The relative income-health hypothesis postulates that income distribution is one of the key determinants of population health. The discussion on the age and gender patterns of this association is still open. We test the relative income-health hypothesis using a panel data covering 21 developed...

This study assesses the decline in second birth rates for men and women across different skill levels in transitional Russia. Changes within educational groups and occupational classes are observed over three distinct time periods: the Soviet era, economic crisis, and economic recovery. The most...

In January this year, we were confronted with a case of plagiarism. One paper that had been submitted last year by a certain person turned out to be written by three other persons. It was presented by the three true authors at a conference in 2010, where they distributed copies of their paper....

Age-specific fertility rates can be smoothed using parametric models or splines. Alternatively a relational model can be used which relates the age profile to be fitted or projected to a standard age schedule. This paper introduces TOPALS (tool for projecting age patterns using linear splines),...

In a Gompertz mortality model with constant yearly improvements at all ages, linear increases in period life expectancy correspond to linear increases in the respective cohort life expectancy. The link between the two measures can be given by a simple approximate relationship.

The slope and curvature of the survivorship function reflect the considerable amount of variance in length of life found in any human population. This is due in part to the well-known variation in life expectancy between groups: large differences in race, sex, socioeconomic status, or other...

Stimulated by the recent debate on gender roles and men’s fertility behaviour (Puur et al. 2008; Westoff and Higgins 2009; Goldscheider, Oláh and Puur 2010), we present evidence from Finland as a country well into the second phase of the so-called gender revolution. We examine how gender role...

We study bias, standard errors, and distributions of characteristics of life tables for small populations. Theoretical considerations and simulations show that statistical efficiency of different methods is, above all, affected by the population size. Yet it is also significantly affected by the...

This paper examines the living arrangements of Swedish children from 1970 through 1999 using the Level of Living Survey. Sweden, with low levels of economic inequality and a generous welfare state, provides an important context for studying socioeconomic differentials in family structure. We...