Concomitant with intensive selection for increased milk yield, reproductive performance of dairy cows has declined in the last decades, in part due to an unfavourable genetic relationship between these traits. Given that the six main milk protein genes (i.e. whey proteins and caseins) are directly involved in milk production and hence have been a target of the strong selection aimed at improvin...

The fertility rate, 61.4 live births per 1,000 women 15–44 years, was 4 percent lower than the comparable rate for November 1996 (63.9). The seasonally adjusted fertility rate (63.4) was also 4 percent lower than the comparable rate for November 1996 (66.0).000 live births occurred in the 12-month period ending with November 1997, a 2-percent decrease from the 3,897,000 births reported for the ...

Lower fertility has several benefits at the individual level: fewer births are associated with better health and schooling outcomes for women and their children, with higher household income and wealth, and with improved labour market opportunities for women. Indonesia established a national family planning programme in 1969 and total fertility has declined rapidly since but there is little con...

The present study investigated whether associations between individuals' personality traits and whether they have children have been modified by birth-cohort effects in the 20th-century United States. Participants were from the Midlife Development in the United States study (n = 6,259) and the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (n = 3,994) and were born between 1914 and 1974. Data on personality trai...

Background & aim: Considering the lack of information regarding the effects of religion on young couples’ fertility preferences, this study aimed to evaluate the relationship between religious beliefs and fertility preferences among engaged couples in Mashhad, Iran, in 2013. Methods:This cross-sectional study was conducted on 450 engaged couples, referring to premarital counseling clinics at h...

In this work we explore the hypothesis that unemployment may be responsible for recent trends in fertility and participation rates in some European countries. We estimate a reduced form model of fertility and female participation using regional panel data, considering 10 regional aggregates for Great Britain over the period 1983-1997 and 14 regional aggregates for Italy over the period 1983-199...

When twinning rates are studied, maternal age and parity should be considered. Data on parity are seldom available. We studied information about the mean parity, using the gross reproduction rate, the total fertility rate and the crude birth rate. These are strongly correlated with the mean parity. The crude birth rate is more readily available than the gross reproduction rate or the total fert...

Births According to provisional reports, an estimated 340,000 births occurred in the United States during April 1997. This was an 8-percent increase from the provisional number of births reported for April 1996 (314,000). The birth rate, 15.5 live births per 1,000 population, was 7 percent higher than the rate of 14.5 for April 1996. The fertility rate, 69.4 live births per 1,000 women 15–44 ye...