The significance of the Asian fertility transition can hardly be overestimated. The relatively sanguine view of population growth expressed at the 1994 International Conference for Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo was possible only because of the demographic events in Asia over the...

Almost 30 years have passed since I introduced the concept of "net intergenerational wealth flows" in a "PDR" essay, "Toward a restatement of demographic transition theory." A great deal of research has been published since then, and accordingly an update is needed. That research suggests the...

Searching for an optimum solution to the Bangladesh arsenic crisis: Thirty years ago Bangladesh experienced very high levels of infant and child mortality, much of it due to water-borne disease in deltaic conditions where surface water was highly polluted. In what appeared to be one of the great...

The paper defines 'health transition' and outlines the development of recent research programmes. Evidence is reviewed as to the cultural, social and behavioural determinants of health in the Third World, and the extent to which they interact with the provision of health services in reducing...

Fertility decline began in English-speaking countries 80 years later than in France even though per capita incomes in the former were higher and children were probably a net economic burden, at least for the middle classes. Explanations have included ignorance of contraception and the desire to...

This essay argues that demographic theory over the last half-century has substituted short-term explanations, often focusing on single demographic events, for long-term theory. This means not only that the explanations cannot be employed to forecast the situation in the more distant future, but...

There is a strong relationship between male and female circumcision in traditional thought and, north of the equator, in their practice by ethnic groups. The Southwest Nigeria Study, a 1994-1995 survey of 1749 males and 1976 females in Nigeria's Ondo, Oyo and Lagos States, is used to examine...