Abstract/Details

UNION STATUS, ITS EFFECTS ON FERTILITY AND MORTALITY IN JAMAICA: ISSUES RE-EXAMINED

BOLAND, BARBARA MARY.   University of Pennsylvania ProQuest Dissertations Publishing,  1983. 8326274.

Abstract (summary)

Fertility differentials and their causes among union types have been a controversial issue for some time. The main explanations for differentials have been exposure-related.

This dissertation re-examines the issue of fertility differentials using from the 1975 Jamaica Fertility Survey and adopting a multivariate approach.

The basic analytical framework groups the influence of union statuses on fertility according to their channels through which they operate: demand, supply and regulation costs. Also, union status is, in turn, affected by socio-economic factors.

Throughout the analysis, a consistent finding that emerges is that common law, not married, unions experience the highest fertility. Furthermore, the cause is not mainly exposure-related but due, to a large extent, to the net effect of the positive and negative weights of the intervening variables that constitute the components of demand, supply and regulation. The finding that controlling for socio-economic and exposure factors left the effects of union status unchanged implies that there may be specific qualities of being in a common law union as against visiting, for example, that account for fertility differentials--qualities that are not easily measured or identified in our model.

This dissertation has introduced other dimensions to the problem of interpreting the relationship between union status and fertility. The first is the finding that common law unions have both the highest fertility as well as highest infant mortality among all unions. The implication is that a two way interaction may exist thus accounting for some of the observed differentials. Thus caution should be exercised when interpreting results.

A second consideration is the finding that socio-economic factors determine, to some extent, the probability of entry into different types of unions, thus indicating that a selectivity process may be operating with respect to choice of first union.

A third dimension is the finding that the process of fertility determination differs among union types. This also has implications for the findings of other studies concerning the determinants of fertility: the interaction among union status groups could result in a regression coefficient that is the average of three relationships which may be quite different. Thus it would clearly be more informative to keep these relationships distinct.

Indexing (details)


Subject
Demographics;
Demography
Classification
0938: Demography
Identifier / keyword
Social sciences
Title
UNION STATUS, ITS EFFECTS ON FERTILITY AND MORTALITY IN JAMAICA: ISSUES RE-EXAMINED
Author
BOLAND, BARBARA MARY
Number of pages
223
Degree date
1983
School code
0175
Source
DAI-A 44/07, Dissertation Abstracts International
Place of publication
Ann Arbor
Country of publication
United States
ISBN
979-8-204-47669-1
University/institution
University of Pennsylvania
University location
United States -- Pennsylvania
Degree
Ph.D.
Source type
Dissertation or Thesis
Language
English
Document type
Dissertation/Thesis
Dissertation/thesis number
8326274
ProQuest document ID
303168715
Copyright
Database copyright ProQuest LLC; ProQuest does not claim copyright in the individual underlying works.
Document URL
https://www.proquest.com/docview/303168715