Population 2025 n°1

Editorial
By Lionel Kesztenbaum,  Bruno Masquelier,  Delphine Remillon
Death of a Spouse and Residential Mobility in France: Cumulative Disadvantages at Older Ages
By Timothée Chabot,  Guillaume Le Roux, translated by Beatrice van Hoorn Alkema
The Impact of Sex Preference for Children on Birth Spacing and Differential Stopping Behaviour in Afghanistan
By Marie-Claire Robitaille
Harmonized Data from Household Surveys on the Status and Well-being of Children, Adolescents, and Their Families: MICS and IPUMS MICS
By Anna Bolgrien,  Attila Hancioglu,  Miriam King,  Elizabeth Heger Boyle
Networks, Employment, Debt, Mobilities, and Skills in India Survey (NEEMSIS): A Longitudinal Data Collection Tool
By Christophe Jalil Nordman,  Govindan Venkatasubramanian,  Isabelle Guérin,  Arnaud Natal,  Cécile Mouchel,  Sébastien Michiels,  Mary Di Santolo

Book Reviews :

Yoann Doignon, Isabelle Blöss-Widmer, Elena Ambrosetti, Sébastien Oliveau. 2023. Population Dynamics in the Mediterranean: A Demographic Convergence? Springer. 161 pages
By Florian Bonnet
Seth M. Holmes. 2024. Fruits frais, corps brisés : Les ouvriers agricoles migrants aux États-Unis, translated into French by Frédéric Joly, with a preface by Philippe Bourgeois. CNRS Éditions. 403 pages
By Marine Haddad
Marion Maudet. 2024. Au commencement était le couple. Sexualité, amour et religion chez les jeunes [In the beginning was the couple: Young people and sexuality, love, and religion]. PUF. 272 pages
By Romain Philit,  Axel Ravier
Cécile Thomé. 2024. Des corps disponibles : Comment la contraception façonne la sexualité hétérosexuelle [available bodies: How contraception shapes heterosexual sexuality]. La Découverte. 306 pages
By Malena Lapine
Gaspard Lion. 2024. Vivre au camping : Un mal-logement des classes populaires [Living on a campsite: Inadequate housing for the working classes]. Seuil. 315 pages
By Hugo Wajnsztok

Death of a Spouse and Residential Mobility in France: Cumulative Disadvantages at Older Ages
By Timothée Chabot,  Guillaume Le Roux, translated by Beatrice van Hoorn Alkema

Cumulative disadvantage is a mechanism often discussed in life-course sociology: faced with the same biographical ‘shocks’, individuals with fewer resources will be more severely impacted, leading to greater inequalities with older age. We tested this principle in relation to the specific case of residential mobility following the death of a spouse. Drawing on data from France’s Permanent Demographic Sample, a large panel representative of the French population, and employing a matching technique, we show that widowhood results in increased excess mobility and deterioration of housing situation as one moves down the socioeconomic hierarchy, in accordance with the hypothesis of cumulative disadvantage. The oldest widows and widowers are also the most impacted. On the other hand, the residential consequences of widowhood are similar for men and women, other than there being a greater propensity among men to enter an institution. These findings remind us that older people should not be considered a homogeneous group in studies on ageing.

The Impact of Sex Preference for Children on Birth Spacing and Differential Stopping Behaviour in Afghanistan
By Marie-Claire Robitaille

Afghanistan is a patrilocal, patrilineal society in which women have limited societal participation. Such characteristics are often found in societies expressing a preference for sons. Despite a vast literature on the preferred sex composition of children in various nations, limited research has been conducted in Afghanistan because of security concerns and scant quantitative data. Our analysis focuses on couples’ willingness to shorten birth intervals and the desire to continue childbearing to obtain the desired sex composition of children. Using the 2015–2016 Demographic and Health Survey, we calculate parity progression ratios and estimate logit models explaining the prevalence of short birth-to-conception intervals, controlling for the sex composition of older siblings. Our findings are mixed, showing that Afghan couples desire to have children of both sexes and, at the same time, to secure a son rapidly.

Harmonized Data from Household Surveys on the Status and Well-being of Children, Adolescents, and Their Families: MICS and IPUMS MICS
By Anna Bolgrien,  Attila Hancioglu,  Miriam King,  Elizabeth Heger Boyle

UNICEF’s Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) is one of the world’s largest household survey programs focused on children and women. IPUMS MICS, a collaboration between UNICEF and IPUMS, simplifies analyzing the MICS data across time and space. Public use microdata files from MICS currently comprise 260 samples from around the world, from 1999 forward; 218 of these samples are currently covered by IPUMS MICS. IPUMS MICS supplies extensive online documentation and facilitates variable and sample discovery. IPUMS MICS users can generate customized code that, when executed locally, creates tailor-made data files, making these data comparable across time and place. Data on children address illness and treatment, physical and educational development, labor, discipline, and family relationships. The data also include demographics, housing, education, fertility, mortality, marriage and sex, family planning, domestic violence, media exposure, HIV, maternal and infant health, and many other topics related to health and health care.

Networks, Employment, Debt, Mobilities, and Skills in India Survey (NEEMSIS): A Longitudinal Data Collection Tool
By Christophe Jalil Nordman,  Govindan Venkatasubramanian,  Isabelle Guérin,  Arnaud Natal,  Cécile Mouchel,  Sébastien Michiels,  Mary Di Santolo

The Networks, Employment, Debt, Mobilities, and Skills in India Survey (NEEMSIS) is a longitudinal data set collected through a baseline survey conducted in 2010 and follow-up surveys since 2016 (2016–2017 and 2020–2021, thus far) among more than 600 households in rural Tamil Nadu, India. NEEMSIS aims to understand the links between labour, skills, financial practices, social and migration dynamics, and social network formation in India. The data set is useful in many ways: (a) the data can capture processes that are poorly measured by national surveys in developing countries; (b) compared with other microsurveys, NEEMSIS benefits from the coverage of a relatively large population; (c) the data cover a wide range of information on households and individuals; and (d) the longitudinal nature of NEEMSIS data means that it is possible to observe dynamics and changes over time.