1932
0
  1. Home
  2. A-Z Publications
  3. Annual Review of Sociology
  4. Volume 44, 2018
  5. Article

Annual Review of Sociology

Volume 44, 2018

On Becoming a Mathematical Demographer—And the Career in Problem-Focused Inquiry that Followed

Abstract

I greatly appreciate this opportunity to reflect on my career. Looking back over five decades of involvement in demographic and sociological scholarship, I have tried to say a bit about my personal life and my work—from developing mathematical models of fertility early on, to applying lessons from those models to empirical work in the United States, Bangladesh, and elsewhere in the developing world, to involvement in evaluations of health and population interventions. Equally important to me have been the building of research capacity and involvement in program and policy development. So much remains for new generations of scholars to do, but my hope is that, in choosing their own directions, they—and sociology as a whole—will take as their mission examining issues of societal importance around the world.

Keyword(s): autobiography, Bangladesh, capacity building, evaluation of interventions, fertility, formal demography, longitudinal analysis, population studies in developing countries, reproductive health
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-soc-073117-041059
2018-07-30
2024-04-20
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/soc/44/1/annurev-soc-073117-041059.html?itemId=/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-soc-073117-041059&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

Literature Cited

  1. Alam N, Ali T, Razzaque A, Rahman M, Zahirul Haq M et al. 2017. Health and Demographic Surveillance System (HDSS) in Matlab, Bangladesh. Int. J. Epidemiol. 46:809–16
     [Google Scholar]
  2. Barham T 2012. Enhancing cognitive functioning: medium-term effects of a health and family planning program in Matlab. Am. Econ. J. Appl. Econ. 4:245–73
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Barham T, Kuhn R 2014. Staying for benefits: the effect of a health and family planning program on out-migration patterns in Bangladesh. J. Hum. Resour. 49:982–1013
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Barham T, Kuhn R, Turner P 2016. Long-term effects of early childhood interventions on migration and labor market outcomes: evidence from a quasi-random child health and family planning program in Bangladesh Work. Pap., Sloan Sch. Manag., MIT
  5. Becker G 1981. A Treatise on the Family Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press
  6. Blake J, Davis K 1964. Norms, values, and sanctions. Handb. Mod. Sociol. 101:456–84
     [Google Scholar]
  7. Bongaarts J 1978. A framework for analyzing the proximate determinants of fertility. Popul. Dev. Rev. 4:105–32
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Bongaarts J 1982. Infertility after age 30: a false alarm. Fam. Plan. Perspect. 14:75–78
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Bourgeois-Pichat J 1971. Stable, semi-stable populations and growth potential. Popul. Stud. 25:235–54
     [Google Scholar]
  10. Brass W 1958. The distribution of births in human populations in rural Taiwan. Popul. Stud. 12:51–72
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Chen LC, Ahmed S, Gesche M, Henry Mosley W 1974. Prospective study of birth interval dynamics in rural Bangladesh. Popul. Stud. 28:277–97
     [Google Scholar]
  12. Clark S, Madhavan S, Cotton C, Beguy D, Kabiru C 2017. Who helps single mothers in Nairobi? The role of kin support. J. Marriage Fam. 79:1186–204
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Clark SJ, Gomez-Olive FX, Houle B, Thorogood M, Klipstein-Grobusch K et al. 2015. Cardiometabolic disease risk and HIV status in rural South Africa: establishing a baseline. BMC Public Health 15:135
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Coale AJ 1972. Growth and Structure of Human Populations: A Mathematical Investigation Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press
  15. Cohen J 1974. Review: mathematical models of conception and birth. J. Am. Stat. Assoc. 69:1046–47
     [Google Scholar]
  16. Cohen SA, Richards CL 1994. The Cairo consensus: population, development and women. Fam. Plan. Perspect. 26:272–77
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Dandekar V 1955. Certain modified forms of binomial and Poisson distributions. Sankhyā Indian J. Stat. (1933–1960) 15:237–50
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Davis K, Blake J 1956. Social structure and fertility: an analytic framework. Econ. Dev. Cult. Change 4:211–35
     [Google Scholar]
  19. DeCherney AH, Berkowitz GS 1982. Female fecundity and age. N. Engl. J. Med. 306:424–26
     [Google Scholar]
  20. Flinn MW 1981. The European Demographic System 1500–1820 Johns Hopkins Symp. Comp. Hist. Book 12 Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press
     [Google Scholar]
  21. Foster A, Milusheva S 2015. Household recombination, retrospective evaluation, and the effects of a health and family planning intervention Work. Pap. id:7183, eSocialSciences
  22. Friedan B 1963. The Feminine Mystique New York: WW Norton
  23. Furstenberg FFJ, Lincoln R, Menken J 1981. Teenage Sexuality, Pregnancy, and Childbearing Philadelphia: Univ. Pa. Press
  24. Gini C 1924. Premières recherches sur la fécondabilité de la femme. Proc. Int. Math. Congr. 2:889–92
     [Google Scholar]
  25. Gómez-Olivé FX, Angotti N, Houle B, Klipstein-Grobusch K, Kabudula C et al. 2013. Prevalence of HIV among those 15 and older in rural South Africa. AIDS Care 25:1122–28
     [Google Scholar]
  26. Hajnal J 1965. European marriage patterns in perspective. Population in History DV Glass, DEC Eversley 101–46 New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publ.
     [Google Scholar]
  27. Heckman JJ, Walker JR 1990. Estimating fecundability from data on waiting times to first conception. J. Am. Stat. Assoc. 85:283–94
     [Google Scholar]
  28. Henry L 1972.a Démographie. Analyse et modèles. Paris: Larousse
  29. Henry L 1972.b On the Measurement of Human Fertility: Selected Writings of Louis Henry Amsterdam: Elsevier
  30. Howie PW, McNeilly A 1982. Effect of breast-feeding patterns on human birth intervals. J. Reprod. Fertil. 65:545–57
     [Google Scholar]
  31. Jochem WC, Razzaque A, Root ED 2016. Effects of health intervention programs and arsenic exposure on child mortality from acute lower respiratory infections in rural Bangladesh. Int. J. Health Geogr. 15:32
     [Google Scholar]
  32. Kagy G 2015. Effects of labor market opportunities and environmental conditions on health and human capital development PhD Thesis Univ. Colo Boulder:
  33. Kahn K, Collinson MA, Gómez-Olivé FX, Mokoena O, Twine R et al. 2012. Profile: Agincourt health and socio-demographic surveillance system. Int. J. Epidemiol. 41:988–1001
     [Google Scholar]
  34. Keyfitz N 1968. Introduction to the Mathematics of Population Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley
  35. Kuhn R, Rahman O, Menken J 2006. Survey measures of health: How well do self-reported and observed indicators measure health and predict mortality?. Aging in Sub-Saharan Africa: Recommendations for Furthering Research, National Research Council B Cohen, J Menken 314–42 Washington: Natl. Acad. Press
     [Google Scholar]
  36. Levine H, Jørgensen N, Martino-Andrade A, Mendiola J, Weksler-Derri D et al. 2017. Temporal trends in sperm count: a systematic review and meta-regression analysis. Hum. Reprod. Update 23:646–59
     [Google Scholar]
  37. Lindo JM, Packham A 2017. How much can expanding access to long-acting reversible contraceptives reduce teen birth rates. Am. Econ. J. Econ. Policy 9:3348–76
     [Google Scholar]
  38. Madhavan S, Clark S, Beguy D, Kabiru CW, Gross M 2017. Moving beyond the household: innovations in data collection on kinship. Popul. Stud. 71:117–32
     [Google Scholar]
  39. McCarthy J, Menken J 1979. Marriage, remarriage, marital disruption and age at first birth. Fam. Plan. Perspect. 11:21–30
     [Google Scholar]
  40. Menken J 1985. Age and fertility: How late can you wait. Demography 22:469–83
     [Google Scholar]
  41. Menken J, Campbell C 1992. Age-patterns of famine-related mortality increase: implications for long-term population growth. Health Transit. Rev. 2:91–101
     [Google Scholar]
  42. Menken J, Duffy L, Kuhn R 2003. Childbearing and women's survival: new evidence from rural Bangladesh. Popul. Dev. Rev. 29:405–26
     [Google Scholar]
  43. Menken J, Kuhn R 1996. Demographic effects of breastfeeding: fertility, mortality, and population growth. Food Nutr. Bull. U. N. Univ. 17:349–61
     [Google Scholar]
  44. Menken J, Larsen U 1986. Fertility rates and aging. Aging, Reproduction, and the Climacteric L Mastroianni Jr., CA Paulsen 147–66 New York: Plenum
     [Google Scholar]
  45. Menken J, Trussell J, Ford K, Pratt WF 1979. Experience with contraceptive use in developed countries. Contraception: Science, Technology and Application: Proceedings of a Symposium24–44 Washington, DC: Natl. Acad. Press
     [Google Scholar]
  46. Menken J, Trussell J, Larsen U 1986. Age and infertility. Science 233:1389–94
     [Google Scholar]
  47. Mojola SA, Williams J, Angotti N, Gómez-Olivé FX 2015. HIV after 40 in rural South Africa: a life course approach to HIV vulnerability among middle aged and older adults. Soc. Sci. Med. 143:204–12
     [Google Scholar]
  48. Natl. Acad. Sci. 1971. Rapid Population Growth: Consequences and Policy Implications Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press
  49. Pearl R 1933. Factors in human fertility and their statistical evaluation. Lancet 222:607–11
     [Google Scholar]
  50. Perrin EB, Sheps MC 1964. Human reproduction: a stochastic process. Biometrics 20:28–45
     [Google Scholar]
  51. Phillips JF, Stinson WS, Bhatia S, Rahman M, Chakraborty J 1982. The demographic impact of the family planning–health services project in Matlab, Bangladesh. Stud. Fam. Plan. 13:131–40
     [Google Scholar]
  52. Potter RG Jr 1963. Birth intervals: structure and change. Popul. Stud. 17:155–66
     [Google Scholar]
  53. Poulain M, Herm A 2013. Central population registers as a source of demographic statistics in Europe. Population 68:183–212
     [Google Scholar]
  54. Pratt WF, Grady WR, Menken JA, Trussell J 1979. An overview of experience with vaginal contraceptives in the United States. Vaginal Contraceptives: New Developments GJ Zatuchni 82–99 Hagerstown, MD: Harper and Row
     [Google Scholar]
  55. Rahman O, Menken J, Foster A, Gertler P 2001. Matlab [Bangladesh] Health and Socioeconomic Survey (MHSS), 1996. 5th ICPSR version Santa Monica, CA: RAND
  56. Rahman O, Menken J, Kuhn R 2004. The impact of family members on the self-reported health of older men and women in a rural area of Bangladesh. Ageing Soc 24:903–20
     [Google Scholar]
  57. Ralston M, Schatz E, Menken J, Gómez-Olivé FX, Tollman S 2015. Who benefits—or does not—from South Africa's old age pension? Evidence from characteristics of rural pensioners and non-pensioners. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 13:85
     [Google Scholar]
  58. Reniers G, Wamukoya M, Urassa M, Nyaguara A, Nakiyingi-Miiro J et al. 2016. Data resource profile: Network for Analysing Longitudinal Population-based HIV/AIDS data on Africa (ALPHA Network). Int. J. Epidemiol. 45:83–93
     [Google Scholar]
  59. Ricketts S, Klinger G, Schwalberg R 2014. Game change in Colorado: widespread use of long-acting reversible contraceptives and rapid decline in births among young, low-income women. Perspect. Sex. Reprod. Health 46:125–32
     [Google Scholar]
  60. Rogers A 1975. Introduction to Multiregional Mathematical Demography New York: Wiley
  61. Schatz E, Gómez-Olivé X, Ralston M, Menken J, Tollman S 2012. The impact of pensions on health and wellbeing in rural South Africa: Does gender matter. Soc. Sci. Med. 75:1864–73
     [Google Scholar]
  62. Schwartz D, Mayaux M 1982. Female fecundity as a function of age. N. Engl. J. Med. 306:404–6
     [Google Scholar]
  63. Sennott C, Reniers G, Gomez-Olive FX, Menken J 2016. Premarital births and union formation in rural South Africa. Int. Perspect. Sex. Reprod. Health 42:187–96
     [Google Scholar]
  64. Sheps MC 1965. An analysis of reproductive patterns in an American isolate. Popul. Stud. 19:65–80
     [Google Scholar]
  65. Sheps MC, Menken JA 1973. Mathematical Models of Conception and Birth Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press
  66. Sheps MC, Perrin EB 1963. Changes in birth rates as a function of contraceptive effectiveness: some applications of a stochastic model. Am. J. Public Health Nations Health 53:1031–46
     [Google Scholar]
  67. Taylor CE 1997. Origins of longitudinal community-based studies. Prospective Community Studies in Developing Countries M Das Gupta, P Aaby, M Garenne, G Pison 19–27 Oxford, UK: Oxford Univ. Press
     [Google Scholar]
  68. Tietze C 1956. Statistical contributions to the study of human fertility. Fertil. Steril. 7:88–95
     [Google Scholar]
  69. Trussell J, Menken J 1978. Early childbearing and subsequent fertility. Fam. Plan. Perspect. 10:209–18
     [Google Scholar]
  70. Trussell J, Menken J, Lindheim BL, Vaughan B 1980. The impact of restricting Medicaid financing for abortion. Fam. Plan. Perspect. 12:120–30
     [Google Scholar]
  71. Vaughan B, Trussell J, Menken J, Jones EF 1977. Contraceptive failure among married women in the United States, 1970–1973. Fam. Plan. Perspect. 9:251–58
     [Google Scholar]
  72. Vaughan B, Trussell J, Menken J, Jones EF, Grady W 1980. Contraceptive efficacy among married women aged 15–44 years. Vital Health Stat 23:1–62
     [Google Scholar]
  73. Vincent P 1961. Recherches sur la fécondité biologique. Étude d'un groupe de familles nombreuses. Population (Fr. Ed.) 16:105–12
     [Google Scholar]
  74. Watkins SC, Menken J 1985. Famines in historical perspective. Popul. Dev. Rev. 11:647–75
     [Google Scholar]
  75. Watkins SC, Menken JA, Bongaarts J 1987. Demographic foundations of family change. Am. Sociol. Rev. 52:346–58
     [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-soc-073117-041059
Loading
  • Article Type: Review Article

Most Cited Most Cited RSS feed

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error