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The Economic and Social Consequences of Job Loss and Unemployment

In this recording of a webinar, Jennie E. Brand, associate professor of sociology and associate director of the California Center for Population Research (CCPR) at UCLA, and Till von Wachter, associate professor of economics and faculty affiliate of CCPR at UCLA, discussed some of the short-term and long-term consequences of job loss and unemployment for families in the United States. Their discussion was followed by 10 minutes of questions and answers.

This webinar is provided by PRB’s Center for Public Information on Population Research, with funding from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Net Migration Patterns as a Tool to Understand Community Change

Every year, about 10 million Americans move from one county to another. Migration rates vary by age, sex, race, and ethnicity and with local and national social and economic conditions over time. Examining patterns of net-migration for individual counties over time provides important information about how local populations are changing. This webinar introduces a new publicly available website (www.netmigration.wisc.edu) where users can generate maps and charts of state and county level net migration using six decades of data. The data are available for download providing reliable estimates of net migration broken down by age, race, Hispanic-origin, and sex for all U.S. counties for each decade from 1950 to 2010.

In the webinar, Richelle Winkler, assistant professor of sociology and demography at Michigan Tech University, and Katherine Curtis, associate professor of community and environmental sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, discuss the background of how the data were constructed, demonstrate the website’s utility, and provide select examples of how the data can be used to understand community change. Their discussion is followed by 10 minutes of questions and answers.

This webinar is provided by PRB’s Center for Public Information on Population Research, with funding from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

PRB Discuss Online: Africa’s Demographic Challenges

Of the 48 least developed countries in the world, 33 are located in sub-Saharan Africa. At the same time, this region stands out with the highest birth rates in the world. By the year 2050, the number of people in the region may double, and by the end of the century it may even quadruple. The Berlin Institute’s study, Africa’s Demographic Challenges: How a Young Population Can Make Development Possible, reports on 103 current and former developing countries, showing that no single country has developed socioeconomically without a parallel decline in its birth rate.

If fertility decreases, a population’s age structure changes: Proportionally, there are fewer children and more people of working age. According to the theory of the “demographic dividend,” this favorable age structure can boost development. The experience of the Asian Tigers (Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan), who translated their population boom in the working-age group into rapid economic growth, is proof of this dividend.

The Asian Tigers had a demographic starting point comparable to many sub-Saharan African countries today and were similarly less developed. Through massive investments into education, family planning, and the job market, these Asian countries managed to take advantage of their demographic dividend—an estimated one-third of the economic growth in East and Southeast Asia can be attributed to this dividend.

In a PRB Discuss Online, Reiner Klingholz, Tanja Kiziak, and Manuel Slupina from the Berlin Institute for Population and Development, answered questions from participants about Africa’s demographic challenges and opportunities.

March 13, 2012 11 AM (EDT)

Transcript of Questions and Answers

Sissoko Foussénou: Issue of Population, Health and Economic outcomes is particulary acute in Africa, and, all set up population policies failed ; what to make now ?
Tanja Kiziak: We don’t share your opinion that all population policies in Africa have failed. In fact, fertility decreased in countries that invested into education and the provision of family planning (such as the North African countries or Mauritius). However, the results are not as convincing as in the Asian tiger nations, and there seems to be a lot of room to improve these population policies.

Kelly Leibfried: For the past 10 years I have brought my students to the point of looking at Africa as the next “work shop” of the world. Do you believe this is a pliable look at African development considering that China is not likely to allow the Chinese middle class to continue to grow at the cost of employment and the developmental difficulties of many African nations?
Tanja Kiziak: As production costs and wages are rising rapidly in China, new workshops of the world certainly will be set up in countries with cheaper production conditions. Whether or not these countries will be in Africa is a question of bureaucracy, planning reliability, political stability, corruption etc. It is unlikely that the workshop jobs will remain in China due to the better education of the Chinese and the upcoming demographic shrinkage of the working-age population. Some experts even project that manufacturing will return to the US because of rising production costs in China (see www.bcg.com/documents/file84471.pdf).

Emeka Nwosu, Nigeria: If Demography is the statistical study of human populations and sub-populations how can we put this into positive use in positioning African states to benefit from her numbers
Tanja Kiziak: Demography is less about human numbers than it is about human capital. Africa will only benefit from her numbers, if education levels rise and if jobs are created so that the large numbers of people in working-age will be able to become economically productive. For many African countries, great numbers of young people are however a burden rather than a bonus because the costs of providing the infrastructure (schools, hospitals etc) are so large that governments cannot invest into employment and higher education.

Dr. Anima Sharma: Hi, As I understand most of the Sub-Saharan countries are in the early phase of development. They are inviting foreign expertise for the development and lot of International grant is diverting to the education and health sectors in these countries. When these basic challenges are met, especially health then it does have a positive impact on the population growth. I think this is what has lead us to assume about the population condition in 2050. But associated with development are several social issues, which need to be attended simultaneously. What is Africa doing in this regards?
Tanja Kiziak: You are right that health is one of the key factors for lowering high fertility rates. Education certainly is another one. But of course, there are important social issues, especially women’s empowerment. In a number of African countries, girls do not have any adequate access to schools and education. As long as these girls do not have an alternative to early motherhood and as long as the planning of the family size is out of their reach, population growth will continue—resulting in youth bulges, violent conflicts and food shortages.

Peter Mutanda: The donors have always supported the African government to come up with very good policies on family planning, commodities support and service delivery guidelines. What role can the multi-lateral donors do to enable the African understand the connection between development and population growth and commit more resource to slide back population growth?
Tanja Kiziak: It is in the natural intention of African governments to improve the living conditions of their citizens. Therefore it is worthwhile for them to look at the former development paths of emerging nations such as Thailand, Brazil or South Korea. Some decades ago, these were very poor nations, but they are now on the road to success. The blueprint of development is a combination empowering women and of investment into education and health, voluntary family planning programs and carrying out the necessary economic reforms.

Lanre Ikuteyijo: What exactly do you think is the greatest problem of sub-Saharan Africa; is it population explosion or mismanagement of resources and official corruption?
Tanja Kiziak: There are even more problems than the ones you mention such as food scarcity, water shortage, lack of infrastructure, political instability and violent conflicts. All these problems have to be solved on the long run, but rapid population growth certainly makes finding the solutions even more difficult. Therefore, population growth is central to all other problems and has to be tackled with maximum effort.

Mark: Why you think that strong dependable solution to population problems could not emerge in the world? Why the proposal of fertility decline and political interest could match for long time in Africa?
Tanja Kiziak: Population growth is a global problem. In absolute numbers we still grow by a billion in the next 14 years. However, growth rates have halved in the past decades. The fertility rates in all countries are going down, and by the end of this century, world population growth will turn into a decline. The question is: Will this happen early enough to prevent major ecological damage? Compared to other continents, Africa is sparsely populated, and therefore, for a long time, large population growth rates used to be seen as a benefit. But as fast-growing populations draw on natural and financial resources, many countries actually become poorer due to population growth.

Sanjay Mishra: The way disease,poverty inflation or any other problems are globalized, technology, access to health or other things not globalized, while many African countries have considerable agricultural conditions including land (except irrigation problem), and the most demographic question now is making Africa free from hunger and mal- nutrition, looking at current status shows that there is some gap either in policies or in implementation—may I know whether it is policy or implementation and if the problem is tracked what measures are taken to resolve the issue?
Tanja Kiziak: There are a number of policies to reduce hunger and malnutrition like improved irrigation and agriculture programs, management of food storage, fair international trading conditions etc. Most of these policies are not well implemented. Rapid population growth by itself is thus not the only factor for hunger and malnutrition—but all solutions become more difficult if it continues. The next decades will be critical for the global food security in any case: if the poor countries will keep their high population growth rates, hunger will not disappear. If they develop, and population growth slows down, their demand for higher food quality with more animal protein will grow and put more pressure on global food production.

William Ryerson: Reiner Klingholz and Tanja Kiziak, et al make a statement at www.berlin-institut.org/selected-studies/africas-demographic-challenges.html that “Population growth and high birth rates can in no way be fully attributed to the desire to have large families. Rather, they are in part due to the fact that women and couples lack effective birth control methods.” In Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, the most recent Demographic and Health Survey shows that, compared to a fertility rate of 5.7, married women want on average 6.7 children and married men want 8.5. Only 10% of married women report they currently use modern contraceptives. Of the non-users, 55% say that they never intend to use family planning. The top reasons for non-use cited are opposition to family planning (39%), the desire to have as many children as possible (17%), fear of health effects (11%), and not knowing a method (8%). Lack of access and cost were cited by only 0.2% each. This pattern is seen in many African countries and is not reflected by the statement of the authors.
Tanja Kiziak: The figures for Nigeria are correct, but it is interesting to look at the details of these statistics. The number of desired children is high among women with no or little education, in the lowest income classes, and in the Muslim North where women’s rights are restricted. So it is plausible that desired family size would diminish if the government took action to improve education standards, income generation and gender equity. The DHS statistics clearly show that women with higher education and better living standards (especially in the South of Nigeria) want 3 to 4 children less than their uneducated and poor peers.

Laurie DeRose: Would further fertility decline in sub-Saharan Africa really create the potential for a demographic dividend when simultaneously considering the loss of population in the prime productive years due to HIV/AIDS? I know the key to a demographic dividend is a low youth dependency ratio; what I don’t know is if that ratio can drop enough to contribute significantly to development potential, especially in south and east Africa.
Reiner Klingholz: You are right that high incidence of HIV/Aids increases the youth dependency ratio. So HIV/AIDS makes it more difficult to harvest the demographic dividend. However, today, medication makes it possible to reduce HIV-related mortality. In Botswana for example, HIV-related fatalities have been halved in only seven years. The affected countries have to fight HIV/AIDS and decrease fertility rates at the same time. To some extent the methods are the same: offer sexual education, reduce promiscuity, use condoms.

Ugochukwu Onyeonoro: Now that many African countries particularly my country Nigeria are failing to buy into the idea of making population a developmental issue, how can the continent address the challenge of population of growth as well as harness the opportunities presented by the growing population?
Reiner Klingholz: Please also take a look at our answer to William Ryerson’s question. In short words: offer information and materials for family planning, open access to secondary education especially for girls, provide jobs to the large cohorts of young people in productive age. If governments have problems to swallow the idea of family planning, concentrate on education (especially for girls) and job creation and demand for family planning and a decline in fertility rates will follow.

Cristina Bradatan: Sub Saharan Africa is one of regions that will/are suffer(ing) significantly from the effects of the climate change. How much impact do you see climate change will have on the future development of this region?How will these nations cope with this impact?
Reiner Klingholz: Indeed, most parts of Northern and Southern Africa will see increased water-stress due to climate change. In a number of countries, yields from rain-fed agriculture are expected to be reduced by up to 50 percent. This is bad news for poor countries with high population growth rates. Most parts of equatorial East Africa can expect higher rainfalls. This can have a positive effect on agriculture if the rains are distributed evenly across a longer time period. In general, rich countries with high education levels can adapt more easily to the effects of climate change.

Eliya Msiyaphazi Zulu: There are many differences between Africa and the context in which the “demographic dividend” worked in Asia, which must be taken into when assessing its potential relevance to Africa. For example, Africa does not enjoy the cozy trade relationship that the Asian Tigers had with industrialized countries. Fertility seems to be destined to fall quite rapidly in Africa before we can see the massive investments in education and job market transformations that are required to benefit from the dividend. And it is hard to see how Africa can develop massive capacity to gainfully engage its “demographic dividend” without transforming its agricultural sector as well. So, the dividend is a valuable rallying point to get African governments and development partners invest in family planning. But that is the easiest of the transformations that are needed for the expected labor force bonus to become a demographic dividend rather than a “demographic curse”. Southern Africa, North Africa, and a few East African countries (notably Rwanda) have set in motion a reproductive revolution, which will reduce fertility in Africa more rapidly than many think. Of course, this is as long as we continue galvanizing political commitment and investments in family planning. So, the bigger question regarding the demographic dividend is whether the economic end of things will change fast enough, and to what extent the demographic change will help engineer economic transformation. Comment
Reiner Klingholz: We hear time and again that Africa is different from other continents and that progress as known from Asia or Latin America cannot be expected. This view is not only unfair, but it is not even correct: Many countries in Asia and Latin America were not better off economically and politically 50 years ago compared to African nations today. However, we agree that Africa has been very slow on the path of development, but there are good examples that African nations can indeed follow the way of the Asian tigers as shown by Mauritius, Tunisia, South Africa or Namibia. These countries enjoy the trade relationships you mention. Trade relations are a matter of supply and demand. A number of African countries have not yet been able to build up a profile as a supplier of marketable goods. They will need to do that in the future.

Sissoko Foussénou: Population Growth and Economic Development in Africa ; What needs to be done ?
Tanja Kiziak: Secondary education for girls is the proven recipe to reduce fertility rates. At the same time, secondary education (of course also for boys) is essential for an initial economic boom. However, this is of course not enough. Well-educated people need jobs to become productive. And for the investors to come, bureaucratic obstacles and other impediments like corruption must be removed, stable structures created and supportive services (in infrastructure, the finance sector etc) offered.

Stoufa: What about the demographic transition in the world and in Africa? What about tunisian demographic challenges for the future? What can we learn from the Tunisian experience
Manuel Slupina: Tunisia has created a perfect demographic bonus, with a fertility rate at replacement level and a high share of people in working-age. To bring these people to work, enormous investments into jobs are necessary. This is a big challenge not only for Tunisia, but for the whole North-African region.

Charlie Teller: To reap the demographic dividend, the authors correctly state that working age people “must have the change to find a job” (and let me add: including access to sufficient productive land). How can the “politics” and agricultural and employment policies help to determine the correct course? Are there more individual African country case studies that can guide us? In our recent book: The Demographic Transition and Development in Africa (Springer, 2011), we (Teller and Assefa) identified 9 preconditions for reaping the dividend in Ethiopia (p. 345). These include not only human capital formation, but also better governance, technological adaptation, higher quality institutions and higher youth aspirations and elongated transitions to adulthood.
Manuel Slupina: Your preconditions are in line with our observations. With agricultural and employment policies, we see one challenge: as agriculture absorbs a great number of people, raising productivity will put a lot of people out of job. They add to the large number of people who are either unemployed or working in the formal sector. There exist a number of case studies such as the following on Uganda: http://go.worldbank.org/SB9GGG07O0

Angelina Pillay: Hi Tanja, Namibia a country that is 68% the size of South Africa, having a population of merely 2.1m people, and having the highest Gini Index in the world (sources CIA World Fact). Unemployment 51.2%. Natural rich resources such as precious metals, fish. Suspected opportunitys of oil, coal and iron ore. Country has rich natural resources, limited capacity to perform cause the population is not skilled for the opportunities in the country, and a small population for a large land space, do you believe fertility reduction will address the current issues and address economic inefficiencies in the country?
Manuel Slupina: Namibia is a very large country with limited agricultural and water resources. So it might be over-populated even with 2.1 m people

Angelina Pillay: the statement “Few children, more people working in working age which boosts development”——Maybe so as a short term solution? But long term problematic, as we see with China (a growing aged population), sustanability for all their hard work—who takes it forward if the population is growing in age, but limited in working age entry.
Manuel Slupina: The alternative to the demographic transition would be a permanently growing population, which doesn’t sound like an option for a limited planet. Of course, a reduced birth rate leads to a graying of society and possibly a shrinking population, but this seems to be the unavoidable path for all nations that develop. On the long run, we will see a shrinking world population, much older but better educated and wiser than today, more peaceful and better equipped to adapt to the anthropogenic changes like climate change.

Violet Murunga: Some countries in SSA have in the recent past demonstrated their commitment to family planning as a health and development issue and the gains are beginning to be registered. However, the issue of addressing the SRH needs of youth as a way of lowering the high teenage pregnancies (which contributes to high fertility rates and poor maternal and child health outcomes) in these and other countries in the region is still a major. Notwithstanding the cultural beliefs surrounding youth and sexuality, SSA governments recognize the importance of catering for youth SRH needs and have policies to this end. However, implementation is hampered by health system issues as well as underfunding. There are also questions on what programs to implement. Can you comment on the experience of the Asian Tigers with regards to targeted SRH programs.
Manuel Slupina: Let’s take Bangladesh as an example: it was an extremely poor country some decades ago, but it has halved its fertility rate within the past 20 years. This was achieved by an integrated approach of women’s empowerment, micro-credits for women, women’s literacy programs and family planning. Such integrated programs seem to have a bigger effect than pure SRH-programs, because they offer new opportunities for young people and therefore create a higher demand for family planning.

Yibeltal Tebekaw: I personally agree that young population can make a difference in a specific area. However, the demographic dividend may not have similar impact all across because of the different socio-economic and political environment. How do you see the DD against political stability and educational quality of a nation in SSA countries context? Don’t you think family planning has a content of family limiting in such environments? I said this because I personally don’t believe that people are using contraceptives based on their real need to solve their problem. Who should play the main role to use the demographic ‘bonus’? Do you think still FP is the main solution to lower fertility levels?
Manuel Slupina: We don’t think that family planning is the main solution. It is only an instrument. You have to create a demand for it first. The best way to do this is education for girls, because it provides an alternative to early marriage and motherhood. Educated women start having children later, they space their pregnancies further apart and have fewer children altogether. After all, education opens up professional opportunities and enables young people to really plan the size of their families, i.e. make responsible and deliberate reproductive decisions.

Joseph KAYEMBE MUBIAYI: An international development organization whose core’s mandate is to achieve universal access to health and reproductive rights in order to improve the lives of young people in particular, is about to develop a new five-year cooperation with a country of sub-Saharan Africa. This country is a fragile state, having experienced more than a decade of armed conflict and 70% of the population lives below the poverty line. Its population consists mostly young (68% are aged under 25) of which 50% have their first sexual intercourse before age 15 years. The PRSP is based on which the new cooperation program target a particular way access to employment as a priority for young people. In this context, what are the strategic priorities for inclusion in the new program of cooperation with this country to help prepare the youth to be the engine of national development?
Reiner Klingholz: This is the most difficult question, not only for us, but also for Africa. Our recommendation is:

  1. Convince political and religious leaders, elderly etc that population growth is at the core of the crisis because it makes the solution of all the problems more difficult.
  2. Develop a national strategy with the various interest groups and set priorities.
  3. Build up a basic health care system to reduce mother and child mortality. This should include reproductive health services and access to family planning.
  4. Provide education in order give young people an alternative to early parenthood. Try to give some basic education even to young adults who have not had the opportunity to go to a school .
  5. Provide jobs for young adolescents (primarily in agriculture—to improve food security)

dell erickson: What is sustainable population level for the various countries and the continent? Why are you not discussing sustainability? Why do we see panoramas of what amounts to destroyed lands and yet no mention is made of it?
Reiner Klingholz: According to the global CO2-emissions, mankind is over-populated by the factor of two. So we (especially the rich countries) should reduce our emissions in order to achieve global sustainability. Or we reduce the world population by 50% and then we could afford our consumption level. In reality, we do not only have to reduce the consumption level of the rich countries, but also give the poor countries a chance to develop—so that population growth will decline. That definitely calls for a better supply with commercial energy. In order to provide this energy on a non-fossil basis, the developed countries have to export the best green technologies to the developing countries to enable them to skip the fossil phase.

Richard Cincotta: In a recent multi-author book on SSA, entitled “Africa’s Turn?”, the editor observes that the two factors that most distinguish under-developed African states from states that are experiencing rapid per capita economic growth are “bad economic policy” and “weak institutions”. Why do you think most economists continue to ignore fertility decline and age structural maturity as factors that contribute to economic and political progress?
Reiner Klingholz: Hi Richard. I’m not an economist, but the classic economical theory regards people as a factor of productivity. So if you invest into the education of every single child and the number of children is permanently increasing, the profit for society becomes unlimited. The problem for many poor countries is the shortage of financial means for investing into human capital. Weak institutions certainly worsen the problem. (BTW: “Anyone who believes in indefinite growth of anything physical on a physically finite planet is either a madman or an economist.” Kenneth Boulding)

Holly Reed: Eliya Zulu’s and William Ryerson’s questions bring up some important contextual factors (economic development/trade, low unmet need) that are different in Africa than they were in the Asian Tigers. However, Africa is rapidly urbanizing. Do you think that demographic change in Africa will accelerate due to rapid urbanization? But, will this simply create more divisions within countries (perhaps between urban elites and rural dwellers)? And what will the impact of the brain drain be?
Tanja Kiziak: Nowhere does the urban population grow as fast as in Africa. There, the number of people living in cities has doubled during the past 20 years. Urbanization will decelerate population growth, as women in cities (even those living under poor conditions) have fewer children than women in rural areas.

Erica Dhar: How would you address the question that in developing countries, populations will age before the countries get rich, versus the industrialized world which got rich before it got old. With longer life expectancy rates in Africa what is your prognosis for the region?
Tanja Kiziak: This is the second most difficult question of this session. Certainly today’s developing countries will age faster and poorer than today’s industrialized countries. Unlike the latter, the developing countries know what lies ahead of them demographically, so they try to prepare for the aging, e.g. by setting up micro-insurance programs or building up state funds that have to be accumulated during periods of economic growth.

Mesele Araya: Can Africa have a Demographic Transition without development? In other words, to see a free hunger of Africa, which has to come first? Development or Demographic Transition
Tanja Kiziak: From a historical perspective, development doesn’t take place without a demographic transition. The two go hand in hand.

Ed Barry: You state that development opportunities for families and entire societies grow with a decline in birth rates, but we would add, unless the availability of natural resources constrains growth. Human population numbers seem to be fundamentally out of balance with the natural resources of many African countries. So our question: why don’t demographic research reports include more focus and information about the nexus between population numbers and the natural resource capacity needed for economic growth?
Reiner Klingholz: Carrying capacity can be increased enormously by technology. So the natural resource capacity is a relative indicator for sustainability. With better technology, Africa could not only feed its population, but also live in harmony with the environment.

PRB Discuss Online: What Does ‘Poverty’ Really Mean in India?

The past few years have seen much hype regarding the economic progress in India, much of it extolling the country’s “rising incomes” and “exploding” middle class. Entrepreneurs in the country seem to have believed this, resulting in an overbuilding of glitzy malls and the rapid expansion of the number of domestic airlines. Although there has been definite economic progress in India, who exactly benefits?

The number of people living in poverty is often ignored. India’s official poverty measure has long been this: People below the poverty line have a daily diet of less than 2,400 kilocalories in rural areas and less than 2,100 kilocalories in urban areas.

What do measures of wealth such as “middle class” and “poverty” mean in India, compared to countries such as the United States or those in Europe? Estimates of the number of people in poverty in the country vary wildly, as Carl Haub wrote in a 2010 PRB web article with co-author O.P. Sharma, and even the slightest changes in the definition of poverty can change the number of the poor in India by millions. India is on track to become the world’s largest country about 10 years from now, despite declining fertility. How will it manage the population growth in its very large and very poor states?

In a PRB Discuss Online, Carl Haub, senior demographer at PRB, answered questions from participants about what “poverty” and “middle class” in India really mean as standards of living, and what implications these may have for India’s economic and demographic future.

PowerPoint: Age and Sex Structure of India, 2001 (PPTX: 85KB)
PowerPoint: Distribution of Population by Size, of Village, Town, or City, India, 2001 (PPTX: 82KB)
PowerPoint: Fertility Rates in India, 2008 (PPTX: 82KB)
PowerPoint: Household Availability of Electricity and Sanitation Facilities, India, 2001 (PPTX: 83KB)
PowerPoint: Households With Access to Tap Water, India and Selected States, 2001, and China, 1990 and 2008 (PPTX: 90KB)
PowerPoint: Sex Ratio at Birth in the Indian States of Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Himachal Pradesh, 1999-2009 (PPTX: 93KB)
PowerPoint: Sex Ratio at Birth in the Indian States of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, and Assam, 1999-2009 (PPTX: 92KB)
PowerPoint: Sex Ratio at Birth in the Indian States of Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka, West Bengal, Orissa, and Tamil Nadu, 1999-2009 (PPTX: 94KB)

Feb. 23, 2012 1 PM (EST)

Transcript of Questions and Answers

C S Radhakrishnan: Are we taking into account a pattern of persistence in poverty by those who should have gone out of the bracket long back? Vested interests are encouraging the relatively better off among the poor to conform to the measuring yardsticks of poverty while spending on other aspects of life. For example, recent surveys of BPL families had certain check points to see if a family had come out of the poverty bracket. Families which indulged in what middle class families consider as luxury were being listed as poor, because they technically conformed to the yardsticks of the Planning Commission. Influencing the survey rtems to look the other way on the presence of luxury items in the household was one method employed. Imagine a family earning four hundred rupees per day for at least twenty five days a month, per person and at least three members earning at this level. How can they can they be termed poor. They splurge on expensive alcoholic drinks, indulge in movies at expensive theatres, etc. None of these gets reflected in the BPL survey!
Carl Haub: I wasn’t think so much about the problems with the BPL definition but how poverty overall is measured. But you are, of course, right. I read in the press about a man who saved for years to buy a fan and was taken off the BPL list for having such a luxury! A neighbor, who had a much better living style stayed on the list, possibly due to a payoff.

Dr. Anima Sharma: Dear Carl Haub,As in the other parts of the world, in India too poverty is commonly associated with the economically deprived section of the society. The other associated truth with the economic deprivation is social backwardness. Usually the people living below poverty line also belong to the lower social stratum. They lack education, access to medical care and other facilities. In fact, if you see closely then you will find that that money (fiscal economy) is the prime force to determine the QOL and way of life. Hence, according to me all other attributes contributing to poverty revolve around the economy.
Carl Haub: Certainly very true. The recent growth of the Indian economy has, I believe, benefitted a fortunate few. Recently, the ILO said that India’s economic advance is due to a 34 percent increase in productivity and that employment numbers as such had not risen.

ejaz: Does poor people remain poor for the whole life? if not, what step should governments take for poverty alleviation?
Carl Haub: Whether the government considers them poor or not, they certainly do. A lack of education and training will keep them where they are. There has, of course, been a new government program to provide training down to the district level but such programs often falter. Still, India will need more trained labor force. Perhaps that will add an additional spur to such programs.

Kris Dev: Is there a concrete solution to eliminate corruption and create a level playing field for eradication of poverty?
Carl Haub: I think real enforcement of anti-corruption measures are needed. I’ve been told that the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) in Uttar Pradesh has seen large sums go missing. But at least they are going after the perpetrators in a more serious way.

J Kishore: When food including water, sanitation, electricity, shelter and cloths need to be purchased then just calculating poverty on the basis of calories requirement is false. It is not difficult to calculate cost of living in different regions of the country if political desire exists.
Carl Haub: Exactly and we have seen a good deal of ridicule in the Indian press about using calories only. So, if can provide for sufficient calories but sleep beneath a railroad bridge, you’re not poor!

Dr. Rukmini Potdar: Why has India not adopted an income based measure of poverty like the way the US has? Is it because of inflation and using the basket of goods (or number of calories) approach being more stable over time? How come the poverty line definition does not include cost of shelter and clothing besides food?
Carl Haub: I believe that it is because money income cannot be measured in most, if not all developing countries. So many in India work in the unorganized sector or in casual labor that money income would be meaningless. And, only a very small proportion pay taxes.

Paola Scommegna: India’s National Family Health Survey-3 shows declines in multigenerational living and increases in older Indians living alone or with just a spouse. Is this a sign of wealth— that families can afford this? Or a shift in the importance put on family caregiving that may impoverish the elderly?
Carl Haub: In some ways, it probably is but the vast majority still live in multigenerational families. One thing to keep in mind is that “household” has an entirely different meaning in India than in the West. In India, a household is defined by having separate cooking facilities even if they live in an adjacent structure of some kind. Also, the extended Indian family does not always live in the same dwelling but remain economically and socially interdependent. The increase in large urban areas may be increasingly due to sons moving to the city for a job but the parents stay behind in the village. Even in those cases, close ties remain.

Robert Prentiss: At some point the U.N. adopted a country’s IMR of 50 or less a determinant that hunger had ended in that country. How does this apply to India and has this emphasis on entrepreneurship made any difference?
Carl Haub: I think that was actually the Hunger Project in California that did that in the 1980s. It doesn’t sound like the UN but perhaps I’m wrong. Do you have a link?

Richard Cincotta: Carl, Your article with O.P. Sharma is so complete that it’s hard to ask a meaningful question within the topic … so, I’ll ask one at the margins. The 20 INR/day and $PPP 2/day poverty lines that around a quarter of all Indians live in relative poverty. If so, the oft-talked-about rise of a middle class of 200,000 Indians seems a gross over-estimate. While, admittedly, beyond your research, what does the BPL calculation say (to you) about the size of the Indian middle (consuming) classes?
Carl Haub: I’m glad someone brought the mysterious middle class! If you are not BPL are you middle class? Hardly, you’re still extremely poor. As far as the middle class goes, a Westerner must erase all previous notions of what that means. “Middle class” in India, to me, should be based on living standards and disposable income. Here is, by my experience since 1994, a middle class family in Delhi, India’s richest city: a flat of 300-800sq ft in a four or five story concrete building (difficult for grandparents to walk up); 2 to 3 to 4 generations; no heat or air conditioning except perhaps an “air cooler” and a space heather in a city where the temperature ranges from 35 to 115F; regular power outages; water supplied twice a day or from a water truck; and a two-wheeler for all-weather personal transportation. I don’t know any Westerners who want to live like that. Disposable income might mean regular trips to the cinema or a family trip to McDonald’s. The latter is actually “flaunting it” since the price of a meal like that could feed a BPL family for months. What we perceive as the middle class, such as those in spacious flat or a single family house with a car or tow are the rich, with a lifestyle most can only dream about. Lastly, the numbers? Perhaps 200,000 is ok by Indian standards but many of those glittery estimates come from marketing consulting firms trying to attract business!

Vega: Could you talk about the Principal Component Analysis method used by the DHS’s (the National Family Health Surveys in India) to measure wealth? Is that the measure ‘in vogue’, or should we look at the various components in a disaggregated way if we want to analyze the effects of wealth/poverty on demographic indicators?
Carl Haub: Do you mean the wealth quintiles?

Dharmendra Sharma: I think that unemployment is the only cause of poverty. If we provide cent percent employment to the people than poverty can be eliminated. What is your perception about it? whether it is the best way to curb poverty ?
Carl Haub: Certainly, as long as it is meaningful, steady employment. For that jobs are needed and training is needed. I may be wrong, but I’ve never heard that jobs go begging, or unfilled. Another problem is, I think, that hundreds of millions of Indian workers value job security over wages (to the benefit of the employer!). There was an article in the Times of India before the Delhi Commonwealth Games that workers building the venues were not paid the legal minimum wage—and they were employed by the Delhi Government! Was “skimming” involved in the contracts? India workers must gain some clout to receive fair pay.

Michael F.: Since food costs less in India than the US when priced in USD (see www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/02/daily-chart-14?fsrc=scn%2Ffb%2Fwl%2Fdc%2Fflippingnerdy) why do we use the USD income as a measure of poverty?
Carl Haub: Well, in India, they do use rupees. Measures such as Purchasing Power Parity calculated by the World Bank in USD are meant to make the level of poverty clearer globally.

Shikha Sinha: Will Unique Identification Authority of India’s Aadhar program be able to successfully target the poor section of the society and uplift them?
Carl Haub: Boy, we’ll see. For those of you who are not aware of this, it’s a program to issue ID cards that cannot be altered to identify the BPL population. But—that still leaves the problem of honestly identifying that group (read: don’t base BPL on calories alone). And then there’s traditional bribery. But perhaps it’s a start.

Vega: Could you recommend a paper which reviews the history and current debate on the consumer expenditure-driven poverty line in India?
Carl Haub: Not right off the bat. But there is an excellent World Bank blog with links. http://blogs.worldbank.org/eastasiapacific

Soumya Mohanty: Does India need to address inequalities in opportunities to achieve a higher rate of poverty reduction?
Carl Haub: Certainly. And it has been tried and is being tried again. As mentioned earlier here, education and training can create jobs as investors may be more willing to invest if the workers are there. Driving around India, I’ve noticed a growing number of Industrial Estates in rural areas, not just urban. These have factories run by Nestle, LG, Tata, etc. I had not mentioned foreign investment but the entrance of multinationals is often a very important factor as controversial as it sometimes is.

Boatemaa Sandra: Does the caste system of traditional Indian society has any influence on the contemporary poverty trends. What are your recommendations for poverty reduction in such a cultural system.
Carl Haub: Someone finally asked about caste! Yes, I believe that it definitely does. Having quotas for Scheduled Castes and Tribes has been around for some time with only some effect. There is a separate “caste census” underway right now, which I think is a step backwards as the government has tried for years to lessen the effect of caste. But, often the ingrained caste system tends to keep people in their place, does it not?

Barbara Reichwein: Following on from Vega’s question, can we discuss the strengths and weaknesses (and practicality to implement) of the most commonly used measures of poverty in India? From an NGO perspective, I have come across:

  1. the DHS quintille measures mentioned by Vega,
  2. the Indian Below Poverty Line (BPL) card,
  3. the Multidimensional Poverty Index, and
  4. the New Progress out of Poverty Index of Grameen Foundation

Carl Haub: I’m not familiar with all of those but have noted that the government’s calorie criteria are unsatisfactory. The quintile method certainly helps and is clearly understood. I mentioned the BPL card earlier. Perhaps a new approach would be to determine the level of living the poor should have and then help provide them with that: a dwelling with solid walls and roof (called a pucca house); clean water, even if shared; proper disposal of sewage; and the like. In other words, a serious “on the ground” approach rather than debating statistical methods. Many of the things mentioned are not that expensive.

Julian Crandall Hollick: Given that the figures for poverty are all pretty bad why is there such silence about levels of poverty in the Indian media? Is it because this would ruin the official image of “India Shining” so dear to the Indian media? And why does no political party make a campaign issue out of these statistics?
Carl Haub: Well, Julian, there really hasn’t been silence. Many columns are written about it and headlines do blare ridiculing the government’s current calorie-based method. The “India Shining” business was the ruling party at the time, the BJP’s huge mistake and part of the reasons for its loss in the elections. Many people said “who’s shining, I’m not.”

Ravindra Nath Vyas: To what extent and in what what ways the present model of development i.e. the regime of globalisation has both accelerated and decelerated impoverishment of people in India?
Carl Haub: Well, as I mentioned before, the entrance of multinationals is controversial but I do think it helps change things. I’ve observed this on many trips over the years in Delhi and it’s industrial, hi-tech suburbs, such as Gurgaon, Ghaziabad, and Faridabad. Large corporations, I believe, pay workers rather well, deduct taxes, have clinics, etc. I’m positive, e.g., that that’s an important reason for the explosion of cars——and fairly expensive ones—in Delhi. And it certainly is not just foreign companies. Major Indian firms such as Tata, Modi, etc. have played a big role.

Ryan: With a rise in the middle class in India but static or growing number of poor, do you see the potential for class conflict? And to what extent would this contribute to a destabilization in the country?
Carl Haub: Well, I don’t really see too much of that now. I’m not quite sure how to put it, but many people seem to accept their status. The caste system certainly must contribute. Violence has largely been “community based,” as they put it, i.e. based on religious conflict.

Sravanthi Tapal: How is poverty related to the neonatal mortality in India especially in Uttar Pradesh State?
Carl Haub: That would be the 2005-2006 DHS report for UP. Nationally, it declines from about 40 for the poorest quintile to 21 for the highest. You can see the report at http://measuredhs.com, then “search publications,” then “by country.” The UP state report can be found here: http://nfhsindia.org/up_report.shtml. I’m downloading it but it’s very slow.

PRB Discuss Online: Chronic Diseases Affect Youth Globally

In 2008, 36 million people died from noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). Deaths related to these chronic diseases are increasing, especially in low- and middle-income countries. Over half of deaths are associated with behaviors that begin or are reinforced during adolescence, including tobacco and alcohol use, poor eating habits, and lack of exercise. Global trends indicate that NCD-related behaviors are on the rise among young people, and that they establish patterns of behavior that persist throughout life and are often hard to change.

Despite the contribution of adolescent health to reducing NCDs globally, the September 2011 High-Level Meeting of the UN General Assembly in New York did not address these issues. What is known about adolescent contributions to NCDs? What are effective strategies to address them?

In a PRB Discuss Online, Dr. Robert Blum, William H. Gates Sr. professor, and chair, Department of Population, Family, and Reproductive Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and director, Johns Hopkins Urban Health Institute, answered questions from participants about how chronic diseases affect youth and what we can do to prevent them.

Sept. 27, 2011 NOON (EDT)

Transcript of Questions and Answers

Dr. Anima Sharma: Dear Dr. Blum, the youths of modern times, especially in the developing countries like India are surrounded by the multitude of problems at psychological, environmental, personal and professional fronts. People often complaint that the lives have become very complex these days and it does have, no doubt, but according to me many such situation which lead to severe and chronic types of sufferings could be avoided if we could teach the youths about the ways to adjust with their environ (at home and at work place). Many times the slight adjustments may change their lives entirely but we need Mentors and Trainers who could teach them the right skills of personal and professional management.
I am an Anthropologist and have been lucky enough to get a chance to study urban, rural and ethnic societies in India. I found that types of problems faced by these three types of societies are different but we can’t say that it is better in any because the even the ethnic societies are no more as simpe as those used to be, say 50 years back. Hence, my summation is that while thinking about the youths in the context of the chronic diseases we should also think about the ethnic populations, their health problems and the prevailing healthcare system/ facilities in their areas. Thanks.
Robert W. Blum: Dr. Sharma raises some interesting and important points. First, we know that in every country of the world where there are data, ethnic minorities are disadvantaged when compared with the majority population. The evidence is clear that they have less good health status and more chronic conditions compared with majority peers. As it relates to NCDs there are things that young people can do including avoidance of harmful behaviors such as eating high-fat foods or smoking tobacco, but there are also community-level strategies that improve outcomes. As Dr. Sharma sugests, we need to ask ourselves: Why are those who are ethnic minorities least likely to enjoy positive health?

Henry Tagoe: It is evidently clear that countries in the Global South are facing the strain of the double burden of disease because they are straggling with the challenges of infectious diseases and due to demographic, nutritional and epidemiological transitions chronic non-communicable diseases are now a major challenge not forgetting limited health system. One major issue is the lack of national representative data for research especially the levels of the major modifiable risk factor such alcohol, smoking obesity more at child and youth level to inform policy to effect behavioral change. This is one on the major areas that countries in the developing world should focus on since such behavior at early ages will be carried on to adulthood and the implication to chronic disease. Can data be made available to researchers in this area if available?
Robert W. Blum: This is an excellent question. For youth there are some data sources. First, in a recent paper in the Lancet, Gore and her colleagues report disability adjusted life year data for low- and middle-income as well as high-income countries as they relate to adolescents and youth. The Global Tobacco Survey of the World Health Organization is another data source as is the adolescent module of the MICS (which is a UNICEF global survey). A third source of data that relates to certain NCDs among adolescents and youth are the DHS national surveys those these relate mostly to sexual and reproductive health. The issue of dual burden of disease is an increasingly pressing issue for many LMI countries.

Meskerem Bekele, Ethiopia: Yes, you are right! The problem is ours also. As you mention religious institution is one way to protect youth from this chronic disease. As a journalist I was produced programs about this issue. And many of the person’s told me that they are out of this addiction because of their religion. But as a journalist can we mention this situation?
Robert W. Blum: Much of what we know about the protective effects of religion comes from research primarily done in the United States and what we see there relates less to religion per se than to religiosity. Religiosity can be viewed as having two primary dimensions: private (prayer for example) and public (going to church, mosque, synagogue, etc.) For youth it appears that public religiosity has a more powerful impact on behavior than private behaviors. We see in other communities around the world that certain religious prohibitions have an impact only if they are reinforced by the climate and culture of the family and community. So for example, a religious prohibition against smoking or drinking has more of an impact when one lives in a community where such substances are either expensive or difficult to obtain as a consequence of that prohibition.

Tyjen Tsai: Do you think that behavior change communication strategies like using peer educators to help educate about chronic diseases (or a specific one, like tobacco use, for example) would work with youth? And if so, what kind of BCC would be most effective?
Robert W. Blum: There is an extensive body of literature on the use of peer educators. While peer education can be effective, it often is not. What seems to differentiate effective from ineffective peer education is the extent of adult involvement, supervision, and mentorship of the mentors. Where there is a lot, the effectiveness increases. Additionally, what we also know is that the people who are the greatest beneficiaries of peer interventions are the peer educators themselves. This suggests that as a strategy, recruiting those most likely to engage in a health-compromising behavior, as an educator may have beneficial impact.
Now, turning to your question and going beyond peer education, effective behavior change strategies for youth are grounded in both a developmental understanding of young people and an explicit theory of change (for example Bandura’s Social Learning Theory). We see numerous examples of effective behavioral interventions around the world but in truth we see many more that don’t work (at great cost). One reason is that we often fail to evaluate our interventions, and even when we do, we tend to stick to them when they should be abandoned (witness prograns like “Scared Straight,” DARE, abstinence-only interventions.)

Ryan: What effect has climate change had/may have on noncommunicable diseases?
Robert W. Blum: This is a complicated question. One element of climate change is the decline in air quality in many urban settings that has contributed to asthma. So too, exposure to environmental toxins has an impact on fetal health and development; and as our knowledge of epigenetics increases we are learning that these fetal changes have impact across the life span. So for example, Hoek et al. has shown that nutritional deprivation during the Dutch famine of 1944 was associated with an increase in psychiatric disorders among adolescents who were born 6 to 8 months after the worst of the famine. So too, we see the strong association between birth weight and diseases later in life including diabetes mellitus, hypertension, metabolic syndrom and cardiovascular disease (Barker Hypothesis).

Kate: As smoking prevention efforts have shown,it’s very difficult to get people (and youth in particular) to act to prevent health consequences that may not appear for years. How can we make youth understand the risks of chronic disease?
Robert W. Blum: When you look at trends in smoking in many Western countries over the past 25 years we have seen extraordinary and positive changes. Today in the United States for example cigarette smoking is at an all-time low with approximately 20 percent of youth who smoke. Conversely, 80 percent of youth disapprove of smoking. So, while we have made a lot of progress we still have a long way to go. What we know is that health risk-reduction strategies work best when a number of elements line up. Specifically, we know that information alone is not sufficient for behavior change but when it is coordinated with minimum age of purchase laws that are enforced, taxation that makes tobacco purchase cost-prohibitive for youth, and smoking laws that prohibit indoor smoking; you then begin to create a culture where it is expensive, difficult, and increasingly socially unacceptable to smoke.

Eric Zuehlke: How can health systems that are already strapped for resources in developing countries balance the need to treat communicable diseases and at the same time address prevention strategies to combat non-communicable diseases?
Robert W. Blum: As we look across the globe we see a decline in infectious causes of morbidity and mortality in the adolescent years. That is not to say that infectious diseases are not important, but in most LMIC as well as high-income countries, today NCDs represent the primary causes of death in adolescents. Additionally as populations age in countries around the world increasingly it will be NCDs that will be the primary causes of morbidity. So for LMIC these issues are and will increasingly become important drains on national economies and resources. That is why the United Nations held a High-Level Meeting last week in New York to draw attention to these concerns.

Ryan: What are the differences in diseases and treatments between the developed and developing countries? Or between economic classes?
Robert W. Blum: We know that in every country of the world, those who are the poorest have also the worst health status and that includes both infectious diseases and NCDs. In sub-Saharan Africa, in some countries women are more than 100 times more likely to die in childbirth than in HIC. So too, in countries where abortion is illicit and clandestine the mortality rate is very high, while in countries where it is is legal and safe, mortality is below that of child birth. When we compare high- and low-income countries there is a big gap in access to a number of interventions that reduce morbidity and subsequent NCDs: the HPV vaccine for example.

maricela: What public policies would help with this population?
Robert W. Blum: Numerous public policies make a difference:

  1. Tobacco taxes-smoking among youth is very price-sensitive.
  2. Menu labeling—the evidence is that information impacts food selection and also content of prepared foods.
  3. Graduated licenses for new drivers—it is estimated to reduce vehicular deaths during the first year of driving by as much as 40 percent.
  4. Restrictions on advertising harmful products.
  5. Minimum age of purchase laws with strict enforcement.

Jeff Meer: How can advocates best make the case that children and youth represent great potential for creating positive change on chronic diseases (and not just a problem to be dealt with)? It seems to me that if there is inspiration to be drawn in the non communicable disease prevention and control field, it would be in working with kids. After all, their lifestyle choices, dietary habits, recreational choices and other modifiable risks are not yet set. Perhaps if we can view kids and youth as assets, and not so much as liabilities, we would be better off.
Robert W. Blum: I fully agree with you. We need to highlight what young people are doing around the globe to make a difference in their neighborhoods. We need to give prizes and recognitions (like the CNN Heroes awards) for youth interventions to shine a spotlight on outstanding work. We as adults need to help train young people so that they have the skills to be effective advocates. We need to engage young people with chronic conditions as part of the solution—as youth leaders.

Ryan: Regarding the recent health care reform, how far do you see it going in cutting down on noncommunicable diseases?
Robert W. Blum: I think that it will have some benefits since there are provisions for preventive services. When we look for example of what will be covered for women, for the first time oral contraception will be covered as will more widely available cancer screening. However, the primary focus of the legislation is on financing of medical services; and until there is a focus on health care delivery and until there is a significant commitment to take to scale interventions that we know work then we will be playing catch-up at a high cost to health and our economy.

Tyjen Tsai: Thanks for answering my other question. With the rise of diabetes, do you think that will go hand-in-hand with a rise in chronic depression as well?
Robert W. Blum: The rise in diabetes is a result of a dramatic increase in obesity…a trend we are seeing globally. We know that there is an association between obesity and depression; and so too, we know that there is a positive association between exercise and mental well-being.

Cat: Dr Blum, How important is getting NCDs onto the national health priority agendas in developing countries? If you take a country like China, where about 50 percent of their tax revenue comes from the tax on tobacco, smoking is a behavior the government doesn’t want the public to stop doing. So my question also relates to how to navigate the political environment when working on NCDs is unsupported.
Robert W. Blum: The point that you make is a good one; however, I would point out that in countries like China where the population is aging the economic costs to the economy will only escalate with increasing NCDs. So it is with countries around the world (both rich and poor)…while there may be short-term benefits to ignoring the consequences of pollution or some of our decisions on pesticide use or cash crops, the real costs will be passed on to our children—and theirs.

PRB Discuss Online: The Increasing Complexity of Family Life in the United States

Today, Americans are more likely to marry and to divorce than in almost any other Western nation. How has this pattern changed over the last 10 years? What are the implications for current and future generations? Johns Hopkins University professor Andrew Cherlin’s review of the research, “Demographic Trends in the United States: A Review of Research in the 2000s,” covers trends in marriage and cohabitation, divorce, fertility, children’s living arrangements, and aging. The article was published in the Journal of Marriage and Family (vol. 72, no. 3, 2010). He is also the principal investigator of the “Three-City Study,” an interdisciplinary study of low-income children and their caregivers in the post-welfare-reform era, and the pilot study “Intergenerational Support in an Era of Complex Kinship.”

In a PRB Discuss Online, Andrew Cherlin, study author and Griswold Professor of Sociology and Public Policy at Johns Hopkins University, answered questions from participants about family life in the United States over the past decade.

Sept. 8, 2011 1 PM (EDT)

Transcript of Questions and Answers

Richard Cincotta: When, in casual conversation, I ask an acquaintance, “Which siblings support your aged parents (or grandparents)?” I often encounter answers that seem to me to be very similar (even in higher fertility developing countries): one child provides most of the non-pension-provided support, a second provides funds/physical assistance occasionally, and the rest contribute almost nothing. It’s anecdote; the reasons for the pattern vary tremendously; but I perceive to frequently encounter it. What is the U.S. pattern for sibling support for aged parents? And is it influenced by divorce and remarriage in either generation, or race/ethnicity?
Andrew Cherlin: I don’t think there is a single, dominant pattern. You are right that it is common for one or two siblings to take responsibility, with the rest doing little. That one is often a daughter, and usually lives close by. Today’s elderly had more children than prime-age adults do today, so that in the future, there will be fewer siblings available to do the care.

Rick Schaefer: Other than the growing social and legal acceptance of same-sex marriage in the USA, what do you think is the most significant change in American families in the last ten years?
Andrew Cherlin: Rick, I think the most significant change is the rise in births to cohabiting couples. Most of the rise in “out-of-wedlock” childbearing in the last ten or fifteen years has been to women who are cohabiting rather than to women who are living without a partner. Having children in a cohabiting union is now acceptable to a broad range of young adults. Trends in the job market have made young non-college-educated youths reluctant to marry, but an increasing number will go ahead and cohabit and have children.

Robert Prentiss: How will single parent households living below the poverty line be able to send children to college as economic conditions make college both unaffordable in addition to making colleges classes no longer offered or available (as in California)?
Andrew Cherlin: A very good question without a clear answer. The problem will be worse for children who would like to attend selective colleges (such as the University of California system), where costs have been rising rapidly. Attendance at selective college may become more and more the privilege of well-to-do families while children from disadvantaged families attend less selective schools part-time, taking five or six or seven years to get a degree, while working to support themselves and pay tuition. A dual educational system.

Terri Ann Lowenthal: Dr. Cherlin, could you comment on the potential implications of your findings about our increasingly complex families and households for the conduct of the census and other household surveys? Thank you! I look forward to your presentation next week.
Andrew Cherlin: Survey research has always been based on the assumption that families reside in one household, so that if you sample a group of households, you are sampling a group of families. But families now extend over more than one household, sometimes over more than two, which makes the task of studying families via surveys (such as the Census) more difficult. That’s the most problematic aspect of family complexity for survey research.

Jenny Shea: Could you comment on the growing number of half-siblings created by sperm donation? How do you see this changing family life in the long term, and should the fertility industry be further regulated?
Andrew Cherlin: You may have read the same recent NY Times story as I did, which reported that some sperm donors are fathering 50 to 150 children. This is another example of how we are moving into uncharted territory in family life with little awareness of what’s happening. It seems very disturbing. But I’m not convinced that the consequences will be as bad as some people quoted in the article were saying. Other than the possibility of reproducing recessive genetic traits, I’m not sure it will have much in the way consequences. But it’s so new and startling that we need to think more about it.

Issa Almasarweh: How come it is difficult in the USA to buy cigarettes or alcohol if you are below the age of 21 years? While it is easier to date, get married, become pregnant and have children at earlier ages, sometime before age 18 years! Can protection be expanded to include avoiding early parenthood?
Andrew Cherlin: The problem is that Americans (and people in most other countries, too) think of having children as a basic human right, unlike smoking or drinking alcohol. Therefore, there is much resistance to any efforts that would prevent any woman, even a teenager, from having children. Every so often someone proposes a law that would require licenses to have children, much as we must have licenses to drive automobiles; but such proposals go nowhere. We must instead take steps to reduce the large number of unwanted pregnancies among teenagers.

ABDUL MALIK GHAURI: Do you agree that the responsible parenthood is the biggest challenge the humanity faces today and the real solution lies in making an international law to ensure responsible parenthood for the implementation of UN charter for the rights of children throughout the world? All parents; mothers and fathers should be legally bound to perform certain set of duties towards their children.
Andrew Cherlin: I am not convinced that further legislation would help. In the United States, all parents already are legally bound to provide adequate care for their children, and government agencies remove children from abusive parents. But there is little support for penalizing parents who divorce or for intrusive government inspections, etc. I think we need a campaign to urge parents to take their responsibilities more seriously.

Janna Z. Goldberg: Hi Dr. Cherlin, I am interested in the household formation processes of immigrant groups in cities. Do you think that doubling up, for economic reasons (shared rent) or access to familial care (childcare, etc.) will remain a trend in urban areas, or will families move toward the single family home model once the economy recovers and groups assimilate? I appreciate your insight.
Andrew Cherlin: Hard to know. The dominant cultural pattern is for families to aspire to single-family homes. Many of the recent immigrants come from cultures where extended-family living is more common and more accepted. So I think that even after the recession ends, we will see many extended families remaining. But my guess is that the children of today’s immigrants, when they grow up, will move toward the single-family dwelling, too, if their finances allow.

Boatemaa Sandra: What are some of the factors for the changing trends in marriage? What are their implications for research and policy?
Andrew Cherlin: An important recent trend is that young adults with a college degree are more likely to ever marry and much more likely wait until after they are married to have children. The tie between marriage and childbearing, which has been looser among the poor, is now loosening among moderately-educated Americans as well. The latter group is increasingly having children in cohabiting unions that are unstable, creating a higher level of family instability in children’s lives.

Tony Bentivegna: Does having divorced parents cause children to spend more time with TV/Computer use and lead to lower academic performance in college?
Andrew Cherlin: Having divorced parents make children marginally less likely to graduate from high school; I have not read anything about college performance. Or about TV/computer use. So we don’t know the precise mechanism. But overall, there is an increased risk of diminished education attainment among children whose parents were divorced.

Winnifred Nankinzi Kaggwa: 1. How can we do in the developing countries to tackle the increasing complexity of Family life with high fertility rates, maternal and fetal morbidity and mortality not only in USA? 2. Maybe its good to discuss the challenges of immigrants’ family life support and its impact on the nation?
Andrew Cherlin: I agree that the challenges of immigrants’ family lives is a central way that families are becoming more complex in developing countries. Sociologists are writing about “transnational families,” in which a parent, often the mother, immigrates to another, wealthier country and sends remittances to her family back in the home country, where her children remain. We need to know more about these new kinds of families.

Marlene Lee: Where does family as opposed to households fit into public policy issues in the U.S.? In your opinion, has the extent of the separation of family and household in the U.S. reached a point where the household is the really the only significant or practical unit that public policy can target? For example, poverty rates in the U.S. are really household measures more so than family measures, I think.
Andrew Cherlin: Marlene—I agree that the separation of family and household has important policy implications. But I think that sometimes it is still the family that is the important unit—if, e.g., a divorced couple has joint custody of their children. So is it household or family we care about? Probably a mix of both, depending on the problem.

Howard Iams: Do you expect the trends toward “escape from marriage” to continue over the next decade?
Andrew Cherlin: Howard—it’s only the non-college-educated who are escaping from marriage. Among that group, cohabitation is increasing, in part because of poor job prospects. As long as the economy provides little opportunity for the non-college-educated, I think that trend will continue. Among the college educated, marriage rates remain high (in part because their labor market opportunities remain relatively good).

Ryan: I have two questions, both related to the economy. Can you discuss the recent reports of couples who want to get divorced having to remain married (and often continue to live together) due to financial troubles? What effects might this have on their children? Also, now that more young adults are forced to move back in with their parents, do you see this as leading back to traditional models of families that you see/used to see in other cultures, or could it end up taking a new form?
Andrew Cherlin: In the Great Depression of the 1930s, divorce rates initially fell because unhappy couples couldn’t afford to get divorced. Some of that may be happening in today’s Great Recession, too. These marriages are not necessarily better for the children than would a divorce be. And it’s hard to know whether moving-back-in will create a lasting change or dissipate as the economy improves.

Harriet Shaklee: With the increases in out-of-wedlock births, and continuing rates of divorce and remarriage in the U.S., is it becoming the “norm” for families to include step relations? As the new normal shifts, what accommodations are being made in the broader social context?
Andrew Cherlin: While not quite yet the norm, it’s certainly more and more common for step relations to be part of family life. We need to allow stepparents to have some of the authority that biological parents do, such as being able to sign a permission slip for a field trip. We need to consider them as full members of our families. We are only slowly moving in that direction.

Jason Bremner: How much of the rise in births to cohabiting couples is due to the greater birth rate among Latinos? Wouldn’t we expect that Latinos would be less likely to marry given the legal challenges and fear they might face in getting a marriage certificate?
Andrew Cherlin: Latinos do contribute to births to cohabiting couples, but they come from a Catholic cultural tradition where marriage is important. So we actually find higher rates of marriage among Latinos than among non-Latinos with comparable incomes. So the cohabitation story is not just a story of Latinos. (In contrast, the fertility story is driven by Mexican-Americans, who have more children.)

Anna Lisa Fahrenthold: In your research, have you noted any significant changes in how and why families access child/day care for young children (birth to age 5)?
Andrew Cherlin: Not a great deal of change. But I do think that parents are increasingly seeing child care, especially children care provided by centers, as like school—an activity that is appropriate for all 3- and 4-year-old children, regardless of the employment status of the parents. That’s the way it is viewed in other countries, such as France, where universal preschool exists.

Neal Ritchey: Would you offer a typology of family formation in the modern era? What are the most salient dimensions? What are irrelevant specific joint dimension values that give rise to more parsimony via the typology than considering just the dimensions as shaping family formation?
Andrew Cherlin: Unfortunately, it would take me a long lecture, or maybe even a book, to answer your question well! In brief: Marriage is still important, but for many people it comes later life than it did a half-century ago, and people often have children and only afterward marry. Cohabiting relationships are very important, increasingly so, and so are single-parent families. With high (though declining among college-grads) rates of divorce, stepfamilies (both marital and cohabiting) are also important. I’m not sure if this can be made more parsimonious in the U.S. In Europe, some are advocating erasing the distinction between marriage and cohabitation. That doesn’t even work well there, although there are many more long-term cohabiting unions then here. In the U.S, marriages and cohabitating relationships are still distinct, with the latter being more fragile and requiring less commitment.

Jenny Shea: Thanks for answering my question. Piggybacking on your response: are there any other trends concerning marriage, birthrates, living arrangements, etc. you feel are overhyped, or changes that might not have as sweeping an effect as people perceive?
Andrew Cherlin: I think that for the last several decades we have overhyped the consequences for children of mothers working outside the home. With the possible exception of the first year of life, the effects some modest and perhaps even positive sometimes (as when the children of single mothers see their mothers working for pay, taking pride in their accomplishments, etc.)

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