Ecological comparisons in sub-Saharan Africa show that HIV prevalence is lower where men are generally circumcised than where they are not. Randomized controlled trials have found a 50-60% reduction in HIV acquisition for newly circumcised men. Yet in Malawi, HIV prevalence is highest in several...

We examine the likelihood of becoming a parent in Italy taking into account the employment (in)stability of both partners in a couple. We use data from four waves of the Italian section of the EU-SILC (Statistics on Income and Living Condition), 2004-2007, accounting for its longitudinal nature....

We trace the development of numeracy in Poland and Russia from the early 17th century onwards, and numeracy in Belarus, Ukraine, and Lithuania from the 18th century onwards. The fact that western Poland was doing relatively well during the 16th and early 17th centuries, but was not able to...

We examine the impact of precarious work (low income and job security satisfaction) on the intention to have a first child. We consider a direct and an indirect effect; the latter is mediated by partners’ conflict behaviour, conflict level, and partnership quality. We assume that a...

The aim of this article is to analyse the determinants of marriage dissolution in Spain and their variation over time for women married between 1949 and 2006. Data are drawn from the Survey of Fertility, Family and Values of 2006. The article analyses the transition from first marriage to...

The Russian Federation has experienced simultaneous declines in health and rises in international migration. Guided by the “healthy migrant effect†found elsewhere, we examine two questions. First, do the foreign-born in the Russian Federation exhibit better overall health than the...

The age-specific growth function of an observed population and the reproductive value function based on the population´s current vital rates determine the intrinsic rate of growth implied by those vital rates through the simple relationship given in equation (1). That equation establishes the...

This study investigates the risk of having a first child in Italy for the three largest groups of foreigners in Italy - Albanians, Moroccans and Romanians. The study confirms that strong differences in the fertility pattern remain even when we control for migratory and demographic factors. This...

BACKGROUND Because of the dyadic nature of reproduction, the couple is the most suitable context for studying reproductive decision-making. OBJECTIVE I investigate the effects of couple disagreement about short-term childbearing desires on the formulation and implementation of fertility...

Adult lifespan variation in most western countries has stagnated since the 1960s, despite continued improvements in longevity. Cross-sectional analyses, however, find that in the 1990s higher socio-economic position was associated with lower lifespan variation. Trends in this association over...