Due to the efforts of Norman Ryder, the influence of fertility tempo on the population renewal process is now-well-known to the demographers. The fertility tempo as formulated is composed of at least two parts: mean age of childbearing and variation in the age of childbearing. Empirically the two parts might be highly correlated in affecting the quantity of birth, theoretically the two parts can have distinct effects on the birth. By manipulating the distribution of age-specific fertilities, this paper simulates and examines the changes in the number of births in Taiwan since 1905. Two humps in birth number after the 2nd World War were indentified in the baseline analysis. The first hump can be attributed to the decline in mortality since 1920 and the decline in fertility since 1951; the growth in population of childbearing age coupled with the decreasing propensity of bearing children have resulted in the growth and decline of birth during the 50`s and 60`s. The second hump was determined a compressed replication of the first one through the renewal process. As a consequence of the continuous fertility compression after the war, the second hump appears to be shorter in length and larger in amplitude than the first hump. Much of the "excess" birth can be eliminated if the variation of age-specific fertilities were held constant to allow for an uninterrupted operation of the "averaging effect".

Most of researchers used RMR (Relative Mortality Rate) to study marital status and mortailty trying to reveal the selection and protection effects of marriage on death. This study instead employs life table technique to analyze their effects on life expectancy. Although this study does not intend to differentiate the relative importance between selection and protection effects, through modeling various hypothetical cohort`s marital experiences in life course allow us to control us other factors than the sole effect of marital status. This study finds that:1) remaining constantly in married status results in longer life expectancy than the never-married, ever divorced, and widowed for both sexes; 2) remaining constantly in married status grant more steady protection for females than for males; 3) comparing to males` marital-specific age pattern of life expectancy, it seems that females have more steady gains in life expectancy, which suggests that protection effect of marriage has more intricacy with selection effect among males than females; 4) comparing the change between 1981 and 1991, married females` odds in life expectancy than other marital status decreased. The decrease indicates an increased capability to lead independent life among females.

This paper reviews Japanese and Chinese migration to Taiwan in the pre-war period from the perspective of push-pull theory. Household registration data for 37 years are used to examine the volume, efficiency and selectivity of migration. We have found that migration by Japanese was much greater than that by Chinese, mainly the result of severe restriction on Chinese immigrants. We have also found that migration efficiency for Japanese and Chinese was low. Finally the selectivity of the sex and age compositions of the migrants led to differential population growth for Japanese and Chinese.

Male and female labor forces are different in their patterns of job careers, the latter are generally more likely to be disrupted for marriage and/or birth. That chances of reworking for women (particularly married women) has increased in the past attracts our attention on exploring causes and changes of returning. Our data came from the 1993 wave of the Survey of Women`s Marriage and Fertility in Taiwan. It is shown that around one seventh of married women has experienced returning labor market. Among them, more than half did not move up or down relative to their former occupational status. In multiple covariate analyses, we found schooling is the most essential factor explaining the changes of occupational statuses. Most importantly, the effects of schooling behave differently in the models of quitted-due-to-marriage and quitted-due-to-birth. In short, extra schooling seems to create space of moving down for women of quitted-due-to-marriage, while it functions as a burffer of moving down for women of quitted-due-to-birth.

This paper aims to model the relationship between cause of death structure and overall mortality in the Island of Mauritius. The study period extends over an 18 year period from 1969 to 1986 and ten groups of causes of death were studied. During this period, Mauritian mortality for both males and females, underwent a transition from predominnace of infectious diseases to that of degenerative diseases. Three models were fitted to the male and female data, a curvilinear model and a multiple linear model which incorporates the concept of Epidemiologic Transition. It was found that the linear model fitted female data very well while the multiple linear model fitted male data quite well. The curvilinear model generally did not perform well on either the male or female data. From these findings, the paper concludes that in the indirect estimation of cause-of-death structure, information on overall mortality alone will not suffice, supplementary information on the Epidemiologic Transition is needed especially where the mortality pattern is undergoing a rapid change.

This paper presents a probability model for the rural out-migration system at a micro-level. The parameters involved in the model are estimated by the method of moments. The application of the model is discussed and it is fitted to observed data.