Low fertility and fertility policies in the Asia-Pacific region.

Declining fertility is an increasing global trend. In many low fertility contexts, people are having fewer children then they want, and these unfulfilled fertility desires have been associated with wider socio-economic changes in education and labour force participation and conflicting and often contradictory expectations of women at home and at work. The right to determine if, when and how one has children is enshrined in international law yet many policies responses to low fertility fail to meet these standards.

How genuine are sub-replacement ideal family sizes in urban China?

Ideal family sizes remain at or above two in most low-fertility settings, but sub-replacement fertility ideals have been reported for urban China. The presence of restrictive family planning policies has led to a debate as to whether such ideals are genuine. This study exploits the ending of the one-child policy and the beginning of a universal two-child policy in October 2015 to investigate whether relaxing the restrictions led to an increase in ideal family size.

Does Same-Sex Marriage Legalization Make Gay Men Want to Have Children? Findings from a Panel Study in Taiwan.

Introduction: This study capitalized on prospective legal change in Taiwan to capture changes in gay men's desires and attitudes toward parenthood as a function of the legalization of same-sex marriage (SSM).

Methods: A panel of 731 gay men (mean age = 26.8 years ± 5.

Changing the perspective on low birth rates: why simplistic solutions won't work.

, , and argue that policies responding to population decline and ageing should enable reproductive choice and maximise the potential of all citizens

COVID-19 and excess mortality in Russia: Regional estimates of life expectancy losses in 2020 and excess deaths in 2021.

Accurately counting the human cost of the COVID-19 at both the national and regional level is a policy priority. The Russian Federation currently reports one of the higher COVID-19 mortality rates in the world; but estimates of mortality differ significantly. Using a statistical method accounting for changes in the population age structure, we present the first national and regional estimates of excess mortality for 2021; calculations of excess mortality by age, gender, and urban/rural status for 2020; and mean remaining years of life expectancy lost at the regional level.

China's low fertility may not hinder future prosperity.

China's low fertility is often presented as a major factor which will hinder its prosperity in the medium to long term. This is based on the assumed negative consequences of an increasing old-age dependency ratio: a simplistic measure of relative changing age structures. Based on this view, policies to increase fertility are being proposed after decades of birth restriction policies.

Adopting an adaptation‑mitigation‑resilience framework to ageing.

Population ageing is presented as one of the 'grand challenges' of the 21st century. Yet, policies designed to offset these challenges seem to be a jumbled, disjointed mix with no clear, overarching narrative. One of the successes of climate change science is the development of a clear, distinguishable framework to plan action: adaptation, mitigation and resilience.

Prevalence and correlates of sex-selective abortions and missing girls in Nepal: evidence from the 2011 Population Census and 2016 Demographic and Health Survey.

Objectives: These were to: (1) produce national and subnational estimates of the sex ratio at birth (SRB) and number of missing girl births in Nepal and (2) understand the socioeconomic correlates of these phenomena.

Design: Observational secondary data analysis of (1) the 2011 population census of Nepal and (2) the Nepal Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) 2006, 2011 and 2016.

Setting: Nepal.

The Food Environments of Fruit and Vegetable Consumption in East and Southeast Asia: A Systematic Review.

Fruit and vegetable (FV) consumption benefits the health of populations. This can be especially the case in locations which have undergone significant changes in their food environments, such as East and Southeast Asian countries. This current systematic review is the first to study the food environments-facilitators, barriers, and moderators-associated with FV consumption in East and Southeast Asia.

Circular visualisation of historical migration in England in the long eighteenth-century.

Migration is a central component of both individual life-courses and macro-level demographic systems. In the absence of population registers and other surveillance systems, however, it is often difficult to measure. This is especially the case in historical populations.

Prospective measures of aging for Central and South America.

By conventional measures, it is often remarked that Central and South America is one of the fastest aging geographic regions in the world. In recent years, however, scholars have sought to problematize the orthodox measures and concepts employed in the aging literature. By not taking dynamic changes in life expectancy into account, measures which hold chronological age constant (e.

Exploring the young demographic profile of COVID-19 cases in Hong Kong: Evidence from migration and travel history data.

This paper investigates the profile of COVID-19 cases in Hong Kong, highlighting the unique age structure of confirmed cases compared to other territories. While the majority of cases in most territories around the world have fitted an older age profile, our analysis shows that positive cases in Hong Kong have been concentrated among younger age groups, with the largest incidence of cases reported in the 15-24 age group. This is despite the population's rapidly aging structure and extremely high levels of population density.

The Gender Gap in Reaching "Old Age" in the Russian Federation: A Regional Approach.

Reaching older age and longevity in later life is determined by health and mortality across the life course. In the case of Russia, the history of high male mortality skews the interaction between population aging and gender. These differentials can be viewed through a spatial lens in order to both understand their causes, and to better determine policy responses, especially in a federal political system.

Measuring inequalities of development at the sub-national level: From the human development index to the human life indicator.

Despite being one of the most common measures of development, the Human Development Index [HDI] has been much criticized for its consistency, data requirements, difficulty of interpretation and trade-offs between indicators. The 'Human Life Indicator' [HLI] has been proposed as a 'simple effective means' of measuring development and, more specifically, as a viable alternative to the HDI. Reducing inequalities within countries is a core component of the Sustainable Development Goals; yet sub-national HDIs are subject to the same criticisms as national level indices (potentially more so).

Is half the world's population really below 'replacement-rate'?

A perennial activity of demographers is to estimate the percentage of the world's population which is above or below the 'replacement rate of fertility' [RRF]. However, most attempts to do so have been based upon, at best, oversimplified, or at worst, simply incorrect assumptions about what RRF actually is. The objective of this paper is to calculate the proportion of the world's population living in countries with observed period total fertility rates [TFR] below the respective calculated RRF, rather than the commonly used measure of 2.

Assessing the impact of the "one-child policy" in China: A synthetic control approach.

There is great debate surrounding the demographic impact of China's population control policies, especially the one-birth restrictions, which ended only recently. We apply an objective, data-driven method to construct the total fertility rates and population size of a 'synthetic China', which is assumed to be not subjected to the two major population control policies implemented in the 1970s. We find that while the earlier, less restrictive 'later-longer-fewer' policy introduced in 1973 played a critical role in driving down the fertility rate, the role of the 'one-child policy' introduced in 1979 and its descendants was much less significant.

Better way to measure ageing in Oceania that takes life expectancy into account.

Objective: The aim of the study was to improve the measurement of ageing in Oceania taking into account characteristics of populations and, in particular, changes in life expectancy.

Method: Using past and projected life tables, we calculated prospective old age dependency ratios (POADRs) to 2060, placing the boundary to old age at a moving point with a fixed remaining life expectancy (RLE) for thirteen territories of Oceania.

Results: In some territories, POADRs grow less rapidly than old age dependency ratios (OADRs).

Maternity migration and the recent normalization of the sex ratio at birth in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong is characterized by very low fertility. However, over a period from 2000 to 2015, both the total number of births and the sex ratio at birth (SRB) increased and then declined dramatically. We analysed the increases in a 2013 paper in this journal, where we largely ascribed them to a rapid growth in the number of 'transient' mothers from Mainland China disproportionately giving birth to boys in the territory.

The changing relationship between marriage and childbearing in Hong Kong.

Births outside marriage (BoM) account for around 15% of all births globally. However, the distribution around the world is very uneven, as are cultural and political attitudes towards them. Studies from East Asia have shown that the percentage of such births is very low, with only modest increases in recent years.

Health of midlife and older adults in China: the role of regional economic development, inequality, and institutional setting.

Objectives: To document the association between economic development, income inequality, and health-related public infrastructure, and health outcomes among Chinese adults in midlife and older age.

Methods: We use a series of multi-level regression models with individual-level baseline data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Survey (CHARLS). Provincial-level data are obtained both from official statistics and from CHARLS itself.

Better way to measure ageing in East Asia that takes life expectancy into account.

Aim: The aim of the study was to improve the measurement of ageing taking into account characteristics of populations and in particular changes in life expectancy.

Method: Using projected life tables, we calculated prospective old age dependency ratios (POADRs) to 2060, placing the boundary to old age at a moving point with a fixed remaining life expectancy (RLE) for all countries of East Asia.

Results: POADRs grow less rapidly than old age dependency ratios (OADRs).

The well-being of bereaved parents in an only-child society.

There are currently around a million Chinese households where the only child has died and the mother is beyond reproductive age. The number of such bereaved parents, known as shidu fumu, is forecast to increase to over 11 million by 2050. Using a sample survey conducted in 2013 in Shaanxi Province, the article explores the vulnerability of shidu fumu by various measures of well-being.