatest concern to policy makers, because family planning effectiveness can, at least theoretically, be changed by program effort. However, even if black women and white women had equivalent levels of contraceptive use, sexual activity and recourse to abortion, there would still be substantial racial differences in nonmarital fertility rates because of the greater propensity among whites to legitimate premaritally conceived births.

Increasing paternal responsibility.

PIP: Increasing numbers of fathers of children born out of wedlock are not contributing to these children's economic support. In 1981, a tiny minority (14%) of the 1.7 million never-married mothers living with a child with an absent father had a child-support award, and of these, just 112,000 actually received some payment in 1981. The high rates of noncompliance, and the low level of legal efforts to enforce child support, are the result of attempts to collect payments through inefficient traditional methods, not the inability of fathers to pay, a Wisconsin study has shown. A basic problem with collecting child support under the present system is that it relies on fathers to control their expenditures and voluntarily to send the payment on a weekly, biweekly or monthly basis, year after year. As a Wisconsin study shows, full compliance with court-ordered payments dropped from 38% in the 1st year to below 20% by the 5th year among 163 ex-husbands tracked. A proposal by researchers at the University of Wisconsin's Institute for Research on Poverty calls for an "absent-parent tax." The Wisconsin Plan, as it is known, is simply a withholding tax based on the father's gross income and the number of his absent children. If his income falls below a certain level, payments will stop automatically, but will resume if and when it rises above the cutoff point. The Wisconsin plan removes all judicial discretion and lawyer's skill as factors in child-support awards, thus eliminating erratic awards. It also insures that support payments will be maintained during periods of conflict between the father and mother. However, before the Wisconsin Plan can effectively protect children both out of wedlock, a feature needs to be added that will establish paternity at birth. Imposing a real child-support obligation on fathers of children born outside of marriage will introduce a potentially powerful economic incentive for responsible male reproductive and parental behavior.^ieng

The threshold hypothesis: evidence from less developed Latin American countries, 1950 to 1980.

Historical research among European countries finds large differences in the level of social, economic or demographic development among countries, or regions within countries at the time marital fertility rates began their decline from traditional high levels. This research tests a threshold hypothesis which holds that fertility will decline from traditional high levels if threshold levels of life expectancy and literacy are surpassed. Using a pooled regression analysis of 1950, 1960, 1970 and 1980 crude births rates (CBRs) in 20 less developed Latin American countries, in conjunction with 10-year lagged measures of social, economic and family planning program development, analyses reveal statistically significant effects of passing Beaver's (1975) threshold levels of 1950 literacy, or 1950 life expectancy, that are independent of levels of lagged literacy (or lagged life expectancy), economic and family planning program development, as well as measures that control period effects.

Reply to Sloan [on proxies for birth control].

PIP: Sloan (1984) argues that annual changes in marital fertility of Swedish wives aged 35-39 between 1911 and 1974 is not a result of annual changes in the use of birth control, but is due to changes in health conditions that increase or decrease marital fertility. As evidence of the lack of effect of contraceptive practice on fertility Sloan cites a study published in 1916 whose author concluded that contraceptive use or nonuse had no effect on family size. Sloan is unaware of the shroud of ignorance that blinded such research in the distant past. There was no accepted methodology to determine contraceptive effectiveness until the 1930s, and scientists did not know key elemental facts about human reproduction. For example, the relationship of ovulation to the risk of pregnancy was unknown in 1916, and was to remain a mystery for more than a decade thereafter. Sloan's "declining health" explanation of low fertility in the West is merely a variant of an older attempt to explain low fertility as a result of high protein intake. Sloan's view that modern couples do not contracept to reach a desired family size and that changes in family size preference will not affect birth control practice among older (or younger it appears as well) couples seems to us to be an idiosyncratic view at best and directly opposed by all survey research. Couples do contracept most effectively when they are trying to prevent an additional birth. The view that failure of some Western couples to reproductively compensate for their child deaths as explained by poor reproductive health seems to assume that couples in non-Western population do so compensate, but this is wrong. The idea that such bereaved couples should have another child is so insensitive to tragedy as to defy further reply. Sloan's acceptance and use of reports that some couples say they wanted more children than they had ignores massive research findings of unwanted fertility among couples in populations with long histories of birth control practice. Further, it is difficult to have much faith in such responses since about 1/2 the couples in the Whelpton el al. study cited by Sloan also said they were fecund. These responses mean that couples may say that they want more than they actually had, but they deliberately did not have such a large and "ideal" family size because of other factors not considered by Sloan. Since it appears that Sloan was unable to find another authority, he cites a 3 page comment of his own in support of the hypothesis of deteriorating environment. He does not actually empirically link age patterns of chronic disease with fecundity loss; his view also ignores research indicating improved health conditions, at least among US women, after the mid-1930s that increased fecundity and then fertility. Thus, his argument that factors other than voluntary birth control could explain annual change in Swedish marital fertility among older couples is unsupported by empirical evidence. His remarks are also irrelevant to the use made in the author's article concerning marital fertility rates as a proxy for the use of annual birth control change among younger unmarried women. The marital rate varies, as does the illegitimacy rate. Annual increases in marital fertility are related to annual increases in illegitimacy; annual declines in marital rates to annual declines in illegitimacy. Sloan's hypothetical trends in fecundity have no bearing on our empirical study of annual change in Swedish illegitimacy rates. Finally, Sloan's claim that social demographers do not view a changing environment as problematic is unsupported and unjustified.^ieng

Economic dependency and fertility in Asia and Latin America, 1960-1980.

PIP: This paper assesses the likely value of the dependency hypothesis -- the view that the degree of economic dependency on capitalist core nations is a key factor in determining levels or trends in fertility among less developed countries. It reviews contemporary theoretical and empirical work on fertility transitions in Ekuropean countries along with some new perspectives on recent fertility trends in less developed nations. The paper also discusses theoretical justifications for expecting or not expecting dependency effects on fertility and examines comparative analyses that tests for spuriousness and the reliability of dependency effects between Asian and Latin American countries. The cross-national analyses failed to demonstrate convincing support for the hypothesis that 1980 fertility levels or 1960 to 1980 fertility trends among less developed countreis in Latin America or Asia were affected by any of 13 to 15 (depending on the region) measures of economic dependency. While a few significant zero-order correlations in the expected order were found, these associations were the result of the correlation of the dependency measure with family planning program effort and/or social development. Lacking evidence of direct effects of dependency on fertility, an effort to uncover indirect effects (through early dependency effects on latter social or economic development levels) was attempted among Latin American countries. Early economic dependency was related to later dependency but not to later social or economic development. These results differ from those of Hout (1980, 1981) for Latin American and for all regions (nolan and White, 1983). Hout found significant effects using the percentage of imports from the leading trading partner in pooled regression analyses. Both his articles report significant effects of dependency interacting with development. The study differs from Hout¿s in that pooled regression of fertility (starting with 19-15-19 crude birthrates and then 1945-49, 1965, and 1975 CBRs) in both his studies differs from the studies of these authors. He included Argentina and Uruguay, while these authors omitted these 2 more developed countries. These 2 outlander countries and the inclusion of data from earlier years may help explain the difference between the results of these authors and those of Hout. Nolan and White (1983) find significant effects on 1977 fertility of dummy variables representing non-core (semiperiphery or periphery) countries in all regions. Using a comparative and multi-measurement strategy to test for economic dependency effects within 2 separate regions, there were 30 tests for dependency effects in Latin countries and 26 tests among Asian countries. No direct effects were found of dependency on fertility levels or change in even 1 of these 56 tests. It is concluded that economic dependency effects, if they exist, are small. In contrast, the substantive effects of social development and family planning program effort are large.^ieng

A time series analysis of Swedish illegitimacy rates, 1911-1974.

Using a sociodemographic model of the determinants of illegitimacy rates, a multivariate regression analysis of annual change in age-specific Swedish illegitimacy rates is applied to the 1911-74 period. The proxy measure of change in sexual activity was significant for all age groups. Legitimation rates for out-of-wedlock conceived births were significant for all ages except teenagers, and the final predictor, women's status, was significant for all ages except women 35-44. Explained variance for annual change was highest among ages 20-24 (66%), 25-29 (66%), and 30-34 (63%) and lower among teens (34%) and women 35-44 (47%). These results support earlier research that used a sociodemographic model to explain post-World War II change in cross-national illegitimacy rates among 23 developed countries.

Illegitimacy in Sweden and Australia: 1911-1974.

"Despite the long standing interest in illegitimacy as well as the importance of its consequences, and the concern which the post war upturn has generated, researchers know surprisingly little about the social, economic, demographic, and cultural factors that influence temporal variation in illegitimacy. By using annual time series data for Sweden and Australia, [the authors] examine trends in and levels of illegitimacy over a sixty year period and assess the impact of various social, economic, demographic, and cultural factors on change in illegitimacy rates. [The] primary focus is the extent to which cultural differences between Australia and Sweden explain differences in illegitimacy and the effects of particular economic, demographic, and social factors. "Sweden and Australia have both reported the annual number of illegitimate births and bridal pregnancies since 1911. These are the longest annual time series available for these two measures. The Australian and Swedish data have never been subjected to statistical analyses which test assumptions about similarities and differences in causes of trends and fluctuations in illegitimacy across these two nations."

Modernization and the demographic transition: cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses of a revised model.

PIP: Problems associated with past research on the fertility-development issue are identified in this article, and a model of the macro-level determinants of fertility -- a model informed by the revised theory of fertility transition -- is specified. This model is estimated both cross-sectionally and longitudinally. In addition, a model is specified that assesses the importance of a family planning program effort on fertility change in less developed countries. The effects on fertility change of other variables is controlled. Using crude birth rates for 117 countries, the model is operationalized and the revised model is applied to 1974 rates. A longitudinal model of 1955-1959 to 1974 change in rates is then tested. The final model for 81 less developed countries from the original set of 117 countries includes a measure of family planning effort. Results support the view that high levels of modernization increase motivation to control fertility, but they also show that excessive reliance on developmental change in less developed countries to bring about fetility declines would prolong unnecessarily the current period of rapid population growth. The dominant role of modernization in the models that lack data on family planning programs only facilitates understanding of the past. Modernization is not the only road to future lower fertility. Modernization, abortion, and family planning programs are explicit policy relevant variables. It was found that legalized abortion has a large and independent impact on lowering birth rates and that family planning programs also reduce unwanted births in less developed countries. These programs were the most important factor related to change in 1955-1959 to 1974 crude birth rate.^ieng

Community determinants of U.S. legal abortion rates.

The availability of abortion services--the number of facilities and the number of types of agencies providing abortions--is the most powerful determinant of variations in abortion rates in U.S. metropolitan communities. The increase in abortion availability is also the most important factor in explaining the increase in abortion rates that occurred between 1973 and 1975. Other factors affecting abortion rates (but less substantially) include rural residence, population density, female labor force participation, the proportion Catholic and the proportion receiving public assistance.

Racial differences in infant mortality rates: United States, 1969.

Using multiple regression analyses, we measured the effects of demographic, health, and socioeconomic variables on race-specific neonatal and postneonatal infant mortality rates. The racial difference in rates in 1969 is due to (1) effects of mean differences in black and white population characteristics, (2) differences in the impact of independent variables, and (3) differences from other causes. Higher black than white infant mortality is the result of unfavorable black means on birthweight, age of mothers at birth, education, and marital stability. Black mortality is also higher because mothers' age at birth, marital stability, and education have more favorable impact on mortality for whites than blacks.

Models of illegitmacy: United States, 1969.

Three theoretical perspectives on illegitimacy, the anomic, the subgroup, and the demographic, are reviewed and compared. A composite causal model is then developed and estimated using areal data derived from the 1970 U.S. Census. While theoretical nonspecificity disallowed a definitive test, all three perspectives yielded valuable insight into the complex mechanisms underlying illegitimacy rates. Results indicate that variation in illegitimacy rates is systematically related to variation in social structure and that integration of the three positions should prove useful to further research.