Demographic Research

Demography, foreclosure, and crime:: Assessing spatial heterogeneity in contemporary models of neighborhood crime rates (by Ashley N. Arnio, Eric P. Baumer)

2012-05-16T00:00:00Z

BACKGROUND
The present research evaluates the possibility of spatial heterogeneity in the effects on neighborhood crime rates of both traditional demographic indicators - immigrant concentration, racial composition, socioeconomic disadvantage, and residential instability - and a contemporary aspect of housing transition - foreclosure - that has garnered significant attention in recent scholarship.

OBJECTIVE
This research advances previous research by explicitly assessing the merits of the typical "global" or "one size fits all" approach that has been applied in most neighborhood studies of demographic context and neighborhood crime rates by juxtaposing it against an alternative strategy - geographically weighted regression (GWR) - that highlights the potentially significant "local" variability in model parameters. We assess the local variation of these relationships for census tracts within the city of Chicago.

METHODS
This paper utilizes GWR to test for spatial heterogeneity in the effects of demographic context and other predictors on neighborhood crime rates. We map local parameter estimates and t-values generated from the GWR models to highlight some of the patterns of demographic context observed in our analysis.

CONCLUSIONS
GWR results indicate significant variation across Chicago census tracts in the estimates of logged percent black, immigrant concentration, and foreclosure for both robbery and burglary rates. The observed effects of socioeconomic disadvantage on robbery rates and residential stability on burglary rates also are found to vary across local neighborhood clusters in Chicago. Visual inspection of these effects illuminates the importance of supplementing current approaches by "thinking locally" when developing theoretical explanations and empirical models of how demographic context shapes crime rates.

Space, race, and poverty: Spatial inequalities in walkable neighborhood amenities? (by Dustin T. Duncan, Jared Aldstadt, John Whalen, Kellee White, Marcia C. Castro, David R. Williams)

2012-05-15T00:00:00Z

BACKGROUND
Multiple and varied benefits have been suggested for increased neighborhood walkability. However, spatial inequalities in neighborhood walkability likely exist and may be attributable, in part, to residential segregation.

OBJECTIVE
Utilizing a spatial demographic perspective, we evaluated potential spatial inequalities in walkable neighborhood amenities across census tracts in Boston, MA (US).

METHODS
The independent variables included minority racial/ethnic population percentages and percent of families in poverty. Walkable neighborhood amenities were assessed with a composite measure. Spatial autocorrelation in key study variables were first calculated with the Global Moran's I statistic. Then, Spearman correlations between neighborhood socio-demographic characteristics and walkable neighborhood amenities were calculated as well as Spearman correlations accounting for spatial autocorrelation. We fit ordinary least squares (OLS) regression and spatial autoregressive models when appropriate as a final step.

RESULTS
Significant positive spatial autocorrelation was found in neighborhood socio-demographic characteristics (e.g. census tract percent Black), but not walkable neighborhood amenities or in the OLS regression residuals. Spearman correlations between neighborhood socio-demographic characteristics and walkable neighborhood amenities were not statistically significant, nor were neighborhood socio-demographic characteristics significantly associated with walkable neighborhood amenities in OLS regression models.

CONCLUSIONS
Our results suggest that there is residential segregation in Boston and that spatial inequalities do not necessarily show up using a composite measure.

COMMENTS
Future research in other geographic areas (including international contexts) and using different definitions of neighborhoods (including small-area definitions) should evaluate if spatial inequalities are found using composite measures, but also should use measures of specific neighborhood amenities.

What is on a Demographer's Mind?: A Worldwide Survey (by Hendrik P. Van Dalen, Kène Henkens)

2012-05-03T00:00:00Z

BACKGROUND
Over the years, the community of demographers has grown in numbers and research interests, and has become increasingly interdisciplinary. The question is whether this process of growth and diversity has led to a fragmented community of demographers.

OBJECTIVE
We examine whether or not demographers are characterized by a high level of consensus in approach and outlook. We focus on two issues. The first relates to the level of consensus among demographers on what they perceive to be the most urgent population issues, and what their opinions are about population and fertility developments. The second issue focuses on the question of whether or not there is a common approach or research style among demographers.

METHODS
We gain insight into the opinions and attitudes of 970 demographers on the basis of an internet survey among IUSSP members, carried out in 2009.

RESULTS
There is a high level of consensus on what is considered the most important population issue: 'population aging'. With respect to population policy, demographers are greatly divided. There is, however, a high level of consensus on what makes a demographer successful: being highly empirical. Demography seems to be a well integrated discipline, as applied researchers take note of what pure researchers publish and vice versa. Demography has scientific leaders who form a unifying power within the discipline.

CONCLUSIONS
The core of the discipline of demography is to be found in an openness to insights from different disciplines, a commitment to data and empirical research, and well integrated spheres of applied and pure research.

Estimating Trends in the Total Fertility Rate with Uncertainty Using Imperfect Data: Examples from West Africa (by Leontine Alkema, Adrian Raftery, Patrick Gerland, Samuel J. Clark, Francois Pelletier)

2012-04-25T00:00:00Z

BACKGROUND
Estimating the total fertility rate is challenging for many developing countries because of limited data and varying data quality. A standardized, reproducible approach to produce estimates that include an uncertainty assessment is desired.

METHODS
We develop a method to estimate and assess uncertainty in the total fertility rate over time, based on multiple imperfect observations from different data sources including surveys and censuses. We take account of measurement error in observations by decomposing it into bias and variance and assess both by linear regression on a variety of data quality covariates. We estimate the total fertility rate using a local smoother, and assess uncertainty using the weighted likelihood bootstrap.

RESULTS
We apply our method to data from seven countries in West Africa and construct estimates and uncertainty intervals for the total fertility rate. Based on cross-validation exercises, we find that accounting for differences in data quality between observations gives better calibrated confidence intervals and reduces bias.

CONCLUSIONS
When working with multiple imperfect observations from different data sources to estimate the total fertility rate, or demographic indicators in general, potential biases and differences in error variance have to be taken into account to improve the estimates and their uncertainty assessment.

Stationary populations with below-replacement fertility (by Carl Schmertmann)

2012-04-18T00:00:00Z

BACKGROUND
A population with sustained below-replacement fertility and constant immigration eventually becomes stationary. Stationary-through-immigration (SI) populations have unusual age structures that depend on the distribution of immigrants' arrival ages.

OBJECTIVE
I summarize known formal relationships between the distribution of immigrants' entry ages and the long-run size and structure of SI populations. I clarify a previously published result about SI dependency ratios.

RESULTS
The long-run size and age structure of an SI population depend on the remaining life expectancies of arriving immigrants, but are also sensitive to the expected numbers of native children born after arrival. Numerical calculations with contemporary Austrian data show (1) contrary to previously published results, immigration flows need not be concentrated in early working ages in order to ensure low overall dependency, and (2) the SI dependency ratio is minimized when all immigrants are in their mid-30s.

Is fertility stalling in Jordan? (by Valeria Cetorelli, Tiziana Leone)

2012-04-05T00:00:00Z

BACKGROUND
Most of the recent literature on fertility stalls has concentrated on sub-Saharan Africa and has highlighted flaws in DHS data. No similar detailed research exists for presumed stalls occurring in countries outside that region. This is particularly surprising when considering that cases of fertility stalls have also been suggested in Middle Eastern countries, including in Egypt, Syria and among the Palestinians in Israel and the occupied Territory.

OBJECTIVE
The present paper is the first to study an apparent fertility stall in Jordan, using five DHS surveys, and to carry out a rigorous three-stage analysis to assess its genuiness.

METHODS
First, the quality of data concerning age and birth dates of women and their children is evaluated to control for possible misreporting. Second, retrospective fertility rates are calculated from each survey and a reliable fertility trend covering over 30 years is reconstructed from pooled data of all surveys. Finally, a linear regression model is fitted to assess whether the rate of fertility decline in the stalling period differs significantly from the rate of decline in the preceding period and is not statistically different from zero.

RESULTS
The analysis demonstrates that not only is the stall real and not due to data errors, but it is also one of the longest lasting recently assessed. Since more than a decade, fertility in Jordan has remained relatively constant at a rate exceeding 3.5 children per woman.

CONCLUSIONS
This has important policy implications. It suggests the need for greater attention to possible cases of similar stalls in neighbouring countries and in-depth investigations of their determinants.

Labour market integration, occupational uncertainty, and fertility choices in Germany and the UK (by Christian Schmitt)

2012-04-03T00:00:00Z

The aim of this paper is to investigate how occupational prospects affect first-birth decisions of men and women. Contrasting the continental conservative German welfare state with the liberal market economy of the UK, the focus of analyses rests on how welfare state alignment affects fertility rationales in the context of either promising or bleak occupational prospects. The results based on data from BHPS and GSOEP show that welfare state orientations influence work-family choices, evoking a delay of family formation among British and German women with a close labour market attachment. Furthermore, a lengthy process of occupational integration tends to hamper the transition to parenthood among both men and women, and particularly in Germany.

The mystery of Japan's missing centenarians explained (by Yasuhiko Saito, Vanessa Yong, Jean-Marie Robine)

2012-03-28T00:00:00Z

This report elucidates the issue of Japan's missing centenarians, which was uncovered in 2010. We provide the latest figures from verification efforts, discuss sources of centenarian information in Japan, examine possible causes, and evaluate the effect of the missing centenarians on official statistics. In Japan 234,354 people registered before 1910 remained on the family registers in 2010, without being crossed out. They would have been 100 years old at least and represent 0.5Š of the births recorded between 1872 and 1910. The impact of this group on life expectancy statistics, however, is effectively nil.

Family Life and Developmental Idealism in Yazd, Iran (by Mohammad Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi, Abbas Askari Nodoushan, Arland Thornton)

2012-03-27T00:00:00Z

BACKGROUND
This paper is motivated by the theory that developmental idealism has been disseminated globally and has become an international force for family and demographic change. Developmental idealism is a set of cultural beliefs and values about development and how development relates to family and demographic behavior. It holds that modern societies are causal forces producing modern families, that modern families help to produce modern societies, and that modern family change is to be expected.

OBJECTIVE
We examine the extent to which developmental idealism has been disseminated in Iran. We also investigate predictors of the dissemination of developmental idealism.

METHODS
We use survey data collected in 2007 from a sample of women in Yazd, a city in Iran. We examine the distribution of developmental idealism in the sample and the multivariate predictors of developmental idealism.

RESULTS
We find considerable support for the expectation that many elements of developmental idealism have been widely disseminated. Statistically significant majorities associate development with particular family attributes, believe that development causes change in families, believe that fertility reductions and age-at-marriage increases help foster development, and perceive family trends in Iran headed toward modernity. As predicted, parental education, respondent education, and income affect adherence to developmental idealism.

CONCLUSIONS
Developmental idealism has been widely disseminated in Yazd, Iran and is related to social and demographic factors in predicted ways.

COMMENTS
Although our data come from only one city, we expect that developmental idealism has been widely distributed in Iran, with important implications for family and demographic behavior.

Discussing the Strehler-Mildvan model of mortality (by Maxim Finkelstein)

2012-03-13T00:00:00Z

BACKGROUND
Half a century ago Strehler and Mildvan (1960) have published the seminal paper that, based on some assumptions (postulates), theoretically 'justified' the Gompertz law of mortality.

OBJECTIVE
We wish to discuss assumptions and limitations of the original Strehler-Mildvan model (as well as of the Strehler-Mildvan correlation) and consider some modifications and departures from this model.

METHODS
We use the framework of stochastic point processes for analyzing the original Strehler-Mildvan model. We also suggest the 'lifesaving approach' for describing the departure from rectangularization to shifts in survival curves for human mortality that has been observed in the second half of the previous century.

RESULTS
We show that the Strehler-Mildvan model can be justified only under the additional assumption that the process of shocks (demands for energy) follows the Poisson pattern. We also suggest a modification that accounts for the oldest-old mortality plateau.

Social Mobility and Demographic Behaviour: Long Term Perspectives (by Martin Dribe, Jan Van Bavel, Cameron Campbell)

2012-03-09T00:00:00Z

COMMENTS
We introduce a collection of papers that examine interactions between demographic behavior and social mobility via analysis of historical and contemporary longitudinal, individual- and household-level socioeconomic and demographic data. The authors originally presented these papers at "The International Seminar on Social Mobility and Demographic Behavior: A Long Term Perspective" held at the California Center for Population Research at UCLA in December 2009, and organized on behalf of the IUSSP Scientific Panel on Historical Demography. We convened the meeting as a means of promoting the use of historical demographic data to address a topic of contemporary relevance that has been the subject of much attention lately: how the inter-generational transmission of socioeconomic status and socioeconomic differentials in demographic behavior interact to shape patterns of inequality over the long term. The papers here focus specifically on relationships among fertility, marriage, migration, and social mobility.