Sex ratios in the two Germanies: A test of the economic stress hypothesis

Human Reproduction

Volumn 18, Issue 9, 2003, Pages 1972-1975

  Catalano, Ralph A ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

Author keywords

Economic decline; Human sex ratio; Unemployment

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; COMPARATIVE STUDY; CONTROLLED STUDY; ECONOMIC ASPECT; FEMALE; GERMANY; HUMAN; HYPOTHESIS; MALE; MODEL; POPULATION DYNAMICS; POPULATION RESEARCH; SEX RATIO; STRESS; THEORY;

EID: 0042262486     PISSN: 02681161     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/humrep/deg370     Document Type: Article

References (27)

1. Box, G., Jenkins, G. and Reinsel, G. (1994) Time Series Analysis: Forecasting and Control, 3rd edn. Prentice-Hall, London, UK.
2. Brown, G. and Silk, J. (2002) Reconsidering the null hypothesis: Is maternal rank associated with birth sex ratios in primate groups? Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA, 99, 11252-11255.
3. Byrne, J. and Warburton, D. (1987) Male excess among anatomically normal fetuses in spontaneous abortions. Am. J. Med. Genet., 26, 605-611.
4. Catalano, R. and Serxner, S. (1987) Time series designs of potential interest to epidemiologists. Am. J. Epidemiol., 126, 724.
5. Catalano, R., Hansen, H. and Hartig, T. (1999) The ecological effect of unemployment on the incidence of very low birthweight in Norway and Sweden. J. Health Soc. Behav., 40, 422-428.
6. Chang, I., Tiao, G. and Chen, C. (1988) Estimation of time series parameters in the presence of outliers. Technometrics, 30, 193-204.
7. Dickey, D. and Fuller, W. (1979) Distribution of the estimators for autoregressive time series with a unit root. J. Am. Stat. Assoc., 74, 427-431.
8. Erickson, J. (1976) The secondary sex ratio in the United States 1969-71: Association with race, parental ages, birth order, paternal education and legitimacy. Ann. Hum. Genet., 40, 205-212.
9. Fukuda, M., Fukuda, K., Shimizu, T., Yomura, W. and Shimizu, S. (1996) Kobe earthquake and reduced sperm motility. Hum. Reprod., 11, 1244-1246.
10. Fukuda, M., Fukuda, K., Shimizu, T. and Moller, H. (1998) Decline in sex ratio at birth after Kobe earthquake. Hum. Reprod., 13, 2321-2322.
11. Funke, M. and Rahn, J. (2002) How efficient is the East German economy? An exploration with microdata. Econ. Transit., 10, 201-205.
12. Graffelman, J. and Hoekstra, R. (2000) A statistical analysis of the effect of warfare on the human secondary sex ratio. Hum. Biol., 72, 433-445.
13. Hansen, D., Moller, H. and Olsen, J. (1999) Severe periconceptional life events and the sex ratio in offspring: Follow up study based on five national registers. Br. Med. J., 319, 548-549.
14. Hobel, C., Dunkel-Schetter, C., Roesch, S., Castro, L. and Arora, C. (1999) Maternal plasma corticotropin-releasing hormone associated with stress at 20 weeks' gestation in pregnancies ending in preterm delivery. Am. J. Obstet. Gynecol., 180, 257-263.
15. Janoski, T. and Hicks, A. (eds) (1994) The Comparative Political Economy of the Welfare State. Cambridge University Press, New York, NY, USA.
16. Kapp, K. (1950) The Social Costs of Private Enterprise. Schocken Books, New York, NY, USA.
17. Lazarus, J. (2002) Human sex ratios: Adaptations and mechanisms, problems and prospects. In Hardy, I. (ed.) Sex Ratios Concepts and Research Methods. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, pp. 287-311.
18. Lyster, W. (1974) Altered sex ratio after the London smog of 1952 and the Brisbane flood of 1965. J. Obstet. Gynecol. Br. Commonw., 81, 626-631.
19. McCormick, M. and Siegel, J. (eds) (1999) Prenatal Care: Effectiveness and Implementation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
20. Neumann, M. (1991) German Unification: Economic Problems and Consequences. Working Paper DP584. Center for Economic Policy Research, London, UK.
21. Rostron, J. and James, W. (1977) Maternal age, parity, social class and sex ratio. Ann. Hum. Genet., 41, 205-217.
22. Shapiro, S., Jones, E. and Densen, P. (1962) A life table of pregnancy terminations and correlates of fetal loss. Milbank Mem. Fund Q., 40, 7-45.
23. Shapiro, S., Schlesinger, E. and Nesbit, R. (1968) Infant, Perinatal, Maternal, and Childhood Mortality in the United States. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, USA.
24. Trivers, R. and Willard, D. (1973) Natural selection of parental ability to vary the sex ratio of offspring. Science, 179, 90-92.
25. University of California Berkeley and Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (2003) Human Mortality Database. [Online]. www.mortality.org or www.humanmortality.de (data downloaded on January 14, 2003).
26. Wise, P., Wampler, N. and Barfield, W. (1995) The importance of extreme prematurity and low birthweight to US neonatal mortality patterns: Implications for prenatal care and women's health. J. Am. Med. Womens Assoc., 50, 152-155.
27. Zorn, B., Sucur, V., Stare, J. and Meden-Vrtovec, H. (2002) Decline in sex ratio at birth after 10-day war in Slovenia (brief communication). Hum. Reprod., 17, 3173-3177.