This book briefly reviews sociological, economic, and demographic literature pertaining to the relationship between income and fertility in developed and developing countries. He presents a conceptual framework to examine how fertility responds to changes in the distribution of household income. The analysis of data from Puerto Rico, Korea, and rural India is carefully executed, and conclusive policy implications are discussed. Originally published in 1979

Drawing extensively from agency records, newspaper accounts, sociological studies and court documents, Hough explores the experiences of rural white unwed mothers in Maine and Tennessee.

Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea and Hong Kong SAR are among the very lowest-fertility countries in the whole world, and even China has reached fertility levels lower than those in many European countries. If these levels continue over long periods East Asia will soon face accelerating population decline in addition the changes in age distributions in such populations raise major new questions for planning of economic and social welfare.

This book brings together work by noted experts on the low fertility countries of East Asia with an up-to-date analysis of trends in fertility, what we know about their determinants and consequences, the policy issues and how these are being addressed in the various countries. Its role in bringing together information on policy trends and initiatives of a pro-natalist kind adopted over recent years in these countries is extremely important, as is the fact that the discussion of these pro-natalist policies is set in the context of a thorough analysis of what has driven fertility so low in these countries.

Ultra-Low Fertility in Pacific Asia is invaluable to students and scholars of East Asian public and social policy, as well as fertility studies more generally.

APPRAISAL AND REVALIDATION SERIES The new Appraisal and Revalidation Series helps doctors demonstrate their competence to the standard expected by the General Medical Council and to the standard expected if they are recognised as having 'special clinical interests'. It helps doctors gather evidence of their performance for appraisal and revalidation portfolios. This fifth book in the series examines the practical ways to identify learning and service needs within the areas of substance abuse palliative care musculoskeletal conditions and prescribing practice. It also provides guidance on how to collect data to demonstrate learning competence performance and service delivery standards. All general practitioners and those with special clinical interests and primary care organisation leads will find this book essential reading. For more information on other titles in this series please click here

This book offers a timely analysis of work and labor processes and how they are rapidly changing under globalization. The contributors explore traditional sectors of the U.S. and world economies - from auto to steel to agriculture - as well as work under new production arrangements, such as third world export processing zones. Many chapters analyze changing dynamics of gender, nationality, and class. The contributors explain why more intensified forms of control by the state and by capital interests are emerging under globalization. Yet they also emphasize new possibilities for labor, including new forms of organizing and power sharing in a rapidly changing economy.

This book offers a timely analysis of work and labor processes and how they are rapidly changing under globalization. The contributors explore traditional sectors of the U.S. and world economies - from auto to steel to agriculture - as well as work under new production arrangements, such as third world export processing zones. Many chapters analyze changing dynamics of gender, nationality, and class. The contributors explain why more intensified forms of control by the state and by capital interests are emerging under globalization. Yet they also emphasize new possibilities for labor, including new forms of organizing and power sharing in a rapidly changing economy.

This collection brings together the leading research in maternity care from the United States, Canada and Europe to discuss systems of care for pregnancy and childbirth. The essays focus on the practical side of "good" social science and "feminist-friendly" research. The text not only looks at maternity, but also the act of childbirth, with the goal of providing not just comparative perspectives of care, but also to integrate the differences in care within each essay for a truly international understanding of maternity care.

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This volume is an investigation into the silence of the feminine voice in Western thought, considering the important relationship between maternity and philosophy. The author shows how maternity has often been appropriated by some male theorists and explores ways of approaching motherhood and pregnancy from a feminist perspective. Drawing on examples such as Plato's allegory of the cave, the "productive man" of Marx philosophy, Sigmund Freud's and Melanie Klein's writings on the mother and the mother-daughter relationship, and the psychoanalytic and feminist insights of Irigaray and Kristeva, she shows how terms such as denial, repression and foreclosure offer insight into the philosophical construction of the maternal body. The book also draws upon the work of Althusser and Lyotard, showing how their work bears importantly on the silence of the feminine. Throughout the text Michelle Boulous Walker questions the assumptions that silence is simply the absence of language and presents new strategies for understanding how silence operates.

Women who are dominant are more likely to have sons. Demographic studies show that more male children are born after wars, yet most people believe that their baby's sex is a matter of chance - determined by the father's sperm. Valerie Grant presents evidence that the mother's personality - which is related to female testosterone levels - can actually influence which type of sperm fertilises the egg.
Using data from human and animal studies Valerie Grant discusses the implications for human evolution, developmental psychology and reproductive biology. Her claims are controversial and the implications of her findings far reaching. Whether mothers have sons or daughters may not be a matter of chance. It may depend on which sex infant the mother is more suited to raise.

Related link: www.sexratio.com
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Written by a pediatrician/adolescent medicine specialist and a developmental psychologist, this book is a collection of informative, nonredundant yet comprehensive studies on adolescent pregnancy and parenting. More than 200 adolescent women in an ethnically diverse sample were studied prenatally and at regular 6-month intervals for 31/2 years postpartum. Most of the teens were poor, unmarried, first-time mothers who resided within Southeast San Diego, a poor urban area approximately 10 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border.
The purpose of this book was to offer researchers, practitioners, program directors, teachers, and graduate and medical students a better understanding of teenage pregnancy and parenthood within the following domains:
* adolescent prenatal care and postpartum maternal and infant health outcomes,
* immediate repeat pregnancy,
* adolescent mothers' parenting,
* the role of the adolescent's mother in teenage mothers' parenting, and
* the baby's father.

This book provides a careful examination of the possible influence of birth order on political achievement and behavior. The authors look at American presidents, Supreme Court justices, United States senators and representatives, and the careers of an entire West Point class. For a comparative dimension, they also study British Prime Ministers, U.N. Secretaries General, post-Renaissance popes, leaders of the U.S.S.R., and great generals through the ages. What the authors find is that there is no measurable relationship between birth order (and being first born) and political achievement and behavior. These findings cast considerable doubt on the long standing belief that birth order has an important impact on either achievement or behavior. The authors clarify that very few studies suggesting such a relationship do not stand up under careful scrutiny. This basic conclusion and other curious findings from the study make Birth Order And Political Behavior insightful reading for almost any behavioral scientist. The book will also be relevant to courses in child development, clinical psychology, psychiatry, political science, anthropology, and sociology.

Everywhere in the world, populations of largely European origin are currently exeriencing not only their lowest-ever fertility levels, but what seem likely to be their longest-ever period of fertility at below-replacement levels. Although it is widely assumed that the fertiliy of these countries will return to replacement levels within 30 to 35 years, there is at present no empirical evidence that this will happen. The inevitable demographic results of this fertility pattern are an older age structure and a decline in numbers. Many see this as leading to labour shortages and wage inflation; even to weakened national defence and the disappearance of European peoples and culture. But while they are inevitable in today's low birth-rate populations, numerical declines and older age structures are unlikely to be either as great or as disruptive as commonly anticipated. Moreover, the policies proposed to avoid such demographic developments are clearly unsuitable. The inevitability of these changes - new in human history - must be accepted before societies can adjust to them and realize the benefits that are inherent in them.

In the first book-length examination of the impact of pregnancy on the therapeutic process, Fenster, Phillips, and Rapoport explore the variety of clinical, technical, and practical issues that arise out of the therapist's impending motherhood.

Birth rates are falling and fertility rates are well below replacement levels. At the same time, the economic crisis has forced governments to scale back public spending, reduce child support, and raise the retirement age, causing immense social conflict. Taking a step outside the disciplinary comfort zone, "Whither the Child?" asks how demography affects individuals and society. What does it feel like to live in a low fertility world? What are the consequences? Is there even a problem - economically, culturally and morally? No other book confronts so many dimensions of the low fertility issue and none engage with the thorny issues of child psychology, parenting, family, and social policy that are tackled head-on here.

A detailed story of how social science contributed to gay rights gains in the courts. For most of American history, public opinion was strongly opposed to gay rights. Marriage equality had negligible public support throughout the 1970s-1980s. Yet, starting in the 1990s, American opinion toward marriage equality changed more than any other attitude in the history of American public opinion. In Rainbow after the Storm, Michael J. Rosenfeld explains how attitudes toward marriage equality changed so much, and how public opinion change drove change at the ballot box and in the courts. As Rosenfeld shows, in three crucial same-sex marriage trials, the supporters and opponents of marriage equality faced off. Rosenfeld describes the struggles of the same-sex couples who, with few resources at their disposal, and against formidable state and religious opponents, sued for the right to marry and eventually won. The first comprehensive analysis of the marriage equality movement in the U.S., The Rainbow after the Storm tells the stories of key individuals, the court battles, and the society-wide explanations for the rapid liberalization of attitudes toward gay rights that made same-sex marriage the law of the U.S. sooner than almost anyone thought was possible.

"Rooted in historical, site-based, narrative, and political accounts, Full Surrogacy Now is the seriously radical cry for full gestational justice that I long for. This kind of gestation depends on realizing the implications of knowing that we all actually, materially, make one another, and that this labor continues to be exploited, extracted, and alienated-unequally-at every turn in Capitalism and Patriarchy. Full of brilliant, generative, and also shamelessly biting critique of both bourgeois and communist tracts, feminist and otherwise, Lewis's voice is unique and bracing. I need it; it fills my whole self with reimagined possibilities for making oddkin who are not property. Lewis set out to write an immoderate, utopian, partisan, anti-authoritarian communist defense of surrogates and surrogacy in ramifying registers of meanings and practices, and she has succeeded. Lewis asks the necessary questions, 'Can we parent politically, hopefully, nonreproductively-in a comradely way?' Can we become full surrogates for and with each other? In a book full of fierce demystifications and sharp dissections of injustice masquerading as humanitarianism, nonetheless Lewis convincingly and radically affirms: 'Everywhere about me, I can see beautiful militants hell-bent on regeneration, not self-replication.'" - Donna Haraway

This collection examines enduring and topical questions in sexual and reproductive health in a range of contemporary Asian cultures. Beliefs and practices surrounding conception, pregnancy, birth, and confinement are studies in culturally specific contexts in Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Indonesia. Important and widely applicable health issues are also addressed, including the perception and management of HIV/AIDS, experiences of menopause and the interaction of cosmopolitan ("western'') medicine with traditional healthcare.

'As informative as it is poetic' Dolly Alderton 'Compassionate, funny and beautifully written' Daisy Buchanan ------------------------------ Every woman will experience the panic years in some way between her mid-twenties and early-forties. This maddening period of transformation and personal crisis is recognisable by the myriad of decisions we make - about partners, holidays, jobs, homes, savings, friendships - all of which are impacted by the urgency of the single decision that comes with a biological deadline, the one decision that is impossible to take back; whether or not to have a baby. But how to stay sane in such a maddening time? How to know who you are and what you might want from life? How to know if you're making the right decisions? Raw, hilarious and beguilingly honest, Nell Frizzell's account of her panic years is both an arm around the shoulder and a campaign to start a conversation. This affects us all - women, men, mothers, children, partners, friends, colleagues - so it's time we started talking about it with a little more candour. WHAT READERS ARE SAYING - 'Loved this book! Highly recommend for any woman (or man!) during the weird time in your 20s' ***** - 'Those panicky feelings of being a 24-30 something put into words' ***** - 'This book brings forth a sigh of relief. Excellent book that really taps into what so many of us are thinking and feeling, but not saying' *****

Nighttime for many new parents in the United States is fraught with the intense challenges of learning to breastfeed and helping their babies sleep so they can get rest themselves. Through careful ethnographic study of the dilemmas raised by nighttime breastfeeding, and their examination in the context of anthropological, historical, and feminist studies, this volume unravels the cultural tensions that underlie these difficulties. As parents negotiate these dilemmas, they not only confront conflicting medical guidelines about breastfeeding and solitary infant sleep, but also larger questions about cultural and moral expectations for children and parents, and their relationship with one another.

With reproductive medical technologies becoming more accessible, assisted donor conception is raising new and important questions about family life. Using in-depth interviews, Petra Nordqvist and Carol Smart explore the lived reality of donor conception and offer insights into the complexities of these new family relationships.

The expectation for fathers to be more involved with parenting their children and pitching in at home are higher than ever, yet broad social, political, and economic changes have made it more difficult for low-income men to be fathers. In It's a Setup, Timothy Black and Sky Keyes ground a moving and intimate narrative in the political and economic circumstances that shape the lives of low-income fathers. Based on 138 life history interviews, they expose the contradiction that while the norms and expectations of father involvement have changed rapidly within a generation, labor force and state support for fathering on the margins has deteriorated. Tracking these life histories, they move us through the lived experiences of job precarity, welfare cuts, punitive child support courts, public housing neglect, and the criminalization of poverty to demonstrate that without transformative systemic change, individual determination is not enough. Fathers on the social and economic margins are setup to fail.

"Birth in the Age of AIDS" is a vivid and poignant portrayal of the experiences of HIV-positive women in India during pregnancy, birth, and motherhood at the beginning of the 21st century. The government of India, together with global health organizations, established an important public health initiative to prevent HIV transmission from mother to child. While this program, which targets poor women attending public maternity hospitals, has improved health outcomes for infants, it has resulted in sometimes devastatingly negative consequences for poor, young mothers because these women are being tested for HIV in far greater numbers than their male spouses and are often blamed for bringing this highly stigmatized disease into the family.
Based on research conducted by the author in India, this book chronicles the experiences of women from the point of their decisions about whether to accept HIV testing, through their decisions about whether or not to continue with the birth if they test HIV-positive, their birthing experiences in hospitals, decisions and practices surrounding breast-feeding vs. bottle-feeding, and their hopes and fears for the future of their children.

"Birth in the Age of AIDS" is a vivid and poignant portrayal of the experiences of HIV-positive women in India during pregnancy, birth, and motherhood at the beginning of the 21st century. The government of India, together with global health organizations, established an important public health initiative to prevent HIV transmission from mother to child. While this program, which targets poor women attending public maternity hospitals, has improved health outcomes for infants, it has resulted in sometimes devastatingly negative consequences for poor, young mothers because these women are being tested for HIV in far greater numbers than their male spouses and are often blamed for bringing this highly stigmatized disease into the family.
Based on research conducted by the author in India, this book chronicles the experiences of women from the point of their decisions about whether to accept HIV testing, through their decisions about whether or not to continue with the birth if they test HIV-positive, their birthing experiences in hospitals, decisions and practices surrounding breast-feeding vs. bottle-feeding, and their hopes and fears for the future of their children.