Born out
"Many demographers have forecast a recovery in births as the economy improves and more young people start having families. But while America’s 'baby bust' at least seems to be leveling off, the now-five-year-old economic recovery has yet to translate into an upturn in births...Meanwhile, the nation’s 'total fertility rate' — a statistical measure of how many children each woman is likely to have over her lifetime — also has dropped, to 1.86 from 1.88. That is below the 2.1 children needed to keep the population stable...While the nation’s overall fertility rate fell 1% last year, the rate rose slightly for non-Hispanic white women. Women in their 30s, who tend to be more financially stable, also saw their fertility rates rise." [WSJ]
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"Not as many married couples as expected are taking advantage of a loosening in China’s one-child policy that allows them to have two children if one spouse is an only child." [WSJ]
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Surgical Sterilization, Regret, and Race: Contemporary Patterns
Karina Shreffler et al., Social Science Research, March 2015, Pages 31–45
Abstract:
Surgical sterilization is a relatively permanent form of contraception that has been disproportionately used by Black, Hispanic, and Native American women in the United States in the past. We use a nationally representative sample of 4,609 women ages 25 to 45 to determine whether sterilization continues to be more common and consequential by race for reproductive-age women. Results indicate that Native American and Black women are more likely to be sterilized than non-Hispanic White women, and Hispanic and Native American women are more likely than non-Hispanic White women to report that their sterilization surgeries prevent them from conceiving children they want. Reasons for sterilization differ significantly by race. These findings suggest that stratified reproduction has not ended in the United States and that the patterns and consequences of sterilization continue to vary by race.
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Association Between the New Hampshire Parental Notification Law and Minors Undergoing Abortions in Northern New England
Lauren MacAfee, Jennifer Castle & Regan Theiler, Obstetrics & Gynecology, January 2015, Pages 170–174
Objective: To assess the association of the 2012 New Hampshire parental notification law with patterns of abortion in northern New England minors.
Methods: This was a retrospective cohort study examining all minors undergoing abortions at Planned Parenthood clinics in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine from 2011 to 2012.
Results: The number of abortions among minors in New Hampshire decreased from 95 to 50 (47%, 95% confidence interval [CI] 37.03–57.88; P=.015) from 2011 to 2012. Minors residing in Massachusetts, which has a parental consent law, accounted for 62% of this change. Abortions among New Hampshire minors decreased by 19% (from 57 to 46, 95% CI 10.05–31.91; P=.707), and minors did not seek more abortions at Planned Parenthood clinics in Vermont or Maine. The average age, gestational age, and number of second-trimester cases did not change. Parental awareness of the abortion increased from 2011 to 2012 in New Hampshire (54%, 95% CI 44.21–63.96 to 92%, 95% CI 80.65–97.36; P<.001); however, there was no difference in the overall rate of adult involvement during the study period. Four (8%) minors in New Hampshire used the judicial bypass option.
Conclusion: Implementation of the New Hampshire parental notification law correlated with a decrease in minors undergoing abortions at Planned Parenthood clinics in the state, largely as a result of a decrease in the number of minors coming from Massachusetts. There was an increase in parental involvement but no change in overall adult involvement, and use of the judicial bypass option or minors crossing state lines was uncommon.
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Disgust in pregnancy and fetus sex — Longitudinal study
Agnieszka Zelazniewicz & Boguslaw Pawlowski, Physiology & Behavior, February 2015, Pages 177–181
Abstract:
Disgust, an emotion triggering behavioral avoidance of pathogens, serves as a first line of defense against infections. Since behavior related to disgust involves some cost, the aversive reaction should be adjusted to the level of an individual's immunocompetence, and raise only when immunological function is lower (e.g. during pregnancy). We studied changes in disgust sensitivity in pregnant women, and tested if disgust sensitivity is related to a fetus's sex. 92 women participated in a three-stage research, answering the Disgust Scale-Revised questionnaire at each trimester of pregnancy. The result showed that total disgust and disgust sensitivity in the Core Domain were the highest in the first trimester (when maternal immunosuppression is also the highest), and decreased during pregnancy in women bearing daughters. Women bearing sons had relatively high disgust sensitivity persisting in the first and in the second trimester. The elevation in disgust sensitivity during the second trimester for mothers bearing male fetus can be explained by the necessity to protect for a longer time, a more ecologically sensitive fetus, and also herself when bearing a more energetically costly sex. The proximate mechanism may involve the differences in maternal testosterone and cortisol concentrations in the second trimester of pregnancy.
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Personality Traits Increasingly Important for Male Fertility: Evidence from Norway
Vegard Skirbekk & Morten Blekesaune, European Journal of Personality, November/December 2014, Pages 521–529
Abstract:
We study the relationship between personality traits and fertility using a survey of Norwegian men and women born from 1927 to 1968 (N = 7017 individuals). We found that personality relates to men's and women's fertility differently; conscientiousness decreases female fertility, openness decreases male fertility and extraversion raises the fertility of both sexes. Neuroticism depresses fertility for men, but only for those born after 1956. The lower male fertility in younger cohorts high in neuroticism cannot be explained by partnership status, income or education. The proportion of childless men (at age 40 years) has increased rapidly for Norwegian male cohorts from 1940 to 1970 (from about 15 to 25 per cent). For women, it has only increased marginally (from 10 to 13 per cent). Our findings suggest that this could be partly explained by the increasing importance of personality characteristics for men's probability of becoming fathers. Men that have certain personality traits may increasingly be avoiding the long-term commitment of having children, or their female partners are shunning entering this type of commitment with them. Childbearing in contemporary richer countries may be less likely to be influenced by economic necessities and more by individual partner characteristics, such as personality.
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Culled males, infant mortality and reproductive success in a pre-industrial Finnish population
Tim Bruckner et al., Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences, 22 January 2015
Abstract:
Theoretical and empirical literature asserts that the sex ratio (i.e. M/F) at birth gauges the strength of selection in utero and cohort quality of males that survive to birth. We report the first individual-level test in humans, using detailed life-history data, of the ‘culled cohort’ hypothesis that males born to low annual sex ratio cohorts show lower than expected infant mortality and greater than expected lifetime reproductive success. We applied time-series and structural equation methods to a unique multigenerational dataset of a natural fertility population in nineteenth century Finland. We find that, consistent with culled cohorts, a 1 s.d. decline in the annual cohort sex ratio precedes an 8% decrease in the risk of male infant mortality. Males born to lower cohort sex ratios also successfully raised 4% more offspring to reproductive age than did males born to higher cohort sex ratios. The offspring result, however, falls just outside conventional levels of statistical significance. In historical Finland, the cohort sex ratio gauges selection against males in utero and predicts male infant mortality. The reproductive success findings, however, provide weak support for an evolutionarily adaptive explanation of male culling in utero.
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Easterlin Revisited: Relative Income and the Baby Boom
Matthew Hill, Explorations in Economic History, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper reexamines the first viable and a still leading explanation for mid-twentieth century baby booms: Richard Easterlin's relative income hypothesis. He suggested that when incomes are higher than material aspirations (formed in childhood), birth rates would rise. This paper uses microeconomic data to formulate a measure of an individual's relative income. The use of microeconomic data allows the researcher to control for both state fixed effects and cohort fixed effects, both have been absent in previous examinations of Easterlin's hypothesis. The results of the empirical analysis are consistent with Easterlin's assertion that relative income influenced fertility decisions, although the effect operates only through childhood income. When the estimated effects are contextualized, they explain 12 percent of the U.S. baby boom.
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Terrorism and fertility: Evidence for a causal influence of terrorism on fertility
Claude Berrebi & Jordan Ostwald, Oxford Economic Papers, January 2015, Pages 63-82
Abstract:
Using a panel data set of 170 countries and terrorism data from 1970 to 2007, we find that terrorist attacks decrease fertility as measured by both total fertility rates and crude birth rates. Furthermore, by using a novel instrumental variable approach, we identify a causal link and address endogeneity concerns related to the possibility of stress, caused by rising birth rates or transitioning demographics, affecting terrorism. We find that on average, terrorist attacks decrease fertility, reducing both the expected number of children a woman has over her lifetime and the number of live births occurring during each year. The results are statistically significant and robust across a multitude of model specifications, varying measures of fertility, and differing measures of terrorism.
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Fertility and the Price of Children: Evidence from Slavery and Slave Emancipation
Marianne Wanamaker, Journal of Economic History, December 2014, Pages 1045-1071
Abstract:
Theories of the demographic transition often center on the rising price of children. A model of fertility derived from household production in the antebellum United States contains both own children and slaves as inputs. Changes in slaveholdings beget changes in the marginal product of the slaveowners’ own children and, hence, their price. I use panel data on slaveowning households between 1850 and 1870 to measure the slaveowners’ own fertility responses to exogenous changes in slaveholdings. Results indicate a strong, negative correlation between own child prices and fertility.
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Foetus or child? Abortion discourse and attributions of humanness
Małgorzata Mikołajczak & Michał Bilewicz, British Journal of Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Due to moral, religious, and cultural sensibilities, the topic of abortion still gives rise to controversy. The ongoing public debate has become visibly polarized with the usage of the pro-life versus pro-choice rhetoric. The aim of the current research was to investigate whether the language used in abortion discourse can affect people's attitudes by changing their attributions of humanity to unborn. Across three experimental studies we showed that participants who read about a ‘foetus’, compared to a ‘child’ declared higher support for elective abortion (Study 1; N = 108), this effect can be explained by greater humanness, as reflected in human nature traits, attributed to the child (vs. the foetus; Study 2; N = 121). The effect is mediated uniquely by attribution of human nature, but not by human uniqueness traits (Study 3; N = 120). These findings serve as a starting point for discussion of the role of language in shaping attitudes on abortion and other morally ambiguous issues.
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Incidence of Emergency Department Visits and Complications After Abortion
Ushma Upadhyay et al.
Obstetrics & Gynecology, January 2015, Pages 175–183
Objective: To conduct a retrospective observational cohort study to estimate the abortion complication rate, including those diagnosed or treated at emergency departments (EDs).
Methods: Using 2009-2010 abortion data among women covered by the fee-for-service California Medicaid program and all subsequent health care for 6 weeks after having an abortion, we analyzed reasons for ED visits and estimated the abortion-related complication rate and the adjusted relative risk. Complications were defined as receiving an abortion-related diagnosis or treatment at any source of care within 6 weeks after an abortion. Major complications were defined as requiring hospital admission, surgery, or blood transfusion.
Results: A total of 54,911 abortions among 50,273 fee-for-service Medi-Cal beneficiaries were identified. Among all abortions, 1 of 16 (6.4%, n=3,531) was followed by an ED visit within 6 weeks but only 1 of 115 (0.87%, n=478) resulted in an ED visit for an abortion-related complication. Approximately 1 of 5,491 (0.03%, n=15) involved ambulance transfers to EDs on the day of the abortion. The major complication rate was 0.23% (n=126, 1/436): 0.31% (n=35) for medication abortion, 0.16% (n=57) for first-trimester aspiration abortion, and 0.41% (n=34) for second-trimester or later procedures. The total abortion-related complication rate including all sources of care including EDs and the original abortion facility was 2.1% (n=1,156): 5.2% (n=588) for medication abortion, 1.3% (n=438) for first-trimester aspiration abortion, and 1.5% (n=130) for second-trimester or later procedures.
Conclusion: Abortion complication rates are comparable to previously published rates even when ED visits are included and there is no loss to follow-up.
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Public Opinion About Stem Cell Research, 2002 to 2010
Matthew Nisbet & Amy Becker, Public Opinion Quarterly, Winter 2014, Pages 1003-1022
Abstract:
Analyzing available polling questions administered between 2002 and 2010, we review trends in public opinion about stem cell research. We specifically assess questions measuring public attention, knowledge, trust, and policy preferences. Across years, despite their consistently low levels of scientific knowledge and understanding, an increasing proportion of Americans supported government funding for embryonic stem cell research and viewed such research as morally acceptable. Variations related to question-wording effects, however, indicate that Americans remain relatively ambivalent about the moral trade-offs involved in research, suggesting that public opinion could change in relation to focusing events and political conditions.
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John Phillips & Joseph Millum, Bioethics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Estimates of the burden of disease assess the mortality and morbidity that affect a population by producing summary measures of health such as quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs). These measures typically do not include stillbirths (fetal deaths occurring during the later stages of pregnancy or during labor) among the negative health outcomes they count. Priority-setting decisions that rely on these measures are therefore likely to place little value on preventing the more than three million stillbirths that occur annually worldwide. In contrast, neonatal deaths, which occur in comparable numbers, have a substantial impact on burden of disease estimates and are commonly seen as a pressing health concern. In this article we argue in favor of incorporating unintended fetal deaths that occur late in pregnancy into estimates of the burden of disease. Our argument is based on the similarity between late-term fetuses and newborn infants and the assumption that protecting newborns is important. We respond to four objections to counting stillbirths: (1) that fetuses are not yet part of the population and so their deaths should not be included in measures of population health; (2) that valuing the prevention of stillbirths will undermine women's reproductive rights; (3) that including stillbirths implies that miscarriages (fetal deaths early in pregnancy) should also be included; and (4) that birth itself is in fact ethically significant. We conclude that our proposal is ethically preferable to current practice and, if adopted, is likely to lead to improved decisions about health spending.