The central aim of many studies in population research and demography is to explain cause-effect relationships among variables or events. For decades, population scientists have concentrated their efforts on estimating the 'causes of effects' by applying standard cross-sectional and dynamic regression techniques, with regression coefficients routinely being understood as estimates of causal effects. The standard approach to infer the 'effects of causes' in natural sciences and in psychology is to conduct randomized experiments. In population studies, experimental designs are generally infeasible.

In population studies, most research is based on non-experimental designs (observational or survey designs) and rarely on quasi experiments or natural experiments. Using non-experimental designs to infer causal relationships-i.e. relationships that can ultimately inform policies or interventions-is a complex undertaking. Specifically, treatment effects can be inferred from non-experimental data with a counterfactual approach. In this counterfactual perspective, causal effects are defined as the difference between the potential outcome irrespective of whether or not an individual had received a certain treatment (or experienced a certain cause). The counterfactual approach to estimate effects of causes from quasi-experimental data or from observational studies was first proposed by Rubin in 1974 and further developed by James Heckman and others.

This book presents both theoretical contributions and empirical applications of the counterfactual approach to causal inference.

As the most populous country in the world, China's demographic challenges have always been too many people for ecological system, resources, and the environment. However, by the early 1990s, fertility rate in China had dropped below the replacement level, and China's low fertility has now attracted the world's attention. This book is among the first studies to raise and examine questions on low fertility in China, believing that China has entered a new era featured by low birth rate and ageing population. Utilizing advanced research methods and models on low fertility to analyze China's census data, this book explores the issues from various perspectives. Methodologies employed in past population studies, policy making concerning fertility rate, underreporting of births and fertility rate estimates, fertility level of the migrant population, current population pattern, long-term population trends, population dynamics, and many other thought-provoking problems are covered. Finally, the book revisits China's population issues in the context of globalization. The 21st century has seen the new challenge of persistent population decrease and ageing worldwide, which, along with economic globalization, demands a new understanding of the changes in population pattern and their consequences. Researchers and students in China's demographic and social studies will be attracted by the insightful analysis and rich materials provided in the book. Population policy makers will also benefit from it.

The Sami are a Northern indigenous people whose land, Sapmi, covers territory in Finland, Norway, Russia, and Sweden. For the Nordic Sami, the last decades of the twentieth century saw their indigenous rights partially recognized, a cultural and linguistic revival, and the establishment of Sami parliaments. The Russian Sami, however, did not have the same opportunities and were isolated behind the closed border until the dissolution of the Soviet Union. This book examines the following two decades and the Russian Sami's attempt to achieve a linguistic revival, to mend the Cold War scars, and to establish their own independent ethno-political organizations.

This book contains fifteen original papers covering, a broad spectrum of topics in Jewish demography and identity, considering both Diaspora communities and the population of Israel. While most of the papers make use of quantitative data, some base themselves on qualitative and archive materials. The book is divided into five parts, reflecting the different complementary dimensions investigated: historical demography, history, and politics, immigration and immigrant adaptation, transnationalism, and demography and identity. This work is presented to Professor Sergio Dellapergola upon his retirement from teaching at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

This book is about social change in the Soviet Union. It explores the way in which the social, economic, and political transformations encompassed by modernization affect values and behaviors. Its analytical focus is the family and the system of norms and values governing sex roles and familial relations. The study is part of a larger effort to unravel the complex linkages between modernization, value change, demographic change, and public policy. It has two related objectives. First, it explores the relationship between value change and fertility, using statistical material from the Soviet census, birth registry, and social surveys, to test specific hypotheses relating to the modernization/value change relationship. Second, it examines the impact of public policies, both intended and unintended, on family values and fertility trends. A model of Soviet fertility dynamics, based on the empirical findings of the study, is also presented.

This volume examines the relationship between migration, health and illness in a global context from c.1820 to the present day. Bringing together leading scholars from the history of medicine and social policy, it assesses the changing health status of migrant groups in a period encompassing Imperial expansion, decolonisation and new waves of economic and political migration in the twentieth century. Focusing chiefly on the Anglophone world, the volume takes a wide range of case studies to explore the themes of epidemic disease and its containment, chronic illness and mental breakdown in Britain, the US, Israel and the Caribbean. The concerns of the volume echo and enable reflection upon the health challenges experienced by migrants and countries of destinations in recent years.

This book provides a bi-national portrait of dementia in the rapidly aging Mexican-origin population in Mexico and the United States. It provides a comprehensive overview of critical conceptual and methodological issues in the study of cognitive aging and related mental and physical conditions. The book examines the sources of vulnerability and their consequences for Mexican-origin and for "aging in place". By providing a combination of new knowledge, empirical evidence, and fresh approaches of dementia support in later life, this book will contribute to moving the field of Mexican-origin aging and health forward. By focusing on the serious challenges in old-age support for older people with dementia and neurocognitive disorders in two different contexts, this book will deepen academics, researchers, students and young investigators understanding of what is necessary to achieve optional care.

This book focuses on developing the use of ethnographic research for rehabilitation practitioners by recognizing its value methodologically and empirically in the field of rehabilitation. The very nature of ethnographic research offers an array of opportunities for researchers to understand the social world around them. The book identifies the multifaceted use of ethnographic methods in the rehabilitation setting. It touches on how acute and chronic conditions can affect the nature of ethnographic work in attempts to offer originality in a range of rehabilitation settings. Readers will find this collection of examples useful for informing their own research, and it aims to enlighten new discussion and arguments regarding both methodological and empirical use of ethnographic work internationally.

Though mining is an infamously masculine industry, women make up 20 percent of all production crews in Wyoming's Powder River Basin-the largest coal-producing region in the United States. How do these women fit into a working culture supposedly hostile to females? This is what anthropologist Jessica Smith Rolston, herself a onetime mine worker and the daughter of a miner, set out to discover. Her answers, based on years of participant-observation in four mines and extensive interviews with miners, managers, engineers, and the families of mine employees, offer a rich and surprising view of the working "families" that miners construct. In this picture, gender roles are not nearly as straightforward-or as straitened-as stereotypes suggest. Gender is far from the primary concern of co-workers in crews. Far more important, Rolston finds, is protecting the safety of the entire crew and finding a way to treat each other well despite the stresses of their jobs. These miners share the burden of rotating shift work-continually switching between twelve-hour day and night shifts-which deprives them of the daily rhythms of a typical home, from morning breakfasts to bedtime stories. Rolston identifies the mine workers' response to these shared challenges as a new sort of constructed kinship that both challenges and reproduces gender roles in their everyday working and family lives. Crews' expectations for co-workers to treat one another like family and to adopt an "agricultural" work ethic tend to minimize gender differences. And yet, these differences remain tenacious in the equation of masculinity with technical expertise, and of femininity with household responsibilities. For Rolston, such lingering areas of inequality highlight the importance of structural constraints that flout a common impulse among men and women to neutralize the significance of gender, at home and in the workplace. At a time when the Appalachian region continues to dominate discussion of mining culture, this book provides a very different and unexpected view-of how miners live and work together, and of how their lives and work reconfigure ideas of gender and kinship.

A Population History of India provides an account of the size and characteristics of India's population stretching from when hunter-gatherer homo sapiens first arrived in the country - very roughly seventy thousand years ago - until the modern day. It is a period during which the population grew from just a handful of people to reach almost 1.4 billion, and a time when the fact of death had a huge influence on the nature of life. This book considers the millennia that were characterized by hunting and gathering, the Indus valley civilization, the opening-up of the Ganges river basin, and the eras of the Delhi Sultanate, the Mughal Empire, British colonial rule, and India since independence. By observing India through a demographic lens, A Population History of India: From the First Modern People to the Present Day addresses mortality, fertility, the size of cities, patterns of migration, and the multitude of famines, epidemics, invasions, wars, and other events that affected the population. It draws together research from archaeology, cultural studies, economics, epidemiology, linguistics, history, and politics to understand the likely trajectory of India's population in comparison to the trends that applied to Europe and China, and to reveal a surprising and dramatic story.

Demographic study and the idea of a "population" was developed and modified over the course of the twentieth century, mirroring the political, social, and cultural situations and aspirations of different societies. This growing field adapted itself to specific policy concerns and was therefore never apolitical, despite the protestations of practitioners that demography was "natural." Demographics were transformed into public policies that shaped family planning, population growth, medical practice, and environmental conservation. While covering a variety of regions and time periods, the essays in this book share an interest in the transnational dynamics of emerging demographic discourses and practices. Together, they present a global picture of the history of demographic knowledge.

Most of the Muslim societies of the world have entered a demographic transition from high to low fertility, and this process is accompanied by an increase in youth vis-a-vis other age groups. Political scientists and historians have debated whether such a "youth bulge" increases the potential for conflict or whether it represents a chance to accumulate wealth and push forward social and technological developments. This book introduces the discussion about youth bulge into social anthropology using Tajikistan, a post-Soviet country that experienced civil war in the 1990s, which is in the middle of such a demographic transition. Sophie Roche develops a social anthropological approach to analyze demographic and political dynamics, and suggests a new way of thinking about social change in youth bulge societies.

The Growth of Humanity Barry Bogin The growth of human populations and human physical growth are intimately related, and their combined study links several fields including anthropology, demography, economics, and history. The Growth of Humanity provides an introduction to key concepts, methods of research, and essential discoveries in the fields of human demography and human growth and development, particularly in relation to disease, nutrition, and aging. This book explains the evolution and significance of human life history, especially human childhood and adolescence, and shows how new stages of human development lead inextricably to the growth of the entire human population. Providing a comprehensive and exciting biocultural perspective into the uses of demography in the real world, this first volume in the new Wiley series, Foundations of Human Biology, explains how and why the way people grow leads to greater human reproductive success than that of any other mammal. Written in an appealing, accessible style, The Growth of Humanity reviews such topics as:

• How populations grow: history, methods, and principles of demography
• Basic principles of human growth and development
• Evolution of human life history
• Food, demography, and growth
• Migration and human health
• Anthropometric history
• The aging of humanity
• And much more

According to current understanding, Malthus was hostile to an excess of population because it caused social sufferings, while Marx was favourable to demographic growth in so far as a large proletariat was a factor aggravating the contradictions of capitalism. This is unfortunately an oversimplification. Both raised the same crucial question: when considered as an economic variable, how does population fit into the analysis of economic growth? Even though they started from the same analytical standpoint, Marx established a very different diagnosis from that of Malthus and built a social doctrine no less divergent. The book also discusses the theoretical and doctrinal contribution of the liberal economists, writing at the onset of the industrial revolution in France (1840-1870), and those of their contemporary, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who shared with Marx the denunciation of the capitalist system. By paying careful attention to the social, economic, and political context, this book goes beyond the shortcomings of the classification between pro- and anti-populationism. It sheds new light over nineteenth century controversies over population in France, a case study for Europe.

Late in a career of more than sixty years, Thomas Burch, an internationally known social demographer, undertook a wide-ranging methodological critique of demography. This open access volume contains a selection of resulting papers, some previously unpublished, some published but not readily accessible. Rejecting the idea that demography is simply a branch of applied statistics, his work views it as an autonomous and complete scientific discipline. When viewed from the perspective of modern philosophy of science, specifically the semantic or model-based school, demography is a balanced discipline, with a rich body of techniques and data, but also with more and better theories than generally recognized. As demonstrated in this book, some demographic techniques can also be seen as theoretical models, and some substantive/behavioral models, commonly rejected as theory because of inconsistent observations, are now seen as valuable theoretical models, for example demographic transition theory. This book shows how demography can build a strong theoretical edifice on its broad and deep empirical foundation by adoption of the model-based approach to science. But the full-fruits of this approach will require demographers to make greater use of computer modeling in the statement and manipulation of theoretical ideas, as well as for numerical computation.

"Well written and offering solid historical content, Black Journals . . . discusses popular magazines as well as little-known or short-lived scholarly journals. . . . Highly recommended for academic, community college, high school, and public libraries." Choice

Ageing in Asia contains a selection of leading social systems and programs, with interesting case-studies offering innovative and useful lessons. The book covers ageing and related developments occurring in the most dynamic industrializing and urbanizing societies of emerging Asia. It includes topical issues such public policies and responses to current challenges from the growing needs of an ageing population due to rise of chronic non-communicable diseases, amidst rapidly changing social, cultural, economic and political changes in the region. The main purpose of the book is to provide useful comparisons of social care systems undergoing rapid transitions, and to offer some examples of best practices and lessons to respond to the changing needs due to population ageing.

SHARE is an international survey designed to answer the societal challenges that face us due to rapid population ageing. How do Europeans age? Under which circumstances do older people and their families live, how healthy and active are they, and how did the crisis affect them? The authors of this multidisciplinary book have taken a first step toward answering these questions based on the recent SHARE data including a new social networks module.

This book focuses on families and their changes in Taiwan and China. Traditional notions of what constitutes a family have been changing in China, Taiwan and other Asian countries. The chapters in this book provide interesting methodological and substantive contributions to the discourse on family and social change in Chinese societies. They also underscore the implications of the various social changes in Chinese families. Written by Chinese and Western scholars, they provide an unprecedented overview of what is known about the effects of social change on Chinese families.

One might think that defining a family is an easy task because the family is so significant to society and is universal. The family is the first place we learn culture, norms, values, and gender roles. Families exist in all societies throughout the world; but their constitution differs. In the past several decades there have been many changes in the family in Taiwan and China. For instance, whereas in the West, we use a bilineal system of descent in which descent is traced through both the mother s side and the father s side of the family, in many parts of China, descent is patrilineal, although this is changing, and China and Taiwan are starting to assume a family constitution similar to that in the West. This and other issues are discussed in great detail in this book. Indeed it is the very nature of the differences that motivated the writing of this book on changing families in Taiwan and China.

The chapters in "Part I: The Family in Taiwan and China "focus on the basic family issues in Taiwan and China that provide the groundwork for many of the chapters that follow. Chapter 1 is about the distribution of resources in the family in Taiwan. Chapter 2 focuses on filial piety and the autonomous development of adolescents in the Taiwanese family, and Chapter 3 explores the important issue of family poverty in Taiwan. Chapter 4 moves away from Taiwan and looks at several issues of family growth and change in Hong Kong, noting the interesting similarities and differences between Hong Kong and China.

"Part II: Issues of Marriage, the Family and Fertility in Taiwan and China" focuses specifically on marriage, family and fertility. In Chapter 5 the authors discuss the relationships between marital status, socioeconomic status and the subjective well-being among women in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Chapter 6 describes patterns of sexual activity in China and the United States. Chapter 7 considers gender imbalances in Taiwan and their impact on the marriage market. Chapter 8 also focuses on Taiwan and examines the effects of mothers attitudes on daughters interaction with their mothers-in-law. Chapter 9 compares female and male fertility trends and changes in Taiwan.

"Part III: Children and the Family in East Asia and in Western Countries" consists of comparative studies of the family and children. Chapter 10 examines the dynamics of grandparents caring for children in China. Chapter 11 explores family values and parent-child interaction in Taiwan. Chapter 12 examines the significant amount of diversity among families in contemporary Taiwan. Chapter 13 describes adolescent development in Taiwan. Chapter 14 examines the impact of son preference on fertility in China, South Korea and the United States. And Chapter 15 explores the determinants of intergenerational support in Taiwan.

The final chapter in our book, the only chapter in "Part IV: The Family and the Future in Taiwan," examines the future of the family in Taiwan with respect especially to the marriage market and aged dependency."

Due to changing climates and demographics, questions of policy in the circumpolar north have focused attention on the very structures that people call home. Dwellings lie at the heart of many forms of negotiation. Based on years of in-depth research, this book presents and analyzes how the people of the circumpolar regions conceive, build, memorialize, and live in their dwellings. This book seeks to set a new standard for interdisciplinary work within the humanities and social sciences and includes anthropological work on vernacular architecture, environmental anthropology, household archaeology and demographics.

David G. Anderson is Professor of Anthropology and Chair in Anthropology of the North at the University of Aberdeen. He was the leader of the collaborative research project entitled BOREAS Homes, Hearths and Households in the Circumpolar North and is presently the PI of an ERC-funded advanced grant entitled Arctic Domestication: Emplacing Human-Animal Relations in the Circumpolar North. He is the author of a monograph on Taimyr Evenkis and Dolgans, and the editor or co-editor of several collections published by Berghahn Books, most recently, "The 1926/27 Soviet Polar Census Expeditions" (2011).

Robert P. Wishart is Lecturer at the University of Aberdeen. his ethnographic work has been on the Gwich'in-Dene of the Mackenzie Delta in Northern Canada, with the Ojibwe of Ontario, and with Scottish fishers. He led an associated project on vernacular architecture in the Gwich'in settlement area for the HHH research consortium.

Virginie Vate is an anthropologist and a researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in France. Since 1994, she has been doing research in Chukotka (Northeastern Siberia) and, since 2011, in Alaska. Within the ESF/BOREAS collaborative framework, she led an associated project on conversion to Christianity in Chukotka for the research program NEWREL (New Religious Movements in the Russian North). She is a co-editor of the NEWREL volume, currently in preparation.

This comprehensive reference work contains historical sketches of over 125 national and local voluntary organizations. The articles are arranged in an A to Z format and provide information on the many philanthropic, religious, political, cultural, and social agencies that are representative of Jewish organizational life in America. An outstanding feature of this volume is the collection of essays by a group of noted scholars on major issues of American Jewish organizational life including Jewish communal responses to the needs of the elderly, the Jewish Federation Movement, the Jewish feminist movement, American Zionism, and the Soviet Jewish movement in the United States. In addition, the editor has included a valuable chronology that juxtaposes significant events in American Jewish history with the founding dates of the organizations; a listing by category and function of the agencies; and an organizational genealogy that lists the name changes and mergers undergone by each group.

The International Handbook of Population Aging is the first comprehensive volume to examine research on a wide array of the profound implications of population aging. Global population aging is one of the most important issues facing human societies in the early twenty-first century. Population projections show that the proportion of the world's population over age 60 will double between 2000 and 2050, and that about one-third of the people living in developed countries will be over age 60 in 2050. Already there are countries in Europe and Asia where the number of people over age 60 exceed the number of children, and by 2050 some of these countries will have twice as many old people as children. As noted by the 2002 UN World Assembly on Ageing Report, this global trend in population aging is unprecedented in human history, is pervasive across societies, is enduring (there is no going back to younger populations), and has profound implications for human beings.

The missing girls in India are not a new phenomenon. The British passed an Act to check female infanticide more than 100 years ago. Since 1960, India's birth sex ratios have progressively declined from 994 to 910, implicating life-affecting gender violence. Backed by extensive field research, data and interviews, this book explores girl child desel

This book suggests that the enduring problem of generations remains that of knowledge: how society conceptualises the relationship between past, present and future, and the ways in which this is transmitted by adults to the young. Reflecting on Mannheim's seminal essay 'The Problem of Generations', the author explores why generations have become a focus for academic interest and policy developments today. Bristow argues that developments in education, teaching and parenting culture seek to resolve tensions of our present-day risk society through imposing an artificial distance between the generations. Bristow's book will be of interest to students and scholars in the fields of Sociology, Social Policy, Education, Family studies, Gerontology and Youth studies.

Cities are one of the most significant contributors to global climate change. The rapid speed at which urban centers use large amounts of resources adds to the global crisis and can lead to extreme local heat. The Urban Fix addresses how urban design, planning and policies can counter the threats of climate change, urban heat islands and overpopulation, helping cities take full advantage of their inherent advantages and new technologies to catalyze social, cultural and physical solutions to combat the epic, unprecedented challenges humanity faces. The book fills a conspicuous void in the international dialogue on climate change and heat islands by examining both the environmental benefits in developed countries and the population benefit in developing countries. Urban heat islands can be addressed in incremental, manageable steps, such as planting trees and painting roofs white, which provide a more concrete and proactive sense of progress for policymakers and practitioners. This book is invaluable to anyone searching for a better understanding of the impact of resilient cities in the monumental and urgent fight against climate change, and provides the tools to do so.