| 1. |
- Blaabæk, Ea Hoppe, et al.
(författare)
-
Family Size and Educational Attainment : Cousins, Contexts, and Compensation
- 2020
-
Ingår i: European Journal of Population. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0168-6577 .- 1572-9885. ; 36:3, s. 575-600
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper analyses the effect of family size on children’s educational attainment using a new research design that combines fixed effects and instrumental variable (IV) approaches. We use (a) data on first cousins who belong to the same extended family but to different nuclear families to control for extended family fixed effects and (b) variation in in-married spouses’ number of siblings (a proxy for their fecundity and preferences) as an IV for variation in family size within extended families. We find that family size has a negative causal effect on educational attainment and, moreover, that the negative effect is smaller in families with stronger social ties. Our results suggest that contextual characteristics outside the nuclear family moderate the negative effect of family size on children’s educational attainment.
|
|
| 2. |
- Dribe, Martin, et al.
(författare)
-
Socio-economic status and fertility decline : Insights from historical transitions in Europe and North America
- 2017
-
Ingår i: Population Studies. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1477-4747 .- 0032-4728. ; 71:1, s. 3-21
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The timings of historical fertility transitions in different regions are well understood by demographers, but much less is known regarding their specific features and causes. In the study reported in this paper, we used longitudinal micro-level data for five local populations in Europe and North America to analyse the relationship between socio-economic status and fertility during the fertility transition. Using comparable analytical models and class schemes for each population, we examined the changing socio-economic differences in marital fertility and related these to common theories on fertility behaviour. Our results do not provide support for the hypothesis of universally high fertility among the upper classes in pre-transitional society, but do support the idea that the upper classes acted as forerunners by reducing their fertility before other groups. Farmers and unskilled workers were the latest to start limiting their fertility. Apart from these similarities, patterns of class differences in fertility varied significantly between populations.
|
|
| 3. |
- Molitoris, Joseph
(författare)
-
Breast-feeding during Pregnancy and the Risk of Miscarriage
- 2019
-
Ingår i: Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health. - : Guttmacher Institute. - 1931-2393 .- 1538-6341. ; 51:3, s. 153-163
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- ContextBreastfeeding rates and durations have been increasing among American women in recent decades, but a consequence of these trends is that women may be more likely to practice breastfeeding during pregnancy (BDP). BDP has been hypothesized to increase the risk of miscarriage, yet there has been little research investigating if this is the case.MethodsUsing data on 10,661 pregnancies from the National Survey of Family Growth spanning 2002-2015, unadjusted miscarriage rates were calculated according to BDP status. Multivariate Cox proportional hazards models were used to investigate the association between BDP and the risk of miscarriage.ResultsBDP was practiced in 6.1% of the total time at risk of miscarriage. The miscarriage rate was elevated when mothers exclusively BDP (98.4 per 1000 person-months at risk) compared to when mothers were either complementary BDP or not breastfeeding. After adjusting for maternal and pregnancy characteristics, there was a nearly four-fold increase in the risk of miscarriage when mothers practiced exclusive BDP versus not breastfeeding and no increased risk associated with complementary BDP. The magnitude of the increase during exclusive BDP was similar to that of women who conceived above age 40, a well-known predictor of pregnancy loss.ConclusionExclusive BDP is associated with a heightened risk of miscarriage, but it remains unclear how the practice is associated with outcomes of the mother and breastfed child. More research is therefore needed to understand all of these potential relationships before any firm recommendations on the safety of the practice should be made.
|
|
| 4. |
- Molitoris, Joseph
(författare)
-
Heterogeneous Effects of Birth Spacing on Neonatal Mortality Risks in Bangladesh
- 2018
-
Ingår i: Studies in Family Planning. - : Wiley. - 0039-3665. ; 49:1, s. 3-21
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The negative relationship between birth interval length and neonatal mortality risks is well documented, but heterogeneity in this relationship has been largely ignored. Using the Bangladesh Maternal Mortality and Health Care Survey 2010, this study investigates how the effect of birth interval length on neonatal mortality risks varies by maternal age at birth and maternal education. There is significant variation in the effect of interval length on neonatal mortality along these dimensions. Young mothers and those with little education, both of which make up a large share of the Bangladeshi population, can disproportionately benefit from longer intervals. Because these results were obtained from within-family models, they are not due to unobservable heterogeneity between mothers. Targeting women with these characteristics may lead to significant improvements in neonatal mortality rates, but there are significant challenges in reaching them.
|
|
| 5. |
- Molitoris, Joseph, et al.
(författare)
-
Industrialization and inequality revisited: Mortality differentials and vulnerability to economic stress in Stockholm, 1878-1926.
- 2016
-
Ingår i: European Review of Economic History. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 1474-0044 .- 1361-4916. ; 20:2, s. 176-197
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This work combines economic and demographic data to examine inequality of living standards in Stockholm at the turn of the twentieth century. Using a longitudinal population register with occupational information, we utilize event-history models to show that despite absolute decreases in mortality, relative differences between socioeconomic groups remained virtually constant. The results also show that child mortality continued to be sensitive to short-term fluctuations in wages and that there were no socioeconomic differences in this response. We argue that the persistent inequality in living standards was possibly due to differences in residential patterns and nutrition.
|
|
| 6. |
- Molitoris, Joseph
(författare)
-
Life and Death in the City: Demography and Living Standards during Stockholm's Industrialization
- 2015
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation uses longitudinal micro-data from Stockholm between 1878 and 1926 to study the causes and consequences of the fertility transition and to examine the development of living standards inequality during industrialization. Although both processes have received much interest from researchers, we know relatively little of how either one played out among individuals in urban areas, which were both at the forefront of industrialization and the fertility decline. To address this deficiency, I have analyzed the development of socioeconomic differentials in fertility, children’s intergenerational social mobility, and infant and child mortality during Stockholm’s industrialization and fertility transition. The results of this work challenge many existing explanations of the fertility decline and reveal how, despite overall improvements in living standards, elite socioeconomic groups were able to continually leverage their superior resources to maintain significantly lower levels of infant and child mortality.
|
|
| 7. |
- Molitoris, Joseph
(författare)
-
Longer birth intervals can reduce infant mortality in poor countries
- 2019
-
Ingår i: N-IUSSP. - 2704-7067.
-
Tidskriftsartikel (populärvet., debatt m.m.)abstract
- Recent work on wealthy populations has called into question long-standing conclusions about the importance of birth spacing for infant health. Using data from 77 countries, Joseph Molitoris and colleagues show that spacing births beyond 24 months can greatly reduce infant mortality risks, but that the benefits of birth spacing decline with socioeconomic and demographic development.
|
|
| 8. |
- Molitoris, Joseph, et al.
(författare)
-
Ready to stop: Socioeconomic status and the fertility transition in Stockholm, 1878-1926
- 2016
-
Ingår i: Economic History Review. - : Wiley. - 1468-0289 .- 0013-0117. ; 69:2, s. 679-704
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The western fertility decline is arguably the most significant demographic change to have occurred in the past 200 years, yet its causes and processes are still shrouded in ambiguity due to a lack of individual-level longitudinal data. A growing body of research has helped improve our understanding of the decline's causes by examining the development of socioeconomic differences in fertility using historical micro-data, but these have largely only considered rural areas where fertility was generally slower to decline. This article contributes to the literature by utilizing individual-level data from the Roteman Database for Stockholm, Sweden between 1878 and 1926 to examine the association of socioeconomic status and fertility and the adoption of stopping behaviour during the city's transition. Using piecewise constant hazard models and logistic regression, we find that a clear class pattern arises in which the elite were early practitioners of fertility control, followed by the working classes. As the transition unfolded, socioeconomic differences in stopping behaviour disappeared and overall fertility differentials were also minimized, both of them being consistent with patterns observed in rural populations. The implications of these findings for major explanations of the decline are discussed in the concluding section.
|
|
| 9. |
- Molitoris, Joseph
(författare)
-
The Effect of Birth Spacing on Child Mortality in Sweden, 1878-1926
- 2017
-
Ingår i: Population and Development Review. - : Wiley. - 0098-7921. ; 43:1, s. 61-82
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A negative association between interval length and infant and child mortality has been consistently identified in modern developing countries. The reasons for this association are unclear, however. Leading hypotheses explain these differences as a result of sibling competition, maternal depletion, infection transmission, or unobserved maternal factors, but none has received overwhelming support. Using data from Stockholm between 1878 and 1926, this study contributes to the body of research by identifying trends in the relationship over time, controlling for unobserved maternal heterogeneity, and exploiting sibling deaths to better understand the mechanisms at work. Results show the association disappeared over time as infectious disease mortality fell and that deaths of previous siblings during the postnatal period disproportionately tended to increase the risk of dying among index children born after short intervals. These findings strongly suggest the relationship is related to the transmission of disease between closely spaced siblings.
|
|
| 10. |
- Molitoris, Joseph, et al.
(författare)
-
When and Where Birth Spacing Matters for Child Survival : An International Comparison Using the DHS
- 2019
-
Ingår i: Demography. - : Duke University Press. - 0070-3370 .- 1533-7790. ; 56:4, s. 1349-1370
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A large body of research has found an association between short birth intervals and the risk of infant mortality in developing countries, but recent work on other perinatal outcomes from highly developed countries has called these claims into question, arguing that previous studies have failed to adequately control for unobserved heterogeneity. Our study addresses this issue by estimating within-family models on a sample of 4.5 million births from 77 countries at various levels of development. We show that after unobserved maternal heterogeneity is controlled for, intervals shorter than 36 months substantially increase the probability of infant death. However, the importance of birth intervals as a determinant of infant mortality varies inversely with maternal education and the strength of the relationship varies regionally. Finally, we demonstrate that the mortality-reducing effects of longer birth intervals are strong at low levels of development but decline steadily toward zero at higher levels of development. These findings offer a clear way to reconcile previous research showing that birth intervals are important for perinatal outcomes in low-income countries but are much less consequential in high-income settings.
|
|
