Demography term paper

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“In reality, then, studies of gender and demographic change are forced to compromise the ideal study design (as are studies of any form of social change resulting from the aggregation of individual actions). Past studies have used several alternative strategies. Some have considered aggregate data only (e.g. Mauldin and Berelson 1978). Such studies are able to incorporate temporal variation into the analysis, but are unable to demonstrate that there are individual-level connections between gender conditions and demographic outcomes. Another strategy is to examine cross-sectional variation, substituting intercultural for intertemporal variation. This strategy was used in a much cited aggregate analysis of kinship, gender, and demographic conditions across the states of India conducted by Dyson and Moore (1983).”
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“As is well known, one weakness of cross-sectional studies for making inferences about social or demographic change is that cross-sectional relationships need not match over-time relationships. For example, although maternal education has a strong, inverse relationship with child mortality at the individual level in almost every developing country of the world that has been studied, the over-time relationship between female literacy or education and child mortality rates often is weak, nil, or even positive ( Cleland 1990). A cross-sectional relationship between gender systems and demographic conditions may be consistent with an over-time relationship, but it does not prove that one exists. Nevertheless, as research on a number of social science issues suggests, cross-sectional studies are often the best starting point for understanding the forces that cause social or demographic change. Even a multi-level, comparative study of the type that Mason ( 1993) and Smith ( 1989) recommend is quite complex and expensive, and must confront the problem that seemingly identical survey questions may have very different meanings in different cultural settings.”
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“Unfortunately, many people remain unaware of the great diversity of Africa, believing it to have only a poor, rural, and homogeneous black population. Any such characterization is certainly a mistake because the continent is indeed one of many contrasts. Vast deserts, savannahs, and rain forests exist in Africa. Large, rapidly growing metropolises rise near villages and hamlets in which reside millions engaged in traditional, subsistence agriculture. At the same time, many others work in the mining of large mineral reserves. All these African people--whether urban or rural, industrial workers or white-collar workers-represent a wide variety of racial and ethnic groups The United Nations has classified the 56 African countries into five regions, based upon social and economic characteristics. The original classifications placed the entire continent into three regions (UN, 1949, 1958). Then, in 1963 the present five regional classifications were adopted (UN, 1966). The seven countries that border the Mediterranean Sea make up North Africa. The inhabitants of this region are predominantly of white racial stock, being descendants of people from south western Asia. Most are Muslims.”
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