Search results

The US fertility transition in the nineteenth century is unusual. Not only did it start from a very high fertility level and very early in the nation’s development, but it also took place long before the nation’s mortality transition, industrialization, and urbanization. This paper assembles new county-level, household-level, and individual-level data, including new complete-count IPUMS microdata databases of the 1830–1880 censuses, to evaluate different theories for the nineteenth-century American fertility transition. We construct cross-sectional models of net fertility for currently-married white couples in census years 1830–1880 and test the results with a subset of couples linked between the 1850–1860, 1860–1870, and 1870–1880 censuses. We find evidence of marital fertility control consistent with hypotheses as early as 1830. The results indicate support for several different but complementary theories of the early US fertility decline, including the land availability, conventional structuralist, ideational, child demand/quality-quantity tradeoff, and life cycle savings theories.

This paper presents the second-generation estimates for the Italian engineering industry in 1911, a year documented both by the customary demographic census, and the first industrial census. The first part of this paper uses the census data to estimate the industry’s value added, sector by sector; the second further disaggregates each sector by activity, and estimates the value added, employment, physical product, and metal consumption of each one. A third, concluding section dwells on the dependence of cross-section estimates on time-series evidence. Three appendices detail the specific algorithms that generate the present estimates; a fourth, a useful sample of firm-specific data.

Collection of data about disability in a census or survey context is influenced by the cultural context, particularly the beliefs and practices within the communities where the data are collected. Attitudes toward individuals with disability will influence what questions are asked, how such questions are framed, and how individuals in the community will respond to these questions. This article examines how culturally defined concepts of disability influence the development of questions on the topic, as well as helps determine who asks the questions and who answers the questions. These issues in turn influence how much data are collected and how accurate the data are. It also examines how ethnic diversity and poverty contribute to these questions. Recommendations for attention to these issues are made by census and survey.

Population censuses collect socio-demographic and economic information regularly and in an institutionalized manner. The decision of what topics to include in their questionnaires reflects political priorities, but also it is a materialization of symbolic power (Bourdieu, 1991; Loveman, 2005). Gender practices – including budgeting, policy-making, implementation and monitoring of programs – depend significantly on census results. Understanding the institutional dynamics of public statistics sheds light on structural obstacles to exercise gender rights. To study this phenomenon, the authors look at the last century of the Brazilian and Ecuadorian censuses. The research provides a better understanding about the process of including or rejecting questions related to gender, specifically the arguments used in the process of selecting questions. Brazil and Ecuador were chosen because of the different profiles of each of their statistical institutions. The Brazilian institute, IBGE, is a larger, stable and semi-autonomous statistical office; Brazil has conducted population censuses since the nineteenth century. The Ecuadorian institute, INEC, is a smaller and more politically dependent statistical office; it has conducted population censuses since 1950.

Using archival analysis within the questionnaires and interviewing key demographers, activists and statisticians in both countries, the authors argue that the presence or absence of gender questions in the Brazilian and Ecuadorian censuses is historically and politically contingent. In contrast to the dominant narrative that suggests that changes in the vision of public statistics is correlated with the modernization of the state, it appears that the statistical visibility of gender issues in each society does not follow a linear path.

In the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) 2001, the World Health Organization (WHO) defines disability as: ‘an umbrella term for impairments, activity limitations and participation restrictions. It denotes the negative aspects of the interaction between an individual (with a health condition) and that individual's contextual factors (environmental and personal factors)’, with environmental factors including assistance from other people, from equipment and from formal sources. WHO previously defined disability, in the context of health experience, as “any restriction or lack (resulting from impairment) of ability to perform an action in the manner or within the range considered normal for a human being” (World Health Organization, 1980, p. 28).

To discuss the purpose, methodology, and results of the recent Archival Census and Education Needs Survey in the United States (A*CENSUS)

Description of survey conception, purpose, methodology, and the implications of selected results.

The 2004 Archival Census and Education Needs Survey in the United States (A*CENSUS) was the first archival census in the USA since 1982. Funded by the Institute for Museum and Library Services, it represents unprecedented cooperation and collaboration among over 50 archival organizations and educational institutes throughout the USA. Preliminary findings indicate that the educational preparation of archivists has changed drastically, the profession has feminized, and that archivists are aging, with insufficient numbers of younger archivists to replace them. In spite of these dramatic changes, the archival profession has failed to diversify racially and ethnically.

This early view of the A*CENSUS is intended to stimulate discussion and further analyses of these data. The methodology sets a precedent for inter‐organizational collaboration and will help archivists and allied professionals better understand the profession today as well as the prevailing trends.

This article presents an early report on the A*CENSUS results and discusses potential implications of use of the dataset.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the new Census 2011 results with the results of the previous Censuses and assess the progress in trends of population growth, literacy rate, and sex ratio imbalance and also to highlight the critical socioeconomic issues based on short‐term trends and patterns.

The paper is structured in a “commentary and perspective” format. The paper assesses key demographic and socioeconomic features of India's population using 2011 Census data, and compares progress in population and social trends with the results of previous Censuses. The paper also uses data from the National Family Health Survey (2005‐2006) and the United Nations World Population Prospects (2008) to complement Census results and understand the underlying reasons for the progress or deterioration in critical demographic and socioeconomic indicators.

The provisional results of the 2011 Census data reveal a mixed bag of insights. On the positive side, there has been steady progress in population stabilization and a swift ascent in female literacy since 1991. These encouraging trends, among others, represent major driving forces of demographic and economic returns for India in the coming decades. However, on the negative side, the 2011 Census reveals a deplorable deterioration in the female‐male ratio of the child population aged 0‐6 years, despite India's enforcement of targeted policy measures following the 2001 Census. The country needs to take careful stock of this issue, as its advancing demographic transition and changing socioeconomic circumstances are rapidly translating into an adverse trend of girl child discrimination.

This study compares India's most recent two Censuses and provides original analytical insights into India's progress in population stabilization and development, and the setbacks it faces in terms of gender inequalities. Region and state‐wise analyses are additional contributions based on disaggregated state level data from the recent two Censuses.

The publication in 1993 of the 1991 Census on CD‐ROM by Chadwyck‐Healey makes the data much more accessible, cheaper and easier to use. The data is available in a variety of different formats to suit different user groups. A number of software products are available to assist the user in the exploitation of the Census data. The Census Data on CD‐ROM is particularly likely to be important in public and academic libraries. As with the development of any CD‐ROM based service there are a number of strategic and practical day‐to‐day issues that will need to be addressed.

This paper seeks to provide researchers and librarians with an overview of the US Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS), with a specific focus on practical issues that users must face when choosing and using ACS datasets.

Each of the following issues are explored subsequent to a general overview of the ACS: choosing among census datasets from different census programs, interpreting and choosing between the different ACS period estimates, selecting census geography, understanding and recalculating margins of error, and accessing the data. Samples of ACS tables and formulas for creating derived estimates are used to illustrate how to interpret and work with the data.

The ACS datasets are fundamentally different from the decennial census as they are period estimates created from rolling sample surveys. The ACS has a steeper learning curve; this complexity is due in part to the number of choices users must make between datasets, but the primary challenge is learning how to understand and work with estimates as opposed to population counts.

While other papers have discussed the benefits and challenges of the ACS, this paper is structured around the practical issues that researchers must face when using it. Special consideration is given to calculating derived estimates using spreadsheet formulas, as this is a key task that many users will need to perform and spreadsheets are the most likely tool users will employ to manipulate the data.