Abstract
A study of birth rates between 2005 and 2006 for teenagers, young adults and older adults. The paper considers factors such as age, race, education, income, divorce status and unintentional births.

From the Paper
"The purpose of this study is to determine if there is a difference in birth rates between and for teenagers, young adults and older adults. In addition, this study seeks to determine if age, race, education, income, divorce, status, unintentional birth and number of children predict declines in birth rates. United States government census data will be used to test the following hypotheses; there will be a significant difference between and birth rates for teenagers..."

Tags:Birth, teenagers, adults, income, divorce, race, age, education

Abstract
Aasve et al. (2005) in their paper, "Poverty and Fertility in Less Developed Countries: A Comparative Analysis" do a good job at analyzing the relationship between poverty and fertility. The researchers use longitudinal data sources to study this relationship - the data spans a two to five year period. It is admirable that the researchers opted to take the approach of using longitudinal data - most of these studies examine poverty and fertility in general over the decades, or point to one single year's data - but is two to five years really a long enough period? What trend can be observed in such a short period of time? The selected countries are somewhat random, too, in their picking.

From the Paper
Aasve et al. (2005) in their paper, "Poverty and Fertility in Less Developed Countries: A Comparative Analysis" do a good job at analyzing the relationship between poverty and fertility. The researchers use longitudinal data sources to study this relationship - the data spans a two to five year period. It is admirable that the researchers opted to take the approach of using longitudinal data - most of these studies examine poverty and fertility in general over the decades, or point to one single year's data - but is two to five years really a long enough period? What trend can be observed in such a short period of time? The selected countries are somewhat random, too, in their picking. The researchers

Tags:poverty, fertility, africa

Abstract
This paper examines some of the advantages and disadvantages associated with giving birth vaginally after having previously delivered by a Cesarean (VBAC). The paper looks at why doctors try to avoid them, but also gives support from the literature for their safety and success. The paper further discusses contraindications and the major problem which is uterine rupture following prior C-section. It points out that uterine rupture is usually due to Pitocin use, and that VBACs have a 98 percent success rate.

From the Paper
"Vaginal Birth After Cesarean (VBAC) is becoming increasingly popular and the medical profession has tried somewhat to discourage it because of the risk of uterine rupture. While postpartum fever seemed to correlate with uterine rupture at VBAC in a recent study there was no relationship between single or double..."

Tags:Vaginal Birth After Caesarean (VBAC), VBA2C, VBA2+C, VBA3+C

Abstract
This paper argues that today's teenager, whether in senior high school or middle school, should be given access to confidential health care - e.g., condoms and prescription birth control - in order to reduce the rate of teen pregnancy and to avoid the physical and psychological ramifications of pregnancy. It discusses the problem of teens' sexual activity levels and various initiatives that have been tried in the past to reduce the incidence of teen pregnancy.

Table of Contents:
Introduction
Literature Review

From the Paper
"In Texas, when George W. Bush was governor, he endorsed legislation that now requires schools to teach "abstinence as the 'preferred choice' for unmarried young people." It's clear that the Bush initiative has not succeeded to the level that it was hoped for. Meantime, when comparing California and Texas, one has to understand the universe of difference in approaches to social issues and problems. For example, first look at the data between the two states; in California the teen birth rate (2004, latest statistics available) is now at 39 per 1,000 girls between ages 15-19. That is down from 74 births per 1,000 in 1991. In Texas, the 1991 mark was 78 births per 1,000 girls (ages 15-19) and in 2004 that Texas data changed only slightly, to 63 births per 1,000 teenaged girls."

Tags:condom, sexuality, abstinence, contraceptive

Abstract
This paper examines whether the sociobiological approach of a person's personality holds true in the field of juvenile crime. Specifically, the paper evaluates whether birth order is a significant determinant in whether or not a young person commits crimes and in the rates of juvenile recidivism. It takes interdisciplinary approach to the issue of birth order and juvenile delinquency, drawing on diverse literature from fields including psychology, law, criminology and sociology. The extent of birth order on youth crime is explored through a critical survey and integration of current research on the various determinants of juvenile delinquency.

Outline
Birth Order and Social Behavior
Effects of Birth Order on Criminal Behavior
A Critique of Birth Order Theory
Other Predictors of Criminal Behavior
Conclusion

From the Paper
"Sulloway maintains that the effects of birth order do not stem merely from biology. Rather, he ascribes this to children's innate tendency to develop attitudes and personalities that are best suited for maximizing the resources that they get from their parents. Since siblings must compete for their parents' attentions, they carve out their own "family niches" relative to their brothers and sisters, a niche that is often defined by birth order (Sulloway 1996: 48). Meri Wallace, a child development expert, locates the social construction of birth order roles on the part of the parents. According to Wallace, many of the characteristics resulting from a child's birth order and family position actually stem from their early relationship with their parents."

Tags:personality, recidivism, sociology, criminal, behavior

Abstract
This paper explains that, in Brigitte Jordan's book "Birth in Four Cultures", the author outlines the birthing events of four different cultures and identifies the Western technology based perspective responsible for the high mortality rates in the U.S. Her research premise is based on the hypothesis that traditional methods are better than the modern ones. The paper includes critiques of this research by later birthing researchers; however, the author concludes that Jordan's work is pioneering and foundational birthing ethnology.

Table of Contents:
Introduction
Brief Summary of "Birth in Four Cultures"
Method
Critique
Conclude

From the Paper
"In another publication Davis-Floyd, Pigg, and Cosminsky (2001) the authors knowledge and provide evidence that traditional midwives are more professional than they are given credit for. They are not only highly educated, open to new methods but they also have experience in the field of their respective community birth system. Unlike the Western cosmopolitical birth authorities such as hospitals and obstetricians, traditional midwives vision and mission is to collaborate with the processes of nature."

Tags:fieldwork, social dynamics, midwives cosmopolitical convergence

From the Paper
"WELFARE REFORM IN NEW JERSEY & OUT-OF-WEDLOCK BRITHS/ABORTION
Introduction
This research examines the implementation of welfare reform in New Jersey in the wake of the enactment of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, the welfare reform law, at the federal level of government. A specific focus of this examination is the effect that welfare reform in New Jersey has had on the rates of out-of-wedlock births and abortions in the state.

Implementation of Welfare Reform
Substantive welfare reform was a contentious political issue in the United States from the day of the election of President Clinton in 1992 (Minow & Weissbourd, 1993) through 1996, when a welfare reform law was enacted (Riccio & Hasenfeld,.."

Abstract
The paper reveals that in spite of the overall success rates and avoidance of circumstances which decrease VBAC success, the minority that have unsuccessful vaginal deliveries can suffer catastrophic consequences. The paper explains that this, coupled with lower quality clinical evidence, has led to ambivalence regarding the offering of VBACs as an option alongside repeat cesarean sections in women. The paper relates that the practice of VBAC is still adequately supported by numerous, albeit lower-tier evidence and should still be offered as an alternative to cesarean section.

From the Paper
"Vaginal birth after cesarean section (VBAC) is the delivery of a neonate through the vaginal canal in a mother with a previous history of an operative delivery. The operative delivery excludes operative vaginal deliveries by forceps and pertains exclusively to operative abdominal deliveries. The population that has undergone cesarean sections worldwide varies. The most number of procedures done were in private hospitals in some countries in Latin America, which surpasses 50 percent of total births (Dodd & Crowther, 2006). In other countries, the percentage of..."

Tags:nursing, vbac, practice

Abstract
This paper discusses the use of indicators to look at the health of the population of a country. The paper looks at statistics for three different countries, namely, Canada, Denmark and Britain.

From the Paper
"Determining the status of the world's human population is a very difficult matter. Although wide ranges of statistics exist there is a great deal of controversy on how well they actually work. One of the most widely used indicators are demographic indicators. The three that are examined for this assignment are crude birth rate, crude death rate and life expectancy. The crude birth rate is essentially an indicator of how many people are being added to a countries population (Sibbald 2006: 862). Different countries have different crude birth rates. Canada in 1980-1985 had a..."

Tags:population, health, economic

Abstract
There has been a polarization of viewpoints on the most effective way to achieve population stabilization. On one hand are advocates of population control - those who believe that only direct interventions to 'control' fertility can slow down population growth. They believe that using coercion to force individuals to restrict family size is entirely justified. The paper shows that, on the other hand, are those who respect the rights and freedoms of individuals to exercise individual choices and act responsibly while making family decisions. They argue that assuring people access to decent healthcare, education and reproductive health choices will significantly reduce unwanted pregnancies and lower birth rates. The paper shows that, from this perspective, enhancing people's capabilities and women's, in particular, is the just way to stabilize a country's population. Caught in the complex web of moral, ethical and social discussions, policy makers and citizens need to have a better understanding of the relation between population growth and well-being of the individuals.
The paper includes many tables.

Paper Outline:
Introduction
World Trends
(1) African Region
(2) South-East Asian Region (SEAR)
(3) Western Pacific Region (WPR)
(4) Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR)
(5) Region of the Americas (AMR)
(6) European Region (EUR)
References and Bibliography

From the Paper
There has been a polarization of viewpoints on the most effective way to achieve population stabilization. On one hand are advocates of population control-those who believe that only direct interventions to 'control' fertility can slow down population growth. They believe that using coercion to force individuals to restrict family size is entirely justified. On the other hand are those who respect the rights and freedoms of individuals to exercise individual choices and act responsibly while making family decisions. They argue that assuring people access to decent healthcare, education and reproductive health choices will significantly reduce unwanted pregnancies and lower birth rates. From this perspective, enhancing people's capabilities, and women's in particular, is the just way to stabilize a country's population. Caught in the complex web of moral, ethical and social discussions, policy makers & citizens need to have a better understanding of the relation between population growth and well-being of the individuals. Coercive methods as a state policy for population control has most of the times been unsuccessful in democratic countries like India and has fetched public unrest. They also raise the issues of human rights and individual freedom. Coercion as a state policy has, however, succeeded in China (One Child Norm Rule). However, adopting the rights-based approach, I have tried to establish this relation in case of various regions of the globe. This paper addresses the issue of the trends and levels of fertility in various Regions of the World, as classified by WHO . Countries with fertility around or below the replacement level i.e. 2.1 currently hold over 40% of the world's people. Some of the regions like Africa and certain regions in Asia still have very high level of fertility. However, the factors contributing to the fertility are differently related in different regions. The paper has examined various cross-country data of 117 countries around the globe and has tried to identify the factors responsible for variations in fertility in different regions. The paper then attempts to identify the relevant policy areas to be addressed by the respective governments of the countries as per their national goals and population policies. However, before we consider the outcome of the data and analyze them, let us consider two basic questions. (1) Why is fertility declining in the developing world? (2) And why do some countries now have below replacement fertility? One of the major reasons for decline in fertility is the mortality decline at birth. The Summary Output of the correlation between Total Fertility Rate and Infant mortality is reproduced below. F 0.044217116 Regression Statistics T-critical 12.70620473 Multiple R 0.858068213 R Square 0.736281059 Adjusted R Square 0.73400762 Standard Error 0.831341089 Observations 118 ANOVA df SS MS F Regression 1 223.830253 223.830253 323.8622239 Residual 116 80.17084868 0.691128006 Total 117 304.0011017 Coefficients Standard Error t Stat P-value Intercept 1.57292125 0.119862012 13.12276692 1.13203E-24 Infant Mortality 0.036774037 0.002043437 17.99617248 2.29161E-35 There exists a strong correlation between infant mortality and TFR. The R-squared value is as high as 0.736. In other words, 73.6% of decline in fertility is explained by decline in infant mortality rate. The t-stat for Infant mortality 17.996 is well above the t-critical value i.e. 12.706. Hence, the relation is very significant. Moreover, the value of 'F' is very much higher than the FDIST value calculated above. Hence, the possibility of a higher F value (i.e. 223.83) by chance is negligible. Although declining infant mortality is one of the major factors responsible for decline in the TFR (Total Fertility Rate), another important factor affecting TFR appears to be the increase in the life expectancy at birth. The correlation of these two factors with TFR for 118 countries is as follows. Regression Statistics F 0.005936429 Multiple R 0.86310235 t-critical 4.30265273 R Square 0.74494567 Adjusted R Square 0.74050994 Standard Error 0.82111694 F Observations 118 167.9421613 ANOVA df SS MS Regression 2 226.4643036 113.2321518 Residual 115 77.53679813 0.674233027 Total 117 304.0011017 Coefficients Standard Error t Stat Intercept 3.43748058 0.950741713 3.61557775 Life Exp.(F) -0.0232654 0.011770755 -1.976546526 Infant Mortality 0.0300313 0.003963711 7.576562297 Here we can observe that these two factors taken together explain the 74.5% of the decline in fertility across the globe. However, the comparison of t-critical values with actual t-values shows that increase in life expectancy is not as significant as the decline in infant mortality is. This is because the infant mortality and life expectancy at birth are not completely independent of each other. However, a negative sign before the correlation coefficient of life expectancy suggests that TFR decreases when life expectancy improves. Confronted with a major fall in the death rates, no society can remain with a TFR of 5 or 6 live births for more than a few decades. Because more & more cohorts enter into working age group, which has a depressing effect on wages, no society desires a fall in quality of life by maintaining high rate of fertility. They may not accept the effect of decline in mortality rate as the cause for decline in fertility; they argue that they cannot maintain bigger families. However, it will be a fallacy to believe that decline in infant mortality rate alone is the cause for decline in fertility, although it remains the remote causal force behind all fertility declines. Many factors -social, cultural, economic-influence timing and speed of the fertility decline response in particular populations. The answer to the second question is that because of fertility decline, women increasingly started behaving like men i.e. in places where fertility is low, and life expectancy at birth is high, women are not confined to rearing children only. They are employed and participate equally in economic activities. The gender differentiation, as claimed by Dyson (2001), is blurred in the low fertility societies. Education has a very vital role to play once the fertility decline is set-in. We can observe that literacy is among the major causes for steeper decline in fertility rates and hence in some parts of the world the fertility has been pushed below the replacement level. Another result of lowering fertility is weakening of the institution of marriage in some of those societies. Hence, there are huge cultural differences across the different regions of the globe, as we will examine below in the paragraphs that follow. Regression Statistics F -chance 0.000807553 Multiple R 0.88890617 t-stat 3.182446305 R Square 0.79015419 Adjusted R Square 0.78463193 Standard Error 0.74805806 Observations 118 ANOVA df SS MS F Regression 3 240.2077433 80.06924775 143.085338 Residual 114 63.79335844 0.559590864 Total 117 304.0011017 Coefficients Standard Error t Stat P-value Intercept 3.87811429 0.870701114 4.454013242 1.9779E-05 Illiteracy(F) 0.02697635 0.005443407 4.955784499 2.5267E-06 Life Exp.(F) -0.0267386 0.010746329 -2.488159939 0.01428629 Infant Mortality 0.01631402 0.004549842 3.58562403 0.00049639 It can be seen from the above data that the rate of female literacy is highly and significantly correlated with decline in fertility. If we compare actual t-values with t-critical, we can observe that female literacy plays a more significant role in decline in fertility. Hence, the societies where the fertility levels are below the replacement level or where the decrease in fertility has been faster, both the factors viz. decrease in infant mortality and increase in female literacy have played the highest role. In advanced societies, women have become more equal to men than in the societies, which have lagged behind in one of the two factors. For example, in many South Asian countries, the female illiteracy has not come down substantially but they have seen reduced infant mortality, continue to have higher fertility rates. Hence, 'Female Literacy' is another very important factor affecting overall decline in the rate of fertility in many countries. Education of females gives an additional tool in the hands of females in making reproductive decisions. However, in many male-dominated societies, even now, the decision regarding the size of family is in the hands of the male members of the societies. Nevertheless, mortality decline and spread of education among females are not the only factors, which are responsible for decline in fertility. There are many other factors like reproductive health facilities available in the country (which depends to some extent on per capita expenditure on health), number of trained health workers available at village levels, nurses per 10,000 of population, percentage of females married in the age-group 15 to 19 years of age, maternal mortality etc. We will examine the effect of these factors on the TFR of the world as a whole (118 countries in the sample in the present study) and then we will examine which factors dominate in various regions of the world classified as per WHO classification. The classification of countries by WHO is based on the Global Disease Burden (GDB) regional classification. In this paper, the same classification is being followed & hence certain countries located in a particular continent may fall in a different WHO region, which may sometimes appear illogical. However, as the analysis made in the paper relates to demographics and health, the WHO classification of countries has been followed.

Tags:demographics, variation, TFR, literacy