The University of Texas at Austin, Department of Sociology

The University of Texas at Austin, Department of Sociology

General Comprehensive Examination in Demography

Spring 2015

Please answer one question out of each of the following four sets. Number your answers (e.g. A1).

Section A. Health and Mortality

Please answer one (1) of A1 and A2.

A1. Recent prominent reports and related publications have compared population health and mortality patterns and trends in the United States tothose in other high-income countries. As a new Ph.D. working as a postdoctoral researcher for the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, your boss’s, boss’s, boss’s, boss (Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Mathews Burwell) seeks you out for your expertise in this area. She asks you to: 1) summarize the descriptive findings of the report and related publications using appropriate demographic terminology; and 2) provide 3 key research questions, with justification, that need to be pursued in this area of comparative research looking forward. Please answer the Secretary’s 2 requests.

A2. Define the epidemiologic transition. What are the key patterns of mortality change in that define the different stages of the epidemiologic transition?Further, evaluate the stages of the epidemiologic transition as discussed in the literature by Omran, Olshansky, and others. How can the research community best use the concept of the epidemiologic transition to make sense of continued long-term mortality changes within and across societies?

Section B. Migration and Spatial Distribution

Please answer one (1) of B1 and B2.

1. Research on international migration in the 1970s and 1980s neglected to consider gender,and thus gender differentiation, but research published in the 1990s and 2000s has highlighted gender as a key variable in the migration experience. Write an essay on the significance of gender for the migration (and settlement) process, citing and comparing in detail the findings of at least three publications that have illuminated the importance of male/female differences in migration.

2. Massey et al. (1993), "Theories of International Migration: A Review and Appraisal” in Population and Development Review19, remains a useful and well-cited review of migration theories for understanding what propels international migration. Write an essay to evaluate the continuing relevance ofthis publication by describing in detail how other theoretical or empirical works support or detract from Massey et al. (1993), borrowing from the findings or arguments of at least three other publications.

Section C. Family and Fertility

Please answer one (1) of C1 and C2.

C1. Family structure and family structure history often mark the social location of families in the American stratification system. These statuses, in turn, are linked with children’s educational, emotional, and social well-being. Some suggest these associations are causal, others argue that selection processes largely drive these links. Still others fall somewhere in between. Select one dimension of family structure (e.g., divorce, single parenthood, cumulative family structure change) and describe what we know about this indicatorand its link with child development. Based on your review of the evidence, are these links causal, a function of selection, or both?

C2. Lesthaeghe has claimed that the “second demographic transition” (SDT), which was invented to describe and explain patterns that had emerged beginning in the 1960s in Northern and Western Europe, has now spread far beyond those cultural realms, and is an important phenomenon in both the United States and Latin America. Please give a brief description of the SDT and some of the criticisms that it has drawn. Finally, state where you stand with respect to this theory, and the evidence you find most compelling with respect to its flaws and virtues.

D. Demographic Techniques

Please answer one (1) of D1 and D2.

D1. Suppose that, beginning at the end of 2010, the population of Colombia was suddenly closed to migration to and from Venezuela, Ecuador, and all other countries, was subject to a constant level of mortality (with an expectation of life of 75 years for both sexes) from that point forward, and had constant fertility rates at just the level needed to eventually achieve replacement (NRR=1). In 2014 at about mid-year, the size of the population was 46,245,000, the Crude Birth Rate was 17 per thousand, the Crude Death Rate was 5 per thousand, the Crude Growth Rate was 11 per thousand, and the TFR was 2.1.

a) What would happen to the age distribution of the population, and over what time frame? Give as complete a description as you can.

b) What, approximately, would be the Crude Birth Rate and the Crude Death Rate one hundred and fifty years later in 2160?

D2.Below you will find a life table for the female population of New Zealand in 1948.

Please calculate the missing numbers and explain how you did each calculation (a)---(o).

p) In this life table, what is the probability that someone who survives to age 30 will survive to age 80?

q) In the stationary population corresponding to this life table, what fraction of the population age 65and over is alive ten years later?

r) If you were asked to use this life table to project the population of women of reproductive age (15-50) 15 years into the future (to 1963), and you had census estimates of the total population of both sexes in each 5 year age group in 1947, describe as precisely as possible how you would do that projection.