This paper analyses the impact of the length of birth intervals on mortality and growth of young children. An attempt has been made to improve the methodology of birth interval studies and the results of an analysis of longitudinal data from a rural area in Kenya with a relatively favourable level of health are presented. It is shown that children with short retrospective or short prospective birth intervals do not run a higher risk of mortality or growth retardation than children with longer intervals, neither during the perinatal period nor during the first 2 years of life. This suggests that the socioeconomic setting, in which a birth interval study is carried out, is of ultimate importance.
Women born in Russia in the early decades of this century grew up in a period characterized by profound societal changes. Their lives were affected by often devastating events, in particular World War II, that ravaged society when they were entering their childbearing years. This note presents a detailed demographic analysis of the marital and fertility careers of women born between 1910 and 1934 based on individual retrospective life histories, collected in the most recent (5 percent) 1994 microcensus of the Russian Federation. It assesses the influence of external events on age at first marriage, widowhood, divorce, childlessness, parity, and age at birth. A comparison with younger cohorts shows that the societal disturbances had strong temporary effects. However, the final outcomes were not influenced very much: completed fertility continued its slow, secular decline. Copyright 1999 by The Population Council, Inc..
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