A note on the equality of distribution of child mortality: Java-Bali, 1950-1976

Infant mortality is a widely recognized social indicator that is a useful index of the relative socioeconomic condition of subgroups of the population of a developing country. In developed countries, a more appropriate indicator of mortality is the proportion of babies who die before they reach their 5th birthday. 3 birth cohorts are identified from data provided by the Indonesian Fertility Survey conducted in Java and Bali in 1976 in order to examine the trend in mortality: births occurring 15 or more years before the survey, 10-14 years before the survey, and 5-9 years before the survey. 4 characteristics of parents related to education, occupation and urban vs. rural residence are used to analyze child mortality trends. A table shows the estimates for various combinations of these characteristics. Child mortality has decreased, but more importantly, it has decreased most for parents on the low end of the socioeconomic scale. Either parent having secondary education appears to be the key factor in the experience of low child mortality, although as more parents achieve secondary education, another factor may emerge as more important.     

Disequilibrium,power and economic systems

Summary This is a review article of D.B.J. Schouten's new book Macht en wanorde, Een vergelijking van economische stelsels (Power and Disorder, A Comparison of Economic Systems). After having summarised the book's contents, three points are discussed: (a) does the book offer a comparison of economic systems as its subtitle suggests; (b) how does Schouten's theory relate to disequilibrium analysis and does it give a better understanding of disequilibria than disequilibrium analysis; (c) is Schouten's proposal of a centrally-guided rate of return policy indeed to be preferred above a centrally-guided wage policy in order to overcome the basic problem in capitalist market economies of slow and sometimes perverse adjustments?D.B.J. Schouten,Macht en wanorde, Een vergelijking van economische stelsels, (Power and Disorder, A Comparison of Economic Systems), H.E. Stenfert Kroese b.v., Leiden/Antwerpen, 1980: Pp. 270. Dfl. 47,50.I am indebted to Professor Th. van de Klundert for useful comments.     

THE PLACE OF MANAGERS IN INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY

The discussion of industrial democracy in Britain has exploded in the last few years, but the result has been to write an agenda which has still to be worked through, not to reveal a consensus which can be written into action at once.