BACKGROUND The paper describes the origins of the Value of Children (VOC) approach to the cross-cultural research on fertility behavior around the Pacific Rim, and critically discusses its shortcomings at this stage. OBJECTIVE The paper then demonstrates how the approach derives its theoretical coherence from the theory of social production functions, making reference to empirical evidence. RES...

The German Mikrozensus is a data set that is frequently used to study fertility behavior. With its large sample size, the dataset also offers the opportunity to investigate childbearing among population subgroups, such as particular migrant groups. Because birth histories are not surveyed in the Mikrozensus, scholars have frequently employed the Own-Children Method (OCM) to generate fertility s...

This chapter outlines the positions in the current debate about the possibility of using public policies to influence fertility. We note the polarization between, on the one hand, those who view public policies as obvious means for lifting the currently low fertility levels in Europe, in line with the role of economic policies in a modern society; and, on the other hand, those who feel that fam...

Recent demographic research has largely been focused on the rapid decline of fertility rates throughout the developed and developing world. The classic theories of the determinants of population change frequently used to model and explore fertility decline and transition in all populations have resulted from substantial empirical research. However many questions about the mechanisms involved in...

Is reproduction by adult female insects limited by the finite time available to locate hosts (time limitation) or by the finite supply of eggs (egg limitation)? An influential model predicted that stochasticity in reproductive opportunity favors elevated fecundity, rendering egg limitation sufficiently rare that its importance would be greatly diminished. Here, I use models to explore how stoch...

BACKGROUND Most ecological models assume that predator and prey populations interact solely through consumption: predators reduce prey densities by killing and consuming individual prey. However, predators can also reduce prey densities by forcing prey to adopt costly defensive strategies. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS We build on a simple Lotka-Volterra predator-prey model to provide a heur...

Prisons are invariably unisex institutions where, besides many deprivations, heterosexual expression in its normal sense is absent. It is this characteristic that make prisons settings potentially fertile grounds for sexual aberrations. Since definite and accurate data concerning sexual activities among prison inmates are difficult to obtain, the phenomenon of sexual practices in prisons has tr...

Each day in the United States thousands of persons are jailed on charges arising from failure to pay court-ordered child support. Some of them have been convicted of contempt of court, a crime based on willful defiance of the court order. However, most are incarcerated pursuant to the court’s civil authority to jail contemnors as a means of coercing compliance with the order. In the case of the...