Suchergebnisse

This study explores challenges and obstacles in providing effective family planning services to HIV‐positive women as described by staff of maternal and child health (MCH) clinics. It draws upon data from a survey of service providers carried out from late 2008 to early 2009 in 52 MCH clinics in southern Mozambique, some with and some without HIV services. In all clinics, surveyed providers reported that practical, financial, and social barriers made it difficult for HIV‐positive clients to follow protocols to prevent mother‐to‐child transmission of the virus. Likewise, staff were skeptical of their seropositive clients' ability to adhere to recommendations to cease childbearing and to use condoms consistently. Providers' recommendations to HIV‐positive clients and their assessment of barriers to adherence did not depend on availability of HIV services. Although integration of HIV and reproductive health services is advancing in Mozambique, service providers do not feel that they can influence the behaviors of HIV‐positive women effectively.

AbstractIn the post‐Recession era, U.S. fertility rates have continued to fall. It is unclear if these declines are driven by shifts in fertility goals or growing difficulty in achieving goals. In this paper, we construct synthetic cohorts of men and women to examine both cross‐cohort and within‐cohort changes in fertility goals using multiple cycles of the National Survey of Family Growth. Although more recent cohorts exhibit lower achieved fertility at younger ages than earlier cohorts at the same age, intended parity remains around two children, and intentions to remain childless rarely exceed 15 percent. There is weak evidence of a growing fertility gap in the early 30s, suggesting more recent cohorts will need considerable childbearing in the 30s and early 40s to "catch up" to earlier goals, yet low‐parity women in their early 40s are decreasingly likely to have unfulfilled fertility desires or intentions to have children. Low‐parity men in their early 40s, though, are increasingly likely to intend children. Declines in U.S. fertility thus seem to be largely driven not by changes in early‐life fertility goals so much as either a decreasing likelihood of achieving earlier goals or, perhaps, shifts in the preferred timing of fertility that depress period measures.

The "Single Mother by Choice" is far rarer than media depictions. A look at the numbers.

Abstract
Considerable cross-national research has examined the impact of international labor migration on livelihoods in sending households and communities. Although findings vary across contexts, the general underlying assumption of this research is that migration represents a novel income-generating alternative to local employment. While engaging with this assumption, we also argue that in many sending communities where labor migration has been going on for generations, it is the decision not to migrate and instead to pursue local livelihood opportunities that might constitute a true departure from the expected behavior. Importantly, both the decisions to migrate and not to migrate are part of a household strategy shaped by gendered negotiation and bargaining. Building on these propositions, we use rich survey data from rural Mozambique, a typical setting of long-established large-scale international male labor out-migration, to examine married women's gainful employment outside subsistence agriculture as it relates to their husbands' migration or local work. We find a somewhat lower likelihood of employment among migrants' wives, compared with nonmigrants' wives, and this pattern strengthens with increased duration of migration. However, we also find substantial differences among nonmigrants' wives: women married to locally employed men have themselves by far the highest probability of employment, while wives of nonemployed men are no different from migrants' wives, net of other factors. These findings are discussed in light of interconnected gendered complexities of both migration-related and local labor market constraints and choices.

As the HIV epidemic evolves, researchers are devoting increased attention to the infection's effect on various life‐course activities, including marriage and reproduction. The impact of HIV on decisions about childbearing is particularly important, given the role that vertical transmission plays in the persistence of the epidemic. Previous studies on HIV and fertility intentions have yielded inconsistent results. This article expands on prior research by taking into account preferred timing of childbearing. Using data from a population‐based survey in rural Mozambique, we show that higher perceived risk of HIV is associated with greater likelihood of both wanting to speed up childbearing and wanting to stop having children. The "now or never" approach to childbearing is shown to be consistent with the widely held belief that HIV infection is incompatible with childbearing in the long term.

As the transition to adulthood becomes more protracted and less orderly, fewer young people occupy adult roles and experience the social control associated with these roles. One might therefore expect behaviors associated with the teenage years to spill over into older age groups, reflecting postponed entrance into full social adulthood. We test this hypothesis by examining trends over time in the age distribution of crime, substance use, and violent death. We find little evidence that behaviors typical of adolescence are moving upward to older ages. Although the achievement of adult roles is being pushed to older ages, this stretching of the transition to adulthood is not reflected in the observed patterns of substance use, violent death, and arrests.

Subjective adulthood, or feeling like an adult, captures identity development relative to the local context that shapes life course processes. Most research on this topic is conducted in wealthy developed countries. Instead, we draw on household‐based survey data from the Family Migration and Early Life Outcomes project (FAMELO) to estimate ordinal logistic regression models predicting how often adolescents aged 11–17 in Jalisco, Mexico (n = 1,567); Gaza Province, Mozambique (n = 1,368); and the Chitwan Valley, Nepal (n = 1,898), identify as adults. The relationships between adult roles, family capital, youth characteristics, and youth's adult identities vary substantially across the sites. The findings highlight how the transition to adulthood reflects the cultural and structural conditions of adult identities.