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Around the time that Population Studies celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1996, Susan Greenhalgh published 'An intellectual, institutional, and political history of twentieth-century demography'. Her contribution described a discipline that, when viewed from its margins, prompted scholars in other disciplines to ask the following questions: 'Why is the field still wedded to many of the assumptions of mid-century modernization theory and why are there no critical … perspectives in the discipline?' (Greenhalgh 1996, p. 27). Those questions still arise today. Similarly, Greenhalgh's observation that 'neither the global political economies of the 1970s, nor the postmodernisms and postcolonialities of the 1980s and 1990s, nor the feminisms of any decade have had much perceptible impact on the field' (pp. 27–8), remains a fairly accurate depiction of research published in Population Studies and other demography journals. In this contribution, focusing predominantly on feminist research and insights, I discuss how little has changed since 1996 and explain why the continued lack of engagement concerns me. Demographers still often fail to appreciate the impossibility of atheoretical 'just descriptive' research. Our methods carry assumptions and so rely on (often) implicit theoretical frameworks. Not making frameworks explicit does not mean they do not exert an important influence. I end by proposing that the training of research students should be part of a strategy to effect change.

This paper examines whether and to what extent three recently implemented family policies in Sweden change incentives regarding employment and choice of childcare for parents of young children, and whether these incentives differ by income level. These policy innovations warrant close examination because they represent a decisive ideological shift from what was a coherent set of policies that created incentives for high levels of female employment and that has been identified as a model of best practice in Europe. Simulating the economic incentive effects of the three new policies for heterosexual couple families with different levels of income, we find that while family policy in Sweden continues to provide the strongest support for a model of gender equality that combines full-time dual earning with public childcare, alternative organizations of family life are now more affordable. Nonetheless, the extent to which the costs of deviation from this model have changed varies by income level.

This paper introduces and illustrates the value of a classification trees approach in the study of resilience. The inherently interactive nature of the resilience construct makes this approach useful. Classification trees are a person-centred approach to data analysis, which successively split the sample into pairs of increasingly homogeneous groups of individuals. We outline the approach and then illustrate using adult educational outcomes for children in the British Cohort Study of 1970 who had experienced foster care. The insights gained from the classification tree approach are contrasted with those obtained from standard regression approaches.

Using data on seven countries, we estimate trajectories in family incomes for families with and without children following several stylized life-courses. Focusing mainly on women with a medium level of education, we find, in general, that gaps in family income are smallest in the Nordic countries, intermediate in the Anglo-American countries, and largest in the continental European countries. Our findings are similar to patterns observed in the literature on family gaps in women's earnings and suggest that differences in earnings and labour market participation between women with different family histories are the major driver in the gaps in gross and disposable incomes that we observe.

Résumé Pour de nombreux responsables politiques conservateurs américains, bien que les États aient réussi, moyennant de profondes réformes, à ramener vers le travail salarié les mères de famille qui vivaient de l'aide sociale, ils ont négligé une stratégie anti-pauvreté radicale : encourager la formation de familles biparentales. En comparant les revenus des familles monoparentales à ceux des familles biparentales, ils soutiennent que le mariage réduit le risque de pauvreté. À partir des données de la Fragile Families and Child Well-being Study , les auteurs montrent que comparer directement les familles formées d'un couple marié aux familles dirigées par un(e) célibataire conduit à une forte surestimation des avantages économiques du mariage. Ils démontrent que les mères célibataires et leurs partenaires sont extrêmement différents des couples de parents mariés en termes d'âge, de niveau d'instruction, d'état de santé, de comportement en matière de santé, d'emploi et de salaire. Ces écarts se traduisent par des différences importantes de revenus, qui, à leur tour, induisent des degrés différents de pauvreté. À structure familiale et durée du travail données, l'analyse des auteurs indique que la plus grande partie des écarts de pauvreté selon le type de famille peut être imputée à d'autres facteurs que la situation matrimoniale. Leurs résultats incitent également à penser que le plein emploi est indispensable pour arracher à la misère les familles pauvres, qu'elles soient ou non formées d'un couple marié.

Studies examining the link between number of siblings and level of education attained by children in Africa have produced mixed results. This study draws on Demographic and Health Survey data from 26 sub‐Saharan African countries and employs a multilevel multiprocess model that controls for time‐invariant unobserved mother‐level characteristics. We find indications that having younger siblings increases the likelihood of entering primary school; however, once a child is enrolled, having pre‐school aged siblings is negatively associated with educational progression. Having a greater number of siblings older than age 15 increases the likelihood of primary‐school entry and completion but has no effect on subsequent educational transitions. Some positive effects of having a greater number of siblings who are aged 6–15 are also observed. Girls are more adversely affected by having young siblings than are boys, but they benefit more than do boys from having siblings who are older than age 15. On the whole, the effects are not very strong, however.

This article examines the fertility of women who migrated as children to one of three OECD countries—Canada, the United Kingdom, and France—and how it differs from that of native-born women, by age at migration. By looking at child migrants whose fertility behavior is neither interrupted by the migration event nor confounded by selection, the authors obtain a unique perspective on the adaptation process as a mechanism that explains variation in observed foreign and native-born fertility differentials. The authors find patterns that are broadly consistent with the adaptation hypothesis—which posits that as migrants become accustomed to their host countries, their fertility norms begin to resemble those of the native population—and, on average, limited cross-national variation in fertility differentials. The effect of exposure to the host country, however, seems to vary by country of origin, a finding that underscores the importance of taking into account the heterogeneity of the foreign-born population.

This article examines the fertility of women who migrated as children to one of three OECD countries -- Canada, the United Kingdom, and France -- and how it differs from that of native-born women, by age at migration. By looking at child migrants whose fertility behavior is neither interrupted by the migration event nor confounded by selection, the authors obtain a unique perspective on the adaptation process as a mechanism that explains variation in observed foreign and native-born fertility differentials. The authors find patterns that are broadly consistent with the adaptation hypothesis -- which posits that as migrants become accustomed to their host countries, their fertility norms begin to resemble those of the native population -- and, on average, limited cross-national variation in fertility differentials. The effect of exposure to the host country, however, seems to vary by country of origin, a finding that underscores the importance of taking into account the heterogeneity of the foreign-born population. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright The American Academy of Political and Social Science.]