Induced abortion is generally illegal in Taiwan but available widely through private medical practitioners. The Government has begun to consider relaxing legal restrictions. The four hundred governmental family planning field workers there were surveyed about induced abortion. These could be involved in future governmental programs related to abortion. Major findings were that the workers although generally favorable to induced abortion are often unfavorable under certain circumstances, differ somewhat from the public they serve, and do not expouse views in consonance with existing laws. Furthermore, cumulative ethical judgment scales are shown to exist which could have important implications for educational approaches. Recommendations for in-service training and other program activity are made.

The purpose of the study is to test methods concerning construction of cause-eliminated life tables with respect to calculating the value of and to adjusting the value of . Comparing the “actuarial” method suggested by Chiang and Greville with the “interaction” method suggested by Krall and Hickman, we find that selection of the method of obtaining is not trival. Alternative methods yield substantially different result. It is also found that the procedure for adjusting affects the value of and consequently gain in life expectancy at birth. These two methodological problems are not unrelated. If some adjustment is needed to make gains in life expectancy seem more reasonable, then it seems more appropriate to consider a method which will affect values of functions throughout the life table rather than a single value. The interaction method of calculation seems to have promise as such a procedure. This study, however, suggests need for further research to minimize arbitrariness in procedures of calculating life table values.

The article focuses on fertility differences between migrants and non-migrants in Taiwan, especially those who move from villages to cities. Data come from representative fertility surveys in Taiwan in 1973. It adopts statistical cross analysis and multiple classification analysis. Migrants refer to males and females have different places of birth and places of residence in the registry. It adopts four kinds of jurisdictions, county, city, town, and village, to determine migration.
Under all kinds of migration, migrants have lower aspiring, expecting and real fertility than non-migrants, even if factors like female age, duration of marriage, and educational level are controlled. Statistically, this fertility difference only happens between migrants from villages to cities and non-migrants in villages. Generally, migrant fertility is lower because they want to have few children, and actively implement family planning. Migration itself is not the reason behind fertility change, as migrants before migration have similar fertility, compared to non-migrants in the same age groups and educational levels. Obviously, migrants who move to cities have lower fertility than non-migrants in villages. It’s because of urban environment. Urban environment does impact fertility, especially to those who move to cities in their early ages.

After Taiwan officially implements family planning in a large scale in 1964, female fertility falls down faster. Rapid socio-economic developments also influence fertility will and action among females. As modern life focuses on personal pleasure and reduces reliance on children, the first child is delayed to pursue higher quality of life. However, survey data from 1973 to 1976 shows that, among females married between 1951 and 1971, the first child actually comes earlier. The main reason is because pre-marital sex happens more often to females married before 20 years old. While many people have more contraceptive awareness and actions, this phenomenon against common sense deserves further studies. This phenomenon is not encouraging to policies to reduce population growth. Family planning should work to delay the first child among married couples.

The historical trend of population in an agricultural village during a 30 year period shows an initial large increase which tapers off and finally becomes a decrease. The decrease in population as revealed in the household registers is tested against a field census conducted by the author in 1978. The decrease is shown to be much greater than official records indicate. Some of the problems of keeping demographic statistics current and the importance of the accuracy of these statistics are reviewed. Finally, some suggestions are made for periodic small-scale studies which would reveal any deviance from recorded figures.

This paper discusses the methodological perspectives of structural change in the study of social mobility. It emphasizes the statistical decomposition of total mobility into structural and non-structural components. Focusing on occupational mobility table, it points out that the conventional statistics is not the best approach to the analysis of social mobility. A Log-Linear Model is introduced to facilitate the decomposition of total mobility. With some specific operations of the Log-Linear Model, a measure of the formal goodness of fit, G^2, is decomposed to test the statistical significances of structural and non-structural components and to compute the relative weights of the two components in total mobility. The approach is comparable to the decomposition of R^2 in regression analysis to yield the statistics of F ratio. The paper explores the conclusions of American occupational mobility studies and finds the possibilities of improvement. The paper also provides a critical review of the effect of structural change. It appears that the education structure affects the occupation structure which, in turn, affects the earnings structure. The change in occupational structure is intimately related to the trend in earnings inequality and both of them are the results of the redistribution of educational opportunities. A close examination of the American education, occupation, and earnings distributions indicates that the population heterogeneity has increased and then decreased. It is concluded that structural change produces a cyclical pattern in social mobility.

No English abstract available.