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We explore, using a unique survey dataset containing retrospective information on immigrants’ legal status, the relationship between previous irregular experience—from arrival up to the first residence permit achievement—and fertility patterns among non-EU immigrant women in Italy. While competing hypotheses explaining migrants’ fertility behaviour have been recurrently offered, there is a substantial lack of knowledge on the role of undocumented experience as a contextual barrier in shaping international migrants’ family formation processes. We adopt a life-course approach, employing event history analysis and Poisson regression modelling, to investigate how irregularity among immigrant women intertwines with the timing of the first childbirth and the total number of births occurred in Italy. We find that irregular experience—as a time-dependent process—delays the transition to childbirth post-migration. Furthermore, having experienced irregular status reduces completed fertility, offering few possibilities to catch-up over the life-course with fertility levels of women continuously having the legal status. Findings suggest long-lasting effects of irregular status and the potential disruption of migrant’s fertility induced by migration policies, admission systems, and regulation factors. The reduced possibility of legal entry channels and lack of migration policies for planning and managing migration into Italy may thus have an impact on family formation trajectories among international immigrant women.

The total fertility rate (TFR) in South Asia has decreased remarkably over the past three decades. The decline is projected to continue in the coming years mostly due to the significant changes occurring in age specific fertility rate (ASFR). This study aims to investigate ASFR trends and forecast the ASFR of India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan from 2020 to 2100. The ASFRs in South Asia data separated by 7 age groups with 5-year interval from 15 to 49 years between 1990 and 2019 were downloaded from the US Census Bureau’s website. Linear regression models were used to investigate ASFR patterns from data in that period and ASFR data in the years 2010-2019 of each age group were used to forecast the ASFRs in 2020 to 2100. The forecasted results show that ASFRs in India and Bangladesh in age group 15-24 years have steep declining trends whereas ASFRs in age group 25-29 in both countries and age group 45-49 years in India have gradually decreasing ASFR trends. Age group 30-44 years in Bangladesh have slightly decreasing ASFR trends. Pakistan with previously high fertility rates are experiencing gradually declining ASFRs in all age groups. In conclusion, the change in fertility in these three countries from low stable population to high population will occur within next 40 years from 2020

Sustainable nitrogen management is crucial for long-term food security and environmental protection in rice farming systems. However, the spatial patterns of nitrogen availability at the community level remain poorly understood, hindering the development of effective sustainable management strategies. This study introduces a novel application of spatial autoregressive analysis to investigate available nitrogen distribution in paddy soils across a rice farming community in Kyoto, Japan. Soil samples from 61 plots, including organically farmed ones, were analyzed for available nitrogen and various physicochemical properties. Contrary to the hypothesis of high variability between adjacent plots, significant positive spatial autocorrelation in available nitrogen was observed, revealing previously unrecognized community-level patterns. The spatial Durbin model outperformed traditional regression approaches and revealed complex spatial interactions in soil properties. Water-soluble organic carbon and humus content showed strong but opposing effects, with a positive direct impact but negative spatial interaction, suggesting topography-driven accumulation processes. Water-soluble nitrogen exhibited reverse patterns with negative direct effects but positive spatial interaction, indicating potential nutrient transport through water movement. These findings highlight the importance of considering both direct and indirect spatial effects in understanding soil fertility patterns, challenging the conventional plot-by-plot management approach. This methodological advancement provides new perspectives for more effective, community-scale soil management strategies in rice farming systems. Moreover, it demonstrates an innovative approach to maximizing the value of outsourced soil analysis data, providing a model for more comprehensive utilization of such data in agricultural research. By enabling more targeted and efficient nitrogen management practices that consider both plot-level processes and landscape-scale interactions, this study potentially contributes to the development of more sustainable and resilient rice production systems.

Background Under the one-child policy of birth control, total fertility rates (TFRs) declined rapidly among women in China. TFRs dropped from 2.29 in 1990 to 1.18 in 2010 and to 1.05 in 2015. However, little is known about the evolution of fertility patterns in China during 1990–2015. Methods We used population data from 1990 to 2015 and applied age–period–cohort (APC) models to examine temporal changes and used regression models to analyze the effect of education on fertility across periods and cohorts in China. Results Age effects assume an inverted U-shaped curve, which increase and then decline across ages, with a peak value in age groups 20–24 or 25–29. Period effects show a U-shaped curve, which first decline and then increase. Cohort effects show an inverted U-shaped plus V-shaped curve, which first increase, then decline and rebound with different age effects and period effects. The APC effect curves of all-order births are similar to those of first birth, but with different magnitudes. Conclusions We revealed the evolutionary trends in fertility patterns among Chinese women from 1990 to 2015. The one-child policy exerted a crowding out effect on education. Even if the well-educated women had an intense fertility intention, the fertility policy offset their desire for more children.

Catholicism and Protestantism have different ways of promoting the family unit that could influence survival and fertility at a population level. Parish records in the Austrian village of Hallstatt allowed the reconstruction of Catholic and Protestant genealogies over a period of 175 years (1733–1908) to evaluate how religion and social changes affected reproduction and survival. Life history traits such as lifespan beyond 15 years, number of offspring, reproductive span, children born out of wedlock and child mortality were estimated in 5678 Catholic and 3282 Protestant individuals. The interaction of sex, time and religion was checked through non-parametric factorial ANOVAs. Religion and time showed statistically significant interactions with lifespan >15 years, number of offspring and age at birth of first child. Protestants lived longer, had a larger reproductive span and an earlier age at birth of first child. Before the famine crisis of 1845–1850, Protestants showed lower values of childhood mortality than Catholics. Comparison of the number of children born out of wedlock revealed small differences between the two religions. Religion influenced reproduction and survival, as significant differences were found between Catholics and Protestants. This influence could be explained in part by differential socioeconomic characteristics, since Protestants may have enjoyed better living and sanitary conditions in Hallstatt.

Ageing in the marine pelagic copepodAcartia tonsaresults in decreased feeding and production rates associated with an increase in the accumulation of protein oxidative damage, as predicted by the oxidative stress hypothesis. In laboratory experiments, we estimated sex-specific ageing effects on feeding and oxidative damage and on egg production rates of adult females. We also determined maternal effects on offspring by measuring egg hatching success and oxidative damage of nauplii from mothers of different ages. Males manifested more oxidative damage with age than females, providing an alternative explanation for the shorter life span in males. Older females produced fewer offspring, and nauplii with higher protein oxidative damage, than younger females. This study forms an empirical basis to link ageing, life span, sex differences and maternal fitness in animals that also reflects natural copepod population dynamics. Individual ageing processes and the resulting age structure in the population modulate mortality risk, parental effects on offspring performance, reproductive investment, and pelagic energy fluxes.

A joint effort led by the African Development Bank and the World Bank, 'Leveraging Migration for Africa' is the first comprehensive publication on harnessing migration, remittances, and other diaspora resources for the development of Africa. It comes at a time when countries in Africa and elsewhere are grappling with difficult choices on how to manage migration.Policy makers can help leverage the contributions of migrants to the development of Africa, reduceremittance costs, improve the efficiency of remittance markets in both origin and destination countries, and address the needs of the origin countries without restricting the emigration of high-skilled professionals. Innovative financing mechanisms such as issuance of diaspora bonds and securitization of future remittance flows can help finance big-ticket projects, such as railways, roads, power plants, and institutions of higher learning that will, step by step, help to transform Africa. This volume contributes to a greater understanding of migration and its potential role in Africa?s development.

This chapter contains sections titled: Measures of Mortality and Fertility Population Theories: The Basis for Indirect Estimation Age Estimation Models of Age‐Specific Vital Rates Complete Indirect Methods Applicable to Archaeological Data Some Remaining Issues Conclusions Acknowledgments References

Examines the pace of fertility decline in terms of why it might proceed rapidly or slowly over the next few decades, focusing on Asia, Africa, & Latin America. Following a look at empirical data on fertility transitions at the national level since 1950, a conceptual framework for considering variation in the pace of fertility change is laid out. Attention is then given to identifying social, economic, & demographic factors that determine the pace of fertility transition, presenting a simple model based on Richard Easterlin's (1975) \"synthesis framework.\" Based on the concepts of path dependence & social effects, the pace of (1) social & economic change, (2) change in economic aspirations & expectations, (3) improvement in birth control provision, & (4) reduction in the moral & social costs of birth control are seen as potentially key to determining the pace of fertility decline. Here, (2) is seen as the key reason for inter-country variation in the pace of fertility decline. Tables, Figures, Appendixes, References. D. Edelman

Male sterility is widely utilized for hybrid seed production. In this study, two new found male sterile mutants SauS4 and SauS5 were obtained from space flighted seeds of maize inbred line RP125. Then, genetic analysis, molecular markers identification, and cytological observation were conducted to confirm their male sterile types. For genetic analysis, the above two male sterile mutants were continuously backcrossed with two maize inbred line 18Hong and RP125, and four stable male sterile lines SauS4(18Hong), SauS5(18Hong), SauS4(RP125), SauS5(RP125) were generated by six-generation backcross. Restoring and maintaining relationship analysis showed that both Hui313 and Zifeng1 didn’t rescue the male sterility SauS4(18Hong) and SauS5(18Hong). Using CMS mitochondria-specific primers for PCR detection suggested that only a 440 bp band unique to CMS-T type was amplified in SauS4(18Hong), SauS5(18Hong), SauS4(RP125), and SauS5(RP125). Sequencing results showed that these bands sequences were identical in DNA level which compared with T- urf13. Cytological observations showed that the main abortion stages of SauS4 and SauS5 were at the middle stage of uninucleate microspores under the two nuclear backgrounds of 18Hong and RP125, exhibiting the characteristics of sporophyte sterility. All the above results pointed out the two male sterile mutants SauS4 and SauS5 belonged to the CMS-T type. Interestingly, some mitochondrial genome difference between SauS4(RP125) and SauS5(RP125) were revealed by AFLP analysis.