Fertility differentials between rural and urban populations are investigated using World Fertility Survey data for Bangladesh, Fiji, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, the Republic of Korea, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. "The fertility measure used in this analysis is the number of children ever born to a woman. An attempt is made first to establish the differential in fertility levels between urban and rural areas after necessary control of the demographic factors..., and then the possible explanation of the differential is sought in terms of socio-economic variables such as education of the respondent, and occupation, work pattern, work status and place of work of the respondent as well as that of the husband." Data concerning the fertility differentials and the associated explanatory variables are presented in tables and charts. "The results tend to show that the countries of Asia are undergoing similar patterns of fertility transition as was experienced in the advanced countries. Perhaps one can graduate the countries in the transition scale as follows: Bangladesh, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan and Malaysia are in the initial stage; Fiji, the Philippines, the Republic of Korea, Sri Lanka and Thailand are in the middle stage of transition."
Data from the Malaysian Family Life Survey show an increase in the percentage of infants breastfed, at least initially, from 75 per cent in 1970-74 to 79 per cent in 1975-77. Contrary to what would be expected if Malaysia were following the trends observed in the United States and Western Europe, the increase has occurred among poor and uneducated women as well as among the more fortunate. The increase was especially marked for infants born in hospitals and private clinics, which had very low rates of breastfeeding in the early 1970s. The change may be due partly to a shift in the practices and recommendations of health professionals. Trends in infant feeding practices in Malaysia during the whole period 1950-77 are reviewed. Reasons for thinking the increase in the mid-1970s an artifact of the survey are presented and provisionally rejected. The implications of these findings for child health policy in Malaysia and for theories of infant feeding trends in developing countries are discussed.
This analysis has identified several factors contributing to the dramatic decline in infant mortality since World War II in Malaysia, as well as one factor that prevented the infant mortality rate from declining even more rapidly. Our main findings are the following: On average, mothers' education more than doubled over the study period, contributing to the decline in their infants' mortality. In addition, the beneficial effect of mothers' education on infant survival appears to have become stronger over the study period. Hence, further advances in education should lead to further improvements in infants' survival prospects. Another analysis of these data (Peterson et al. 1985) found that education is somewhat more influential in affecting child mortality in low-mortality, high-income areas than in the opposite type of areas. Therefore, socioeconomic development may have complemented, instead of substituted for, the the beneficial effect of mothers' education in promoting infant and child survival in Malaysia. Improvements in water and sanitation also contributed to the infant mortality decline, especially for babies who did not breastfeed. However, unlike education, these influences have become less important over time, especially for babies who are not breastfed. Hence, further improvements in water and sanitation, a goal of Malaysia's Rural Environmental Sanitation Programme, may have smaller relative effects on infant mortality than did previous improvements. Targeting such improvements on areas where women breastfeed little or not at all, however, will increase their effectiveness in promoting infant survival. The substantial reductions in breastfeeding that have taken place since World War II have kept the infant mortality rate in Malaysia from declining as rapidly as it would have otherwise. We estimate that, in our sample, the detrimental effects on infant survival of the decline in breastfeeding have more than offset the beneficial effects of improvements in water and sanitation. Unlike some other researchers (e.g., Palloni 1981), we find that changes in fertility levels and in the timing and spacing of births have had negligible effect in explaining the decline in infant mortality within the samples we have considered. We have excluded births to older women from our analysis, however; this exclusion may have led to an understatement of the influence of changes in the age pattern of childbearing.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
"This article examines the incidence of [job-related] transfers in Malaysia. The retrospective migration data from the Malaysia Family Life Survey [conducted in 1976-1977] are used to demonstrate that transfers comprise 18 percent of all migration in the country and that there has been a rise in the incidence of transfers over a 35 year period. Factors underlying this trend are outlined. Furthermore, significant differences in age, educational attainment and other characteristics between transferees and other types of migrants are identified and their implications discussed."
The effect of toilets, piped water, and maternal literacy on infant mortality was analyzed using data from the Malaysian Family Life Survey collected in 1976-1977. The effect of toilets and piped water on infant mortality was dependent on whether or not mothers were literate. The impact of having toilets was greater among the illiterate than among the literate, but the impact of piped water was greater among the literate than among the illiterate. The effect on the infant mortality rate for toilets decreased from 130.7 +/- 17.2 deaths in the absence of literate mothers to 76.2 +/- 25.9 deaths in the presence of literate mothers. The reduction in the mortality rate for maternal literacy dropped from 44.4 +/- 14.1 deaths without toilets to -10.1 +/- 23.9 deaths with toilets. Reductions in mortality rates for piped water increased from 16.7 +/- 12.7 deaths without literate mothers to 36.8 +/- 21.0 deaths with literate mothers. Similarly, reductions in the mortality rate for maternal literacy rose from 44.4 +/- 14.1 deaths in the absence of piped water to 64.5 +/- 19.5 deaths in the presence of piped water. The results from a logistic model provided inferences similar to those from ordinary least squares. The authors infer that literate mothers protect their infants especially in unsanitary environments lacking toilets, and that when piped water is introduced, they use it more effectively to practice better hygiene for their infants.
This article examines retest reliability and digit preference in retrospective survey data on breastfeeding duration and type of supplementary food, covering three decades and reported by more than 1200 Malaysian women. Women with little or no education, rural residents, and those of Malay ethnicity are found to give less reliable data. In a logistic regression analysis, these respondent characteristics are more important determinants of data quality than the length of the recall period.
Household data from Malaysia are used to assess the roles of a number of mortality correlates in explaining the inverse relationship between the infant mortality rate (IMR) and socioeconomic development. Increases in mothers' education and improvements in water and sanitation are the most important household-level changes that accompany regional and temporal development and contribute to the inverse relationship between the IMR and development. One concomitant of development--reduced reduced breastfeeding--has kept the relationship from being even stronger. Continued prevalence of extended breastfeeding in the poorer states of Peninsular Malaysia and a narrowing of educational and sanitation differentials helped close the IMR gap between the richer and the poorer states.
Many studies have shown that schooling levels of husband and wife are important determinants of household behavior in developing countries. This article asks how the schooling levels of husband and wife come to be associated with each other through the marriage market. The Kiefer-Neumann model of labor market search is adapted to marital search, the aim being to explain both the positive sorting on educational levels for spouses, and the positive relationship between female schooling and age at 1st marriage. World Fertility Survey data for Indonesia, Korea, and Malaysia are employed in the analyses.
Cervix cancer is about twice as common in Asia as in the Western world and its incidence varies among different Asian ethnic groups. A study based in Singapore, the population of which comprises Chinese, Indians and Malaysians, offers the opportunity to evaluate whether the same risk factors are important in this part of the world as in the West. A total of 135 cases and an equal number of controls were interviewed and details concerning reproductive and sexual history, smoking, hygiene, socio-economic status and education were collected. Seventy-three cases had invasive cancer while 62 had micro-invasive disease or CIN III. The most important risk factors were parity and number of sexual partners. Smoking was rare in cases and controls and did not appear to be an important determinant of risk. Of the socio-economic factors, education appeared most predictive and lowered the risk. Age at first intercourse was strongly correlated with education (positively) and parity (negatively), but not with number of sexual partners. Biopsies were available for HPV DNA analysis in 38 cases and 37% were positive, mostly for HPV type 16. All these factors gave similar risks in invasive and preinvasive disease.
A total of 537 dentate adults from nine randomly selected government dental centers in three states in Malaysia were interviewed to assess their preference for either exodontia or preservation of teeth when they experience toothache, or have carious anterior or posterior teeth. The assumptions tested were i) patients prefer exodontia rather than preservation when they have toothache, and ii) patients are more willing to have posterior teeth extracted than anterior teeth for caries. Both these assumptions were rejected. Even though the majority of the subjects preferred preservation (59%) when having toothache, exodontia was the treatment of choice in a large proportion of subjects (41%). Significant differences in preference were found among the various ethnic, educational, income, and age groups. However, when ethnicity was held constant, binary regression indicated that the variations observed were determined by education, income, and age groups and not by ethnicity.
A cross sectional nationally representative survey of 33,110 school-going children in Singapore aged between 9 and 20 years was carried out to obtain, for the first time, baseline information on smoking among the school-going population in Singapore. The survey was carried out among students attending vocational institutes and public sector schools in Singapore in 1987. The overall smoking prevalence was found to be 2% (3% among boys and 0.2% among girls). Ex-smokers comprised 2% of respondents whilst those who had only experimented with smoking made up 9% of the respondents. Analyses of the data showed that cigarette smoking was more prevalent among Malays, among boys, among older children, and among the less academically inclined. On average, boys smoked a median of 20 cigarettes a week and girls, 12 cigarettes a week. On an international basis, the smoking prevalence among the school-going population in Singapore is significantly lower than that of developed countries like Australia, England and Wales and neighbouring countries such as Malaysia.
In a cross-sectional study of 7-12 year-old primary school children in Kuala Lumpur city, lung function was assessed by spirometric and peak expiratory flow measurements. Spirometric and peak expiratory flow measurements were successfully performed in 1,214 and 1,414 children, respectively. As expected, the main predictors of forced vital capacity (FVC), forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1), forced expiratory flow between 25% and 75% of vital capacity (FEF25-75), and peak expiratory flow rate (PEFR) were standing height, weight, age, and sex. In addition, lung function values of Chinese and Malays were generally higher than those of Indians. In multiple regression models which included host and environmental factors, asthma was associated with significant decreases in FEV1, FEF25-75, and PEFR. However, family history of chest illness, history of allergies, low paternal education, and hospitalization during the neonatal period were not independent predictors of lung function. Children sharing rooms with adult smokers had significantly lower levels of FEF25-75. Exposures to wood or kerosene stoves were, but to mosquito repellents were not, associated with decreased lung function.