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This article explores the relationships between demography and internal conflict in the Pacific Island countries, focusing on the three subregions Polynesia, Micronesia and Melanesia. These countries confront distinctive challenges and opportunities because of their unique cultures and non-militarized status, combined with very small size and remote locations. The use of the MIRAB model of island economies based on migration, remittances, aid and bureaucracy is extended to examine its impact on social cohesion and the avoidance of internal conflict. For Polynesia, MIRAB is found to be a sustainable development strategy. Continuous emigration from Polynesia serves to reduce population pressure and communal tensions. Further, remittance income supports the Polynesian economies, and this also reduces the potential for conflict. For Micronesia, except Kiribati and Nauru, migration access to the USA is assured. In contrast, for the Melanesian countries, there is minimal emigration, rapid population growth and considerable intercommunal tension, which has resulted in several coups and one 'failed state'. Demographic pressure created by rapid population growth results in a lack of employment opportunities for youths (who provide the majority of participators in civil unrest and conflicts) rather than in direct pressure on land and other natural resources.

SummaryThis paper focuses upon the social factors regulating sexual behaviour and fertility in the later years of the female reproductive period. Information from India, Africa and Europe is presented on traditional beliefs and constraints concerning the cessation of procreation and the modification of sexual relations in middle age. Data showing the diversity of attitudes and practices in India, Bangladesh, Nigeria, the USA and Australia are discussed. Findings are that, in all the areas examined, coital frequency declines with advancing age although the timing and extent of the decline varies. However, the extent to which procreation is expected to cease prior to the onset of biological infecundity varies markedly even between neighbouring cultures at the same level of development. In Western cultures, for personal reasons, wives expect that childbearing should cease well before the onset of infecundity and can state an exact age at which this should occur. In those African and Asian cultures where there is a social limit to continued reproduction, this is most commonly defined in terms of a life-cycle stage attained by the family as a whole; chronological age is rarely of any importance.

SummaryThe data in this paper are drawn from interviews with a stratified probability sample of 2996 Yoruba men and women aged 17 or above living in Lagos and Western States in June–July 1973. Although drawing upon other material from the 1 ½-hour interviews the discussion concentrates upon the family size ideals of these individuals. In addition to the customary measures of ideal family size, new measures of the limits of acceptable family size are described, together with the reactions of the whole sample to a wide range of statements relating to family size and the value of children. It is shown that the smallest family which would be acceptable to any appreciable proportion of the population is four children, which would be acceptable to 18% of all respondents. Comparative data from elsewhere in the developing world are presented to show that African family size ideals are amongst the highest in the world. Age, educational and occupational differentials in perceptions of different family sizes are also discussed.