We combine data from 84 Demographic and Health Surveys from 46 countries to analyze trends and socioeconomic differences in adult mortality, calculating mortality based on the sibling mortality reports collected from female respondents aged 15–49. The analysis yields four main findings. First, adult mortality is different from child mortality: while under-5 mortality shows a definite improving trend over time, adult mortality does not, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. The second main finding is the increase in adult mortality in sub-Saharan African countries. The increase is dramatic among those most affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Mortality rates in the highest HIV-prevalence countries of southern Africa exceed those in countries that experienced episodes of armed conflict. Third, even in sub-Saharan countries where HIV prevalence is not as high, mortality rates appear to be at best stagnating, and even increasing in several cases. Finally, the main dimension along which mortality appears to differ in the aggregate is by sex. Adult mortality rates in sub-Saharan Africa have risen substantially higher for men than for women—especially so in the high HIV-prevalence countries. On the whole, the data do not show large gaps by urban/rural residence or by school attainment.

With period fertility having risen in many low-fertility countries, an important emerging question is whether cohort fertility trends are also reversing. We produce new estimates of cohort fertility for 37 developed countries using a new, simple method that avoids the underestimation typical of previous approaches. Consistent with the idea that timing changes were largely responsible for the last decades' low period fertility, we find that family size has remained considerably higher than the period rates of 1.5 in many “low-fertility” countries, averaging about 1.8 children. Our forecasts suggest that the long-term decline in cohort fertility is flattening or reversing in many world regions previously characterized by low fertility. We document the marked increase of cohort fertility in the English-speaking world and in Scandinavia; signs of an upward reversal in many low-fertility countries, including Japan and Germany; and continued declines in countries such as Taiwan and Portugal. We include in our forecasts estimates of statistical uncertainty and the possible effects of the recent economic recession.

The recent global economic recession has renewed interest in knowing whether a declining economy affects population health. Understanding the extreme case of the Great Depression may inform the current debate as well as theory regarding biological and behavioral adaptations to unwanted economic change. We test the hypothesis, recently suggested in the literature, that period life expectancy at birth improved during the Great Depression. We applied time-series methods to annual period life expectancy data of the civilian population from eleven European countries. Methods control for trends and other forms of autocorrelation in life expectancy that could induce spurious associations. We cannot reject the null hypothesis that period life expectancy at birth during the Great Depression remained within the interval forecasted from historical values. Additional analyses using an automated, rule-based methodology also cannot reject the null hypothesis. During the most severe phase of the Great Depression, period life expectancy in eleven European countries generally did not rise above expected levels.

Preference for sons over daughters, evident in China's and South Asia's male sex ratios, is commonly rationalized by poverty and the need for old-age support. In this article we study South and East Asian immigrants to Canada, a group for whom the economic imperative to select sons is largely absent. Analyzing the 2001 and 2006 censuses, 20 percent samples, we find clear evidence of extensive sex selection in favor of boys at higher parities among South and East Asian immigrants unless they are Christian or Muslim. The latter finding accords with the explicit prohibition against (female) infanticide—traditionally the main sex-selection method—in these religions. Our findings point to a strong cultural component to both the preference for sons and the willingness to resort to induced abortion based on sex.

We assess quantitatively the effect of exogenous reductions in fertility on output per capita. Our simulation model allows for effects that run through schooling, the size and age structure of the population, capital accumulation, parental time input into childrearing, and crowding of fixed natural resources. The model is parameterized using a combination of microeconomic estimates and standard components of quantitative macroeconomic theory. We apply the model to examine the effect of a change in fertility from the UN medium-variant to the UN low-variant projection in Nigeria. For a base case set of parameters, we find that such a change would raise output per capita by 5.6 percent at a horizon of 20 years and by 11.9 percent at a horizon of 50 years. We conclude with a discussion of the quantitative significance of these results.

There are long-standing concerns over low fertility levels in Europe and an increasingly important debate on the extent to which migration can compensate for below-replacement fertility. To inform this debate, a wide array of indicators have been developed to assess the joint influence of fertility, mortality, and migration on birth replacement and intergenerational replacement. These indicators are based on various models and assumptions and some are particularly data demanding. In this article we propose a simple method to assess how far migration alters the extent of replacement for a birth cohort as it ages. We term the measure the overall replacement ratio (ORR). It is calculated by taking the size of a female birth cohort at selected ages divided by the average size of the cohorts of mothers in the year of birth. We present estimates of the ORR for a range of European countries representing different replacement regimes. We demonstrate that for many countries net migration has become a key factor in their population trends during the last few decades.