Nuptiality and fertility in Saudi Arabia: An appraisal of census data

Saudi Arabia constitutes bulk of the Arabian Peninsula. Higher birth and lower death rate with higher levels of expectation of life characterizes Saudi Arabian demography. This attempt at appraising nuptiality and fertility is based on censuses. Marriage patterns are changing with higher age at marriage; increasing ever marriage and reducing adolescent marriage, divorces and polygamy. Fertility, was captured from children ever born, parity, and births during 12 months prior to 2004 census and sterility. The children ever born to Saudi Arabian ever married women were 3.8. Women of higher age had higher number of children ever born. Fertility levels remained higher but with a larger proportion of woman at zero parity even among those above 45 years – indication of sterility. Fertility transition was under way as a result of improved female education, value of children, higher age at marriage and reduced infant and child mortality rate.     

云南省德宏州跨境婚姻人群艾滋病相关公共卫生服务现况

目的 了解云南省德宏州边境地区跨境婚姻人群艾滋病相关公共卫生服务现状,为在该人群中开展艾滋病干预提供参考.方法 针对目前在云南省德宏州居住的跨境婚姻夫妻进行问卷调查,收集社会人口学特征、艾滋病知识知晓情况和获得艾滋病防治卫生服务情况等信息.使用Epi Data 3.1建立数据库并进行数据双录入,并使用SPSS 19.0进行数据分析.结果 调查对象中艾滋病知识知晓率为79.4％,79.9％的调查对象曾经获得艾滋病相关服务.婚前是外国籍的居民获得服务的可能性是中国籍居民的0.91(0.83 ～0.99)倍,未参加新农合的居民获得服务的可能性是参加新农合居民的0.64(0.55 ～0.75)倍;陇川和畹町两个地区的居民获得服务的可能性分别是梁河居民的34.84(21.58 ～56.22)倍和1.94(1.42 ～2.65)倍.结论 德宏州跨境人群接受艾滋病相关服务的比例与全国其他地区相近,但仍需重点针对外籍人员、未参加新农合的人群开展工作.     

PSYCHOSOCIAL RESPONSE OF CHINESE INFERTILE HUSBANDS AND WIVES

Some 15% or 1 in 6 American couples in the childbearing years have infertility problems. Numerous studies have demonstrated that both infertile men and women have negative emotional responses, such as stress, anxiety and depression. In Europe, Canada, and the United States the response of infertile husbands was different from that of their wives in self-image, marital adjustment, and sexual relations. The differences in psychological distress, marital satisfaction, and sexual satisfaction between Chinese infertile husbands and wives were evaluated. Fifty-nine infertile couples participated in this study. The subjects completed an Infertility Questionnaire, Marital Satisfaction Questionnaire, and Sexual Satisfaction Questionnaire as measures of gender differences in facing infertility problems. Paired t tests revealed that husbands expressed significantly less distress than that of the wives. The husbands' self-esteem was higher than that of the wives. The husbands' marital and sexual satisfaction was also higher than that of the wives. These results propose that although differences exist in cultural, ethnic, and religious norms between Chinese society and Western society, the Chinese couples' response to infertility is similar to that of Western couples. The major difference is that the in-laws play an important role in Chinese society, especially in marital satisfaction.     

Spousal influence on mammography screening: A life course perspective

Recently, researchers have challenged the basic tenet that marriage is universally protective for all individuals. We scrutinize socio-economic differences between married couples to shed light on the mechanisms underlying the effects of marriage. We introduce the life course perspective to investigate if differences in positive health behavior between couples are related to their early life conditions. Within the theoretical framework of cultural health capital, we hypothesize that the accumulation of cultural health capital proceeds at the marriage level when partners provide each other with health-related information and norms. For this purpose, we examine the influence of the childhood preventive health care behavior of both wives and husbands on the initiation of mammography screening for a sample of Belgian women (N = 734). Retrospective life histories of both partners are provided by the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement (SHARE) and are examined by means of event history analysis. The results show that a partner's cultural health capital affects the initiation of mammography screening by a woman in later life, even after her own cultural health capital and traditional measures of socio-economic status (SES) are taken into account. In line with cumulative advantage theory, it seems that inequalities in cultural health capital are accumulated at the marriage level. In order to shed further light on the spousal influence on health behavior, researchers should revert to early life in order to discern the attribution of premarital and marital conditions.