Social Demography

329 Pages·1978·4.282 MB·English

by  Karl E. Taeuber, Larry L. Bumpass and James A. Sweet (Eds.)

STUDIES IN POPULATION
Under the Editorship of: H. H. WINSBOROUGH
Department of Sociology
University of Wisconsin
Madison, Wisconsin
Samuel H. Preston, Nathan Keyfitz, and Robert Schoen. Causes of Death: Life
Tables for National Populations.
Otis Dudley Duncan, David L. Featherman, and Beverly Duncan. Socioeconomic
Background and Achievement.
James A. Sweet. Women in the Labor Force.
Tertius Chandler and Gerald Fox. 3000 Years of Urban Growth.
William H. Sewell and Robert M. Hauser. Education, Occupation, and Earnings:
Achievement in the Early Career.
Otis Dudley Duncan. Introduction to Structural Equation Models.
William H. Sewell, Robert M. Hauser, and David L. Featherman (Eds.). School-
ing and Achievement in American Society.
Henry Shryock, Jacob S. Siegel, and Associates. The Methods and Materials of
Demography. Condensed Edition by Edward Stockwell.
Samuel H. Preston. Mortality Patterns in National Populations: With Special
Reference to Recorded Causes of Death,
Robert M. Hauser and David L. Featherman. The Process of Stratification:
Trends and Analyses.
Ronald R. Rindfuss and James A. Sweet. Postwar Fertility Trends and Differen-
tials in the United States.
David L. Featherman and Robert M. Hauser. Opportunity and Change.
Karl E. Taeuber, Larry L. Bumpass, and James A. Sweet (Eds.). Social Demog-
raphy.
In preparation
Thomas J. Espenshade and William J. Serow (Eds.). The Economic Consequences
of Slowing Population Growth.
Frank D. Bean and W. Parker Frishie (Eds.). The Demography of Racial and
Ethnic Groups.
Maris A. Vinovskis (Ed.). Studies in American Historical Demography.
SOCIAL DEMOGRAPHY
Edited by
Karl E. Taeuber
Larry L. Bumpass
James A. Sweet
Center for Demography and Ecology
University of Wisconsin—Madison
Madison, Wisconsin
ACADEMIC PRESS New York San Francisco London
A Subsidiary of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers
COPYRIGHT © 1978, BY ACADEMIC PRESS, INC.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
NO PART OF THIS PUBLICATION MAY BE REPRODUCED OR
TRANSMITTED IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY MEANS, ELECTRONIC
OR MECHANICAL, INCLUDING PHOTOCOPY, RECORDING, OR ANY
INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL SYSTEM, WITHOUT
PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM THE PUBLISHER.
ACADEMIC PRESS, INC.
Ill Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10003
United Kingdom Edition published by
ACADEMIC PRESS, INC. (LONDON) LTD.
24/28 Oval Road, London NW1 7DX
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Conference on Social Demography, Madison, Wis., 1975.
Social demography.
(Studies in population)
"Based on the proceedings of a Conference on Social
Demography, held in Madison, Wisconsin, July 1975;
co-sponsored by the Center for Demography and Ecology,
University of Wisconsin, and the Center for Population
Research, National Institute of Child Health and Human
Development."
Includes bibliographies.
1. Fertility, Human—Congresses. 2. Population
density—Congresses. 3. Social mobility—Congresses.
4. Population research—Congresses. I. Taeuber,
Karl E. II. Bumpass, Larry L. III. Sweet, James A.
IV. Wisconsin. University—Madison. Center for
Demography and Ecology. V. United States. National
Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Center
for Population Research. VI. Title. VII. Series.
HB849.C62 1975 301.32 78-606153
ISBN 0-12-682650-1
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
Numbers in parentheses indicate the pages on which the authors' contributions begin.
Calvin L Beale (157), Economic Research Service, Department of
Agriculture, Washington, D.C. 20560
Linda J. Beckman (61), Department of Psychiatry, University of Cali-
fornia at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90024
Larry L. Bumpass (45), Center for Demography and Ecology, Univer-
sity of Wisconsin—Madison, Madison, Wisconsin 53706
David L. Featherman (197), Department of Rural Sociology, University
of Wisconsin—Madison, Madison, Wisconsin 53706
Glenn V. Fuguitt (157), Department of Rural Sociology, University of
Wisconsin—Madison, Madison, Wisconsin 53706
Omer R. Galle (95), Population Research Center, University of Texas
at Austin, Austin, Texas 78705
Walter R. Gove (95), Department of Sociology, Vanderbilt University,
Nashville, Tennessee 37235
Robert M. Hauser (197), Department of Sociology, University of
Wisconsin—Madison, Madison, Wisconsin 53706
XI
xii List of Contributors
Amos H. Hawley (91), Department of Sociology, University of North
Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27514
David D. McFarland (181), Department of Sociology University of
California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90024
Samuel H. Preston* (299), Center for Studies in Demography and
Ecology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195
Ronald R. Rindfuss (15, 45), Department of Sociology, University of
North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27514
Norman B. Ryder (3), Office of Population Research, Princeton Uni-
versity, Princeton, New Jersey 08540
Burton Singer (261), Department of Mathematical Statistics, Columbia
University, New York, New York 10027
Seymour Spilerman-\ (261), Department of Sociology, University of
Wisconsin—Madison, Madison, Wisconsin 53706
James A. Sweet (15), Center for Demography and Ecology, University
of Wisconsin—Madison, Madison, Wisconsin 53706
Franklin D. Wilson (133), Center for Demography and Ecology, Uni-
versity of Wisconsin—Madison, Madison, Wisconsin 53706
Halliman H. Winsborough (231, 315), Center for Demography and
Ecology, University of Wisconsin—Madison, Madison, Wiscon-
sin 53706
* Present address: Population Division, United Nations, New York, New York 10017.
t Present address: Russell Sage Foundation, 230 Park Avenue, New York, New York
10017.
Preface
Governmental sponsorship of social research on a large scale is a re-
cent phenomenon. In the 1950s the National Science Foundation gradu-
ally expanded its mandate beyond the physical and biological sciences to
include portions of the social sciences. Population research was early
identified as a scientific topic of great interest. To guide formulation of
policy and program, the foundation commissioned an inventory and
appraisal of the state of the discipline. Philip M. Hauser and Otis Dudley
Duncan edited the report of that inventory, The Study of Population (Chi-
cago: University of Chicago Press, 1959). As graduate students, Taeuber
studied with both Hauser and Duncan, and Bumpass and Sweet studied
with Duncan. When the Center for Population Research expressed an
interest in devoting one of its annual conferences to behavioral science as-
pects of demography, our first thoughts were of ways to update The Study
of Population. We quickly realized that such an endeavor was beyond the
time and resources available to us. The 1975 conference, held at the Uni-
versity of Wisconsin—Madison, June 15-16, was the first devoted to so-
cial and behavioral research. As conference organizers, we sought to indi-
xiii
xiv Preface
cate to a scientific audience something of the nature of current research in
social demography.
In a short conference (IV2 days) there could be no serious attempt to
provide comprehensive coverage of all types of social science research on
population. We chose instead to focus on selected topics. In addition to
the plenary session, which assessed some emerging issues in demographic
analysis and research, three substantive sessions were held, each with
three research papers and an overview paper. All papers from the sub-
stantive sessions and two papers from the plenary session are included
(the author of a third plenary paper chose not to offer it for publication in
this volume). In an effort to assist in the transition from conference pres-
entation to publishable chapter each author was given time for revision,
and we took an active role in making editorial suggestions. Several papers
were completely rewritten, in some cases with substantial change in con-
tent. In one instance (Featherman and Hauser), a composite of material
presented at the conference and subsequent work is included. In another
instance (Singer and Spilerman), the chapter included in this volume is
completely different from the paper summarized orally at the conference.
The first 4 chapters (three research papers preceded by an overview)
pertain to fertility, the second 4 pertain to spatial distribution, and the
third set of chapters pertains to social mobility. Mortality, migration, and
many other topics on which social scientists are conducting demographic
research are entirely omitted, and, although demography is at least as
much a set of analytic tools as a substantive discipline, only 1 chapter
among these 12 is primarily methodological. Thus, the book focuses on
selected topics at the cost of a broader sampling of subject matter and an-
alytic style.
Federal agencies do have a tendency, even in their programs of support
for basic research, to focus on current national policy issues. There is a
persistent danger that the definitions of issues and of needed research will
become very narrow and topical. The combination of reproductive biol-
ogy with demography in a single Center for Population Research, under
the umbrella of the National Institutes of Health, poses a particularly per-
sistent tendency to identify population policy with the regulation of fertil-
ity through contraceptive intervention. Our choice of topics and chapters
represents a deliberate effort to demonstrate that many other issues of
profound national policy interest require study with high-quality social
science research and illumination with a demographic perspective. The
chapters on fertility, for example, demonstrate the virtue of sophisticated
trend analysis, explore the sociological meaning of age, and delineate the
complex social-psychological processes by which couples make deci-
sions regarding their reproductive behavior.
The chapters on spatial aspects of population include a report on the
Preface xv
remarkable "nonmetropolitan turnaround"; this chapter is another ex-
ample of the improved understanding that flows from careful trend analy-
sis. Also included is a systematic review of the evidence on possible
pathological consequences of excessively high or low population density,
and an intricate analysis of certain aspects of the spatial organization of
metropolitan activities. The redistribution of population is the goal of
some national policies and one result of many other policies. None of
these chapters is intended directly as policy analysis, but each augments
understanding of basic structural change in American society.
One of the noteworthy contributions of the 1959 Hauser and Duncan
appraisal, The Study of Population, was a definition of demography that
gave a legitimate place to the study of social mobility: "Demography is
the study of the size, territorial distribution, and composition of popula-
tion, changes therein, and the components of such changes, which may
be identified as natality, mortality, territorial movement, and social mo-
bility (change of status) [p. 31]." The study of social mobility is by no
means an exclusive domain of demographers, but social demographers
have important contributions to make. One social mobility chapter in-
cluded here addresses one of the fundamental political issues of our
time, the changing racial stratification. One chapter seeks to characterize
many types of social change in terms of their impact on successive gen-
erations of people. The third chapter, taking cognizance of the reliance
that many studies of social mobility place on repeated (longitudinal) pop-
ulation surveys, raises some methodological issues that should affect
not only the way future scholars analyze such data, but also the way
such data systems are designed and implemented.
In the years since publication of The Study of Population there has
been a veritable revolution in the quantity and character of demographic
data. The computer has expanded enormously the capabilities for produc-
tion of data and the techniques for analysis of data. There has been a sev-
eralfold increase in the number of population researchers and in the quan-
tity of scholarly demographic research that is published each year. Design
of a strategy for organization and funding of demographic research is less
dependent now on an inventory and appraisal of the status of demography
as science, and more dependent on an assessment of what holds promise
for the future. The topics, the analytic methods, and the data bases
common today differ from those of the 1950s, and there is every reason to
expect continual change in demographic research. In the plenary session,
two young demographers, accomplished at both scholarly writing and re-
search administration, were asked to consider not the "whence" of de-
mography but the "whither." These two chapters challenge all those con-
cerned with social demography and particularly, we hope, the sponsors of
this volume, to contemplate the future of research in social demography.
1
Some Problems of
Fertility Research
NORMAN B. RYDER
Survey research on fertility began nearly four decades ago with the for-
midable Indianapolis Study. Although by now we have learned a great
deal, our grasp of the subject remains tentative and uncertain. The pur-
pose of this chapter is to identify some difficulties of measurement and
conceptualization that call for resolution in our future work on fertility.
These reflections on the state of the art have been prompted by participa-
tion in the planning of the World Fertility Survey and the 1975 National
Fertility Study. The account begins with a discussion of the dependent
variable, partly as a matter of convenience of presentation, but partly
from the conviction that we must learn how to make accurate and mean-
ingful measurements of variations in reproductive behavior before begin-
ning the search for explanations of those variations.
Behavioral Data
The elementary information that represents the raw materials for defin-
ing our dependent variable comprises the following: the respondent's
3
Copyright © 1978 by Academic Press, Inc.
Social Demography All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
ISBN 0-12-682650-1
4 Norman B. Ryder
birthdate; the number and dates of her fertile pregnancies; and the date
the information is obtained. Note first that we have two rather different
kinds of definition of the universe about which we are attempting to make
inferences. If the data source is a system of vital registration for a popula-
tion, then, like all populations, it experiences continual metabolism, that
is, flows of individuals into and out of the system. If, on the other hand,
the data source is a set of retrospective histories furnished by the survi-
vors of the respective cohorts included in the sampling frame, we have
succeeded in suppressing the effects of that metabolism, but only at the
cost of introducing selectivity; characteristics associated with survival are
unlikely to be randomly related to reproduction. For populations like that
of the United States, such a consideration is fortuitously of little empirical
significance, but it may be quite important in some of the countries cov-
ered by the World Fertility Survey, where selectivity attributable to both
mortality and migration may be substantial over the course of the repro-
ductive life cyle.
A second problem concerns the accuracy of the raw data. In terms of
contribution to the understanding of international differences in fertility,
it is probably the case that the data with the largest potential yield come
from those populations that have the highest proportions illiterate and in-
numerate. In designing the World Fertility Survey questionnaire, we were
highly sensitive to the fact that underreporting of the number of fertile
pregnancies is commonplace and substantial. We attempted to cover
some of the exigencies believed to produce such underreporting by em-
ploying a battery of questions that asked separately about categories of
birth by gender, by survival, and by residence. The problem is not simply
one of ignorance or faulty memory, but also one of differing sociocultural
definitions of the situation. As a simple generalization, international
trends and differentials in fertility will reflect not only the reality that is
the object of the exercise, but also the sophistication of respondents, the
extent of correspondence of their definitions with ours, and the quality of
effort put into the collection process.
If we make the assumption that the data are sufficiently complete to
warrant analysis, the next question concerns the optimal approach to
their summarization. Measurement procedures to this end have been de-
veloped primarily from experience with official registration and enumera-
tion statistics. The recommended strategy is to calculate fertility rates
(ratios of number of occurrences to number of person-years of exposure
to risk of those occurrences) to as high a level of specificity as the data
base allows. This yields a surface of rates for the entire range of exposure,
sliced in various ways. Indices of the quantity or time pattern of fertility
then may be developed using real or synthetic cohort constructions. This