The population transition in Taiwan has reached the final phase that life expectancy at birth is approaching an asymptote and net reproduction rate is already below the replacement level. It is argued that since the transition takes a shorter period of time to complete than that of the European-American experiences, age composition of the population is so affected as to produce a structure akin to the result of a boby-boom. While the size of a boby-boom is measured by the magnitude and speed of fertility increases, the peak in numbers born during the transition can be measured by the magnitude and speed of fertility decline. Effects of the peaked age structure on employment, retirement, and household composition are demonstrated with some simplified proportional models. It is also shown that population aging would become phenomenal during the first quarter of the next century, due to the hastened decline of fertility since 1980.

This paper examines the effect of demographic changes on social organizations. Due to data availability, this study applies stable population theory to the situation of the United States.

Using 1980 census and related demographic data of Taiwan, this study aims to analyze the relationships between demographic parameters and socio-economic development and their dimensions. The results of zero-oder correlation and factor analysis show that closed relationships exist between areal characteristics. There factors are extracted, namely, demographic processes and socio-economic development, population growth and socio-economic burden, and marital maladjustment and secondary industry. The result of one-way analysis of variance indicates that disparity exists among four planned regions. The study reveals some implications of policy.

Beranrd’s theory on marriage gradient introduces a hypothetical model in this paper that age and educational distances of marriage could affect the status of women relative to their spouse within family, hence would affect the fertility controllability for a woman. Adopting data from KAP survey, this study applies the logit-linear model for analyzing the effect of spouses’ age and educational distances on women’s fertility controllability. Both variables of women’s age and educational attainment are also included as controls. The findings are: (1)age distance factor do affect women’s fertility controllability significantly besides age factor itself. (2)the effect of educational distance alone is not supported, but its interaction effect with educational attainment is found significantly. This implies that a women’s educational attainment being higher or equal compared to her husband’s strengthen women’s fertility controllability to their already strong one. Further studies regarding the effect of other aspects of marriage gradient such as occupational position and income are suggested. But their rather sophisticated nature of causal relationship with fertility controllability need more consideration.

This paper attempts to clarify the relationship between age at first union and fertility by cross-country comparisons, using data form the World Fertility Survey. The results show that for all countries under investigation, age at union appears to have a strong negative association with completed fertility because of its effect on duration or longer exposure to risk of childbearing. Examination of the data also reveals that age at union affects the timing of fertility. Women entering union at older ages were found to have closer spacing. Such evidence confirms the hypothesis that women marrying late are likely to increase the pace of fertility in order to compensate for their late union. Lastly, it was observed that differences remain in fertility by age-at-union groups across countries. Hence, distribution of age at union alone cannot fully account for variations in fertility among countries. Nevertheless, the study has certain policy implications. Based upon these findings, it is clear that in a non-contracepting population, later age at marriage will result in lower completed fertility. Thus, for countries with low levels of contraceptive use and low mean age at marriage, an increase in the legal age at union can be expected to have a negative impact upon childbearing.

The population of Hong Kong grew from 3.13 million in 1961 to 5.42 million in 1985. The population increased by 2.29 million, or 75 per cent, in the past 25 years. This paper tries to analyse the demographic characteristics of the population and to examine the factors, such as fertility, mortality and migration, which affected Hong Kong’s population growth.
The fertility decline in the 1960’s was believed to be due to the relative decline in the number of young women and the decline in the proportion of women married especially at the fertile ages 20-24. The continued fertility decline in the 1970’s was caused by postponement of marriage and the genuine decline in marital fertility. The postponement of marriage was largely attributable to the better educational and job opportunities available for the young generation. The trend for small families was attributable to the pressures on housing and young couples’ desire for a higher standard of living.
Hong Kong’s crude death rate fluctuated around the level of five per 1,000 persons in the past twenty years. However, standardized death rates showed a reduction of 20 per cent in the mortality level in the past decade. The decline in mortality is associated with the rapid socio-economic and environmental development, better medical facilities and improvements in education, housing, sanitation and hygiene. The infant mortality is now below 9 per 1,000 live births. Further decline in infant mortality depends on the possibility of a significant drop in neonatal mortality in the future.
As the inward migration is under control and the net balance is estimated to be around 15,000 persons per annum, natural growth will be the major factor contributing to the future population growth of Hong Kong. The Hong Kong population is projected to each 6 millions in 1992. The aging of the population will continue, and the proportion of population aged 65 and over will reach 10 per cent in the late 1990's.

This study employed nationwide survey data to estimate the extent of occupational incongruity of Taiwan’s labor force. Specifically, it attempted to examine the latent structure of occupational incongruity and to assess sex differences in the latent structure of occupational incongruity. Four indicators were used to represent occupational incongruity: involuntary part-time work, excess hours work, relatively low income work, and educationally mismatched work. The data suggested that the unrestricted two-class latent class model was appropriate for Taiwan’s labor force. The first class tended to be strongly associated with low income incongruity for male workers and female workers. The second class tended to express excess hours or educational mismatch incongruity for both sexes. The class structure of occupational incongruity was examined and compared for male workers and female workers. The results revealed that the latent class proportions were the same between males and females, but the sexes had differential risks of experiencing low hours, excess hours, low income, and educational mismatch. The implications of these results for an understanding of manpower utilization were discussed in the final section.

This paper discusses personal factors such as sex, age, education and their relationship to occupation. Since the prestige of occupation is judged by the general population with a high degree of consensus and the relative prestige ranking of occupation is seem to be quite consistent in most highly differentiated societies, the sociologists consider occupations or occupational prestige as an index of class.
In order to elaborate the thesis, data from a previous research, “A Study of Factors Affecting the Selection of an Occupation and its Achievement” is analysed. The focus is on the association of sex(S), age(A), education(E) with occupational prestige(O). A sample of 603 married and working persons, aged 30-59 was studied and we concluded that: 1. Model AS, EA, OS, OE is the best log-linear model to account for the relationship among the sex, age, education and occupation variables. 2. Model EAS, OS, OE. Model EAS, OAS, OEA. And Model EAS, OE. Are the three best logit models.
From the studies shown, there is a significant relation between sex, educational level and occupational prestige, but the weight of education and sex is different. Educational level is more important than sex. Age may play a role in occupational prestige when interaction of sex and educational level is considered. Age and sex are ascribed traits while education is an achieved trait. If one tries to get higher educational level, he would select the occupation of higher occupational prestige in spite of age and sex factors. In a highly democratic society, the possibility of differential treatment simply related to age and sex is reduced gradually.

Population Studies has been well developed in many countries of the world, but not so in Taiwan. Many academic people and general citizens in Taiwan Area are still not very familiar with the significance of population research within and outside of the nation. The purpose of this paper is to help readers understand the importance and development situation and trend of the field of population studies, so that they can be motivated to carry out population research and can become more knowledgeable of institutions and organizations both in Taiwan and abroad.
Concepts of the importance and the development situation and trend of population studies presented in this paper are developed by the author through studying population for many years. Most sources used in this present paper are secondary, which appears in various population references and documents of population organizations.
The paper is composed of three main parts: the importance of population studies, the development of population studies in Taiwan, and international population research and sponsoring organizations and agencies. In the first part, the important situation of population studies and its reasons have been comprehensively discussed. In the second part, discussions are extended to three subjects: (1)government’s role on data collection and data analysis; (2)teaching and research developments in academic institutions; (3)private organizations’ role in the promotion and application of population studies. In the third part, more than seventy international institutions and agencies of population studies have been introduced and examined. Particular attention has been paid to characteristics and functions of three organizations, i.e. United Nations Population Divisions, IUSSP and CICRED. In addition, many other international public and private agencies in different countries have been listed and their locations mentioned.
In this paper the discussion has not included the development of population studies in the United States. It is becaues the development status in this country is unusually important and it needs a special report. The author had made such a report on population studies in the United States a decade ago, and it will not be repeated here.