Population Research and Policy Review最新文献

This study analyzes July 2021 poll data of more than 5500 California registered voters to examine how a racially diverse sample of people in a politically significant and diverse state feel about U.S. projections of future ethnoracial demographic change. We commissioned and designed two survey questions to build on the few studies that delve into Americans’ sentiments about these projected shifts. The first item offers more response options than past research to explore popular sentiments about national projections of a “majority-minority” future. The second item asks respondents about which areas of society that they think these changes will affect. The descriptive analyses reveal considerable variation in sentiments about projected demographic futures, with many among this racially diverse sample of adults expressing positive views and few expressing negative views. Multivariate regression analyses indicate that racial attitudes and political partisanship are significantly associated with expressing positive, negative, and other sentiments about future ethnoracial diversity. In addition, Californians indicated that these changes are most likely to affect race relations and politics and political power in the future. These findings point to the salience of the sociopolitical and information environment surrounding how people interpret population data and demographic projections, and hopefully encourages more work in popular demography.

Despite some recent attempts, how fertility changed during the COVID-19 pandemic has not been adequately investigated. Using monthly live birth data from 1969 to 2021 and an ARIMA time-series approach, this study examines the fertility pattern in the United States during the pandemic. Results show that there was an initial baby bust in December 2020, January 2021, and February 2021, immediately after a full gestation period following the COVID-19 onset in the United States. However, it was soon replaced by a baby boom starting in April 2021. Since then, a fertility rebound occurred in the middle period of the pandemic until the end of our observation of December 2021. From December 2020 to December 2021, around 2% of total live births were estimated to be associated with the COVID-19 baby boom.

Insufficient sleep for children is an understudied risk factor for health issues and poor educational outcomes. We argue that research has paid scant attention to upstream factors, such as parental employment, that may impact family processes and children’s sleep outcomes. This study examines how parental work characteristics, including both mothers’ and fathers’ work hours per week and occupation type, associate with children’s insufficient sleep among a national sample of dual-earning couples and their fifth grade children in the ECLS-K:2010–2011 kindergarten cohort (n = 4000). We use logistic regression models to predict insufficient sleep (less than 9 h of sleep per night) after controlling for demographic and socioeconomic characteristics related to child sleep. Among our sample, a substantial portion of fifth graders, 32%, had insufficient sleep. We also find that both parents’ work characteristics mattered for children’s insufficient sleep but in different ways. The risk of insufficient sleep for children was higher when mothers (but not fathers) worked 35 h or more per week, net of paternal work hours and covariates. We found a similar pattern using a combined measure of mother–father work hours. Additionally, the risk of insufficient sleep for children was higher when fathers worked in construction and production occupations. Our findings contribute to research on the social determinants of sleep and demonstrate the importance of considering parental work characteristics for children’s sleep outcomes.

Policy-makers in many countries increasingly voice concerns about fathers’ low uptake of parental leave, given numerous potential dividends regarding children’s development, fathers’ wellbeing, and household gender equality. In response, scholars have put forward complementary ideological, policy-related, or economic explanations for fathers’ parental leave uptake. With respect to the latter, the so-called relative resources hypothesis assumes that gender inequality in leave uptake reflects within-couple gender differences in wage potential, and predicts higher leave uptake amongst secondary earner fathers. This mixed methods study is the first to combine longitudinal administrative data for 1810 parent couples with 22 in-depth individual and couple interviews, to (I) quantify the significance and magnitude of the relative resources pattern in leave-taking, (II) provide qualitative process knowledge on how the relative resources mechanism operates, and (III) test moderations of the relative resources hypothesis. Findings indicate that the relative resources mechanism affects male leave uptake significantly and both through unitary decision-making and bargaining between partners, but also that the positive effect of being a secondary earner on fathers’ leave uptake is weakened in case of imperfect information, restrictive workplace factors, limited household income, and gendered parenting ideals. These findings suggest that the increasing prevalence of female main earner households will not automatically yield gender equality in parental leave uptake, and might inspire policy makers to enhance public knowledge on parental leave systems, workplace support for leave uptake in male-dominated sectors of employment, and address inclusiveness of leave schemes to households with lower incomes.

The preparation of forecasts for small and local area populations involves many challenges. Standard cohort-component models are problematic because of small numbers, which make estimation of rates unreliable. Because of this, the Synthetic Migration Population Projection (SYMPOPP) model was designed to forecast local populations without need for detailed area-specific information. This model had been used successfully for small area forecasts in Australia. The objective of the paper is to assess its performance when applied to local areas in England. The model uses a bi-regional structure based on a movement population account. Sub-models of total population change are employed to control future change. Fertility, mortality and migration rates are borrowed from national statistics, constrained to small area indicators. The model uses an Excel workbook with VBA routines and is relatively easy and quick to use. Model inputs were calibrated for 2006–2011 and used to forecast for 2011–2021. Results were tested against the census-based 2021 mid-year populations. A new error statistic, Age Structure Error, was used to evaluate Basic and Refined model versions against official projections. The two versions of SYMPOPP posted lower errors. The simple models had fewer areas with errors of 10% or more (12.3–12.6%) compared with the official projections (14.5% of areas). Investigation revealed that these errors occurred in local authorities with high military, student, prison, or ethnic minority populations, influenced by factors not captured in a projection model for the general population.

There have been major shifts at the state level in social and legal rights available to women and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (“LGBT”) individuals. Variation in policies across states has resulted in a patchwork of rights for these groups. In this study, we examine the effects of state-level policies on migration attitudes, including restrictions on abortion, gender-affirming medical care, transgender individuals’ access to sports in schools, discussions about gender and sexuality in schools, same-sex marriage, and employment discrimination based on sexual orientation. Drawing on survey data from 1061 participants, we pay particular attention to how state-level political context and sociodemographic factors shape desire to move to a state with newly restrictive gender and sexuality policies. Results indicate that restrictive state policies on abortion and LGBT issues serve as both push and pull factors affecting desire to move to a state. Although political orientation provides the greatest explanatory power for migration attitudes, the majority of survey respondents across political orientations reported that these policies either made them less likely to want to move to a state or did not affect their desires. Further, state-level political climate, gender, sexual orientation, race, parenthood status, income, and willingness to migrate for work, political climate, or education were related to migration attitudes. Findings suggest that states enacting these policies could experience economic effects due to a decline in migration, particularly for those seeking employment opportunities or pursuits of higher education. In addition, states could see a decline in migration from women and LGBT individuals, and their allies.