Charles F Westoff
Biographic Data
| ID | 3594709 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Charles F Westoff |
| GIVEN NAMES | Charles F |
| FAMILY NAME | Westoff |
| SIGNATURE | WESTOFF C F |
| AFFILIATIONS | Princeton University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 111 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 632 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 111 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1954 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| H-INDEX | 14 |
The Recent Fertility Transition in Rwanda
The Association of Television and Radio with Reproductive Behavior
This note analyzes the association between media exposure and reproductive behavior in 48 developing countries. A summary of part of a more extensive Demographic and Health Surveys report, it shows strong connections between media exposure and the use of modern contraception, the number of children desired, and recent fertility. Television viewing is particularly important; it is assumed to expose viewers to aspects of modern life that compete wi…
Contraception Matters
Hispanic Fertility, Religion and Religiousness in the U.S
Relationships between men's gender attitudes and fertility
An analysis published in a recent edition of this journal (Puur, Olah, Tazi-Preve, and Dorbritz 2008) reported that, in eight European countries, men with egalitarian gender attitudes both desired and had more children than men with more traditional ge
Religion, Religiousness and Fertility in the US and in Europe
Recent Trends in Rates of Sexual Activity in Sub-Saharan Africa
Over the past five to ten years, the proportion of women who report recent sexual activity has declined in twelve countries in southern and eastern Africa, but not in most of eleven countries in West Africa. Although concentrated among unmarried women, slight declines are evident among married women and across most ages. Although it is difficult to prove, the most likely explanation is the higher prevalence of HIV/AIDS in southern and eastern Afr…
Debating Immigration
Debating Immigration, first published in 2007, presents 18 original essays, written by some of the world's leading experts and pre-eminent academics, that explore the nuances of contemporary immigration and citizenship affecting the United States and Europe. The volume is organized around the following themes: religion and philosophy, law and policy, economics and demographics, race and ethnicity, and cosmopolitanism. Critical questions addressed…
Religiousness and Fertility among European Muslims
Based on official data on religion, national origin, and other indicators of ethnic origin, Muslim fertility in 13 European countries is higher than that for other women, but in most countries with trend data the differences are diminishing over time. Fertility varies by country of origin of immigrants. Various European survey data show that higher proportions of Muslim women are married and their commitment to traditional family values is greate…
The Surprising Global Variation in Replacement Fertility
Potential Effects on Fertility and Child Health and Survival of Birth‐spacing Preferences in Sub‐Saharan Africa
Using Demographic and Health Survey data from 20 sub‐Saharan African countries, this article compares the actual lengths of birth intervals to women's reported preferred lengths, and assesses the implications of the difference between the two for selected demographic and health indicators. The results show a clear pattern. In Comoros, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, and Zimbabwe, women prefer much longer birth intervals than those they actually have, compa…
The Potential Role of Contraception in Reducing Abortion
This study examines the potential role of further increases in contraceptive prevalence and effectiveness in reducing abortion rates. The model used in this analysis links the abortion rate to its direct determinants, including couples' reproductive preferences, the prevalence and effectiveness of contraceptive practice to implement these preferences, and the probability of undergoing an abortion to avoid an unintended birth when a contraceptive …
The Consistency and Validity of Reproductive Attitudes
Information on reproductive attitudes is now routinely collected in fertility surveys in developing countries, and has become very important for understanding fertility behaviour. The quality of this information, however, is rarely assessed, partly due to lack of necessary data. In this paper, the recently completed panel survey in Morocco by the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) was used to investigate the consistency of reporting of ideal nu…
Population Growth
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Mass media messages and reproductive behaviour in Nigeria
This paper examines the effects of exposure to mass media messages promoting family planning on the reproductive behaviour of married women in Nigeria using cross-sectional data. Longitudinal data are also used to ensure that exposure to media messages pre-dates the indicators of reproductive behaviour. Cross-sectional analysis suggests that: (1) contraceptive use and intention are positively associated with exposure to mass media messages, and (…
Intention to Use Contraceptives and Subsequent Contraceptive Behavior in Morocco
In this article, the relationship between stated intention to use contraceptives and subsequent use during a three-year period in Morocco is examined. Longitudinal data are drawn from two Demographic and Health Surveys: the 1992 Morocco DHS and the 1995 Morocco Panel Survey. Reported contraceptive intentions in 1992 have a strong predictive effect on subsequent contraceptive use even after controlling for other characteristics of respondents, and…
International population policy
The Rockefeller Conscience
The sequel to The Rockefeller Century surveys the family's story from 1952 to the present, revealing the public uses of the vast Rockefeller wealth, as well as the private dramas that have shaped such use. Authors Harr and Johnson are the only historians who have had access to previously secret family archival materials. Photographs and index
Measuring the Unmet Need for Contraception
The author critically examines an article by John Bongaarts in which Bongaarts proposed a modification in the measurement of unmet need [for contraception] that [Westoff] and others have developed. My aim here is not to review his criticisms in detail nor to discuss their technical aspects but rather to summarize the differences in the major concepts and arguments and to highlight their policy and programmatic implications. A reply by Bongaarts i…
Catholicism and Fertility in Puerto Rico
This paper examines the association between fertility and religious affiliation among Puerto Ricans. Bongaarts' proximate determinants framework is used to compare religious categories on behaviors that directly affect fertility. We found no difference in recent fertility between Catholics and non-Catholics in Puerto Rico (total fertility rate = 2.5). We also found Catholics and non-Catholics to be similar on age at first marriage (23.3 and 23.4 …
The Birth Dearth
Catholicism and fertility in Puerto Rico
This paper examines the association between fertility and religious affiliation among Puerto Ricans. Bongaarts' proximate determinants framework is used to compare religious categories on behaviors that directly affect fertility. We found no difference in recent fertility between Catholics and non-Catholics in Puerto Rico (total fertility rate = 2.5). We also found Catholics and non-Catholics to be similar on age at first marriage (23.3 and 23.4 …
Collection of Survey Data on Contraception
The objective of this analysis is to compare two different approaches to the collection of information on contraceptive use. The data for this comparison are derived from the 1986 Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) in Peru. Approximately 7,500 women were interviewed with the standard DHS questionnaire, whereas about 5,000 women received an "experimental questionnaire." The major difference between the questionnaires is the inclusion of a six-ye…
First Births in America
The Demographic Impact of Changes in Contraceptive Practice in Third World Populations
Charles F. Westoff, Lorenzo Moreno, Noreen Goldman, The Demographic Impact of Changes in Contraceptive Practice in Third World Populations, Population and Development Review, Vol. 15, No. 1 (Mar., 1989), pp. 91-106
The Predictive Validity of Reproductive Intentions
On the basis of data collected in the 1975 National Fertility Study (NFS) in which continuously married white women interviewed in the 1970 NFS were reinterviewed five years later, the aggregate and individual validity of reported fertility intentions is evaluated. The main finding about aggregate prediction is that 1970 intentions overestimated 1971–1975 fertility to the same extent as the conventional 1970 total fertility rate. The conclusion i…
The end of “Catholic” fertility
Catholic and non-Catholic fertility during the post-World War II period are compared in this paper. Evidence accumulated across five sample surveys of fertility in the United States, which were conducted at five-year intervals from 1955 through 1975, forms the basis for the analysis; both cohort and period measures are employed. Starting from a situation where Catholic fertility was very little higher than that of non-Catholics, it is shown that …
Religion, Religiousness and Fertility in the US and in Europe
Family Growth in Metropolitan America
Relationships between men's gender attitudes and fertility
An analysis published in a recent edition of this journal (Puur, Olah, Tazi-Preve, and Dorbritz 2008) reported that, in eight European countries, men with egalitarian gender attitudes both desired and had more children than men with more traditional ge
Is the KAP-Gap Real
This analysis is based on data collected recently in Brazil the Dominican Republic Peru and Liberia. Brazil and the Dominican Republic are rapidly completing their fertility transition. Peru is at an earlier stage of fertility decline but is moving through the transitional phase and Liberia is a country at the pretransitional fertility stage with very little contraceptive practice. Evidence from these 4 Demographic and Health Surveys suggests tha…
Women’s Sex Preferences in the United States
This analysis examines the potential effect of sex preselection technology in the United States. The results suggest that controlling the sex of offspring is not the desire of most American women; that if it were employed, there would be a significant increase in sons as first-born and daughters as second children; that the overall sex ratio would be little changed from that occurring naturally except at very low fertility levels with universal u…
Preferences in Size of Family and Eventual Fertility Twenty Years After
Assumptions frequently made as to the value for purposes of prediction of stated preferences in size of family and the reliability of the recall of original preferences are called into serious question. Data collected from a small panel of couples married nearly twenty years and living together reveal that, although the estimate from the initial average preference to the eventual aggregate number of children of the whole group is fairly accurate,…
Intention to Use Contraceptives and Subsequent Contraceptive Behavior in Morocco
In this article, the relationship between stated intention to use contraceptives and subsequent use during a three-year period in Morocco is examined. Longitudinal data are drawn from two Demographic and Health Surveys: the 1992 Morocco DHS and the 1995 Morocco Panel Survey. Reported contraceptive intentions in 1992 have a strong predictive effect on subsequent contraceptive use even after controlling for other characteristics of respondents, and…
The Concept of Social Mobility
In conclusion we should like to refer to a point recently made by Thomas.4 She emphasizes that the one generalization which can be established about the selectivity of migration concerns the relationship between age and migration and the preponderance of youth among migrants. She further points out that temporal factors are often important in determining the nature and strength of age selection. An important limitation of most studies of the sele…
The Potential Role of Contraception in Reducing Abortion
This study examines the potential role of further increases in contraceptive prevalence and effectiveness in reducing abortion rates. The model used in this analysis links the abortion rate to its direct determinants, including couples' reproductive preferences, the prevalence and effectiveness of contraceptive practice to implement these preferences, and the probability of undergoing an abortion to avoid an unintended birth when a contraceptive …
Collection of Survey Data on Contraception
The objective of this analysis is to compare two different approaches to the collection of information on contraceptive use. The data for this comparison are derived from the 1986 Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) in Peru. Approximately 7,500 women were interviewed with the standard DHS questionnaire, whereas about 5,000 women received an "experimental questionnaire." The major difference between the questionnaires is the inclusion of a six-ye…
Demographic variability and preferential marriage patterns
Religiousness and Fertility among European Muslims
Based on official data on religion, national origin, and other indicators of ethnic origin, Muslim fertility in 13 European countries is higher than that for other women, but in most countries with trend data the differences are diminishing over time. Fertility varies by country of origin of immigrants. Various European survey data show that higher proportions of Muslim women are married and their commitment to traditional family values is greate…
Higher Education, Religion and Women's Family-Size Orientations
Is the high fertility of Catholic women who have attended Catholic institutions of higher education primarily a consequence of that experience or a reflection of selectivity for other characteristics relevant to family formation? Does a non-sectarian education diminish the number of children desired by women of all religious groups? These questions are answered by a study of nearly fifteen thousand women in a probability sample of 45 colleges and…
Hispanic Fertility, Religion and Religiousness in the U.S
The Surprising Global Variation in Replacement Fertility
The Third Child
The Association of Television and Radio with Reproductive Behavior
This note analyzes the association between media exposure and reproductive behavior in 48 developing countries. A summary of part of a more extensive Demographic and Health Surveys report, it shows strong connections between media exposure and the use of modern contraception, the number of children desired, and recent fertility. Television viewing is particularly important; it is assumed to expose viewers to aspects of modern life that compete wi…
The yield of the imperfect
Two years ago, on this sa.me occasion, my colleague Norman Ryder delivered an address entitled A Critique of the *National Fertility Study, in which he enumerated a lengthy array of shortcomings of the fertility surveys that have occupied such an increasingly important role in demographic research (Ryder, 1973a). Ryder elaborated many of the major compromises with methodological ideals and some of the analytical mistakes that have characterized t…
The Later Years of Childbearing
The Prediction of Completed Fertility
There has been considerable interest in the relation between familysize desires and completed fertility. Longitudinal data from the Princeton Fertility Study provide a unique opportunity to compare the number of children desired after the birth of a second child to the size of completed families. The average number of children desired by women after the birth of their second child predicts very well the average size of their completed families. T…
The Initiation of Contraception
Using data from the 1970 National Fertility Study, the trend in the initiation of contraception prior to the first pregnancy is examined. This trend is of interest because of its relationship to the tempo of familybuilding. Using data from a recent marriage cohort, it is shown that use before the first pregnancy is related to age at marriage, age at termination of first pregnancy and the probability of having a premarital conception. For women fi…
Fertility Planning Status
Data concerning the planning circumstances of the interval preceding each pregnancy, collected from a national sample of 4810 married women, are used to establish the fertility planning status of each respondent as one of five classes: (1) never-pregnant; (2) number failure; (3) at least one timing failure; (4) at least one timing success; (5) neither success nor failure. For the ever-pregnant women who intended no more children, 32 percent of th…
Differential Fertility in the United States
A summary of this paper was prepared for presentation at the World Population Conference of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population meeting in Rome, Italy, August 31 to September 10, 1954. 1 See, e.g., Clyde V. Kiser, and Differentials in the United States, Journal of the American Statistical Association, 47, No. 257 (March, 1952), pp. 25-48, especially pp. 37-48; Robert M. Dinkel, Occupation and Fertility in the United Sta…
Leadership and Social Change
Journal Article Leadership and Social Change: The Reactions of a Special Group to Industrialization and Population Influx Get access Marvin Bressler, Marvin Bressler University of Pennsylvania Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Charles F. Westoff Charles F. Westoff Milbank Memorial Fund Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Social Forces, Volume 32, Issue 3, March 1954, Page…
Differential Fertility in the United States
A summary of this paper was prepared for presentation at the World Population Conference of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population meeting in Rome, Italy, August 31 to September 10, 1954. 1 See, e.g., Clyde V. Kiser, and Differentials in the United States, Journal of the American Statistical Association, 47, No. 257 (March, 1952), pp. 25-48, especially pp. 37-48; Robert M. Dinkel, Occupation and Fertility in the United Sta…
Development of plans for a social psychological study of the future fertility of two-child families
Plans for a survey to “succeed” the Indianapolis Study are being developed in the United States. According to tentative plans, the new study will be concerned initially with some I, S oo native-white married women under 3 S years of age who reported a second birth 4–7 months prior to the interview. The sample will probably be drawn from selected “standard metropolitan areas”. The objective will be the discovery of factors associated with the occu…
Preferences in Size of Family and Eventual Fertility Twenty Years After
Assumptions frequently made as to the value for purposes of prediction of stated preferences in size of family and the reliability of the recall of original preferences are called into serious question. Data collected from a small panel of couples married nearly twenty years and living together reveal that, although the estimate from the initial average preference to the eventual aggregate number of children of the whole group is fairly accurate,…
Abortion in the United States
Fertility Through Twenty Years of Marriage
This paper has considered some effects of the auxiliary status of ethnic membership upon the practice of medicine. Notwithstanding its methodological shortcomings and the fact that the interpretation involves certain assumptions which deserve separate examination, the data strongly suggest that the ethnic identification of physicians significantly influences their pattern of medical practice. Both the spatial distribution and the functional diffe…
The Concept of Social Mobility
In conclusion we should like to refer to a point recently made by Thomas.4 She emphasizes that the one generalization which can be established about the selectivity of migration concerns the relationship between age and migration and the preponderance of youth among migrants. She further points out that temporal factors are often important in determining the nature and strength of age selection. An important limitation of most studies of the sele…
Fundamentals of Population Study
Family Growth in Metropolitan America
This analysis is based upon a study of 1,165 couples, all of whom had two children by the time of the interviews and lived in one of the Standard Metropolitan Areas. Its findings shed new light on the relationship between fertility-planning behavior and such variables as socio-economic status, social mobility aspirations, adherence to traditional values, interest in religion, marital adjustment, amount of education, and feelings of personal adequ…
Law and Contemporary Problems
Some estimates of the reliability of survey data on family planning
An opportunity to estimate the reliability of survey data on family planning is afforded by a longitudinal study of fertility in metropolitan areas of the United States. A probability sample of mothers was interviewed six months after the birth of their second child. Data were collected on a number of pregnancies, use of contraception, methods used, and the planning status of each pregnancy, in addition to a wide variety of social and psychologic…
Population Perspectives. Philip M. Hauser
Family Growth in Metropolitan America
Family Growth in Metropolitan America
Contraceptive effectiveness as a function of desired family size
The inclusive notion of method acceptability has been used as an explanation of variation in willingness to use contraception, the regularity with which contraception is used, and the effectiveness of contraception in preventing pregnancy. With the additional assumption that variation in method acceptability is related to differential motivations to limit numbers and control spacing, two hypotheses are advanced. (1) As the number of children indi…
Improvement of contraception during the course of marriage
Contraceptive effectiveness is conventionally measured by a pregnancy rate, which reveals little about the way in which pregnancy risks vary among couples. In this paper a technique is presented for estimating curves of pregnancy risk. The technique is applied to data from the Family Growth in Metropolitan America study for purposes of estimating how much these couples would have to Improve their initial contraception In order to realize, by cont…
Family Growth in Metropolitan America
Family Growth in Metropolitan America
Third Child
The second phase of a long-term study in American fertility. Tables, interview forms. Originally published in 1963. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal o…
Demographic variability and preferential marriage patterns
Catholic Education, Economic Values, and Achievement
This study tests the hypothesis that at each of three educational levels Catholic males who are educated solely in religious schools will exceed those whose formal education was exclusively secular in the proportion of those who fail to (1) internalize the values of worldly success and (2) actually achieve superior socioeconomic status. The sample comprising 265 to 309 men is part of a larger probability sample of young married couples residing i…
Some Selected Findings of the Princeton Fertility Study
Some selected findings of the princeton fertility study
Deepués de tres años se hizo una reencuesta de una muestra probabilística de respondientes que al principio vivían en siete de las áreas metropolitanas más grandes de los Estados Unidos y que habían tenido el segundo hijo seis meses antis de la primera entrevista. Se encontró en la encuesta anterior que la efectividad de la contraconcepcíon fue comparativamente baja entre el casamiento y el nacimiento del primer hijo, y no mejoró grandemente entr…
The Third Child
Too Many Americans
Sociology (83 works) · Demography (79 works) · Population (71 works) · Fertility (56 works) · Demography (45 works) · Psychology (38 works) · Family Dynamics and Relationships (37 works) · Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics (35 works) · Family planning (34 works) · Research methodology (34 works)