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on Demographic Economics |
| By: | Ben Malinga John (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Sara Yeatman |
| Abstract: | -Recent research has shown that women who experience union disruption in Sub-Saharan Africa tend to have lower fertility than those in stable unions. It remains unclear, however whether this pattern reflects lower fertility desires, constrained opportunities to achieve desired fertility, or both. Using Demographic Health Survey data from 34 countries, this study examines whether fertility differences between women in intact unions and those who experience marital dissolution are primarily driven by differences in fertility desires, unrealized fertility, or unwanted fertility. Results indicate that unrealized fertility is widespread and especially pronounced among women whose first unions ended, particularly those who did not remarry. Although remarriage offers some fertility recovery, it does not fully offset the reproductive disadvantage associated with union disruption. On the other hand, women in intact first unions have higher levels of unwanted fertility, which also contributes to the overall fertility gap. Differences in ideal number of children contribute little to fertility gaps, suggesting that constrained realization of fertility goals—rather than lower aspirations—drives these disparities. Furthermore, women who experience union dissolution are more likely to revise their fertility goals downward or express uncertainty about future childbearing. These findings underscore the need for reproductive health policies that address not only support for desired fertility limitation but also for the achievement of desired fertility, recognizing both as essential components of reproductive autonomy. |
| Keywords: | Africa, divorce, fertility, fertility determinants, marital union, remarriage |
| JEL: | J1 Z0 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-2025-031 |
| By: | John Komlos |
| Abstract: | The U.S. healthcare and food-provisioning systems have failed to create an environment in which the human biological organism can flourish. Consequently, key health outcomes, most notably life expectancy, have consistently lagged those of other high-income populations since the Reagan era, coinciding with the adoption of economic policies that increased inequality and precarity across the population. We estimate the trends in physical stature, another omnibus indicator of a population’s biological well-being that reflects not only nutritional intake, inequality, and stress experienced by the population, but also the overall health environment—using a sample of 44, 322 adults from the NHANES surveys, stratified by gender and three ethnic groups. We find that the height of Americans began to decline among those born around or before the early 1980s in parallel with the diminution in the rate of increase of life expectancy. The decline in adult height ranged from 0·68 ± 0.36 cm among white women to 1·97 ± 0.50 cm among Hispanic men and is statistically significant across all six demographic groups considered. This decline in heights serves as corroborating evidence that the U.S.’s laissez-faire approach to healthcare and food provisioning delivers suboptimal population health outcomes. Public health priorities urgently need to be refocused. |
| Keywords: | healthcare, survey data, life expectancy |
| JEL: | I14 I18 N32 D31 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12207 |